How Does a Table Handle Character Level Differences?

[@dascientist8443]

To be fair to XP levelling, one thing you brushed over is you are meant to give XP for “defeating” and encounter, not killing the creatures in it. Socialling or stealthing past a fight gives you the XP you would have gotten for fighting it. The main benefit of milestone imo is controlling the pace of level up without throwing massive amounts of irrelevant, time-wasting fights at the party to give them the needed XP. That and it avoids having to worry about this issue at all because having a level simply doesn’t do what you want it to portray well enough to make up for the issues it introduces.

[@PlayYourRole]

I will entirely admit: I played XP leveling for the first few months of my first campaign, swapped to milestone, and never looked back. So I do not have a ton of experience on it and therefore probably missed a lot on that topic. I apologize!

[@ZarHakkar]

The main benefit of milestone is that it's easier to track. You can easily control the pace of leveling up by giving the party large amounts of XP for say, completing story-relevant quests or stuff. However, you can also award smaller amounts of XP for roleplaying or doing cool stuff during the session, which makes the players feel special.

[@Hephaestus_God]

@@PlayYourRole LIke Da Scientist said. In your video I believe you took XP to be individual. However what you are really doing is just diving the XP a group of Monsters would give equally to each party member. The DM can do this on their own meaning no players ever have to touch or know their own experience, and everyone levels at the same time.

[@yurilenci]

That's actually the main point! I give XP and wanted my players to skip past a couple levels on the low levels of the campaign, so I made them sneak into a dragons lair to recover some magic items, they actually did it, leaving the lair without being noticed and I gave them the XP, but it also set them for a big boss fight with and adult red dragon later on

[@theflyingtoaster7414]

A little Side Note, if you wanted to enable this sort of level disparity even in a milestone game the "Training to Gain Levels" Part of Chapter 6 of the DMG is a very useful rule to try. In general, this rule requires a player commit downtime and money to gain the benefits of leveling up. This helps encourage/enable downtime and gold to become more precious while also allowing milestone leveling to reduce stringent bookkeeping. This also allows players chose weather to spend long hours leveling up, or doing something else in their downtime, such as buying magic items or starting a business. making them lower level for a brief period of time for some more worldly benefits. I hope this was useful, I personally use a pool'd exp system and this rule has encouraged me to give my players more downtime and prevent them from becoming superheroes in about a month in game time. and made the items and effects where they could level up instantly feel alot more special. Thank you for reading my comment.

[@DieDieNacho]

This is a concept that on paper seems like would be a bad idea, especially for players who like to hog the spot light or build very strong characters. But I could see it working a bit for a character who is built more so around buffing the party and inspiring them to be better in combat or otherwise. It's a thin line, but could be done for some cool story purposes.

[@PlayYourRole]

Really it comes down to this question: Does your party like focusing on combat and coming out on top, or do they like having more interesting stories to tell? Both play styles are valid, but a higher level character will (almost) never work with the former group.

[@DieDieNacho]

@@PlayYourRole Very true. I've been a part of a group where a majority of them really like to focus on the combat, but over the years have opened up to the story telling aspects this game can hold.

[@codeghost7715]

Alright man, it’s time you answer the big question: “How to script/plan a story in DnD?” You’ve made quite a few videos on the story aspect of DnD, which I love extremely. The beauty of DnD storytelling, beauty of character arcs, how to be motivated in DnD, etc. But now? Since you’ve expressed how beautiful but ALSO how unpredictable DnD is, how exactly can you script an adventure whether it be a one shot or an entire series? I want you to do a complete run down on the process, and perhaps even provide examples. I wish you luck, my favorite KZbinr

[@vincent-antoinesoucy1872]

I can only say, one of my worst experience came from coming at a table with DM's girlfriend being level 99 and central to the story and us being level 1. He wasen't a bad DM be he genuinely though that her character having played more time in the campaign deserved more XP and parts in the story. Well this game didn't last long and we know why.

[@PlayYourRole]

The thing a DM HAS to keep in mind is that every player at the table should be getting what they enjoy out of the game. Now, this can be tricky because sometimes it means a player doesn't necessarily belong at the table. If everyone wants to kick down doors and kill monsters, but one player wants to have a drama filled story... That player probably won't have fun and belongs in another group. So for a situation like that, it's very important for the DM to find out if the players are all getting what they hope to out of the game or else it won't really come through all that well.

[@garnarum]

Hi! Could you make a video helping my situation? I have a character, who really dislikes my friend's character. At first I was mad, but soon I decided it was a good dynamic I've never RPed before. We talked and I explained to her that this is just our characters and I still treat her well. She seemed to understand, but I see it's being uncomfortable for her to differentiate our relationships. Is it even a good idea to play characters who hate each other? Or is it possible to make it comfortable and cool?

