Interesting article: Aragorn was 5th level

No, this isn't a LotR topic.

Rather, it's an article about what levels actually mean, and better way to use the system.
http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/d&d-calibrating.html

The essential point is that Luke Skywalker (or whatever hero) doesn't automatically have to have been LVL 20 but the end of New Jedi Order.
Legendary, mythic, incredible heroes need only be level 5.
Einstein: 5th level
Musashi Miyamoto: 5th level
5th level represents the very best that most humans achieve. Few ever make it to 3rd. Most never leave 1st.

Episode IV levels:
Han Solo: 3rd level (has a couple of accomplishments that make him famous in certain sectors of society)
Luke: 1st (no one has ever heard of him outside Toshi Station or Anchorhead)
Kenobi: 5th (maybe 7th) enough to be famous on multiple worlds, but age is affecting his physical abilities)
Vader: 5th (imfamous--the power of the dark side makes him more dangerous than he would at first appear)

ESB:
Luke: 3rd
Han: 4th
Vader: 6th
Boba Fett: 4th
Lando: 3rd
Yoda: OK, let's stretch and say 10th--after all, he is 900 years old. That would still be enough to make him legendary by galactic standards.

RotJ:
Luke: 5th
Han: 5th
Vader: 6th
Emperor: 10th (enough to torment and suppress the entire galaxy)

Most other characters are less than 3rd lvl

Consider (not necessarily the best example) the Hercules: Legendary Journeys TV show. Even during the pilot movies, Herc was nearly being worshipped as a god by some, but he still travelled and grew more powerful. Then again, he was a cruddy blacksmith. So start him off around 5th, but give him his rediculous strength of 25 as a gift from his dad, and let him run from there. He's a warrior who specialized in unarmed combat, with feats in Disarm and maybe Sunder, weapon focus unarmed combat.
"Why is it I've never seen you carry a weapon?"
"Why would I need to?"
"Someone else might have one."
Brief tussle, disarm, Hercules tosses sword back to Iolas
"Then let him carry it."

Consider this:
The drop-out rate at a dojo is about 90% within per year of progress.
It takes at least 4 years to make 1st black belt. About 2 more to make 2nd. another 4 to make 3rd. Another 5 or 6 to make 4th. another 7-8 for 5th.
That's why most of the really high-ranks are so old--it takes a long time!
So, 10% make it to 7th kyu. 1% make it to 4rd kyu. .1% make it to 1st kyu. .05% make it to ShoDan (1st black belt) which is considered "master of the basics".

1/20 of a percent of those who enter a dojo make it to become blackbelts.
By the way, these are minimum times. Some people take longer (college, spouses, work, or just time off) to complete the work necessary and test for the rank.

 

Here's the problem I see with this. The Star Wars RPG was designed with certain abilities only available at certain levels as well as certain "titles" if you will. Can you really say that Obi-Wan was not a Jedi Master? Can you say that Boba Fett was not a Bounty Hunter? How can you explain the fact that Obi-Wan seems to have a good number of talents under his belt? While I agree that there is a problem with systems that make you feel like you have to get to 10 before you can start playing, I have to say that you can't just say Obi-Wan was level 5 or 7 either.

 

The scales are all wonky, especially with combat. A 5th level character is a god among men if you compared his abilities to the "real world." He can beat up literally 500 normal (0-level npcs) people and come out on top. That's kind of silly if you put too much thought into it.

You could scale everything back like that article says, but then leveling up would be slow or non-existent, and that's no fun.

 

Yeah, and honestly I think if you want realism, you want GURPS. Not to say the reasoning isn't sound - I enjoyed the article - but I don't play d20 for realism.

E_S

 

My biggest problem in this is stating that just because someone can do something by that level doesn't mean that they are only the level that would require. Like saying that because Aragorn would, with the right talents, be able to do everything he has done in the books by level 5, he's obviously only level 5. Pardon me for saying this, but... what? The only thing that was established was that at a minimum, Aragorn was level 5. While I agree that automatically assigning anyone who's awesome level 20 is kinda ridiculous, IMO making the counter-view that anyone exceptional is only level 5 or maybe a level higher in really exceptional people, because that's really the peak of normal humans, is about equally ridiculous.

