The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

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The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Username17 »

Lately there's again been some discussion about how level loss "works". The short answer is not very well.

Here's the long answer:

You don't keep track of what hit points you rolled back when you got the levels in the first place.

You don't keep track of what order you got the levels in.

You don't keep track of what skills you advanced with each level.

You don't keep track of how many skill points you got at each level.

You don't keep track of where and why you got each feat you have.

You don't keep track of when and where you put your level stat bonuses.

What you do is simply write off one of your class levels (taken from the class you have the most levels of), and then lose out on a hit die (rolled at this time), and skill points (mark off as many ranks as you would have gained if got this level for the first time).

--

Which means that there is no guaranty that you will lose the same amount of power when you lose that level as you gain when you get it back. Heck, there's no guaranty that you will lose the smae amount of power as when you got the level in the first place.

Here's where the difference engine kicks in. You can lose a level and get it back every single day. And when that happens, you power level can go up, and it can go down. If you do it right, your power can rise significantly by just trading levels around for awhile. If you do it wrong, you can spiral into worthlessness.

Losing Power On the Difference Engine:

* Buy cross classed skills when going up in level. Lose in-class skills when you lose levels. Consider the character who takes Paladin levels and Fighter levels. To begin with he has 4 ranks in Intimidate and Diplomacy. He gets 2 skill points each level. When he goes up in level as a Fighter, he gains a rank of diplomacy at the cross classed cost of two skill points. When he gains a level of Paladin, he adds 1 skill rank of Intimidate at the cross classed cost of 2 skill points per rank. Now he loses the Fighter and Paladin levels - losing ranks of inclass skills (2 ranks of Intimidate for Fighter and 2 ranks of Diplomacy for Paladin). Having gained and then lost 2 levels - our character has been reduced to only 3 ranks of Intimidate and Diplomacy with nothing at all to show for it.

* Roll higher on lost hit points than on gained hit points. It's as simple as that. A 6th level Fighter who loses a level and rolls a 7 for lost hit points who gets his level back and rolls a 2 for hit points has lost 5 hit points off the difference engine for nothing.

* Lose feat prereqs. If you have Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack, and you lose level six, you have to mark off a feat. Any feat. You can choose Dodge, Mobility, or Spring Attack. But if you choose Dodge you can't use Mobility or Spring Attack either.

* Lose a level after your intelligence has risen. If you get a level of Fighter when your Int is 13 you gain 3 skill points. If you lose a level of Fighter after your Int has gone up to 14 (for example, from a Wish or Prestige Class benefit) - you lose 4 skill points.

* Losing a level of a class with built-in multiclass restrictions. Losing a level of Fighter is no big deal, but once you multiclass out of Paladin you aren't allowed to take another level of Paladin - which can screw up your character vision something awful. Note that this can sometimes be gotten around with setting rules - such as Paladin orders and whatever.

note that it is not possible to get XP penalties because the highest level is always reduced.

Gaining Power on the Difference Engine

* Buy in-class skills, lose cross-classed skills. Let's think of our Fighter/Paladin from the previous example. He's still walking in with 2 skills (diplomacy and intimidate) at 4 ranks. Only now, he buys Diplomacy at 1:1 because he is getting it in-class as a Paladin, and he buys Intimidate at 1:1 because he is buying it as a Fighter. Now he loses both levels again, but chooses to lose Intimidate skill when he goes down as a Paladin, and Diplomacy when he goes down as a Fighter (where for 2 lost skill points he only loses 1 skill rank). Once again, he hasn't changed in total level, but his ranks in both skills have increased to five.

* Roll lower on your lost hit dice than your gained hit dice. It's all luck at this point, but if you lose a level and roll a big fat 2 for lost hit points and get the level restored and roll a 7 - you just got 5 hit points permanently for no good reason.

* Trade-in core classes for PrCs. If you take 6 levels of Fighter, and then a level of Blackguard, and then lose a level of Fighter, and then get the level restored, you can advance any level you want - even Black Guard. This is way more fun when we start talking about trading in levels for Thrall of Jubilex or trading Sorcerer for any other caster advancing class.