[@benjaminholcomb9478]

That is an excellent question. To me it seems perfectly reasonable, but not everyone can do that. (Especialy less experienced/ mature roleplayers) I too would love a full length video on the topic to really dig into it and prompt everyone's comments.

[@percussiveseer415]

Maybe one of the reasons she likes playing D&D with you, her friend, is so that you can be friends together in a fantasy world? If so, even though she understands the character dynamics vs your friendship, maybe it still doesn't make her like the idea. Not saying its 100% the case but it might be worth asking her. Theoretically though, I agree with Benjamin just above, it is very much possible with the right people on both sides. It's possible to roleplay any dynamic if everyone is fully on board and tells the other if things stop being fun!

[@benjaminholcomb9478]

@@percussiveseer415 for sure. It could even be that she understands intellectually, but it doesn't sit right emotionally 1. It can still hurt even if she knows you're faking it. 2. Even if she's not offended, the cognitive dissonance might be too nich to shake.

[@vincent-antoinesoucy1872]

If she says she's cool with it but doesn't look like she's cool with it, she is not cool with it and you should find a new way to play where everyone enjoy themselves.

[@Rick-oi3xm]

IMO it's important for the relationship to change as the game continues. it might be good for the characters to start easing up on each other/actually bonding at some point, especially if it's causing tension out of game. They are teammates at the end of the day, and that progression from hatred to mutual respect can be a pretty cool roleplay experience too.

[@zachfarrellEL]

3.5 has "rubberbanding" on its XP to address this exact issue. If you're underleveled, you gain XP faster, and if you're overleveled, you gain XP slower.

[@TemronTM]

In the campaign I'm currently playing in, we've been at different levels most of the time. We play 3.5e, so we lose a level when we die, and we all have level adjustments. Our warlock is an Aasimar with a level adjustment of +1 who has died once, our rogue/swashbuckler is a Tiefling with a LA of +1 who has died three times, and my fighter/druid is a half-dragon with a LA of +3 who has died twice. Our exp is a mess at this point :D

[@zeldacadenza9511]

I was recently in a group where we were all already friends, most of the group was new, and one of those new players quickly grew disinterested as the game moved on. In hindsight I think it had a lot to do with a less-than-stellar DM, but that’s not important for this, what’s important is that the friend really wanted to keep coming to sessions to hang out with us and have a fun time, but was really starting to feel like D&D wasn’t for them. Their character began to reflect this too, having one single-minded goal connected to their backstory and not really engaging with the story a whole lot. They weren’t a burden, none of us resented them for it at all, especially since we were already friends, but it was sad to see them becoming less involved. In hindsight, had I been running that game, I might have considered pulling them aside to propose the idea of making their character a much higher level, which would have fit well with their backstory, and would have made sense for their character to keep hidden since they weren’t exactly the trusting type. I think this would’ve worked perfectly for them and their character, especially being a cleric, as they could feel less pressured to constantly participate in the game, while still getting a say in things and being effective when they chose to step in. It’s also entirely possible that being a higher level with better skills and more options could’ve made them realize they did enjoy D&D, just not so much the early game. It wouldn’t have been a perfect fix, but I think it would’ve made the experience way more enjoyable for everyone at the table, I’ve even talked to those friends about this and they completely agreed that they would’ve loved to see that.

[@luckypeanut9943]

I've been wanting to run a bounty hunting campaign where the players who show up get to play, and eventually it'll turn into a storyline but the first few months will simply be small questlines from the guild/npcs. There's definitely going to be level issues so I was super hype to watch this

[@ancientdarkmagic1409]

I once ran a campaign where basically the way you level up your character was in attendance. Your character levels up after a certain amount of session you attended. Luckily it was a big party group of 7 which I establish that if 4 can attend the session we run the session as normal if not we postpone. But in order to make sure some of my players didn't fall behind I gave level ups to the entire party on story mild stone. So that way I get to reward those players who have been constantly attending the campaign while I make sure that others don't fall behind. As far as story, I made sure that I made a story that tied the party as a whole, similar to how in RPG the party just arrives in the plot location, but make sure to add elements of there character backstory in order to make them personal and interactive.

[@shinrafugitives3880]

I think the best way to handle this I'd to look at it from a survival perspective. In the old-school, players actually hoped that the others would be playing higher level characters than themselves, especially if those other characters were thieves and clerics, because those two classes were vital to survival and could possibly make undead and traps a non-issue. So if you have high lethality, level differences could be a pretty welcomed at the table.