 

Well, that's the d20 system following the very same level inflation that the article was talking about. You have to wait til what, 7th level to be a bounty hunter? Forget that--make it a profession that any fringer or soldier can start with At First Level
Same thing with Jedi. Level 1: Jedi trainee. Level 3: Jedi Knight. Level 5: Jedi Master. Or you can make it 1/5/7.

I don't like most of the prestige classes. Really, it's just variations on a theme. Same thing with having separate classes for Jedi Coucilor, Jedi Guardian, and the other types. It really wasn't necessary to devide them. Councilor takes diplomacy skills. Guardian takes combat skills. One class: Jedi

 

totally agree, the roleplay aspect is that you have free choice to blend your characters abilities to your liking, no point making up stipulations on things for the hell of it. If you are level 1 and want to go bounty hunting fair enough but your targets may get be better than you, but that is no bad thing. It forces you to innovate ways of getting to them not just blst your way in and blast your way out.

 

No, you have to wait until 8th level to take levels in the Bounty Hunter prestige class. You don't need levels in the Bounty Hunter PrC to work as a bounty hunter, nor do you need to be a bounty hunter to take levels in the Bounty Hunter PrC. Class names have essentially nothing whatsoever to do with character concepts and occupations.

 

then what's the point of the PrC, aside from munchkinizing? If class names are meaningless, then ???
Why not simply alternate between Fringer & Soldier classes when leveling up? Won't that give you about 75% of the benefits of BountyHunter PrC? (I'm guessing--I don't have books or anything--just what I've seen from the D&D PrC's)

 

Yes, many PrC's are bloated, redundant, unbalanced and there's hundreds of them. And they take the game away from developing your character to planning it out from levels 1-20.

But books keep coming out with more and more and people keep buying them. I understand that they are going to try and fix this in 4th ed. We shall see.

 

Where they are ROLE-PLAYing aids, some of the books are fine. I found the book on Half-orc barbarian multiclassing very amusing. But from a practical standpoint, most of the PrCs aren't available until you reach 10th level or more, at which point you probablly already have a pretty good idea of what you want to do with your character, and the PrC isn't really worth looking at. The main reason I can see for most of them is for NPCs and Villains.

 

75% =/= 100%. PrCs exist to provide access to a highly-specialized set of abilities. They're for when you really want to start to focus a mid-level character on being truly exceptional in a very tightly-defined field. A lot of them also help you draw on and emphasize the synergies in your previous classes.

How on Earth do they do that? They're a core part of the strategy for doing exactly that.

That's how character building works in the D20 system from a stats perspective. You pick the blend of the two or three base classes that best fit your concept, and work on the synergies between those classes until you qualify for the PrC which blends those aspects of the base classes that you actually focus on.

If you want to play a bounty hunter, you usually multiclass some combo of Soldier, Scout, and Scoundrel, taking the key abilities you need from each, until you qualify for the BH PrC, which combines the elements of those three classes in a blend that balances them out in a way that's highly specialized for what you want to do.

 

Isn't the whole point to focus your character on being exceptional right from the start? Isn't the whole point that the players ARE the exceptional people? The ones who will be the molders and shapers of the world/galaxy?

It seems silly to have to take 4 levels of one class and 3 of another in order to qualify for eventually being able to take a third class as a hybrid.

Maximizing a small select skill area... Sounds like munchkinizing to me.

Isn't the fact that Skill X and Skill Y have a synergy bonus? Isn't that what the bonus is for? You take 5 ranks of skill X to get a +2 to skill Y, which via reciprocity gives you a +2 to X when you have 5 ranks in Y? You need more on top of that?

 

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

You say munchkinizing. That's an opinion and you are well within your rights to view it as that. I, on the other hand, disagree that PrCs are vessels for munchkinizing, both hybrid PrCs and normal ones...

