AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

How powerful is a level 30 PC? It came up in several threads that the amian epic is not really the forgotten realms epic, but more around the lines of a level 15 if I remember correctly.

If they are around a level 15, how come they can at level 30 jump into the pits of the abyss itself or join a crusade against other demon hordes? Or why can they conjure a full grown dragon?

If they are on the line of level 15, can we perhaps tone down on some of the epicness itself, like making the edks downscaled by 20% to make them juveniles for instance? Could we perhaps make sure we cant kill an army of balors, but such things are left for dm plots where they are dangerous entities, as they should be for a level 15?

Before someone asks the reason for this, I would just state that I would like to push amia on its continued way of making more sense and being less abstract.

Discuss.

It's pretty commonly accepted that the dragons in Amia (inc EDK) aren't Adults or Mature Adults unless specifically noted as such (Dark Flight, for example, were rather old). Hence they're relatively small if you actually look at 'em.

That said - fixing up all of the issues you noted such as the epic hunting areas is relatively hard to do. Just imagine the workload. Disco may be insane, but he's not completely off his rocker yet.

Thus, I put it down to this understanding;

You are Level 30, and you are quite powerful.

But due to houseruling setting wise - becoming that experienced simply isn't that hard in a comparative sense.

That's from my personal PoV, however.

Quote:

Thus, I put it down to this understanding;

You are Level 30, and you are quite powerful.

But due to houseruling setting wise - becoming that experienced simply isn't that hard in a comparative sense.

That's from my personal PoV, however.

Yep, IMO

(The Dark Flight were all Ancient Wyrms, btw, which is why it took 45-50 PCs all working together to down 6 of them, and pretty much all of you together to kill Infernus.

I kind of enjoy servers where epic levels are slowed with exp caps and thus epicness means something, but realize that is never suitable for Amia.

There is not much that can be done.

WonWon wrote:

That said - fixing up all of the issues you noted such as the epic hunting areas is relatively hard to do. Just imagine the workload. Disco may be insane, but he's not completely off his rocker yet.

Correction: Uberuce. I wouldn't have to do a lot of work.

I would have honestly preferred a level 20 cap but it would mean too much work to remodel, like WonWon pointed out.

The only thing I absolutely love about epic levels is the EDK, but I'm obsessed with summons.

I don't own any PnP material, so this problem simply isn't a problem for me. We steal wholesale from FR because that's vastly easier then inventing an entire canon of lore, but Amia is Amia, and PnP is PnP.

Amian PC's and monsters are as strong you see them be.

WonWon wrote:

Thus, I put it down to this understanding;

You are Level 30, and you are quite powerful.

But due to houseruling setting wise - becoming that experienced simply isn't that hard in a comparative sense.

That's from my personal PoV, however.

I'd share that opinion too.

Uberuce wrote:

Amia is Amia, and PnP is PnP.

And there are more hardcore PnP servers out there.
Tweaking Amia in that direction will break it.

yes level wise we are powerful in FR I think but we are no where near as powerful as them in terms of items.

look at Wondrous Items that are in FR, we dont have that kind of crafting power, think if everyone had Horns of Valhalla, people would be running around with like a small army.

corypx wrote:

yes level wise we are powerful in FR I think but we are no where near as powerful as them in terms of items.

look at Wondrous Items that are in FR, we dont have that kind of crafting power, think if everyone had Horns of Valhalla, people would be running around with like a small army.

We probably don't need to worry about items - even without them, if we were set loose on vanilla FR we would wreak havoc. FR may be the Superhero campaign with the high concentration of Epics, but I'm quite sure we could destroy several armies (or break several nations). Not to mention we cold destroy a hell of a lot by just flooding the economy.

Wyjyn: Loving all of you (and above all Disco) since 11 Jan 2007.

corypx wrote:

yes level wise we are powerful in FR I think but we are no where near as powerful as them in terms of items.

look at Wondrous Items that are in FR, we dont have that kind of crafting power, think if everyone had Horns of Valhalla, people would be running around with like a small army.

+5 gear in FR is pretty well above epic, to my knowledge. It is really godlike.

+5 is actually level 17-20 range. For level 30, we should actually be going up to +7 +3ENCH bonus. But, we're weird. +5 is easy to balance for, anyway.

Phearnun wrote:

How powerful is a level 30 PC? It came up in several threads that the amian epic is not really the forgotten realms epic, but more around the lines of a level 15 if I remember correctly.

If they are around a level 15, how come they can at level 30 jump into the pits of the abyss itself or join a crusade against other demon hordes? Or why can they conjure a full grown dragon?

If they are on the line of level 15, can we perhaps tone down on some of the epicness itself, like making the edks downscaled by 20% to make them juveniles for instance? Could we perhaps make sure we cant kill an army of balors, but such things are left for dm plots where they are dangerous entities, as they should be for a level 15?

