What games had the worst XP inflation?

[Excidium]

Heh, but I am sure you have played the late Wizardry games. It's more daunting there.

First you must obtain an attack roll high enough to surpass full body armour class.

Then successively you must obtain an attack roll high enough to surpass body part armour class.

Then you must actually do damage above the minimum threshold for damage. Otherwise, you'll do zero or one or two points of damage.

Fail at anyone of these steps and the attack does not succeed. Neither for you nor for the enemy. Early level battles involve both sides hitting at the air.

Don't get me wrong; I like those games, but the level 1-3 in Wizardry 6 is a nasty little affair.

Yeah...Getting one-shot by rats on wiz6 seriously hurt my RPG ego.

 

[hoverdog]

Indeed. It's my biggest gripe with the d20 system, a level 1 warrior has 10 hp, while the same one on lvl10 suddenly has 100. Stupid as fuck.

Perhaps you could read the rules instead of hating a system because of rules you didn't actually read.

HP is maxed for PCs only at the first level only. Otherwise you roll the HD or take half.

Also warrior is an NPC only class and would never have its HD maxed at first level

A FIGHTER (which is actually a PC class) with 14 con has 12 HP (10+con mod) at first level, then 5+con mod at each level

Five times base HP on tenth level still is bullshitz. A first level hero can get one-shot by a stray arrow (not that it's inherently bad, but in this comparison it definitely is), while the same guy a few levels later can just stand there and smoke a cigarette. A fireball will kill a hundred normal characters packed in its range, yet one or two 10th level warriors will just shrug and kill the poor caster.


also butthurt detected



what's wrong with dnd-style leveling? this:

(note that I don't really know how the inflation looks like on "epic" levels except for my experiences from MotB, which tells me epic=shite^3)

while it should be something like this

add the fact that there's hardly any party-based crpgs (apart from bloblike M&M, Wiz) that aren't dnd or its variations

fuck this system really

 

[TNO]

Think it is worse than that. I'm pretty sure there are increasing not diminishing marginal returns with level: doubling a fighters level doesn't just (approximately) double their HP, but they also gets harder to hit, can do more damage, etc. So 1 lvl 20 fighter can probably take more than 2 level 10s. You only really get to diminishing marginal returns when you get to epic that nerfs all the progression (and so furbars the game balance because some things progress and others don't).

With D&D casters, their progression is basically geometric because the spells get *much* more powerful with level. Worse, they are so fast growing they dominate the game after midlevel onwards. I suspect a level 20 mage can chew up small armies of level 10 characters.

So it's furbared.

 

[Average Manatee]

Indeed. It's my biggest gripe with the d20 system, a level 1 warrior has 10 hp, while the same one on lvl10 suddenly has 100. Stupid as fuck.

Perhaps you could read the rules instead of hating a system because of rules you didn't actually read.

HP is maxed for PCs only at the first level only. Otherwise you roll the HD or take half.

Also warrior is an NPC only class and would never have its HD maxed at first level

A FIGHTER (which is actually a PC class) with 14 con has 12 HP (10+con mod) at first level, then 5+con mod at each level

Five times base HP on tenth level still is bullshitz. A first level hero can get one-shot by a stray arrow (not that it's inherently bad, but in this comparison it definitely is), while the same guy a few levels later can just stand there and smoke a cigarette. A fireball will kill a hundred normal characters packed in its range, yet one or two 10th level warriors will just shrug and kill the poor caster.


also butthurt detected



what's wrong with dnd-style leveling? this:

(note that I don't really know how the inflation looks like on "epic" levels except for my experiences from MotB, which tells me epic=shite^3)

while it should be something like this

add the fact that there's hardly any party-based crpgs (apart from bloblike M&M, Wiz) that aren't dnd or its variations

fuck this system really

A lvl 1 character SHOULD receive huge benefits from early training the same way that someone who has never played basketball should be massively better at shooting after 5 hours of practice.

The problem with this is that no sane D&D adventure should start with a lvl 1 character doing serious work. In BG it makes sense that your characters become a lot better at surviving very quickly after being on the run (as opposed to their trouble-free life beforehand that only offered minimal preparation for the rigors of life). OTOH, games like ToEE make no sense starting what is supposed to be a relatively strong and accomplished party at lvl 1, they should be starting at lvl 5+. Unfortunately games seem afraid to start players at anything but lvl 1.

