In a way, the game ends at 450,000 XP ...

[anglefish]

I recently have a funny story to tell.

I had a Rouge who wanted to Dual-class into Fighter. He said he didn't want to min-max, but with only one true Fighter in our group of four, he's tired of going down with one good hit.

We went round robin on different solutions until I put together an Excel sheet that highlighted how fast the Rouge accelerates after 5th level. (which is what birthed this thread.)

After saying "I didn't realize how broken the Rouge is on level advancement," the player doesn't want to dual class anymore.
... yeah. the guy who doesn't want to min-max is still willing to play a "broken" class

So anyway, I'll find a magic item to boost his hit points and BAB a little and he'll be fine.

[gideon_thorne]

anglefish wrote:
I recently have a funny story to tell.

I had a Rouge who wanted to Dual-class into Fighter. He said he didn't want to min-max, but with only one true Fighter in our group of four, he's tired of going down with one good hit.

We went round robin on different solutions until I put together an Excel sheet that highlighted how fast the Rouge accelerates after 5th level. (which is what birthed this thread.)

After saying "I didn't realize how broken the Rouge is on level advancement," the player doesn't want to dual class anymore.
... yeah. the guy who doesn't want to min-max is still willing to play a "broken" class

So anyway, I'll find a magic item to boost his hit points and BAB a little and he'll be fine.

There's a simpler way. If he's got a decent dex (over 16) why not just erase his penalty for dual wielding? Make it a bonus for wearing lighter armor.
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[CharlieRock]

Buttmonkey wrote:
Pick up some of Frank Mentzer's higher level boxed sets. There are supposed to be some insanely nasty monsters that you could adapt to challenge the cockiest of 18th level rogues.

There are. An intelligent black ball of rolling death leaps to mind, though I forgot it's proper name. Basically it was a giant Eight-Ball that destroyed whatever it rolled onto.

I just recently posted a higher level monster under the thread "Zu Monsters". Try about a half dozen Negative Knights for a challenge.
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The Rock says ...

Know your roll!

[CharlieRock]

Luther wrote:
Well, in all fairness, that single spell was usually very powerful and the first one most folks learned was Charm. With this, you could gain an instant bodygaurd from any humanoid race, giving you, in effect, a second character to play and keep your wizard out of harms way. Then you use the wizard for figuring out ancient writings, identifying potions, reading old tomes and such. And wait until he learns a second spell, like Sleep, which can put paid to a whole encounter...

Yeah, Sleep and Charm were usually everybodies first choice. Sleep was just as handy as Charm in certain situations. You could always tell the new guy at the table when he picked Magic Missle for his sole first level spell. If you use RC Weapon Mastery rules you could make a mage even handier by specialising in a bolo or thrown object (acid vials), but chucking liquid badness can get expensive.

At the first levels your MU is propbably best used guarding the mule (that he can buy since everyone else is broke buying armor). This isnt so bad since that means if you encounter a big problem you can always run. And you have the loot. Torch-holding is also an important job for parties that have humans.

As soon as you can stock up on scrolls. Their the one piece of loot no one will fight you for. They are virtually weightless and dont use up your slot. They are also found in many low level modules.
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The Rock says ...

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[Relaxo]

Guard the mule! LOL! I love it.

I usually played a ranger so my mage wasn't long lived, then I got 'stuck' playing a cleric, though I thought he was cool, and pretty early on I became the go to DM so I never learned the subtleties of 1st level mage longevity.

[Treebore]

The Rogue XP progression is not "broken", it is one of the benefits of being the weakest combat class in the game.

Combat power is the end all be all of RPG's. The rogue is weakest in combat, so has the lowest XP requirements, making them strong in other areas.

He has backstab, sure, but this isn't 3E, he isn't going to get to use it for many attacks in every encounter. He will have to hide and/or move silently, and have to do so again after each and every attack in a group combat.

Yeah, he may make saves and checks easier, but he isn't hitting and causing damage like fighters, knights, Monks, bards, wizards, clerics, druids, IE every single other class does.

