Magic the Adventures

[Whipstitch]

The problem is if you're actually going to give Planeswalkers abilities that matter instead of just magic tea partying everything then you really should be thinking of where that fits in balance wise. Otherwise there's not much point in bothering with levels and such in the first place.

[Prak]

Sure. But saying that you auto-level into Planeswalkers puts a hard limit on the level of non-planeswalkers, and there should be some overlap in power level. While Gideon gains Indestructable when he strides into battle as a 6/6, it's entirely possible for a pair of Scourge Servents to put him down. For that matter, an Arctic Nishoba under the effect of the right kind of baleful magic can too. Being a planeswalker means you're resilient and can planar travel and channel mana from other planes, not that there are no non-planeswalkers who can fight you on equal terms. It just means that most such creatures are actually unique people or powerful monsters. Most. Some are just furry dudes who run in packs.

I'd have to give the database a look over, but I'm reasonably certain a lot of the big planeswalker abilities are available on non-planeswalkers.

[Mechalich]

The reason to have everyone become a planeswalker is so that everyone, regardless of base class, can freely transition into superhero mode past some threshold and make high-level campaigns viable.

If you don't want everyone to become planewalkers you need to think of equivalent fluff transitions suitable for converting an otherwise normal D&D character into a superhero. You could allow characters to have multiple options: getting infected by phyrexian oil, feeding your soul to an eldrazi, etc, but this seems needlessly complex.

Yes having everyone become a planeswalker in a party beats up on the fluff a bit, but the reality is games that start at levels 1-5 rarely pass level 10. Most planeswalker tier games would happen with the characters rolling up planeswalkers to begin with, which bypasses the 'everyone gained the spark at once' problem.

And I certainly wouldn't make planeswalker status an automatic upgrade. There obviously should be some sort of quest-based requirement to 'awaken the spark' and gain access to planeswalker powers. There's a number of ways to structure that.

[Prak]

Are you, like, willfully ignoring the fact that my problem is entirely with "*DING* We're all planeswalkers because we're level 10 now!"? Because that is literally my entire point of umbrage. I don't give a flying fuck at the not-moon that it makes the most sense for the entire party to become planeswalkers at the same time, my problem is solely with saying that every CR 10 person in the game has to be a planeswalker.

[Mechalich]

You can easily say that only people with PC classes are eligible to become planeswalkers and that you need 10 levels of those to hit planeswalker mode. That would allow for variation in precisely when all party members hit the limit (because of ECL) and would allow NPC types to progress much further as non-planeswalkers by advancing as monsters (which is what the overwhelming majority of really powerful things in MtG are) or using NPC classes.

Also, a secondary reason to transition into an alternative form of advancement is to make lower-level creatures much more viable against 'high-level' beings. I don't suggest that Planeswalker is a class, exactly. Rather I'm actually suggesting a modified E10 system for D&D MtG. The main reason why I think doing something like that is important, is that otherwise all the Planeswalkers are epic-level individuals and you're just recreating the Forgotten Realms and won't be able to capture the feel of MtG - where little creatures with badass abilities remain important at the highest level of play - at all.

[deaddmwalking]

I'm with Prak.

There are lots of ways to do high level abilities. Planeswalkers aren't necessarily better than other creatures, so other creatures shouldn't be required to become a planeswalker.

If you do it right, Planeswalker is an option. Most parties will want at least one when it comes online, but they may all want to be one.

The Planeswalker is probably going to have some abilities that aren't in line with their existing class, so gaining abilities in that existing class might be a better option for some people. Planeswalker could be represented by a prestige class.

Considering some of the 'flip' planeswalkers in Magic: Origins (like Nissa, Vastwood Seer), I think planeswalking should come on board long before level 10.

[Username17]

A closer proxy for character power is mana cost rather than power or toughness. Lots of very powerful creatures have low combat stats, especially Wizards and Shamans. And I think we can all agree that conceptually there's no difficulty with caster types being high level. Most of the planeswalkers don't have combat stats and many of them don't have creature killing powers either.

Now obviously some cards have discounted mana costs for having drawbacks or have an inflated cost because of cost mitigation shenanigans like Delve or Convoke. More importantly, some cards are good and others are shit. I think it trivially obvious that players would rather be good cards than shit ones. But it's also important to remember that in the card game cards are good or bad compared to their costs, while the player characters are going to be already in play, so to speak. A Grey Ogre is a more powerful creature than a Savannah Lion, though the latter is a much better card.

So low level characters are going to be a one mana card that is pretty good, like a Llanowar Elf or a Thraben Inspecter. And a high level character is going to be a 6 mana card that is good like Chandra Flamecaller or a Necropolis Regent. And it is importantly true that characters in the middle of that progression might end up being a 4 mana card that is shit or something, because that's still more raw power on the table than a good 1 mana creature. For example, our Llanowar Elf character could grow up to be a Lifespring Druid down the line, which is a much worse card because it costs more but is a much better creature because it has better stats and is better at mana fixing.

-Username17