* Trade-out PrC prereqs for other things. Many PrCs require that you have a bunch of crap in order to take the first level of the class. But once you have it, and you lose a character level which is divisible by three - you lose a feat. That feat can be one of the crappy feats that you took for no good reason other than to qualify for a class. I mean, some of these classes require persuasive and such - you can take it, take the class, lose a level, lose the feat, get the level back, get a different feat. The new feat can be something you need for a different PrC or just some actually good feat that you are taking because you want it.

* Gain one-time abilities over and over again. Some classes actually give you a one-time benefit when you gain the level. A certain spell you can use 3 times in your life (or only once a year), or a pile of money, or some other expendable resource/ability. If you expend it, and lse the level, and get the level back - you get the ability again.

---

Level loss doesn't work. It should be abolished.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Mole_2 »

IME permanent level loss is one of the few things that really scares players.

Especially when death has so little sting in 3E (unless you house-rule otherwise, or your campaign world is significantly different from the baseline).

To remove level loss from the game would diminish it considerably, and is far too radical a solution when the alternative is a basic administrative task and a simple houserule - lose a level and lose what you gained from it.

We use excel for character sheets and save them each level. Lose a level - just reprint the previous level's sheet and add in any non-level dependant changes (equipment and a few notes generally).
After all, virtually everyone reading this has access to a computer and there are plenty of downloadable character sheets available in a variety of formats.
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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Username17 »

Level loss was designed for a game in which XP costs were exponential for each level, and a new character started at first level.

Which is to say, when your sixth level character was removed from the game, you started with zero XP, and would get to 6th level by the time the rest of the sixth level characters in the party hit 7th.

That's not true in 3rd edition.

In 3rd edition, a character who is a couple of levels behind takes frickin forever to catch up. In the time the rest of the party gains one level, the guy 3 levels down picks up two. When the characters pick up another level - the character is two levels in the hole and picks up one and a half. Catching up takes a really, really long time.

And the world is a pretty lethal place for low level characters when you are running mid level adventures. It always has been, but character design now takes a long time. People are no longer expected to run off a bunch of first level characters who don't even have last names and then if any of them happen to get to fourth level, give them a backstory.

Heck no! In 3rd edition, if you start a new character, he starts only a level or two behind the rest of the party. If your character is for some reason 3 levels behind, you get faster results by retiring your character now than you do by trying to play this character until he matches the party average.

To remove level loss from the game would diminish it considerably

That's ridiculous.

Level loss was stupid and game mechanical back in 2nd edition when the rules worked, its even worse now.

We have vile damage and ability drain. We have forms of damge that really hurt and make people's characters be weaker in the next fight and sometimes the fight after that (and so on). We really don't need to jerk around with permanent level loss.

We use excel for character sheets and save them each level. Lose a level - just reprint the previous level's sheet and add in any non-level dependant changes (equipment and a few notes generally).


That doesn't even begin to address the part where a couple of lost levels will make people retire their characters. Not because the character is dead, or unplayable, but simply because they'd be allowed to bring in a higher level character straight out of the box.

It also doesn't address the fact that equipment is supposed to be a function of level. As you say, that equipment doesn't go away. So you have characters whose wealth levels are vastly different from their guidelines. Either before they lost a level or afterwards.

It's a whole lot of trouble, its explicitly not how level loss is "supposed" to work - and while you've mostly gotten rid of the difference engine, level loss still doesn't function properly.

Its supposed to be something you hold up to the players and say "boogey boogey boogey". That's great, but TPKs are plenty scary, thanks. Levels should never go down. Not ever.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by da_chicken »

Well, the rules never say what you should and/or shouldn't track what you gain from a level. They're completely mute on the topic. Since we track all this stuff in our games, it's unreasonable to use Skip's innane ruling in the FAQ.

IMO, the best way to deal with permanent level loss (from a redesign perspective) is to make temporary negative levels have a permanent effect until you get enough XP back. So that -1 to d20 rolls sticks with you until you regain your level or get it removed. This is, of course, effectively a -2 to all your stats. Nobody ever said level drain was weaker this way.

Also, it's easier to have a player lose level*1000 XP, rather than moving his total around. If you go below 0 XP, you die.
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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Username17 »

That would be a massive upswell in the relative costs, as the characters would then gain experience as if their level had no changed. As well as the fact that multiple lost levels would remove more absolute XP.

