NWN 2 level 20

[SpiritWarrior]

My 2.

Well there were at least core books for high level campaigns but I must say I do feel the epic levels don't work well with D&D. I remember the classic D&D handbook only mapped you up to 20 levels. There may have been optional rules for +20 but the original core book didn't let you past that (and that's the only book I used and ever needed).

I personally think epic levels feel a bit ridiculous, I always felt that HoTU in NWN 1 was just an answer to the non-D&D players who wanted more numbers and giant weapons. For me, level 20 was enough, I felt powerful. Level 40 was just insane...beholders, dragons, abyssal entities I could pwn them all and then some. Then there were epic spells that eliminated the need to ever look at your old spells. This is why I always enjoyd SoU as the best expansion I guess, it kept me busy with a good OC and some prestige classes, but at the same time didn't get unrealistic.

[JrKASperov]

Epic levels are pure munchkin for the powergamers.

[Legolas]

I think the main task of epic levels is to prolong a player's sense of advancement. Unlike in a tabletop game where what your character experienced and where you lucked out on a critical roll of the die make for amazing tales and personality growth, you can't really implement those things in a crpg, nor brag about them.
You have all the gold you need at some point, and item rewards are just as ending as xp gain is. In my opinion, higher levels have nothing to do with being the strongest or having a maxed out build, and everything with a continued sense of progression and achievement.

And yes, that does mean that 100 sublevels could work better than 20 'full' ones. But only if you take five times as long to reach there, too, and you continue to have a choice of improvements in character design.

[JrKASperov]

The player's sense of advancement would be great anyway if every freaking rpg coming out these days isn't a mindless hackfest. Think of Fallout, Baldur's Gate etc. where every single level was an achievement!

[Luvian]

There's character advancement in NWN2! You're telling me you were not happy when you got access to a new spell level? When you got a new attack per round? When you got some fancy new feat?

In the official campaign you don't hit 20 before the very end of the game so your charcter was progressing until the very end. It's all about newbies thinking this is Diablo and wanting to max everything. Just look at the post Larry quoted about the guy that wanted to get level 20 in all his classes. That's not what D&D is about. You have to make choices and sacrifices for those extra classes you get. Versatility instead of high level abilities etc.

[WOLFGIR]

[quote]Originally posted by robertthebard:
[QB]

Originally posted by Luvian: Seriously, big numbers mean nothing. Why mess up the rules so instead of having for example a level 25 fighting level 25 stuff, you have level 60s fighting level 60s stuff. It's basically the same thing, except with bigger numbers. It doesn't matter if you hit for 5 damage on a 50 hp monster or 50 damage on a 500 hp monster, in both case it's going to take ten hit to kill it.

But it does Luvian.
Your argument is slowly building up to that Epic levels are wrong, bad, munchkin etc but you are as wrong to say that as everyone telling you you are wrong.

First of all, 50 Hp damage means a fort save vs death. Critical feats etc makes the epic levels more dangerous and since you have rules for epic gameplay, it is not wrong. You have PnP rules for it so it is OK. If you however specifies your argument that NWN 2 OC only should have none Epic levels rules etc, none is arguing against you there.

"You're getting overpowered compared to the rest of the stuff you didn't raise. Dragons, that should be close to the top of power chart, are suddenly at the bottom. Kobolds are not even on it anymore, and the kingdom's elite guards, it's ruler, and the royal magician are like kids. Avatars are not even a challenge, etc. THAT's the problem. You want big numbers to boost your ego? Fine, but do it in a way that doesn't unbalance everything. Multiply everything's level by 10 or something. That way you have your big number, you can level as much you want, but really everything is still equal."

Sorry, but this doesn't float, just shows your lack of experience playing high level campaigns, or you are simplyfying things that it appears like it. Epic characters means EPIC Dragons, Epic Kobolds, means also Epic work for the DM [img]smile.gif[/img]
And please tell me you haven't only been facing CR 1/3 Kobolds all your life playing D&D? In the Epic handbook you can read alot of making your above statements not true. Monsters of CR 20-90 smonething excist to make your long and hard journey just as challenging as you like to. If you want to munchkin it out, you can sure do that as well and keep all the things you have mentioned in your posts, but Epic play doens't look like that in the rules, nor handbooks and espacially not in my Epic camapigns.

Your first comment:
"That's not D&D! And you don't need to keep adding big numbers for something to be "fun" or challenging. It's certainly possible to be challenged without breaking the spirit of the game. I'd say there's even more challenge to be had on low level characters that have weaknesses than level godlike characters with +20 items and ridiculous stats."

That is based on HOW YOU feel, think and runs your games. I liked to run Epic adventures that meant immense battles and intrigues that involved not small dungeons with level 60 monsters waiting around. I leave that to your games. Sure I enjoy the low level gaming as well as high level gaming. It is up to the party, players, adventures and DM to make it fun and into a great experience. With the Epic rules, you will get new Epic advesaries and intrigues not of the normal world and all the Epic rules suggest that you should move the gameplay into another realm of playing to keep the game balanced.

Problem is that leveled games are not very well balanced to begin with and DnD is the motherload of high fantasy and has atremendous amount of add ons both rulewise and setting wise. It can give most people a good time.

There is simply no right or wrong way to play the game. To suggest that your way is the right way and others high level play is the wrong is just silly. None has talked about powergaming here. Adding new level of play is not powergaming. See Legolas answer.