[@greygoblin9491]

You shouldn't have different levels in a combat focused game, in a social game it can actually be a good thing. High level character talks to the king while the low level character talks to the guard and bolth have an equal on equal conversation which usually gets the best information.

[@PlayYourRole]

THIS right here. It depends on what your table cares about, if your table cares more about combat than much else this is typically a bad idea.

[@TheKabukimann]

Travis played the level difference perfectly. He was supposed to not pull the party but give them a reason to come together.

[@nemonomen3340]

I like the idea of a high level swashbuckler who’s always putting handicaps on himself just to show off because he’s secretly insecure. Of course, his careless attitude would annoy the party and eventually have serious consequences. I imagine he’d go out in a blaze of glory to try righting the damages he’s caused.

[@zacharycasey150]

Alternatively you could really just do, well, little to nothing. As with most advice it depends on your table but having one or more players that your character can look up to as "I wanna be as powerful as they are someday" can be pretty cool, and given how D&D works its almost inpossible that your character won't have a moment in the spotlight as A. you get a turn no matter what your dex is and B. In social encounters everyone has equal input (aside from things like the charm spells but those are quite low level and most of the time aren't neccessary or maybe even impractical for the encounter). Ive played in groups like this and it was pretty fun to have this dynamic of someone having a few more tricks up their sleeve than I did but it didn't matter because the few tricks I had still mattered. Often the dynamic you described in this happens naturally without having to interfere at all. I remember in an old group of mine we used to have a wizard that was a few levels higher than me and he was obviously more powerful but my paladin was still useful and fun to play, he would nearly clear a room with a fireball but then I would run in and smite the one baddy left standing and kill it, and thats how it was for most of the players. The only real problems that occur are when the level disparity is drastic, like 5 levels or more, because then as DM it becomes difficult to run an encounter where its even a threat to them and not a death sentence to everyone else, thats why I think its generally a bad idea to even let that happen, and its not even because the player overshadows everyone else because even then everyone gets a place to shine its just mechanically its difficult to find that balance where the high level player isnt just exceedingly bored while still making sure the other players dont get one hit KO'd

[@Hedge_Knight_Gaming]

So my table does an XP leveling system, and one of the things that jumped out at me is the fact that you mentioned people falling behind due to not being at a session. My group doesn't do that, because we don't want to punish our players because life happened. Everyone's going to miss a session here and there because life is unpredictable. But with our group, at the end of the session (well, before the next game night), XP is tallied up and awarded to the entire party, whether life dragged them away from the table for that session or not.

[@madsquidplays584]

This is a very interesting topic to discuss. In my last campaign all the characters and npcs had a level ranging from 8 to 12 or 13 by the end. The 8 came from 2 goblins thst became favourites to our group (they started being trained by a player character late in the campaign). The 13s came from war vets and such. The more experienced people. It actually caused a real cool moment in the finale where one of the vets faced of agianst a group of gargoyles while the party was facing the bbeg. They kept abit of pressure of of the party so that they could face the glorious boss fight without interruption and take the spotlight. It even added an extra layer to the battle when a general of the bbeg joined the fray. This general was a paladin and the bbeg a god trying to regian godhood. It added stakes as this meant if they didn't beat the bbeg in enough rounds an ally was getting smited to death and then empowering the bbeg. The vet acted as a shield stalling the general like he had earlier with the gargoyles acting as a shield. The vet almost died actually and needed to be saved by a party member. This obviously was just talking about the higher leveled character and the party was only an level or 2 below him. They did some amazing stuff to in the final battle including shooting out the floor and starting the final stage of the battle prematurely. Really smart move but also risky. If your wondering the vet spent most of the campaign guarding a temple by himself until he was dragged in to the fray when the place got took over by a hoard of devils. He also had this thing where he would only use skills similar to what his opponent was using. It really held him back at times.

[@AltogetherGuy]

I am running a game called Torchbearer and newcomers frequently join so I give them a level 1 character and they play that. Characters level up by spending their fate points so we award them at the end of the session as normal. Because the game is very teamwork orientated everyone is always happy to see other characters regardless of level. And everyone is invested in their characters growth because it’s all come from them spending fate points in play. I can have these big level disparities and have none of the problems. This is what great GM support from the rules looks like.

