How often do your players level/get items?

[Question]

How often do your players level/get items/relics?

The mechanism is there but to my knowledge it is VERY rare for players to level, get magical tiems from adventures,or even get relics that affect domain play.

It seems most campaigns neglect this aspect.

Thoughts?

[ausrick]

Well, in my last campaign, I expiramented with allowing my PC's to roll totally heroic stats. (I did 5d6 drop 2) I didn't realize how unbalancing, and it was mostly my fault for not adjusting the CR's but the party could tear through and survive a lot. Regularly they would go toe-to-toe with almost equally matched npc's in huge slaughterfests and a couple of them would hit deaths door each session but the xp they raked in caused for a level gain about every session or two, and we would usually play 6 hours at a time. Most of their magic items they got from looting NPC's as that seemed to be over half of what they fought, since the NPC's were equipped using the rules for starting characters of above 1st level (I forget if it is in the PHB or the DMG) they got wealthy really quickly. (how many of yourself do you need to kill to go up a level, adventurers always have more gear than "monsters") I found out this really didn't work very well, mostly my fault for being off from D&D for a while then jumping into DM'ing again. I found that most of the really fun plot hooks, only lower level characters without powerful magic items want to do. Things like A "Serial Killer stalks Proudglaive" turn into "Let the constabulary deal with it" or "Use Divination spells problem solved" Generally from what I've found it really depends on how you pace the environment. It seems that in more pseudo-realistic settings or ones that carry high potential for mortality. (Like in RL battlefields are dangerous for everyone on them no matter how experienced they are) Lower levels and Lower amounts of magic maintain that flavor "easier" Where as High level and High magic seem to fit easier with more fantastic settings. The lack of willingness of clerics in birthright to raise the dead is an example of this. It is easier at lower levels to handle this because the issue of raising the dead doesn't even come up.

However, to stem the tide of this tangent I am getting on, With a setting like Birthright, a lot more pressure comes to land on the DM with higher levels and higher magic item access. Suddenly 3 units of knights invading a province doesn't pack the same punch vrs meteorswarm and traveling realms away only takes a moment and a spell slot. This gives a lot of work to the DM to keep the Birthright flavor and not penalize or handicap the players for doing what players are supposed to do: strive to become better, more powerful characters. DM's on here have come up with all sorts of ways and rules to try and balance this aspect.

Now to more answer your question: What I've been doing in my current campaign and how its been working: Magic items are about 4x harder to come by/costly, etc. On the other side of the coin, "stupid" magic items that are more one use or filler or "vendor trash" don't happen. All magic items are purposeful, I've named them, and secretly tailored them to be very useful to the players and hyped them. As with XP, I've been giving out about standard, but I've watched it really carefully. I'd say maybe it all averages out to -1CR to what the DMG says and the campaign is progressing at a comfortable pace. If anything the PC's complain the most about the XP but more than the amount I think it was the fact that I was keeping track of it for them and that probably made it seem like I wasn't giving out XP for things when I really was, once I quit doing that they seemed a lot happier with XP as well.

hope this helps

[irdeggman]

BR is supposed to be a low magic item setting. That is magic items are supposed to be rarer, but more powerful when found.


Personnally I don't like artifacts in general. They have a way of overpowering things drastically and in a setting like BR where a simple +1 longsword is supposed to be a family heirloom it makes sense for them to be even rarer.

[Mantyluoto]

Since my game is "Regent" based with no adventuring levelling up is down through training as a character action.

Manty

[Sorontar]

We have few large scale magical items in our adventure. My 12th level (AD&D2) druid has IIRC a +2 battle axe (enchanted by the Seelie Court), a +3 ring of protection (from an adventure's boss badgirl in SW), potion of inorganic-to-organic (from adv's boss badmage), +3 quarterstaff (from the badgirl again), a wand of illumination (not many charges left, can't remember where I got it), a wand of plant growth (a mage's lab in ancient ruins). Most of the magical items have come from the head-honchos in adventures, rather than their underlings, or we have been explicitly seeking them out using high level contacts (eg. seelie court, regents). My druid is getting some magical armour made for someone, but that is required a lot of inter-regent relations, especially between the church and a regent mage. And it won't be cheap at all and may have political consequences.

Some items we found in the SW did not work or crumbled when taken to Cerilia, e.g. lantern of darkness.

Sorontar

[Lee]

In a message dated 12/6/05 1:29:26 PM Eastern Standard Time,
brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET writes:

<< Question wrote:
How often do your players level/get items/relics?

The mechanism is there but to my knowledge it is VERY rare for players to
level, get magical tiems from adventures,or even get relics that affect domain
play.

It seems most campaigns neglect this aspect.

Thoughts? >>

I`m running a non-rgent game, and my PCs have been rolling up levels
pretty quickly (6th level in 13 sessions), and I`ve handed out 1-3 magic items
apiece. This is counter to my previous (also non-regent) campaign, when I think
they reached 9th or 10th level, with 1-2 magic items each. I somewhat did
that on purpose, as I have mostly players new to the game, and I wanted them to
get something early on, to whet their appetites. Also, some of the magic items
(3 or 4) were heirlooms, since most of them wanted to play scions.
That said, I have been slowing down the magic items, and restricting the
NPCs` magic to "bosses," and I will be slowing the xp income, too. Now that
the players have a feel for what`s going on, I hope to reduce the hack`n`slash
for more role-playing and even some politics, now that they are getting close
to the treasure they have been questing for all along (they`ve been hunting
pieces of a map to lead them to the old Dungeon adventure "Seeking Bloodsilver").