Before someone asks the reason for this, I would just state that I would like to push amia on its continued way of making more sense and being less abstract.

Discuss.

From my PoV you are perhaps wanting to expand the level range on Amia from 30 to at least 40, but no so immediately and abruptly as I have just put it.

Dramatic_Prince wrote:

Uberuce wrote:

Amia is Amia, and PnP is PnP.

And there are more hardcore PnP servers out there.
Tweaking Amia in that direction will break it.

Same was said about platinum requests for special races. Same was said about almost any subject in these days. I hardly believe that making amia more sensible, with the intention to make things more interresting, would break the server.

Smaller dragons, less 1 rambo (Ruce) against the entire russian army (abyss spawns with huge evil wicked demons that should be able to be trouble for an entire adventuring group) and reserving those truely epic things for epic events, viola. At least in my mind, but I in general apply what I think as what is best.

O'Raghailligh wrote:

From my PoV you are perhaps wanting to expand the level range on Amia from 30 to at least 40, but no so immediately and abruptly as I have just put it.

Last time that was brought up, Ruce said that there's no way he could keep the monsters balanced to be able to take on the builds people like him would create without completely destroying non-powerbuilds.

Wyjyn: Loving all of you (and above all Disco) since 11 Jan 2007.

Level 40 on amia? hahaha, you DO NOT want mages getting epic warding.

Let's just stick with "it's fine as it is"?

WonWon wrote:

+5 is actually level 17-20 range. For level 30, we should actually be going up to +7 +3ENCH bonus. But, we're weird. +5 is easy to balance for, anyway.

Actually.. My copy of 3.5 says that a level 20 warrior should be equipped with a +7 weapon.
Under the section if you want to start your characters of at a different level than 1.

Economy wise do level 20 characters have 650k gold to spend on equipment I think.

Phearnun wrote:

Before someone asks the reason for this, I would just state that I would like to push amia on its continued way of making more sense and being less abstract.

That abstraction is necessary and we DMs need it. Yes, it hurts your ability as a player to have total control over your own universe, but you don't and shouldn't have that anyway.

Yurell wrote:

O'Raghailligh wrote:

From my PoV you are perhaps wanting to expand the level range on Amia from 30 to at least 40, but no so immediately and abruptly as I have just put it.

Last time that was brought up, Ruce said that there's no way he could keep the monsters balanced to be able to take on the builds people like him would create without completely destroying non-powerbuilds.

Ugh, 40, horrible.

Dev Disco wrote:

Let's just stick with "it's fine as it is"

Don't think remaking the level range does improve RP by much, but areas like the Abyss can be made more sensible without touching the max level. If I'd want to make things more sensible, I would start a discussion on the PC notice boards and the culture there. Maybe for another thread?

just as a comparison, Elminster is only level 32.

Psh, and some of the Gods are only 20, are as tough as a level 30, but can be beaten with ease by a 25 from here

A poor comparison. Elminster "is 32" (which is very arbitrary and unreliable) in WotC's canon Realms. In Amia's Realms, Elminster is maybe about 45, with the kind of spells no PCs could develop. That's just how it goes: if you want to be epic, you have to stand out from the masses. If the masses can easily get to level 30, that obviously doesn't stand out and therefore, loses its epicness. You can only define "high" and "low" in comparison to something else, such as "the average adventurer." In our setting, the average adventurer is somewhere around 20. Not just on Amia, obviously, but everywhere in the world.

Amia = Amia.
PnP = PnP

The two may share some similarities, but that does not mean PnP Must = Amia.

Encounter difficulty, Deity power levels, are something that is entirely up to the staff. It is 'Amia Flavor' brand Ice-cream and it scales to level fine imo.

No matter how experienced your PC is, the equivilant power to weight ratio between the average adventuror and gods, is still static and upheld already.

Dealing with 'Epic bosses' which are level 41, compared to thirty, will sort of put things into perspective. I'd assume that the greater powers are lvl 60+ class wise, annnd have 'Perks' beyond anything their stat sheets say for being divine.

I understand what you mean and what you want. But there can be ways to do it, even with the same models PvM wise without dm intervention, if you want 'tougher' areas. Descriptions, size increases and overall 'dreadful' feelings, to understand that these arent the 'Normal low level Demons' you deal with in the Abyss. This is something DMs can easily accomplish already, and have. I don't think anyone had an issue with the power of the Avatar of Set that trampled into N'sek, for example.