[@alexderksen1213]

sometimes my group rolls for levels. Like a d4 or d6. It can be pretty fun, for example one person started at lvl 5 and the other at lvl 1. So they made a student-master character relationship. not to mention i think we enjoy the randomness of potentially being the strongest or weakest in the party

[@user-fe2ne7qx9z]

Coming from Shadowrun, the disparity between an optimized character and a suboptimized character is MUCH more apparent. There's a lot of splats containing over powered options, and character generation is complicated. In my experience, everyone gets their time in the spotlight because all of the characters do different things. Sure, my optimized combat character can turn a corpsec goon into a pile of gore, but he cannot hack in to the mainframe or cast utility spells. I really just wanted to about Shadowrun.

[@EilonwyG]

Back when we used to actually use XP leveling, we would level up at different times, but that was partly due to the fact that me and my friend played sorcerers who had familiars that we would use our XP points to give them buffs like added wings or the ability to speak common or a breath weapon. (3.5e was crazy, lol.) I don't think we ever had anything quite as disparaging as the difference between Bertran and the rest of the CR cast. Though I can definitely see how some of your ideas would be interesting, especially if it was kind of a Bertran-like character in as much as it was not intended on being a forever character in the campaign. Like a friend wanted to drop in on one session while they're in town or something. But you didn't mention the biggest reason why someone would want to move from XP to Milestone - or biggest in my case. I would literally forget to give XP at the end of the session...for like a month or more! And we used to play twice a week! Eventually I'd be reminded and I'd just sort of give a vague number (by this point, every session was worth just a generic amount of XP depending on what level they were and if they actually did anything story-wise). When 5e rolled around and offered Milestone leveling, it was a game-changer, lol.

[@MrHeadshotable]

We have a house rule where rolling 3 20's in a row instantly levels you up. It happened for the first time last week so now I'm 1 level higher than everyone else.

[@tatersalad76]

If it's a higher level Bard, the party probably won't notice unless you tell them

[@chaosheaven23]

"How do you deal with different level players in DnD?" "Ah, yes, well obviously just pretend they aren't higher level." -_-

[@MrGreensweightHist]

Easiest way to handle it... Characters level as a party. All characters stay same level as one another, and promotes teamwork

[@friendlypyromancer1072]

Cool video!

[@PlayYourRole]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@Revan1939]

Personally I use milestone so I have more direct control over when my characters level up. If they’re going into a big boss fight before the should, I can give an excuse why they get a level up, just to give an example

[@AllenGray47]

Why would you not award XP for solving encounters without combat? It's easy to charge in guns blazing, it might be much harder to sneak around or defuse a situation nonviolently

[@rhylin26]

I just keep the party at the same level. If someone misses a few sessions, they are already the same level as everyone else when they come back.

[@Aja-e5j]

Imo if you skip a combat encounter with a sufficiently smart plan you should get xp as well Like, what type of system would force you to fight a dragon to the death when you can just solve the issue by talking with it? Nothing wrong with xp per se, but if you only get it by killing it just enables murderhobo behavior imo and kinda enforces the whole "never split the party" thing because anyone who happens to be away from a fight would theoretically fall behind

[@MeepOfFaith]

Easy solution. Don't have character level differences. The players who are lower level will constantly feel like they're being outshined and that the high level player is patronizing them and coddling them by deliberately holding back. The player/players who are higher leveled are going to feel like they have an arm tied behind their back if they are told to hold back or feel the jealousy and ire of the lower level players if they are in fact going all out and carrying entire encounters on their shoulders. Outside of combat, high-level spell casters are going to simply solve problems for the rest of the party that otherwise could've been an interesting teamwork experience to overcome something. Overall it's a TERRIBLE idea to have a level disparity for more than a single session or even part of a session in almost every circumstance. Critical Role isn't a great example of what real DnD is like because it's an IDEAL group full of TALENTED people. Normal groups with normal people won't react well to having this disparity.

[@IrvineTheHunter]

Biggest problem with this can just be build differences, I had a party where I played a pretty optimized generalist as support, but other party members were hard core min-maxed for combat so no real support could be rendered. Even if I played a more specialized character unless they were min-maxed for combat they would drag pretty hard behind the two that were, and that WAS more than a couple level difference in ability. [probably about 3-4 level quality difference, I had like 4~DPR, and they were at like 12~15DPR] I wasn't combat focused, but I was still ahead of the mage and priest's DPR by RAW. I was kind of shafted, and the DM was like, MAXing is strong, surprise Pikachu, better bring the nerf hammer and I just wasn't going to be part of it.

[@Comicsluvr]

As long as the disparity isn't great (more than a level or 2) it shouldn't make a difference. The higher you go in levels, the less it makes a difference.