JrkASperov, I know from earlier debates that we don't think alike and that your way of proclaiming Epic level players as munchkins and powergames just proves your lack of insight and understanding of others.

[robertthebard]

I still see it as people play the way they want to. I find some RP servers to be far too anal about RP. However, that's the way they want to play the game, and it can be fun, every so often. I can roleplay, but I don't play that way often. More likely, I'm playing to get out of the stress of whatever I'm doing. Bad day, go kill stuff. Scripts won't work? Go kill stuff, take a break from the harsh realities of building, and go kill some monsters to relieve stress.

I can powergame with most of the best of them, and I have builds on Z's server that would qualify for the epic builds page, but they are far too munchkiny, is that a word, for that. It all comes down to what people prefer to do, and there is no right or wrong way to play. As I said before, it's about having fun, and if people are having fun, it's all good.

[WOLFGIR]

I agree Robert,
I really like immense RP stuff with a good solid story and alot of character interaction, but I am not one to turn down a bit of a hackfest to lively up things every now and then either. I like changes.

[SpiritWarrior]

Originally posted by robertthebard: I still see it as people play the way they want to. I find some RP servers to be far too anal about RP. However, that's the way they want to play the game, and it can be fun, every so often. I can roleplay, but I don't play that way often. More likely, I'm playing to get out of the stress of whatever I'm doing. Bad day, go kill stuff. Scripts won't work? Go kill stuff, take a break from the harsh realities of building, and go kill some monsters to relieve stress. I can powergame with most of the best of them, and I have builds on Z's server that would qualify for the epic builds page, but they are far too munchkiny, is that a word, for that. It all comes down to what people prefer to do, and there is no right or wrong way to play. As I said before, it's about having fun, and if people are having fun, it's all good.

And that is in effect, what NWN's is. A creation tool to make mods and servers any way you please. They aren't hardcore about forcing RP or D&D rules, and of course something is lost in the translation from tabletop to video game anyways. While the epic levels aren't for me personally if I want to be syickler about HCR D&D, that doesn't mean I didn't PvP on max servers for months with stats maxxed out and "uber" characters (that tells you how long ago it was since that word was actually popular at the time). I played all different scenarios, mods and servers. I did all kinds of different things. In the strictest sense PvP has no place in D&D but that didn't mean it wasn't fun. It was tons of fun. I know the issue isn't PvP but im citing this simply as one thing that broke with D&D as we know it but still had a huge audience.

[Luvian]

Originally posted by WOLFGIR: Your argument is slowly building up to that Epic levels are wrong, bad, munchkin etc but you are as wrong to say that as everyone telling you you are wrong.

Oh my god. After all the time I've said it, either you can't read or you're trolling. I have nothing against epic level characters. I have something against level 41+ characters!!!

If you however specifies your argument that NWN 2 OC only should have none Epic levels rules etc, none is arguing against you there.

I have nothing against epic level characters. I have something against level 41+ characters!!!

Sorry, but this doesn't float, just shows your lack of experience playing high level campaigns, or you are simplyfying things that it appears like it. Epic characters means EPIC Dragons, Epic Kobolds, means also Epic work for the DM [img]smile.gif[/img] And please tell me you haven't only been facing CR 1/3 Kobolds all your life playing D&D? In the Epic handbook you can read alot of making your above statements not true. Monsters of CR 20-90 smonething excist to make your long and hard journey just as challenging as you like to. If you want to munchkin it out, you can sure do that as well and keep all the things you have mentioned in your posts, but Epic play doens't look like that in the rules, nor handbooks and espacially not in my Epic camapigns.

My point here is that you can't just add mobs that are over the level cap just like that, in an existing world. It has to be carefully balanced in. You have to re-balance the whole game. Every single npcs, to make sure they make sense in this new unbalanced world.

That is based on HOW YOU feel, think and runs your games. I liked to run Epic adventures that meant immense battles and intrigues that involved not small dungeons with level 60 monsters waiting around. I leave that to your games.

Now you're just being insulting. If I just said this would make no sense, why the heck would I leave level 60 characters just sitting around?

Sure I enjoy the low level gaming as well as high level gaming. It is up to the party, players, adventures and DM to make it fun and into a great experience. With the Epic rules, you will get new Epic advesaries and intrigues not of the normal world and all the Epic rules suggest that you should move the gameplay into another realm of playing to keep the game balanced.

So you're saying Elminster is not part of Forgotten Realm? What about Kelben Blackstaff? You're saying when your players hit epic level they just leave everything behind and never come back to their old world? I hope not, I'd feel cheated as a player if a DM tried doing that to me.

There is simply no right or wrong way to play the game. To suggest that your way is the right way and others high level play is the wrong is just silly. None has talked about powergaming here. Adding new level of play is not powergaming. See Legolas answer.

Yes, reaching the level cap and simply raising it without re-balancing the whole world is pure powergaming. You simply want your characters to get more powerful and the expense of everything else.

And maybe, you know, instead of blindly joining the thread and starting ranting about perceived attacks against high level campaigns, you could have made some research. If you did you'd realize the last time I talked about D&D I talked about the last epic game I DMed. Which happen to have been my favorite game of all time. This isn't about epic levels. It's about breaking the epic level cap just so you can get some more powergaming in.

[ 03-02-2007, 06:43 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]