Think it is worse than that. I'm pretty sure there are increasing not diminishing marginal returns with level: doubling a fighters level doesn't just (approximately) double their HP, but they also gets harder to hit, can do more damage, etc. So 1 lvl 20 fighter can probably take more than 2 level 10s. You only really get to diminishing marginal returns when you get to epic that nerfs all the progression (and so furbars the game balance because some things progress and others don't).

With D&D casters, their progression is basically geometric because the spells get *much* more powerful with level. Worse, they are so fast growing they dominate the game after midlevel onwards. I suspect a level 20 mage can chew up small armies of level 10 characters.

So it's furbared.

This makes sense. Ever seen the Chess competitions where Grandmaster players play against multiple weaker players? They still wipe the floor. The difference in batting averages between decent players and amazing players in Baseball is .1, but those amazing players get paid a hell of a lot more than just the difference between them and the average player. Skill increases ARE geometrically important in the real world.

Epic is pretty fucked up though, but Epic (and arguably anything past the 15) was never meant to be played by anyone concerned with common sense.

 

[deuxhero]

The problem with this is that no sane D&D adventure should start with a lvl 1 character doing serious work. In, for example, BG it makes sense that your characters become a lot better at surviving very quickly after being on the run. OTOH, games like ToEE make no sense starting what is supposed to be a relatively strong and accomplished party at lvl 1, they should be starting at lvl 5+.

Ah, the old "Housecat has fairly good chance of killing a level 1 adventurer" problem.

 

[Random]

I know that plenty of games have tried to modify the traditional XP system, but what I really like to see is games that have a reasonable explanation for the XP gains actually making the character more powerful.

 

[Oesophagus]

The problem with this is that no sane D&D adventure should start with a lvl 1 character doing serious work. In, for example, BG it makes sense that your characters become a lot better at surviving very quickly after being on the run. OTOH, games like ToEE make no sense starting what is supposed to be a relatively strong and accomplished party at lvl 1, they should be starting at lvl 5+.

Ah, the old "Housecat has fairly good chance of killing a level 1 adventurer" problem.

BG1 made sense in that you were a kid who had to run away from some bad people. So it's logical you'd be afraid of being eaten by wolves.

 

[Bulba]

The problem with this is that no sane D&D adventure should start with a lvl 1 character doing serious work. In, for example, BG it makes sense that your characters become a lot better at surviving very quickly after being on the run. OTOH, games like ToEE make no sense starting what is supposed to be a relatively strong and accomplished party at lvl 1, they should be starting at lvl 5+.

Ah, the old "Housecat has fairly good chance of killing a level 1 adventurer" problem.

Well, real life house cats can do some serious damage... same thing definately holds for the rats.

 

[deuxhero]

No, it's literal, a housecat's ac, stealth and full attack routine make it a tough fight at level 1.

 

[Gregz]

With D&D casters, their progression is basically geometric because the spells get *much* more powerful with level. Worse, they are so fast growing they dominate the game after midlevel onwards. I suspect a level 20 mage can chew up small armies of level 10 characters.

So it's furbared.

The final battle in BG2 vs. Jon Irenicus was very much like this. He would time stop, power word kill, and generally kick the shit out of your party if you weren't ready for it.

I like this personally.

There is no way to solo a mage from 1 to 20 in a traditional DnD setting, he needs his tank wall and healer(s) to protect him as he levels. I love playing the party as a whole, but developing the mage and watching him rain fireballs down onto small armies is so fun. I'm always rooting for the mage. He's like Raistlin from the Dragonlance novels. Power hungry, insane, biding his time among cretins until he can enslave them all...basically your average Codexer.

 

[deuxhero]

" he needs his tank wall and healer(s) to protect him as he levels'

Not really, Wizard always rocks encounters designed for a single person (and if they are designed for more than that, multiple wizards). Just color spray at level 1 and Time Stop at latter levels.

Also healing in D&D is never worth it outside of combat.

