# Explain/Defend Your Favorite RPG Leveling System **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 2, 2015, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767 "2015-08-02T00:34:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/21 "2015-08-07T14:21:08Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The one big flaw in _Skyrim_’s leveling system is that there’s really no incentive to do side-quests, particularly once you hit the middle levels. Sure, you _could_ take that quest to clear the bandits out of that dungeon, or you could just wander the countryside killing random encounters, and the only thing you’re missing out on is an insignificant amount of gold, and a magic item that’s almost certainly useless to you. In games that use an experience point system, you’re always going to be getting something concrete out of a quest, even if it’s just edging .1% closer to the next level. Plus, with the advent of the Legendary system, in which you can suddenly forget how to be a master weaponsmith and grind to re-master it and by doing so earn perks that you don’t need for smithing so you actually apply them to some other skill you haven’t been practicing lately. Doesn’t make sense, but if I didn’t have all these other games to get through, I’d be doing it all day. It’s good in the sense that it’s compelling, but it does tend to diminish the appeal of, say, advancing the plot. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/22 "2015-08-07T15:01:29Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The one big flaw in _Skyrim_’s leveling system is that there’s really no incentive to do side-quests, particularly once you hit the middle levels. Sure, you _could_ take that quest to clear the bandits out of that dungeon, or you could just wander the countryside killing random encounters, and the only thing you’re missing out on is an insignificant amount of gold, and a magic item that’s almost certainly useless to you. In games that use an experience point system, you’re always going to be getting something concrete out of a quest, even if it’s just edging .1% closer to the next level. True, but somewhat besides the point - the main goal of an RPG being not to advance one’s character, but to experience and interact with a story. My point being undermined by the quality of the story content of \*Skyrim \*notwithstanding :). But, like, I don’t think the \*Witcher \*games for example are greatly served or enhanced by the traditional kill-monsters-grind-XP-loot-loot system. Most of the quests in the last one are their own rewards, including the more forgettable fetch/hunt quests - be it in terms of lore, visuals or witty dialogue. The nuts and bolts behind \*those \*however are forgettable to actively bad (“you mean I have to spend points on skills that I won’t even be able to use/slot-in in order to unlock spending points on skills I’d like to have ? Whut ?”) ; whereas a _Skyrim_-like system would have felt both more organic and a more efficient way to “segregate” the various combat methods. E.g. Use signs, get better at signs ; whereas now I can suddenly crank my magic to 11 despite having used none of it before. ---
**Author:** ![Garula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@Garula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garula)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/23 "2015-08-07T15:17:50Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > That makes no sense to me at all. Pathfinder has all the same classes, with all the same abilities, _plus_. A 3rd ed. fighter gets a feat every other level. A PF fighter gets a feat ever other level, plus armor training, plus weapon mastery, plus bravery and a half dozen other little edges and abilities. Barbarian rage powers give you a huge range of customization over the previous rule set. Same with rogues, and rogue talents. There’s actually a good reason to take more than two levels in ranger! I haven’t yet found a build that I liked in 3rd ed, that I couldn’t make in Pathfinder, and often could make better. > > And that’s before they added archetypes to the rule set! I wasn’t particularly thrilled about most of the 3.5 base classes either, but there were a whole bunch of interesting splat classes. Sure, PF smoothed out a bunch of things, but pretty much all the customization comes down to a handful of +1s here and +2s there. There’s nothing that really jumps out as fun and exciting to me. Plus, I really, really prefer classes that give you at will abilities, and those were made even more rare in PF. Show me something like a Binder, Artificer (the 3rd party PF one is unusably poorly written), Thrallherd, or Crusader and I’ll be on board. I’m not saying you should necessarily share my view, Pathfinder does the numerical nuts and bolts of better than 3.5. In truth, I actually kind of hate DnD combat, what I’m into are all the weird abilities that can be used out of combat. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/24 "2015-08-10T19:24:02Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > True, but somewhat besides the point - the main goal of an RPG being not to advance one’s character… _Heretic!_ ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/25 "2015-08-10T20:00:40Z")
> [@Garula](#): > > Plus, I really, really prefer classes that give you at will abilities, and those were made even more rare in PF. Whut ? There are plenty of those, even just among the base and core classes. The Witch springs to mind (because I play one, and the hexes I can cast at will are positively obnoxious to the DM :o) ; Rangers have a kind of Hunter’s Mark ; Paladins’ holy smite is, granted, an X/day thing but it’s _actually_ useful ; Inquisitors have just about a billion things they can do as swift actions and get boatloads of useful little things to turn on and off as needed ; Cavaliers can do a lot of fun on the spot things with Teamwork feats ; Gunslingers have this whole versatile Grit usage and refill dynamic going on… I’m pretty much with \*\*Miller \*\*there. I can totally understand disliking both Pathfinder and 3.5 D&D, as they’re very much on the tactical combat side of RPGs. But I don’t grok liking 3.5e better than Pathfinder at all, when PF is a copy/paste of 3.5e only more better in almost every single way (except for the Mythic system, which is profoundly busted. But then, Epic rules were ridiculous as well, so :p), and furthermore when everything in 3.5e can be ported to Pathfinder without much hassle if it floats your boat. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/26 "2015-08-10T20:04:36Z")
