Okay, that's compulsive.

[kiya]

I have this nice second-level ranger character.

I have plans for what she'll be doing when she reaches level thirteen, presuming I take the shortest route there possible.

In a word: sheesh.

Comments

[sstaten.livejournal.com]

One thing I have noticed is that, if the game is 'module based' (like the one I'm going to be in soon) the shortest route of character advancement is the only sensible route to take.

This assumes a small party of characters but that seems to be more common than the company sized adventuring parties! It also annoys me, I'd love to play a wizard, and do it CORRECTLY. TO me that means making magic items (hey, I get the feats to do it as free slots!) Possibly picking up a level or two in Bard for more knowledge and spell versatility, etc.

The thing is, I start making scrolls, and not only does it cost gold (not really a problem in most games) but EXPERIENCE POINTS. This means that, come about fifth level, when I should be able to cast those nifty 3rd level spells, and the module assumes I CAN. I can't, because I'm only mid 4th, if that high.

I understand the need to limit the magic item factory of doom and to balance multi-classing, but it really does prevent folks from building nifty AND effective characters.

[mindways]

[Warning: systems babble follows]

This means that, come about fifth level, when I should be able to cast those nifty 3rd level spells, and the module assumes I CAN. I can't, because I'm only mid 4th, if that high.

Two thoughts:

1. The way the expected gold awards are set up, even if you dump *all* of your money into magic item creation, at lower levels you're only spending ~8% of your earned experience, and at mid-levels you're only spending ~15% of incoming XP. Even at 20th level, money is still the binding factor; you're earning ~8 gold per XP, which still isn't enough to cover the 12.5 gold per XP spent during item creation.

I haven't actually done the mathematical progression out, but a quick estimate says that one shouldn't end up falling a full level behind until about lvl 14-15 or so.

(This can, of course, be worked around by creating magical items and selling them for a profit to fund more item creation, but then you're effectively converting XP into gold to enable converting XP into items, which is, well, inefficient. ;)

2. It is true that even if you only spend ~5% of your XP on magic items, sometimes you'll fall on the low side of a level break while the rest of the party falls on the high side. However, the power-gain from getting that many magical items at half-price is *substantial* - while your individual "maximum applied power" will be lower (ie, you don't have access to that new level of spells), you'll have a much higher versatility (for items which let you do new things, or expand your options like scrolls), staying power (for items that give you more "charges", such as scrolls and wands), and/or baseline power (for items that bump up your basic stats/AC/skills/etc).

It is in some ways a similar sort of tradeoff that a spellcaster makes when multiclassing - they lose that "peak of power", since they can't access the most powerful spells possible for their character level, but gain in versatility and/or staying power.

[kiya]

Fortunately, this is Kevin's epic.

I'm just not entirely sure I can predict my level advancement for the next ten levels. ;)