 

[Johannes]

There is no way to solo a mage from 1 to 20 in a traditional DnD setting, he needs his tank wall and healer(s) to protect him as he levels. I love playing the party as a whole, but developing the mage and watching him rain fireballs down onto small armies is so fun. I'm always rooting for the mage. He's like Raistlin from the Dragonlance novels. Power hungry, insane, biding his time among cretins until he can enslave them all...basically your average Codexer.

Naah, he just needs mirror imaging and health potions and then there's no need to split the xp with some stupid tanks.

 

[Gregz]

Yeah those are valid tactics, provided you get lucky and roll first initiative against 1 or 2 low level mobs (I can't think of any DnD title that starts like that)...also remember, the mage only has 1-4 hit points at 1st level. So if he's touched once he's probably dead.

 

[deuxhero]

Unless you are facing "heroic" (non "Heroic" characters use one of two spreads) or monster (not all that common) dex based combatants, Wizard is going to win initiative because he can freely (he only cares about his intelligence aside from the universal concern over dex and con. Fighter has to boost his strength, con, int if he wants combat expertise for Improved X before he can really focus on dex) dump stats into dex and can potentially even put a feat into it (as fighters rarely have a dependence on feats while a Wizard doesn't "need" anything to be awesome).

 

[Gregz]

I'm thinking 1st and 2nd edition in which initiative is based on a random 1d10 roll + action.

AFAIK there are only two 3.5 DnD ruleset PC games, KoTC and ToEE. Neither of which are soloable (i.e. no NPC help) with a mage.

 

[deuxhero]

3.0 and 3.5 are 1d20+dex, then use your dex score as a tie breaker.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

If we went by mythological style, Wizards would also have higher Attack Bonus, HP and generally be better at everything than any other class. Depending on mythology, they might have superpowers as well. Though I quite like the style of DnD, but the game balance must aim at arcane casters > all in the name of coolness.

On the subject of wizards...

In the Finnish RPG Praedor (based on a Finnish low-fantasy comic book of the same name about a more realistic kind of dungeon crawlers, who are called Praedors), spellcasters are absolutely and utterly verboten for player use and magic items of obvious use are ultra-rare. There are also no rules for magic beyond "the wizard roflstomps you all at his leisure without rolling dice or chance to defend" if you get into a straight-up fight with one (in-setting the only way to kill a wizard is to stab them in the back suddenly or poison them, or have some other surprise up your sleeve). Though it must be pointed out that the guy who made the RPG wanted to have rules for magic and playable wizards, but the author of the comic vetoed all of that shit and kept full control over the setting details and such. The closest thing to a mage for PCs in the game is the Alchemist, whose "fireball" would be Greek Fire if he can brew it, though the real use of the class for the party is that Alchemists can brew healing liquids (which cannot be used in combat due to not being drinkable) and various drugs and explosives. Generally speaking I think in any fantasy setting wizards should be the overwhelming majority among high level mortals.

If you want to get into a personal D20 pet peeve of mine, it's Clerics. Not so much anything from a rules or balance perspective (though I'd argue powergaming a Cleric is by far the easiest), but rather that I highly dislike the idea of gods throwing magic around like it was candy. I'd greatly prefer if I never had to see a Cleric again and all Divine Magic users I'd see were of the infinitely cooler Oracle class from Pathfinder.

 

[Roguey]

Shallow power curves are the bestest, a shame that most people prefer the bigger numbers = better treadmill.

That's way more than you got in the entire Upper Ward, a much larger and more wholly filled area. It's very strange.

http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=55

Oh, actually, I just remembered: The experience point system works fine for tabletop gaming, but it is completely broken for computer-style gaming. Players expect a certain amount of incremental reward as they progress through a game; it keeps us motivated to press on. Unfortunately, in AD&D, levels come harder as you advance, and thus the regular reward system breaks down. During the design and implementation of the Curst/Carceri sequence, Feargus took me aside and asked me to increase the XP rewards in the area significantly, because otherwise the player could go through the entire level without seeing a single level increase. The amount of encounters in the area are approximately a metric ton; there should be a reward in there somewhere. 5,000 XP for a combat is a huge reward, in theory, but it’s almost nothing when compared to the XP one needs to get to 20th level. We wanted our players to get that feeling of success that a level brings, and it just wasn’t happening with ordinary XP rewards, so we jacked up the XP gained in certain dialogues.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

A really good example of a highly functioning level curve and xp reward system would be that in Valkyria Chronicles (which also has the benefit of having fast and fairly fun grind that was completely optional), where XP rewards and requirements didn't run out of control but rose at a very steady and slow pace, and power curve for levels was also slightly rising. A far bigger effect was when you unlocked a new tier of equipment, which was the more tightly controlled aspect of leveling since you got those by progressing in the main story and not by grinding.

