D&D system/metasystem/metaphysics musings

[eyelessgame]

Gaming geeks only. A bit about how CL can be applied to metaphysics.

So I was thinking a little about the neo-Gloranthan notion that heroes live on a different reality than normals, and when they go out to adventure, attract the attention of more fearsome monsters.

Add to this something like Ars Magica's magical/divine/infernal/mundane auras.

Then apply to the problem of D&D CL -- how is it that towns of low-level people exist in a universe where, well, CR 25 dragons can just go and eat whatever they want?

What happens if all areas of a D&D multiverse have a "natural level" -- NL -- and things beyond that level work poorly or not at all?

Civilized areas might have increasingly small NL, and progressively wilder or more chaotic areas would have progressively higher NL.

An incomplete list of adjustments for exceeding NL max...

Mechanic	NL max	Effect of exceeding max
Max damage	CON + (NLx5)	Fort save DC (10+dmg/5) or drop to 0 hp
Skills	NL+4	Halve amount over NL max
Saves	3+NL/2	Halve amount over NL max
BAB	NL	Halve amount over NL max
Spell level	NL/2	Spellcraft DC 10+spell level+levels above NL cap, or spell fails
Magic item CL	NL	Halve amount over NL max, item does not work if below min CL for any embedded spell

comments? additions?

Comments

[space-parasite.livejournal.com]

CL? Character Level?

Having to do all these calculations and possibly rolls would suck the PMW in a tabletop game. Instead, I suggest that any creature with a CR over the NL lose points of Con equal to the difference per day (hour, week, whatever suits you). This of course includes high level characters, who have CR equal to character level (or level - 1 for NPC classes). You don't decay in an area with higher NL than your CR, but the local inhabitants may casually or even accidentally do you in.

Since only high-level characters have high skills, I think this produces something like a tech level gradient, where low-NL areas have primitive villages because no one has the skill to make anything better, while high-NL areas have everything done by magic because they have high-level casters but you can't get farmers/ditchdiggers/chambermaids.

Possibly some sort of fudge factor (class levels only count as half when comparing to NL?) would be good, if that's not the effect you want.

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't want high-CL people not to go to such places, I just want them (and their magic items) to be less uberpowerful when there...

Maybe it can be simulated sufficiently with negative levels.

[yessod.livejournal.com]

An alternative to Trip's tech level changes is to do something along the lines of limiting the caster level, but not skills. This would seem to mirror Ars Magica in some ways, since you end up with most human habitations being in low NL areas, because you can have very high tech stuff with no problems, but don't have to worry as much about the archmages and the dragons. Powerful mages build towers out in the wilderness, and the powerful monsters don't conquer towns, they just run through to grab some loot and leave as quickly as possible. There might be a few human cities in high NL areas, with lots of magitech and such, but they're the equivalent of Prester John's kingdom, far away and mostly mythical.

Say that the max caster level on any effect, spell, item, or supernatural power, is the NL. Your +5 sword is only +1 in the low NL town. You can't cast a fireball in the town's tavern, because the NL is only four, so 3rd level spells aren't castable at all. The displacer beast that attacks you isn't displaced, because that's a fourth level spell, or alternately is only a little displaced, since there's a second level spell version of displacement, which it can handle with its max caster level of 4.

Trip's penalties to attributes also seems like a good concept, though I'd be very tempted to extend it to all attributes. A quick solution might be to say that bonus provided by an attribute can't go above the NL. That would generally result in humans and human scale things not being limited, but ogres and giants are much less scary.

I'd be tempted to figure out some way to limit hitpoints as well, but that might get crazed in the calculations. Something like "You get at most NL hitpoints per hitdie" could conceivably work, though very low NL areas would be very lethal. It would also help balance out parties a bit, so fighters don't quite as thoroughly make the mages look like gimps in town. The mages are still at a big disadvantage, but at least the fighters have hitpoint problems to deal with.

I'd avoid giving skill penalties, and try to avoid giving humans attribute penalties except in very low NL areas. That would help the humans have great sprawling cities in the low NL areas, particularly gritty realistic ones where everybody has 2 hitpoints per hitdie and a rogue with a dagger is terrifying, but the sewers still work and buildings don't fall down too regularly. You could even have some places have started to figure out gunpowder and such, as a great way for low NL areas to have some firepower.

[space-parasite.livejournal.com]

Yah, I like limiting only "magical" abilities, but it didn't seem like that was what was being requested. Hit dice/hit points map so poorly to any in-game quality that I'm not sure how to limit them, but I agree that they should probably be limited somehow in low-NL areas (along with BAB) if you want anything resembling standard D&D. If you want a strange variant with fighters and rogues prevailing in low-NL areas and the magic-using classes in high-NL (which we now might as well call high-mana) regions, this would work fine. Also, if you want to tone down fighters, you might want to limit feats.

Basically, I think the idea of putting limits on various parts of the world like this is good, but I think D&D is too lacking in metarules to do it elegantly. Use Fantasy Hero. :)