Combat dominance is the key defining feature of every given class. IT is what determines how powerful they are. Rogue/thieves simply are not as tough as any other class when it comes to laying waste to your enemies. Use of poisons, even non lethal paralytics, can go a long ways towards offsetting this, but they are also likely spending a lot of gold to do so. Dual classing can help a lot too. Dual Class with Bard or Ranger and the rogue becomes much more effective.

Still, as a class all by itself it is far weaker when it comes to actual combat. They deal out a lot of damage when they get in that backstab, but when the CK makes them spend all that time making hide and move silent checks, cuts down their movement rate accordingly, that Rogue is getting in far fewer attacks and dealing out far less average damage than the straight fighter is.

Give a Rogue a Boots of Elven kind and Ring of Invisibility they still are only attacking every other round, at best, and their BtH still probably sucks enough that even with the +4 they still miss more often than the fighter types do.

Do the math, the rogue is not on par in combat power with the other classes, and is why its XP requirements are so low, to allow them to level faster and be "powerful" in other ways. Ways that are far less meaningful than combat power.
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[Lord Dynel]

I have to agree with Treebore. With progression the way it is, all that is happening is that the rogue is keeping pace, combat-wise, with the other classes.
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Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

[CharlieRock]

Relaxo wrote:
Guard the mule! LOL! I love it.

I usually played a ranger so my mage wasn't long lived, then I got 'stuck' playing a cleric, though I thought he was cool, and pretty early on I became the go to DM so I never learned the subtleties of 1st level mage longevity.

Sleep really is awesome when you consider it is area effect and no save. Sort of a lowbie nuke.
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The Rock says ...

Know your roll!

[CharlieRock]

I've noticed the rogue (on our table, at least) is more of a force multiplier. In that they dont really add anything to the group so much as they make whatever somebody is already doing much more effective. Consider the rogue's ability used with:

Illusionist, now that silent image comes with a greater danger when it distracts an enemy from the rogue.

Fighter, same thing here but with a noisier image. That of a fighter beating his swrod into something to distract them from the rogue.

The cleric can now focus more cure spells from battle wounds then trap wounds. Multiplying the force the team is able to present in battle by every member.

So whenever I see a rogue compared to another class I cant help but scratch my head. Because when I see a rogue I automatically look to see who he is working with and that is always left out of the comparison. Why even try to make the class balance when it is the most effective force multiplier on the map. A well practiced team using the most efficient tactics would rather have a rogue then an extra fighter.
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The Rock says ...

Know your roll!

[Breakdaddy]

I've toyed with the idea of REQUIRING PCs to dual class out of their primary class at level 12 or maybe even multi class and split XP evenly, which would slow the progression of levels down in the primary class but remain scalable because the secondary is levelling up at a fair clip. I havent really gone to the drawing board with hard numbers yet, but it's a thought that's occurred to me.

[Buttmonkey]

CharlieRock wrote:
Torch-holding is also an important job for parties that have humans.

I'd argue it's important even in all-demi-human parties. Just because you have infravision doesn't mean you see everything in the dark. At a minimum, you are going to miss any writing on walls. It would sure suck to not see the big sign saying, "Insanely dangerous monster to the right, unguarded treasure to the left." It's probably also impossible for rogues to do trap detection just using infravision. And you might as well leave your scrolls at home if you don't have a light source.

[moriarty777]

Rogues are awesome but are well balanced in the grand scheme of things. They are not nearly as powerful as their 3.x counterparts and one played recklessly in combat will end up very dead very quickly. His skills and his 'luck' (read that as saves) are his saving graces.

A well formed party, comprising all the basics will complement each other as the entire party builds up. Consider the Wizard... is the Wizard terribly 'broken' because of how a wizard plays at 1st level? No... of course not. Same goes for all the classes. The only class which is versatile regardless of the level of play is the often ignored Cleric. At least the Cleric isn't as bad as it could be in 3rd edition!
For the record, I don't think that a unified XP table was a problem with 3.x -- There are many things that could have been done to 'fix' some of the problems and most classes have their share of issues. If you accept that certain classes have a chance to shine more during various stages of advancement, you can still have a unified XP chart and provide certain edges for the various classes at different stages to better fit this sort of advancement.