The number of XP which could lost in such a setup before you'd be better off starting a new character would shrink massively.

In fact, since most games let you start a character only one level lower than the party at large - and this fifth level character is going to be gaining XP at a fifth level rate (and thus get to 6th level before a 6th level character could buy off his negative level) - any negative level at all would make "smart" players start new characters.

Why not just dispense with the whole concept and outlaw all spells which raise the dead? It would have the same effect and be less game mechanical and arbitrary.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by fbmf »

If you die in the middle of an adventure in our games, we usually hit you with an XP penalty equal to 1000*whatever level you currently are at the end of the adventure, in order to give you a chance to work off some or all of the debt.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by da_chicken »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1078941912[/unixtime]]That would be a massive upswell in the relative costs, as the characters would then gain experience as if their level had no changed. As well as the fact that multiple lost levels would remove more absolute XP.


Except one of the effects of a negative level is:
"-1 effective level (whenever the creature’s level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce it by one for each negative level)."

Unless your argument is that "whenever" doesn't mean "whenever".

Which probably means you can use ennervation to get an XP boost.
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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Username17 »

Which probably means you can use ennervation to get an XP boost.


That's a unique interpretation. Not an impossible one, just one I've never considered. Now, the first inclination most people would have to such an argument is to hit you with a brick - but in fact, you may well be right.

Let's look at the descrptions:

The Energy Drain Ability Description wrote:-1 effective level (whenever a creature's level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce it by one level)


The Energy Drained Condition wrote:and -1 to effective level (for determining the power, duration, DC, and other details of spells or special abilities)


The Enervation Spell Description wrote:and -1 to effective level (for determining the power, duration, DC, and other details of spells or special abilities)


The Energy Drain Ability from the Monster Manual wrote:and loses one effective level or Hit Die (whenever level is used in a die roll or calculation


This is pretty important - and fairly contradictory. At the very least, enervation doesn't give you more XP because it is written in such a manner as you wouldn't get any more XP.

The ability of Energy Drain, however, is written in a manner in which you definitely could interpret it that you would gain more XP. It all comes down to whether it is reducing character level or class level. If it reduces character level, it has no effect on your spell penetration rolls or turning checks, but makes you more vulnerable to Holy Word and gain more experience. If it reduces your class level it buggers your turning checks, but does nothing to your XP gain.

The Energy Drain ability does not specificy. But the enervation spell and the condition of being energy drained both do - it's class level.

So it's completely up in the air until whether you'd gain XP faster or not - until you actually have a negative level, at which point the rules are quite explicit that you don't.

But good try.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Maj »

Frank wrote:In 3rd edition, a character who is a couple of levels behind takes frickin forever to catch up. In the time the rest of the party gains one level, the guy 3 levels down picks up two. When the characters pick up another level - the character is two levels in the hole and picks up one and a half. Catching up takes a really, really long time.


Obviously, I don't get the XP system because I haven't seen this issue.

Can you explain this for someone dumb like me, please?
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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by fbmf »

It took me a while to noodle this out myself. No worries.

Say for instance your party is exactly 6th level, but you've croaked three times, so you're sitting at 4500 XP and they are at 15000 XP.

Since they are 6th Level, they need 6000 XP to level up. When you get that same 6000 XP, you'll be at 10500XP, just above 5th level. They are now 7th.

When they get the needed 7000 XP to be 8th Level, you have 17500 XP, or about half way between 6th and 7th.

When they get the needed 8000 XP to be 9th level, you're at 25500, about half way through 8th level.

So on and so forth.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Username17 »

It's more than that, though.

If your party is 6th level, and you get hit for three negative levels - you have 4500 XP, and they probably have at least 15,000 XP each. They'll level when they get 6,000 XP more, you'll level when you get 1500 more.

But you actually advance faster than that. You are lower level, so when you get 1500 XP, they get only 1000 XP. And now you need 4000 XP more to gain a level and they need 5000 more, and you'll get a cool 4000 XP in the time it takes them to get only 3,000.