A particularly good idea in it was also that you leveled up classes, not individual soldiers, so you had a high amount of control and little need to figure out all kinds tricks for leveling. You also spent XP on classes on your own, so XP was handled as a pool, which is also preferable in party games.

 

[deuxhero]

infinitely cooler Oracle class from Pathfinder.

Sssh! If Pazio hears something is even remotely good they nerf it into oblivion. (It may only be for "mundane" things though, but caution is still called for)

VC's system is good, but it is really dependant on the game to work.

 

[sea]

The problem with this is that no sane D&D adventure should start with a lvl 1 character doing serious work. In BG it makes sense that your characters become a lot better at surviving very quickly after being on the run (as opposed to their trouble-free life beforehand that only offered minimal preparation for the rigors of life). OTOH, games like ToEE make no sense starting what is supposed to be a relatively strong and accomplished party at lvl 1, they should be starting at lvl 5+. Unfortunately games seem afraid to start players at anything but lvl 1.

I definitely agree, though I think it's a flaw inherent in the system. The problem is you have to account both for those "literal nobody" and "already decent warriors" possibilities, and D&D tries to do both at once but kinda fails - it makes no sense that some random person would know spells like Magic Missile, but at the same time a person who's trained with a sword should be able to hit wolves and other "small" enemies with relative ease. I almost feel like D&D should start at level 2, with level 1 being "you are a person holding a big stick" and only after a bit of practice to you get the possibility of feats, using better equipment, and magic spells.

Of course that also reveals the problem of absolute classes picked at level 1. How can a random farmer also be a wizard? How does a servant know how to shoot a bow? While D&D is all about people fitting into predefined roles, I think it'd make a bit more sense to do true class selection at level 2 instead of level 1, or just make level 1 play more equivalent to level 3 or 4 instead and have a "level 0" or something for story reasons.

 

[Average Manatee]

The problem with this is that no sane D&D adventure should start with a lvl 1 character doing serious work. In BG it makes sense that your characters become a lot better at surviving very quickly after being on the run (as opposed to their trouble-free life beforehand that only offered minimal preparation for the rigors of life). OTOH, games like ToEE make no sense starting what is supposed to be a relatively strong and accomplished party at lvl 1, they should be starting at lvl 5+. Unfortunately games seem afraid to start players at anything but lvl 1.

I definitely agree, though I think it's a flaw inherent in the system. The problem is you have to account both for those "literal nobody" and "already decent warriors" possibilities, and D&D tries to do both at once but kinda fails - it makes no sense that some random person would know spells like Magic Missile, but at the same time a person who's trained with a sword should be able to hit wolves and other "small" enemies with relative ease. I almost feel like D&D should start at level 2, with level 1 being "you are a person holding a big stick" and only after a bit of practice to you get the possibility of feats, using better equipment, and magic spells.

Of course that also reveals the problem of absolute classes picked at level 1. How can a random farmer also be a wizard? How does a servant know how to shoot a bow? While D&D is all about people fitting into predefined roles, I think it'd make a bit more sense to do true class selection at level 2 instead of level 1, or just make level 1 play more equivalent to level 3 or 4 instead and have a "level 0" or something for story reasons.

Monsters in D&D already kind of do the right thing. First get x number of levels in your "race" (representing a generic level of competence in what you do) along with special enemies getting specific class levels (representing special training in certain areas). A way to generalize that to player characters would be a good idea.

