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Feb 25, 2010 -- 1:21PM, Thanlis wrote:

Feb 25, 2010 -- 1:03PM, aljergensen wrote:

I know some people think that LFR is somehow fundamentally different.  I don't see why.  LFR has less continuity and far less connection between characters which would seem to indicate that creating new characters would have even less impact.

Alternatively, the lack of continuity and connection means that the continuity aspects that do exist -- i.e., leveling and consistency -- mean much more. Not trying to change your mind here, just pointing out why some might disagree with you.

I can only speak from personal experience which is that when we talk about old adventures at the table that we played together we almost inevitably end up asking "which character were you playing that day?"

In my experience the connection between characters is tenuous at best.  If you really want to encourage continuity, encourage fewer characters.  One way to have fewer characters is allow people to create characters at levels higher than 1st so that we don't have to continuously create new characters to support new people.

Allen.

Feb 25, 2010 -- 2:28PM, Thanlis wrote:

Feb 25, 2010 -- 2:17PM, aljergensen wrote:

I can only speak from personal experience which is that when we talk about old adventures at the table that we played together we almost inevitably end up asking "which character were you playing that day?"

Yeah, exactly. And for some people, if "that character" loses any more meaning, the sense of continuity is weakened unacceptably. I'm agreeing with you that the connection is tenuous -- can you see how some people might not want to see it get any more tenuous?

I totally get that for you, it's so tenuous it already doesn't matter.

Can I see the point of view?  I suppose.  I guess I could rephrase my wording to be more politically correct.    But ... I also think a lot of people resist change simply because it is different.  

I think we could craft a rule in such a way that people would only take advantage of it occasionally to avoid the "character of the week" syndrome which seems to bother people.  I agree that leveling characters up by earning XP should be the norm.  I'm one of those people that never uses cheat codes in video games unless I *absolutely* have to.  But if I'm stuck and can't continue without looking up a hint or cheat code I will.  Given a choice I would never create a character higher than level 1.  Unless it's the only way I can get a chance to play.

I just don't think the current system is the best solution we can come up with.

Feb 25, 2010 -- 3:15PM, Gart wrote:

You did just make my arguement for me. Your paragon players want to play paragon more. They can't because to accomidate the 1-4 tables you have to allocate resources in a way that dilute the ability to schedule those higher level games.

One reason to look at starting a new person at higher level or allowing a person to make additional characters at 4th is to get rid of the 1-4 backlog that you are currently experiencing and devoting resources to.

[edit: I think I crossed thoughts, clarifying, I hope]

I doubt it. Because a -> b does not always mean b -> a. Under the current rules, that promote a living campaign, players that play paragon can continue to play their existing PCs and if they want more, they can make new characters. Under the current rules, the same cannot be said for newbs who want to play if there is no one willing to play down from Paragon. If the experienced players play new level 1 PCs, ie they'd need to start new characters, ...  then potentially the newbies get to play with experienced players who are also playing level 1 PCs.

If you instituted a rule that allowed that newb to make a paragon PC, and just wrote a lot more Paragon mods ... let's just say I know who's going to be playing a lot and who isn't.

Feb 25, 2010 -- 5:36PM, Mithreinmaethor wrote:

Let me pull on my asbestos jumper......

I dont see why LFR couldnt have kept the APL format of LG.  Each module could be written so that people within different level ranges could play the same modules for the most part. 

You might have heard of a few modules ... SPEC 2-1, ADCP 2-1, and to some extent ADCP 1-1, SPEC 1-3 ... okay, they aren't the same story in all of them, but I think that's sort of what they are doing already.

Mind you, I'm not particular missing the APL concept, but it seems to be leaking back into LFR already.

Feb 25, 2010 -- 6:35PM, WolfStar76 wrote:

I think it's largely to do with the way NPCs are modeled in 4E.

Now, I don't have the DMGs memorized, so I could be wrong, but I seem to recall that the rule of thumb was that, at MOST you should "level adjust" an NPC by 5 levels up or down.  Beyond that and you're better off simply using a different NPC - and I seem to recall that even stretching to the 5 level extreme isn't recommended.

You're thinking of p. 174 in the DMG.

But this doesn't preclude Levels 1-4 using the Level 3 monster and the Levels 11-14 mod using the Level 13 Elite Huge version of the monster.