> [@Garula](#): > > Show me something like a Binder, Artificer (the 3rd party PF one is unusably poorly written), Thrallherd, or Crusader and I’ll be on board. I haven’t heard of most of those classes, and looking online, it seems that outside of Thrallherd (the only one I was already familiar with) they’re all homebrew classes? As such, I don’t really see a bar to just taking those classes more-or-less as written and dropping them into a Pathfinder campaign. They’re only ever going to be in a 3.5 campaign via house rule, you can just as easily house-rule them into a PF campaign. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/27 "2015-08-10T20:50:12Z")
Okay, reading the responses it seems like more than one unique system eventually shifted into d20, at least temporarily. What was the purpose of that? Sacrificing uniqueness for ease of use, since so many people are familiar with d20? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/28 "2015-08-10T21:09:29Z")
> [@](#): > > I haven’t heard of most of those classes, and looking online, it seems that outside of Thrallherd (the only one I was already familiar with) they’re all homebrew classes? Binder is from the Tome of Magic, Artificer is from the Eberron Campaign Setting, and Crusader is from Tome of Battle. All are first-party Wizards of the Coast D&D 3.5. ---
**Author:** ![Unpronounceable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de0a6/32.png) [@Unpronounceable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unpronounceable)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/29 "2015-08-10T21:31:04Z")
d20 was _heavily_ pushed as a universal system - the base rules even being **[free to use](http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/oglfaq/20040123f)**. The rather cynical marketing idea being to get a kind of feedback loop pulling people back to D&D. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/30 "2015-08-12T19:13:49Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > Okay, reading the responses it seems like more than one unique system eventually shifted into d20, at least temporarily. > > What was the purpose of that? Sacrificing uniqueness for ease of use, since so many people are familiar with d20? It was basically a “Hey! You already know how to play d20 because you’ve been playing D&D! So now you can play \>insert other game here\< without having to learn a new system!” except that A) d20 with its classes and levels is a terrible fit for a lot of games (Call of Cthulu says hi) and B) You’re still practically learning a new system anyway because of all the differences in the details. The hard part of learning a “new system” isn’t learning that you need to roll a d20, add a stat, and compare it to a target number. So basically, it was a terrible idea, but for a while, the downsides weren’t obvious, so a lot of games ported themselves over. Then there was what is often referred to as a “bust” wherein none of those games sold much of anything, and a lot of companies went bankrupt. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/31 "2015-08-12T19:28:26Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > So basically, it was a terrible idea, but for a while, the downsides weren’t obvious, so a lot of games ported themselves over. Then there was what is often referred to as a “bust” wherein none of those games sold much of anything, and a lot of companies went bankrupt. There’s also the flip side of that, which is that many of those games that Wizard shoehorned into d20 had their own unique, interesting rulesets that were tailored specifically to the themes and feels of the game. I mentioned 7th Sea and Deadlands before, Legend of the Five Rings is another. Star Wars too, I think, but I haven’t played Star Wars in a loooong while. So when those unique, flawed little gems got turned into copy/pasted bland soulless shovelware, many long time fans (myself included) stopped giving a shit about those games altogether and moved on. So Wizard fucked it on two fronts : they failed to attract new people (\*or \*shunt them into D&D), and they lost plenty of the old people. So, not a great biz strat, as such. ---
**Author:** ![Unpronounceable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de0a6/32.png) [@Unpronounceable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unpronounceable)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/32 "2015-08-12T23:47:51Z")
Oh, Lordy, Star Wars d20…where you permanently gimped your jedi if you didn’t switch over ASAP. There’s another downside too - rulesets that are _too_ similar tend to blur together. Never play D&D 3.5 with one guy who hasn’t played since 3.0, one guy who’s been playing Pathfinder, & one guy who’s played all of them. Nobody will have the rules right. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/33 "2015-08-13T10:55:40Z")
I like the roguelike Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. You manage skills by turning them to on, off, or focus, and when you gain XP, points are distributed based on those choices plus how trained the skill currently is. For a skill to be trained, you have to meet a criteria-- carrying a weapon, equipping a shield or armor, casting a spell of that school. The rule used to be that XP went into a pool and would be expended as you met the criteria, which led to things like casting your training spell repeatedly when you beat a monster, a practice called victory fireworks. Your species also plays an important role. Many species are good at stealth and/or dodging, many are also good with one or two weapon types, a few are average or slightly below average in nearly all skills, and a few others, like trolls, are bad at almost all skills but make up for it in other ways. Class has little impact beyond a few starting skill points and a few pieces of equipment. So you’re constrained considerably by your species, but picking a fighter at start is not a barrier to becoming a powerful spellcaster. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767/34 "2015-08-13T20:47:41Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > There’s also the flip side of that, which is that many of those games that Wizard shoehorned into d20 had their own unique, interesting rulesets that were tailored specifically to the themes and feels of the game. I mentioned 7th Sea and Deadlands before, Legend of the Five Rings is another. Star Wars too, I think, but I haven’t played Star Wars in a loooong while. > > So when those unique, flawed little gems got turned into copy/pasted bland soulless shovelware, many long time fans (myself included) stopped giving a shit about those games altogether and moved on. > So Wizard fucked it on two fronts : they failed to attract new people (\*or \*shunt them into D&D), and they lost plenty of the old people. > > So, not a great biz strat, as such. So true. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-defend-your-favorite-rpg-leveling-system/726767.md?page=1)