HellScourge wrote:

Psh, and some of the Gods are only 20, are as tough as a level 30, but can be beaten with ease by a 25 from here

That's class levels. All gods also have at *least* 20 hitdice in outside giving them 20 BAB and all favored svae,s feats, etc etc

along with salient divine abilities....

http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineRanksPowers.htm

I had to play a Divine Rank 0 PC in a PNP campaign once. It's interested to read about.

~~~~~

Quote:

I don't think anyone had an issue with the power of the Avatar of Set that trampled into N'sek, for example.

I caught a few grumbles about it being plotted and therefore truly invincible, but it was a course of plot and a result of all the combined PC failures. I'm fairly sure I made a topic here in GD about it when I heard the frustration.

Levels here are easily attainable. That means no matter if the characters will max out at 20, 30 or 40.. they could never be considered EPIC. What is typical is also considered average, simple as that.

heres fact we can all agree on, NWN was not made to be a max level of 20, so why even think about it, unless you want epic feats to be open at 10+ and half every thing so that take 10 levels to get the skill now takes 5.

TormakSaber wrote:

HellScourge wrote:

Psh, and some of the Gods are only 20, are as tough as a level 30, but can be beaten with ease by a 25 from here

That's class levels. All gods also have at *least* 20 hitdice in outside giving them 20 BAB and all favored svae,s feats, etc etc

along with salient divine abilities....

http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineRanksPowers.htm

I had to play a Divine Rank 0 PC in a PNP campaign once. It's interested to read about.

Hmm, interesting to read. Thanks for the link.

corypx wrote:

heres fact we can all agree on, NWN was not made to be a max level of 20, so why even think about it, unless you want epic feats to be open at 10+ and half every thing so that take 10 levels to get the skill now takes 5.

Actually it was made exactly so... before Hordes of the Underdark.

TormakSaber wrote:

corypx wrote:

heres fact we can all agree on, NWN was not made to be a max level of 20, so why even think about it, unless you want epic feats to be open at 10+ and half every thing so that take 10 levels to get the skill now takes 5.

Actually it was made exactly so... before Hordes of the Underdark.

well my point was with amia you need all the X-pacs so undoing it all would be silly.

...What the hells is FR???

Morene Armande wrote:

...What the hells is FR???

Acronym for "Forgotten Realms"

IMHO, Amia is PNP on steriods. That seems to be its big attraction. IF you want a product more closely aligned to PnP in terms of power and so forth, I would say that Arelith (moderate to low magic) fits that bill nicely or if you think that's still overpowered, City of Arabel (low magic) is set in the FR setting and is equivalent to the hardcore PnP setting of a typical campaign that you would be used to in a paperbased game.

Both of those persistent worlds have permadeath and all that too.

Amia = moderate+ in the magic range and powerlevel

In PnP, the typical range of an adventurer is level 7 (that's the average level probably on Arelith too btw).

In many ways, Amia has mechanically, some great features above and beyond those other servers and I do believe its roleplaying standards are slowly improving culture wise although still not quite as high as those other servers on the hardcore RP front.

To me, if we can continue to improve the culture here towards higher roleplaying standards you'd find in a typical PnP game, I'd be happy.

I'm less fussed about scaling back the server to fit the same powerlevels of a PnP game in a typical FR based setting (e.g., Arelith has done this) in a mechanical sense.

FR is incredibly high magic and honestly Amia isn't too far off from it.

As for "standards of RP" that problem exists solely in your own head. We don't hold anyone to a higher or lower standard of RP than they have anywhere else.

There is no "typical FR based setting" because it all comes down to what the DM wants to do. When you hit high levels, as far as "Typical FR" re: the sourcebooks, DMG, gold value per character level are concerned, you all are low magic. None of you are wearing belts of STR +10, you don't havbe +7 to +8 weapons.

TormakSaber wrote:

FR is incredibly high magic and honestly Amia isn't too far off from it.

That's why I liken it to 'Marvel Superheroes' honestly ... it's a high-powered campaign setting, filled with high-level characters and high-powered magic items. And it's up to the DM to scale it as they see appropriate.

Heroes are supposed to be epic! Killing armies of demons and gods is what dnd is about, not about common farmers tending their fields. :roll:

So instead of proclaiming our characters as non epics or as only level 15s, everything else in the setting is scaled up. We're epics but NPCs are super epics with levels 30s-60s?

Well, some NPCs, but yes. That's even what Wizards suggest, re deities. "If you campaign has high level characters, scale the deities up appropriately".

Aye ... you scale the campaign up, and not the players down. That way players keep a sense of achievement and the campaign doesn't become too easy.

ticket wrote:

We're epics but NPCs are super epics with levels 30s-60s?

Never mind that. Simple guard next door prob has 127 spot. Talk about hax.

What many said. I completely disagree with Sound's analysis of NWN servers: none of them are anywhere close to canon Realms or "standard PnP." It has nothing to do with magic level or power. Here comes the real reason: we have up to 130 players online at the same time. Anyone can play 24/7, and freely gain experience.

