By ivan@solaris.kala.com, posted 5-28-98 Adjusting For Different Levels I find the most interesting games are the low level ones. By the time that you get to high level, you have most everything and so do the monsters, so it's just a matter of who's biggest, with little tactical challenge. But a level 1 party has so little that its fun to see just how much you can do with them. I start with a modified default party (gives more skill points than a party from scratch), all human, ambi, magic using, and regen. One PC has Woodsman, one has Cave Lore, and one has Highly Alert. There are no other skills. This gives a 143%-150% requirement for next level. Three are lev 7 (!) clerics, 3 are lev 7 MUs. They get no HP beyond the free 6. Each gets only the free 21 spell points, i.e. 4 Fireballs each for the MUs and three Charm Foes and a Heal for the Clerics. The remaining skill points go to Dex 2, Int 4, and all the rest to Strength. Because the default party varies in skill points, Strength varies from 9 to 13 (!). When there is an odd two skill points I buy a one-handed Weapon skill. The default party does not have and odd single points. There are no other skills. I start this party in all low, most medium, and many high and very high scenarios and have no difficulty with the monsters. The composition is peculiar and deserves some explanation. As a starting party, you have no equipment and will be using magic exclusively in all encounters. Against wandering monsters, if you run away in a tight formation the monsters will bunch up, and this party gets 12 fireballs off before the MUs empty. The clerics can finish any stragglers with Wound or Charm. If the monsters can survive this, you are already at the edge of the field so just flee. In dungeons, you have nine Charms available. Go in, Charm the first few monsters you meet, exit, rebuild SP, and repeat. This makes short work of any dungeon up to levels where the monsters can't be Charmed. For those, most scenarios are designed as fish-shoots (i.e. the heavy monster is pinned and won't leave his position). So enter combat, throw three Wounds (which effect nearly everything) for 50-60 points or so, and exit combat to back outside the room where the monster can't get to you. Repeat. Even in open field conditions, this party can (if the MUs pre-Haste the clerics and then Slow the heavy) get off a total of 12 Wounds or around 200 points of damage before the opposition gets a chance to hit. So the party doesn't need more than the minimum 6 HP, because it is never being hit. And with the high strength, the HP climbs rapidly with increasing level. By the time you get to level 10 or so, the party has 6 7th level magics with the hit points and blade fighting abilities of the 10th level fighter of the typical party. The party also doesn't need more than the 21SP either, because with six magics all going at once any fight is over before you run out of spell points. Of course, you have to rest frequently, and if you get into a series of fights that you can't rest between then you lose. That's where the tactics come in. You note that I don't buy any Mage Lore, Alchemy, Locks, Traps, Missile Weapons, Assassination, Luck, Item Lore, Poison, Defense etc. initially. A starting party is unlikely to find a magic text before it has gained at least a couple of levels (Mage Lore) and could go back if necessary; won't have ingredients (Alchemy); can throw 21 Unlock spells (Lock); can heal any one-bang trap (Traps); gets more from one fireball than three arrows (Missiles); can't afford luck (Luck); has encumbrance ratings from 235 to 295 due to all that Strength, and so can drag the stuff to a mage (Item Lore); and isn't chopping at monsters in the first place (Assassination, Poison, Defense). All these things can be bought later as the levels come in. In a typical low-rated scenario, a low party will all be level two by the time they clean out the first dungeon. In a medium or high scenario, this party will be level 3-5 coming out (even with the 150% XP penalty), because the monsters give more XP. I put the first levels into moving Int to 6 for more bang on the spells. Thereafter, all skill points go to Dex and Weapon skills (with an odd Strength, Intelligence or Mage Lore as needed) until they are 10's across the board. The PCs will have 20-30HP coming out of that first dungeon, and can take a few hits. Because the party doesn't have to buy expensive magic levels (250GP a pop - ouch!), it can afford good weapons right away, and the best armor that doesn't hinder the spell casting. Starting out, that's AC6 for the MUs and AC8 for the clerics on the front line. The biggest problem in most scenarios is finding the Steel-toed boots for the extra 2AC. Later on, you buy Mithril in the junk stores. After the first dungeon or two (say level 4), everybody has two bronze broadswords (note the ambidextrous ability) and can hit for 10-15 points per round - when they hit. They are still rather bad at hitting the typical monster of a High scenario of course, but have lots of healing capacity. So I just let them slug against non-magic NPCs and save the SP for the magic using (or poisonous or whatever) monsters. Because the clerics get a lot of the bladed