[@demonderpz7937]

I try to explain where I’m coming from or why my character is doing something as I describe them doing it a majority of the time, and all it does is piss everyone off because it bogs down the game and I take too long to describe a simple action. So, in actuality, explaining your rationality for why you are doing something or what you are looking for specifically instead of mindlessly throwing dice with no explanation at all is a bad thing.

[@lance5691]

Honestly, I'd recommend not doing different levels in a pc party. This has a "strong get stronger" effect where pcs who are already strong (aka the ones who don't die) get more xp and widen the gap between themselves and the other characters. Meanwhile, players who possibly have to replace their characters or just don't get xp because they aren't there or are dead are not getting those levels, which they need more than the players hogging the xp. Just keep a universal xp across your party and save yourself a headache as a DM.

[@Whitefish41]

I don't think the DM having to track XP alongside the characters is a symptom of not being able to "trust" your players so much as it's a lot of repeated steps that are simple but taken when you're generally thinking about other stuff. Mistakes will definitely be made. When I was last playing rogue trader you get XP to spend on advancements. We were effectively using milestone leveling so we all "should" have the same XP, but every 2 or 3 sessions we'd all stop and compare XP and inevitably at just one person was off by a small amount one way or the other and have to adjust slightly under the assumption that the majority value we had was the correct one.

[@Berserker793]

My favorite one was when my character was 10 levels above everyone else. It was set up that the boss was about level 15, like me, and the rest were lower level. I could take on the boss, but the boss and his minions would of been too much. But having a party supporting me, we were able to take them. After the boss went down, I one-shot an enemy that was downing a party member. I remember everyone at the table looked stunned when they realized what they truly faced. Also, my winged books let me glide to the second level to save another party member.

[@Kewryn]

Personally I think the "Milestone" system is a poor choice of level-gaining in any scenario that ISN'T a typical dungeon crawl for a very simple reason: it pretty much robs the players of the need to explore. When you know you WILL level up at pre-determined spots, there's no, real need to put effort into it. But I also think that providing experience for fighting is also pretty bad. In my experience the best idea is for DM to just give the players XP for completing quests and if you don't do "side quests" in the scenario just prepare the levels of experience gained based on just how "well" the players perform the task itself. For example if the party needs to get to a portal guarded by elves who are officially on their side but cannot allow the players to use it, then the goal is to get to the portal anyway. But quite logically players that would manage to find a peaceful solution to the problem should gain more XP then those that just slaughter the elves, because the former actually put in the effort to keep their relations with their allies in tact. It's the simpliest example that I could use, but it gives you an idea what I mean and it is the system pretty much all players liked, because - as they say - it provides greater incentive to get invested in HOW you handle obstacles on your path. Mind you the party gains experience collectively so I don't award one player more then others; it's the overall outcome that determines how much XP players gain (unless the players themselves decide that they want to gain experience unevenly when we establish basic rules for the campaign).

[@Alche_mist]

That very much depends on how you handle either XP or milestone approach. I like the XP system of World of Darkness, where players get a predetermined amount of XP at the end of a session, depending not only on solution of in-game encounters, but also on the quality of roleplaying including character flaws. I think this system can be adapted to more traditional XP system of DnD, although it still wouldn't be an easy task balancing.

[@arkamfate9371]

I'm sorry but this video should honestly be retitled to how to play with a dmpc in your game? No offense but they're really shouldn't be any kind of huge level gaps between your players in any one scenario. Most players that have at least five if not more levels than their other players tend to be mid-maxers. And honestly does boil down to how your DM wishes to proceed with having players of different levels in the same session, but in my experience these players are often nothing more than mid-maxers looking for ways to justify why their character is so much stronger than another characters. As for NPCs that are of a higher level then the party? Your best bet is to just not have them join the party. A much more powerful NPC part of a party is no better than a dmpc of the same kind. But again this does ball down to what the DM is willing to allow at their table. Personally if you have an NPC or even another PC that is a few levels above the party that just causes all kinds of potential antagonisms to be had.

[@tholgrimstonebeard5943]

Yeah, the characters should all be the same level, and level up at the same time. Otherwise, the GM is doing it wrong.

[@nip3004]

.... over half of this video is preamble

[@demonslayer9409]

Step 1: Don't

[@PlayYourRole]

I tried so hard to think of a constructive response to this, but ya' really didn't leave much for constructive conversation did ya'?

[@greygoblin9491]

@@PlayYourRole it's a hard thing to do correctly anyways. It's like cooking, some people don't want to risk a complicated recipe that's delicious if done well with the right wine pairing. They would rather have meatloaf with extra ketchup. And that's fine.

[@demonslayer9409]

@@greygoblin9491 lol, that's the best criticism I think I've ever received