Compare that to a PnP campaign: you have a party of maybe five adventurers. There are other similar bands in the region, but they're few enough to rarely cross your path. Your spends days on the road and solving puzzles, gaining XP as the DM dictates. There's no possibility to "grind." Most characters also die sooner or later, or otherwise end their adventurer careers.

The kind of environment where a hundred players can log on, play "unique heroes," fight monsters as often and for as long as they like, where PCs live forever as adventurers and advance in levels towards a cap, will always have this problem. It has nothing to do with magic level. There is a cap, and the cap can be reached by anyone and everyone. And it will happen. The cap is 30, because that's about what NWN was designed for (rules that go up to 40), but the situation wouldn't be any better if the cap was 10: everyone would still be "the most powerful adventurers in the region," epic would lose its meaning because you couldn't go beyond the level everyone else can reach, and people would still like to kill scary monsters.

It's a bit silly to say we shouldn't be killing demons; maybe so, but NWN has an extremely limited creature model selection. Sticking with orcs and wolves might be better for atmosphere, but it would be rather boring.

IronAngel wrote:

[...]everyone would still be "the most powerful adventurers in the region," epic would lose its meaning because you couldn't go beyond the level everyone else can reach [...]

All safe for nifty Tieflings who actually get the required XP to circumvent the Max level cap by gaining 1 xp per kill.

Granted, it has been fixed, but it was there once.

There's not a lot you can reasonably throw at a party of well-equipped 30s that will make them feel challenged.

More to the point from level 3 to 30, you don't see players visiting every place where they could find monsters because they seem to get wise to what places give XP faster, regardless of what the actual challenge to them is.

Selmak wrote:

There's not a lot you can reasonably throw at a party of well-equipped 30s that will make them feel challenged.

Sure you can. More AB, AC, HP, better buffs, deadlier spells etc. are all doable. I don't see the relevant difference between level 30 and level 10, if the environment is designed with that level cap in mind.

On Arabel you get asked by DM's to retire your characters once they reach a point where they are too powerful for the module.

IronAngel wrote:

Selmak wrote:

There's not a lot you can reasonably throw at a party of well-equipped 30s that will make them feel challenged.

Sure you can. More AB, AC, HP, better buffs, deadlier spells etc. are all doable.

Reminds me of the fight I ahd with my level 13 toon, was accompanied by a 30, against a Bebelith. 'Nuff said, we both were not optimized, nor was I able to do a lot, but we beat the Demon.

It was very rewarding, but that beast was immune to crits and sneaks and we only hit it with a natural 20.

Still, it was a lot of fun because it was so challenging and not just over in a few seconds.
I think the battle lasted 15 minutes of forth and back while we used the terrain to our advantage (Read: The bebelith could not follow us through some building, but it could walk around again)

Dev Disco wrote:

Let's just stick with "it's fine as it is"?

IMHO

IronAngel wrote:

What many said. I completely disagree with Sound's analysis of NWN servers: none of them are anywhere close to canon Realms or "standard PnP." It has nothing to do with magic level or power. Here comes the real reason: we have up to 130 players online at the same time. Anyone can play 24/7, and freely gain experience.

Compare that to a PnP campaign: you have a party of maybe five adventurers. There are other similar bands in the region, but they're few enough to rarely cross your path. Your spends days on the road and solving puzzles, gaining XP as the DM dictates. There's no possibility to "grind." Most characters also die sooner or later, or otherwise end their adventurer careers.

The kind of environment where a hundred players can log on, play "unique heroes," fight monsters as often and for as long as they like, where PCs live forever as adventurers and advance in levels towards a cap, will always have this problem. It has nothing to do with magic level. There is a cap, and the cap can be reached by anyone and everyone. And it will happen. The cap is 30, because that's about what NWN was designed for (rules that go up to 40), but the situation wouldn't be any better if the cap was 10: everyone would still be "the most powerful adventurers in the region," epic would lose its meaning because you couldn't go beyond the level everyone else can reach, and people would still like to kill scary monsters.

It's a bit silly to say we shouldn't be killing demons; maybe so, but NWN has an extremely limited creature model selection. Sticking with orcs and wolves might be better for atmosphere, but it would be rather boring.

In most PnP games I've seen, most are of the magic style/level of City of Arabel. A few more than that are closer to Arelith's slow levelling but still able to attain level 30 after a long period of play. However, some do skip straight to the epic adventurer's scenario and start off the campaign from there. Its really up to the DMs and players what level they start off at. You disagree with me, but I'm just reiterating the OP so you really just disagree with the OP but I'm an easier target I guess. The only difference is, I don't mind us deciding to skip to a level 30 campaign so to speak.

To epic or not to epic.

Who is online