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Review of Character Tiers
http://forums.paradigmconcepts.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2368		 Page 2 of 2
Author:  Taffy [ Tue Aug 30, 2016 8:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Review of Character Tiers
Here down under the core group I run (deluge, southernskies etc) are sitting between 1.7 and 2.1. A number of us don't run all games first with the primary as we tend to match game to character so we don't progress at the highest rate.

We also have a couple of members of the primary group that cant make every game and are below the curve of plot.

Finally we often have spots filled my new or irregular players

(like my daughter who is only 1.3-side note: those who were part of the old 3.5 campaign may remember when I announced Grace was born. She will be 11 in October)

The irregular players are often less than 1.5 because that are planning to jump between crusader and destroyer games so have not used the cert to tier up (plus if you have played a few crusader games, you can loose a lot of stuff by applying the cert. 2gp does not cover loss of runes, sarishan steel weapons, etc.)

All that being said, we are small fish own here in a big pond, so our situation is somewhat unique.
Author:  FGJustice [ Wed Aug 31, 2016 4:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Review of Character Tiers
I haven't played in a couple of years now, so I'm definitely behind at 2.4. I'm running a group through adventures to hopefully catch up in time for us to get to next year's Origins somewhere near the common level range. My players are 1.7 currently.
Author:  marybamford [ Wed Aug 31, 2016 3:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Review of Character Tiers
My primary is at 3.3, and my secondary at 2.2. Certainly I want there to continue to be mods with High Tier stats available.

But the home game (that I generally GM) is a mixed bag. We've got a new Arcanis player starting (1.5), another recent addition (1.7), others playing their secondaries (from 1.9 to 2.4), plus the occasional one playing a primary (2.5 to 2.10). We generally play the Low Tier, once in a while adding a High Tier threat to make sure it's a challenge.

So, we really need to have Low Tier stats available, given a group averaging between 1.9 and 2.1 typically.

In my opinion, for Arcanis to continue, it needs to attract new players. So we need mods that new players with new PCs can play. The current entry tier for PCs is 1.5. So, Low Tier stats in mods are absolutely needed. And this includes the new mods -- otherwise, the new players won't have enough players for a table, since the experienced players have already played the old mods with both primaries and secondaries.

I support the idea of creating a new leveling cert, bringing in new PCs somewhere in Tier 2. That would reduce the need for Low Tier stats, while still allowing new players to join.
Author:  Dante [ Fri Oct 21, 2016 7:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Review of Character Tiers
My own PCs:
3.2, 1.7, 1.6, 1.5

Characters in the home campaign I GM:
1.3, 1.2, 1.2, 1.2, 1.1
Author:  Sparhawk42 [ Mon Oct 24, 2016 5:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Review of Character Tiers
My characters that I have are: 3.1, 2.6, 2.1ish, and 1.6

All the players local to Colorado have their primaries range from 2.7 to 3.2, but we have found that it helpful to have both the Mid-Tier and High Tier stats available to be able to provide a good challenge without having to make up changes to the stats on the fly as much.
Author:  val Holryn [ Mon Oct 24, 2016 10:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Review of Character Tiers
Except for spell casting I don't find changing tiers onerous. +/- 2 to attacks and defences shifts foes half a tier. +/- 3 moves a critter a whole tier. It's possible you might not to use (or at least use with discresion) the most powerful feat/monster ability if you step down a full tier
Author:  Dante [ Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Review of Character Tiers
val Holryn wrote:
Except for spell casting I don't find changing tiers onerous. +/- 2 to attacks and defences shifts foes half a tier. +/- 3 moves a critter a whole tier. It's possible you might not to use (or at least use with discresion) the most powerful feat/monster ability if you step down a full tier

Great short-cut, Eric! This sort of thing would be great to include in a future ARPG Bestiary from PCI.
Author:  ZCaslar [ Thu Nov 10, 2016 6:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Review of Character Tiers
My own are 2.0, 1.9 and 1.6.

I have this feeling that having such scattered exp levels is a result of a system being more complex than it needs to for Organized Play.

Consider the Crusade Arc. Ignoring the actual rewards I think it has enough story content to justify a full Tier bump. Survive the 5th Crusade, be Tier 2. Good milestone for the stories involved.

Beyond that given the relatively small play catalog and grouping modules by arcs this should be pretty straightforward. Coming of the Destroyer could be another Arc = Tier.

I realize I'm groping a little here but the idea of experience as a reward is somewhat antiquated. Seems to be that regardless of what happens in the mod -be the scale of the adventure immense or intimate- a thorough party gains 250 xp at the conclusion. The times it doesn't the missing xp is effectively a penalty -lose 30 xp for missing a subplot, for example. And again it has nothing to do with how major or minor the event was nor how much a given character could have "learned" from it nor even if it was possible for a given party to find the subplot.

I'm not so sure this is necessary. With the smaller player base there isn't any real "reward" in segregating the tables out by level and post-3.5 there just isn't the same constant winnowing of characters. Surviving to Tier 3 is a bit of a feat, but not like making 15 in AD&D was.

I suspect everyone reading these words hasn't seriously questioned if they'll survive that long and if they've plotted their character's development out to T5 like some folks say everyone should that's a bald assumption of survival. It's not an illogical one and I don't miss the old black-hearted lethality of play -that shit was enduringly toxic- but now that we're past that do we still need xp to separate the "heroic" from the "couldn't make that Tracking check" players?

Back on the topic of exp awards being a monetizing of player engagement I think I can safely say we all see Arcanis play as being it's own reward. The best example of this is players sitting down for a Classic -characters are provided and there is no progression in any way. You do it to do it, and what we do here isn't really different.

Now having massive loot and xp windfalls for convention events is part of that fun and I think it's fair for people that committed to showing up to skate a few grades above the rest, but for the rest what's the value of staying with this old model?

There is the real worth of a hero's legend coming with the accretion of adventure after adventure. We all had the folders full of weird and glorious miscellania like favors from obscure factions and strange stuff like a Priest of Saluwe wearing a Nerothian periapt with a bird skull as the centerpiece because the +2 Periapt you got was the +2 Periapt the mod writer listed.

But that's 90% gone with the tide of consumables and enchanted weapons and all that crap. And with it went some pleasant spontaneity like seeing a unique new weapon ("hey the Apothic Spear is kinda sweet") and deciding to take it out for a spin. Or getting your hands on a greataxe (which drools magma and screams for the souls of gnolls or something) so outrageously enhanced that leaving the safety and predictability of your chosen equipment is actually tempting instead of just stacking bonus on bonus from start to finish like you've planned you will.

I think too much mechanical predictability starts to turn Adventure Role Playing into Magical Combat Accountant. I doubt either Val'Holryn or myself have given much thought to our current kit but I know Val'Holryn and I can still remember particularly treasured trophies from literally a decade ago (like Moon Soo's scimitar, the Axe-Hammer of Giants and more recently Thonanos, Spirit of Freedom, the Staff of Entrade, the Pelugred, etc) and that's the kind of thing a game should aim to provide.

So while there is good reason to want your hero to be a creature of a thousand journeys who bears nothing pedestrian in their ruck mechanically the experience gaps between characters don't mean much anymore and shouldn't really be allowed to get in the way of a good game.
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