Lee.

[irdeggman]

In a message dated 12/6/05 1:29:26 PM Eastern Standard Time,
brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET writes:

they have been questing for all along (they`ve been hunting
pieces of a map to lead them to the old Dungeon adventure "Seeking Bloodsilver").

Lee.

I absolutely love that adventure.

Another one I'm particularly found of is Blood Hungry, from Legends of the Hero Kings. I had a real good time with my players when I worked that one in.;)

[Raesene Andu]

My players tend to level once every 4 or 5 gaming sessions. We have been playing in the current campaign for more than 2 years and are they are not around level 14-15. My campaign is primairily adventure based, using Cerilia as a setting, and not a domain game, although the PC do effect domain level events by assisting regents.

As for magical items, they have a few, but a lot of items I give out are items like potions, wands, scrolls, etc that they generally use up fairly quickly.

[Doyle]

The team I GM seem to level a lot, but its really only once every 3-5 sessions - the sessions are around 6 hours long on average. Treasure and artifacts - Sorontar's 12th level character is a fair example of the rarity of items that the party gets to keep - not a lot by normal game standards.

Regards,

Doyle.

[Question]

Most PBEMs never have the players level up at all,such a shame.Why have levels in the game if they arent used in anyw ay?

[ausrick]

Levels are mostly irrelevent in a domain only game (Which a lot of PBEM's tend toward) and add into that that most "common" magic items have little impact at the domain level as well, and that in any campaign the kind of artifacts that would have significant advantages at the domain level would be very rare and coveted items realistically, the domain level is just so much larger in scope that items that would effect it would be very powerful. It is kind of sad but it is one of the things people say over and over, is that running adventure only BR without any consideration of domain level events leaves a lot of the experience of the setting out and on the other side of the coin playing only a domain game ignores a lot of what the setting has to offer.

[irdeggman]

Levels are mostly irrelevent in a domain only game (Which a lot of PBEM's tend toward) and add into that that most "common" magic items have little impact at the domain level as well, and that in any campaign the kind of artifacts that would have significant advantages at the domain level would be very rare and coveted items realistically, the domain level is just so much larger in scope that items that would effect it would be very powerful. It is kind of sad but it is one of the things people say over and over, is that running adventure only BR without any consideration of domain level events leaves a lot of the experience of the setting out and on the other side of the coin playing only a domain game ignores a lot of what the setting has to offer.

I tend to agree. IMO the best BR game is one that mixes both domain level and adventure level play.

On the domain level though levels do matter, especially for Realm Spells. Most other things not as much, although skill ranks and feats can come into play - not mention if one takes levels in Noble.

[geeman]

At 07:29 PM 12/6/2005 +0100, Question wrote:

>How often do your players level/get items/relics?
>
>The mechanism is there but to my knowledge it is VERY rare for players to
>level, get magical tiems from adventures,or even get relics that affect
>domain play.
>
>It seems most campaigns neglect this aspect.
>
>Thoughts?

When it comes to relics in Birthright the only time I can think of using
was in "The Flayed Man" write up that included an adventure hook in which
the "The Skull of Klinn Banlocke" (a major artifact) is
described. However, it should be noted that most PCs who got hold of that
artifact would probably try their best to destroy it--assuming they are
good-aligned, that is....

As a rule of thumb, I`ve fiddled around with making the gp value of a BR
character`s inventory abut half that of the numbers suggested in the DMG
or, more accurately, doubling the price of BR magic items. Nobody`s really
come up with an entirely satisfactory method of dealing with this
particular issue in BR from what I can tell, though. I prefer to account
for a character`s bloodline by equating it with a gp value in that
character`s inventory rather than the BRCS`s system of character class, so
that`s one way of "filling in" a character`s inventory allowance.

Gary

[Rhiannon Faramiriel]

In my campaign we have mixed: Domain and adventure level play. I couldn't imagine playing it straight Domain game.

I don't have any players that have "leveled up" via a domain or character action. They prefer to go the actual adventure route. My players make active use of both their lieutenants and their rulers to take care of business in the domain. How else are you going to win the favor of your people?

One player has taken his character from 4th level to 13th with this process. The player's character has a rich background and can say that he has honestly impacted the growth of his country by his own hand and not with an action. His character leveled when the experience dictated, but I use a system that's a little different for dealing out XP.

Then there are times when I may not have an adventure planned and we will do a couple of domain turns where there's no event to speak of and we will play out the building of a castle or a royal hunt or something that may spawn and impromptu adventure.

Monetary reward is more common as is a grant of land to lesser/greater nobles of the domain who perform services for the crown. The occasional magical item of low/common value appears from time to time. My game is focused on roleplaying and not who dies with the most toys. ;)

Artifacts are unique and extremely rare. Increasing their awe and wonder when found. Could also make the players the target of covetous rivals. In the 12 years of game time, only one artifact and one major magical sword have been found.

In my game, if your character is a regent of a prosperous country, chances are you will start the game with 1-3 magical items, usually a weapon and some armour and an object. The rationale is based on historical models in regard to having access to the finest things (see the Valois Dukes of Burgundy which would be a level 9-10 court by the way ;) ), and have the money to buy or have made at least some minor magical items or if you're lucky, there's an old family heirloom in the vault waiting to be discovered.

Bloodstones are occasionally found. If I remember correctly, 5 lesser gems and one Prince have been found.

imho, if players level too quickly, then the DM is being too generous with the points and if magic is being handed out like candy at Halloween, then it seems too common and less wonderous, especially in a game setting where magic is supposed to be rare and awesome when encountered.