monsters, and nearly all of the very heaviest monsters (who are immune to the MU magic but can still be hit with Wound), I haven't found the widely reported problem that clerics lag in levels. If anything, the MUs lag in typical play. I don't buy more spell points until the party finds or buys Major Summon, Mass Charm, or Daemon, when I will move them to 28 points each so they can get off two spells. Some scenarios require Ritual, which is a real pain at 50SP. Rather than dropping 6 levels into SP for one of the clerics, I save all Skill potions I find or buy for this. All other potions, wands, and scrolls I sell, as I never need to use them and the GP is always needed. Things this party is bad at: high level magical locks; multi-bang traps; layouts where you can't hide and regain spell points (until you get Fire Barrier); uncharmable heavies that can reach the party and have 200+ HP or serious summoning. Say a group of three Rakshasas. But conventional parties through 30th level have trouble with a bunch of Raks, and you won't see them until High-rated scenarios and then not at the beginning. In practice, the biggest hassle running this party in High-rated scenarios is the locks: because lock difficulty depends on town rating, and the town rating is usually based on the expected party level, often a High-rated scenario has monsters this party can trounce but can't get to, because the party can't open the locks to get to the monsters. Let this party get to 15th level and give them Shockwave and Fire/Force Barrier and they can take out most anything anywhere. And because they start low where levels are cheap, they can be 15th level by the end of even a smallish Medium scenario. This party composition has interesting implications for dungeon design. Of course they make no difference in puzzles, which depend on player level and not party level. But for combat, the designer has to take special cares for this kind of party. For example, the size of a monster's hit is much less important than the number of hits, because you can Heal between rounds with a one-hit monster. At level 1, this party can survive 21 rounds with a monster that hits (once) for 200 points every round. But a monster that hits three times for 4 points each will kill someone. For the same reason, monsters (like Goblin Warriors) that do a decent poison are a problem. With only three clerics, who have to do both Cure Poison and Heal, two or more Warriors can get ahead of the clerics and again somebody dies. You as the designer of a high-level scenario may actually want to support play by this kind of party - after all, your goal as a designer is to make a game that is fun for everybody. If so, there are two steps you should take. First, lower the Town Level rating of each town to well below what the monster levels of that town would suggest. The Town Level controls how hard the locks are, and until Jeff releases a version that automatically adjusts the locks to match party level (the way BoE does now for monster level) the locks are the limiting factor for play by low parties. Second, consider what your expected party will already have in the way of spells. A 30th level (Very High) party will probably have all spells through 6th, and a sprinkling of the 7th level spells, just as they walk in the door. The first level party has only the spells through the third level. So somewhere in the startup town put a source for at least 4th and 5th level spells dirt cheap, and 6th level also priced to sell. Remember - the starting 30th level party is probably walking in with 10kGP, but the first level has 200GP for everything. Of course, you as a designer may be insulted when a first level party trashes your scenario, and you may want to design it to preclude that. This party is adapted for a hide-and-snipe strategy. Nearly all posted scenarios fall to this. For example, in a recent scenario the final confrontation was a room with two Haakai, two Mung Demons, a super NPC demon as heavy as the rest together, and assorted demons, imps, Evil High Priests, and other small fry. The party was 10th level by the time it had gotten that far, but the room was intended for 40th level. It took a while, but sniping through the door got them all, first with Summons (so the small fry got done in by the cross fire), then good old Wound for the heavies. How to preclude this in your designs? First, prevent hiding. "The door slams shut behind you". Second, prevent shooting in without entering, by not having the monsters even present until the door shuts. Third, prevent the exit-combat trick (entering combat mode, having one PC enter the room to trigger the special so the door shuts and the monsters appear, and then then exiting combat mode so you are back outside the room again) by putting a combat-block on the special. Then the party has no choice but to slug it out, and will probably have to be 20 levels higher to survive. Of course, there are ways of playing even such a carefully set trap if you have the right spells. Let's see - Sanctuary or Stealth, then trigger the special, then enter combat and beat feet to the most restrictive corner of the room, then Force Barrier your own little hidy-hole... But that's what makes the game fun. Ivan