 

[Infinitron]

The problem with this is that no sane D&D adventure should start with a lvl 1 character doing serious work. In BG it makes sense that your characters become a lot better at surviving very quickly after being on the run (as opposed to their trouble-free life beforehand that only offered minimal preparation for the rigors of life). OTOH, games like ToEE make no sense starting what is supposed to be a relatively strong and accomplished party at lvl 1, they should be starting at lvl 5+. Unfortunately games seem afraid to start players at anything but lvl 1.

I definitely agree, though I think it's a flaw inherent in the system. The problem is you have to account both for those "literal nobody" and "already decent warriors" possibilities, and D&D tries to do both at once but kinda fails - it makes no sense that some random person would know spells like Magic Missile, but at the same time a person who's trained with a sword should be able to hit wolves and other "small" enemies with relative ease. I almost feel like D&D should start at level 2, with level 1 being "you are a person holding a big stick" and only after a bit of practice to you get the possibility of feats, using better equipment, and magic spells.

Of course that also reveals the problem of absolute classes picked at level 1. How can a random farmer also be a wizard? How does a servant know how to shoot a bow? While D&D is all about people fitting into predefined roles, I think it'd make a bit more sense to do true class selection at level 2 instead of level 1, or just make level 1 play more equivalent to level 3 or 4 instead and have a "level 0" or something for story reasons.

Actually, I think D&D has some kind of "Commoner" classification that's totally separate from the levelling system (correct me if I'm wrong, grognards?)
Levels are technically only meant for "adventurers".

 

[TNO]

This makes sense. Ever seen the Chess competitions where Grandmaster players play against multiple weaker players? They still wipe the floor. The difference in batting averages between decent players and amazing players in Baseball is .1, but those amazing players get paid a hell of a lot more than just the difference between them and the average player. Skill increases ARE geometrically important in the real world.

Epic is pretty fucked up though, but Epic (and arguably anything past the 15) was never meant to be played by anyone concerned with common sense.

True, but these sorts of things are so-called tournament rewards: because things are highly positional, being fractionally better than the rest gives a massive payoff. It isn't like Kasparov or whatever is 50x better at chess (whatever that would mean), but because they have an increment over their opponents they generally win even when multi-ing forty games at once. Compare to a 'world's strongest man', who won't win a tug off war against 50 or so average dudes if they could team up. So I think skill distributions are (generally) normal distributions, but certain games strongly privilege small increments at the right tail. Black swan, Talib, Extremistan/medicoristan, scaling, etc. etc.

I'd guess the same applies in fighting. In real life, your pro swordsman or whatever isn't going to win a 50 on one fight, nor your pro special ops dude take on 50 or so grunts in a 'straight up' shootout. But they do have value in circumstances where this 'being better than average' can scale, like duelling or special ops stuff. Of course, none of this applies in fantasy (still less D&D), where level 20 mages could probably take on thousands of basic troops without issue, and level 20 fighters could probably take on hundreds before enough 20s were landed to finish their HP.


Re. Imbalance: I don't particularly mind class imbalance and stupid scaling when you are playing the party yourself - you generally want your tanks and stuff to carry the mages at the start, and then the mages carry everyone else later (although pro powergamers will have all GISH 2nd ed, and all caster/CoDzilla 3rd ed, but nvm). The problem applies when you are playing a single character and others just are substantially better or worse than you are. I remember playing the mage in a high-ish level DnD campaign before we'd really clocked how much power differential there was: the guys playing a thief, rogue, paladin and fighter got bored really fast. Similar problems apply in computer games where you are only playing one character.

 

[deuxhero]

Farmers have an actual class in the rules ("Commoner" or possibly "Expert").

Actually, I think D&D has some kind of "Commoner" classification that's totally separate from the levelling system (correct me if I'm wrong, grognards?)
Levels are technically only meant for "adventurers".

They have levels, they are just in classes ("NPC" classes) that suck. "Commoner" has the HP of a mage, skills of a fighter and no class abilities. Expert has skills less than a rogue and nothing else (though it pick any 10 skills to be class skills, which has some abuse options), Warrior has a fighters profiencies and attack bonus, but less HP and no feats. Adept is a special case in that it is actually somewhat decent and genereally considered better than the fighter. It has a limited selection of spells and a limited amount of casting, but it gains quite a few decent spells, including some that can end an encounter if used right.