And now you are only one level behind, and get to pick up 2500 XP when they get the rest of their 2000 XP. So you get to half way between level 5 and level six from half way between level 3 and level 4 in the time it took your buddies to get from the bottom of sixth to the bottom of seventh.

So in the time it takes you to get 2 levels, they get 1 level. Exactly.

That's how the linear XP increase cost for each level multiplies across the logarythmic XP gains for overcoming challenge. It's really a gorgeous piece of math, and the single coolest thing in 3rd edition. It's a method by which characters and monsters can be effectively compared in terms of total power - and its why Level Drain and Mord's Disjunction break the game when they didn't in previous editions.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Maj »

I guess what I don't get is why, if they're making levels at a rate of 2/1, them catching up is slow.
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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Username17 »

It's 2/1 when they are three levels behind.

Then they are two levels behind, and the catchup rate diminishes. In one more level for your (seventh level) compatriots, you'll be getting one and a half levels - so you'll be at about an even 7th, and they'll be an even 8th.

So just to be one even level behind the rest of the party you are going to experience about 26 encounters which are completely out of your league. If you survive them all, which should take about 2 months of heavy gaming, you'll have a character approximately equal in power to the one you could bring in cold to the game 2 months from now without actually playing at all.

That's why it's slow. It's an entire quarter of games and you haven't actually passed the point where you could just bring in a new character.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Maj »

Ahh... I haven't ever seen it be a problem in any of the games I've been in.

<shrug> But at least I'm not totally delusional as to how the XP system worked.

Thanx for the explanation.
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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

Well, the lethality problem is mitagated a little because of the fact that you drag your party down a little when there's level disparity. Three sixth level characters and a third level character isn't a sixth level party. This doesn't fix the problem though. As a matter of fact it stretches the problem out because that means that your progression isn't sped up as much as Frank suggests, and as a side effect, the rest of your party is slowed down too.

I've noticed this problem in even less severe cases than what Frank suggests, too. I mean, with the way 3e and 3.5 is set up, miss a few sessions and you're down a level too.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by da_chicken »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1078975065[/unixtime]]That's why it's slow. It's an entire quarter of games and you haven't actually passed the point where you could just bring in a new character.


That's not true. Adding a new character is not explicitly covered by the rules. You could start as a 1st level PC. Obviously, there are games where your statement is true, but a blanket statement just simply doesn't work.

Nevermind the ability to recover lost levels with a spell. Unless you have no cleric in your party. But I'll assume we'll confine the theoretical analogues to plausible theoretical analogues. :)
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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Username17 »

Nevermind the ability to recover lost levels with a spell. Unless you have no cleric in your party.


I don't think that the assumption of no 7th level Cleric in a 6th level party is an unreasonable one.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by da_chicken »

No cleric and no scroll of the spell? No town nearby?

It not likely that the party is completely unable to do something about level drain over the next 30 encounters. Then again, maybe my DMs are just "nice" or "not dumb".
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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Username17 »

They actually have significantly less than 30 encounters to get a Restoration, and a Restoration will only solve one of them - however that's supposed to work (considering that at that time you no longer have a "lost level" kept track of for the one which got restored and you could jolly well just cast it again).

And sure, there are ways to counter level-loss, such as getting 3.5 NEP and just never ever suffering it in the first place. But if its curable with a little effort, how is that better or different than Vile Damage? I mean, other than the fact that it brings up some astoundingly complicated accounting and accessing of information that the game is not actually equipped to have been storing in the first place.

What's the advantage that justifies this legacy mechanic which was written before we had Vile Damage and Ability Damage, which do the same thing (make people be annoyed and at reduced capacity for a while before they exert themselves a bit and get it taken care of) better?

Experience Loss works better than the Buy-Now-Pay-Later system of aging - but only just barely. It's still a craptastic mechanic that doesn't do what it is supposed to do and doesn't need to be in the game.

Energy Drain can only be justified as required if it is non-reversable. If it is reversable, it's just like any other form of damage - and it would be a whole crap load lot easier to work it if it didn't jack around with your XP totals.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Mole_2 »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1078939583[/unixtime]]
In 3rd edition, a character who is a couple of levels behind takes frickin forever to catch up. In the time the rest of the party gains one level, the guy 3 levels down picks up two. When the characters pick up another level - the character is two levels in the hole and picks up one and a half. Catching up takes a really, really long time.