As for hybrid based PrCs it allows for an equalizing effect on a multi-class combo that is fun to play but makes you into the weakest link. If I'm using a PrC to allow me to gain the benefits of two different classes simultaniously, my core desire was to play a hybrid, but for whatever reason that was not an option (the class just didn't exist for example). Alternating level actually puts me behind the powercurve compared to others. I'm not munchkining to become more powerful, but trying to keep up, so I don't drag my allies down.

For me, my strength isn't compared to the average person, or even the exceptional person, but compared to my enemies and my allies. A 10Rogue/10Sorcerer compared to a 4Rogue/6Sorcerer/10Arcane Trickster is vastly different. But a 10Rogue/10Sorcerer is noticably weaker than a straight 20 bard, despite the class similarities. By taking the Arcane Trickster at character level 9 or 10, you allow your character not to hinder the progression of the overall adventure, by forcing the DM/GM to throw at your group, to ensure that you don't die.

In other cases, PrCs open up additional aspects of the character that are otherwise really not available. Like for example, the changes incurred by taking the PrC Dragon Disciple. While one could play a half-dragon, the only similarity is the end result. The changes the character goes through add an entire dynamic to the character itself. I played one who began as a sorcerer, and it was a thrilling character to play, just going from being a human into a half-dragon.

Now this isn't to say that PrCs can't be used as Munchkin vehicles. They can, just like anything else can. But just like a gun, a PrC's purpose is defined by it's user not by it's very nature. You could use a gun to randomly kill, or you could use a gun as a guard your home, or to hunt and provide food for your family.

 

This is one of the problems I have with the D20 system and the leveling in it. The leveling system in the game makes it a strategic exercise to produce a character that feels to me a bit robotic. There is no fluidity to it. The PrCs whilst I think are a good idea in concept they add more of a problem. I understand why they are in there, you can't just have lets say a Jedi or a Sorcerer as your career, get the base advantages and that be it because as we know as these people practice more they get more powerful and can achieve bigger things than a novice. Hence the levels are there to promote this aspect of real life experience, but could this be achieved another way and give the player more choice in the construction and development of their character? I know this is a strict games mechanics question but I'd rather have a more fluid realism that a robotic hard-lined approach i.e. If I get levels in scoundrel I will be able to do this etc.

 

Yes, that's what I was trying to get at but you put it much better. I like characters who take skills and classes logically based on their experiences. Sometimes PrCs make you take skill/feat combos that you'll never use or don't fit thematically with your character, just to get that shiny new power.

 

Yes, and level 1 heroic characters are already exceptional, but as they progress, more options open up for them.

Mace Windu, Wedge Antilles, Soontir Fel ... all of these are highly focused, very skilled characters in the SW universe.

The problem with munchkins isn't that they have highly skilled characters, it's that they have collections of highly specialized stats without really having a character.

It's not just skills, it's the whole package - combat abilities and skills. PrCs are a great way to go at things from a more holistic approach.

That happened a lot in previous editions, but has been all but entirely eliminated by the talent system in Saga.

 

diz is on the mark on this one, and I'm going to further emphasize this point using the PrCs in the Saga Edition. There are 12 PrCs listed in the Saga Edition Core book. Not a single one of those PrCs calls for leveling multiple classes. Also, of those PrCs, only 3 of them have requirements that call for a specific class (those are Bounty Hunter, Elite Soldier, and Jedi Knight). This combined with the changes to skills (no more skill points) means that PrCs in Saga Edition can be played without a ridiculous amount of pre-planning that was one of the issues in the older versions of the d20 system.

Just an additional point: So far the PrCs in Saga Edition are really just for specialization. Maybe they will add it later, but the twelve I mentioned above are all pretty much just specialized single purpose ideas. For hybridization in Saga Edition, the freedom that the talent system gives allows you to (if needed) level up two different heroic classes and get exactly the abilities you want. I think it's a really good design change.