Except that a lower level character gets more xp from an encounter than his higher level associates and needs less for the next level anyway.
It takes time, but not a "really really" long time.

This can also throw up anomalies.
In one campaign I played a crafting spellcaster. I was a few hundred xp behind the rest. They just got a level, I just didnt.
We had a massive encounter. I got more xp for being a level lower.
So much more that I should have overtaken the others and had the most xp in the party !

Perhaps we should remove xp from the game too. Because it can throw up anomalies.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1078939583[/unixtime]]
To remove level loss from the game would diminish it considerably

That's ridiculous.



Removing something diminishes the thing it has been removed from.
Basic English. What is ridiculous about that ?

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1078939583[/unixtime]]
We have vile damage


Do you ?
I dont.
I scanned the srd and the indexes of my books, no mention of vile damage.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1078939583[/unixtime]]
That doesn't even begin to address the part where a couple of lost levels will make people retire their characters. Not because the character is dead, or unplayable, but simply because they'd be allowed to bring in a higher level character straight out of the box.


So, your players are powerplayers.
If they retire a character for being 2 levels lower, then fair enough, ban level loss from your games. Or more simply, make level draining creatures, spells and items diminishingly rare in your games.


FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1078939583[/unixtime]]
It also doesn't address the fact that equipment is supposed to be a function of level. As you say, that equipment doesn't go away. So you have characters whose wealth levels are vastly different from their guidelines.


And the problem with that is ?
Having equipment above you level guideline surely means you can take on harder encounters and get xp faster and help mitigate your earlier comment about how long it takes to recover lost xp....
Do you actually play to the treasure/level guidelines ?

FrankTrollman wrote:
it brings up some astoundingly complicated accounting

:wtf:
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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Username17 »

Except that a lower level character gets more xp from an encounter than his higher level associates and needs less for the next level anyway.
It takes time, but not a "really really" long time.


That's included in the rate of level gain I reported. If players got XP at the same rate, characters 1 level behind at 6th level would take about 5 levels to sort-of catch up. Fortunately, we don't do that (although as long as people are talking about their crazy house rules - some people do).

Perhaps we should remove xp from the game too. Because it can throw up anomalies.


If you mean XP costs - then absolutely the answer is yes.

Those things are suppsed to be a cost - although with breakpoints and such you can arrange to have it not be one. Further, as you get higher in level, the absolute XP cost becomes a lower relative cost. Item Creation always eventually becomes a better deal than level gaining.

So, your players are powerplayers.
If they retire a character for being 2 levels lower, then fair enough, ban level loss from your games. Or more simply, make level draining creatures, spells and items diminishingly rare in your games.


Nobody wants to retire beloved characters. Retiring characters for that kind of a problem is, in my opinion, bad role playing. However, the fact is that that kind of activity is encouraged by the current version of level loss.

The game mechanics of Level Loss actively reward temper tantrums and bad RP and don't serve any other function.

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Crissa »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1079023212[/unixtime]]
So, your players are powerplayers.
If they retire a character for being 2 levels lower, then fair enough, ban level loss from your games. Or more simply, make level draining creatures, spells and items diminishingly rare in your games.


Nobody wants to retire beloved characters. Retiring characters for that kind of a problem is, in my opinion, bad role playing. However, the fact is that that kind of activity is encouraged by the current version of level loss.

The game mechanics of Level Loss actively reward temper tantrums and bad RP and don't serve any other function.

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Someone needs to record that: Frank supporting roleplaying over powergaming. I usually only get to see that in person ^-^

Yeah, being down a level also gives these annoying gaps of this adventure where they're behind, sortof caught up, the they're behind again... And if you have XP costs thrown into it, the person behind is 'just catching up' while the rest of the group is just cashing it in like bandits...

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Re: The Difference Engine: Level Loss and Power

Post by Draco_Argentum »

Level loss requires work and is not scary since it is reversable. Everyone who has posted on this thread can come up with a simpler and scarier system. Thats why level loss is bad.
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