M
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[serleran]

Quote:
Sleep really is awesome when you consider it is area effect and no save.

Consider that 99% of the world is populated with non-classed, non-leveled individuals, and well... sleep is pretty much the answer to everything, once you get away from the naughty stuff like adventuring. It is the one spell that never becomes useless, if the Castle Keeper realizes that "oh yeah, this is a town... that means most everyone is 0-level... and not an elf. Crap on a biscuit, they go down with that simple little spell I forgot you had."

As far as the rogue's XP rate... they don't get much, and what they do get, is all "front-loaded" and circumstantial. If you want to make them more powerful in combat, offer two types of rogues: thief and thug.
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[Omote]

serleran wrote:
If you want to make them more powerful in combat, offer two types of rogues: thief and thug.

Remember when there was to be a new thief class introduced into the C&C release of Canting Crew? That would have been very nice to see.

~O
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[serleran]

Yes, I remember. Alas, a thing which may be no more... or, may be released via some other means. Hmm...
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[Lord Dynel]

moriarty777 wrote:
Rogues are awesome but are well balanced in the grand scheme of things. They are not nearly as powerful as their 3.x counterparts and one played recklessly in combat will end up very dead very quickly. His skills and his 'luck' (read that as saves) are his saving graces.

A well formed party, comprising all the basics will complement each other as the entire party builds up. Consider the Wizard... is the Wizard terribly 'broken' because of how a wizard plays at 1st level? No... of course not. Same goes for all the classes. The only class which is versatile regardless of the level of play is the often ignored Cleric. At least the Cleric isn't as bad as it could be in 3rd edition!
For the record, I don't think that a unified XP table was a problem with 3.x -- There are many things that could have been done to 'fix' some of the problems and most classes have their share of issues. If you accept that certain classes have a chance to shine more during various stages of advancement, you can still have a unified XP chart and provide certain edges for the various classes at different stages to better fit this sort of advancement.

M

I agree and disagree with you, sir. I agree that the rogue is balanced well, considering his abilities in and out of combat. Party composition is the key, as I feel that class vs. class comparisons are meaningless. It's party make-up that's important and if it's balanced then there should be little to worry about.

I guess I'm going to basically agree with your whole post, unless you consider a disagreement. I don't think the unified system was a problem either, per se, but it didn't help matters any. WotC tried to keep the class power structure basically similar from the 1st and 2nd Edition eras into the 3rd Edition era, but changed progression. That was a horrible mistake, I feel. On the same playing field wizards, clerics, and druids were going to have it over fighter, rogues, and monks any day of the week. The only thing that can be done is to start morphing the classes into something they aren't - and now we have 4th Edition as a result. I thought, on paper, the unified system was spectacular. Hell, I still like it because I experience virtually none of the so-called "problems" the system supposedly experiences. But I'm not naive enough to assume they don't exist.
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Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

[Treebore]

Lord Dynel wrote:
I agree and disagree with you, sir. I agree that the rogue is balanced well, considering his abilities in and out of combat. Party composition is the key, as I feel that class vs. class comparisons are meaningless. It's party make-up that's important and if it's balanced then there should be little to worry about.

I guess I'm going to basically agree with your whole post, unless you consider a disagreement. I don't think the unified system was a problem either, per se, but it didn't help matters any. WotC tried to keep the class power structure basically similar from the 1st and 2nd Edition eras into the 3rd Edition era, but changed progression. That was a horrible mistake, I feel. On the same playing field wizards, clerics, and druids were going to have it over fighter, rogues, and monks any day of the week. The only thing that can be done is to start morphing the classes into something they aren't - and now we have 4th Edition as a result. I thought, on paper, the unified system was spectacular. Hell, I still like it because I experience virtually none of the so-called "problems" the system supposedly experiences. But I'm not naive enough to assume they don't exist.

I am fine with the 3E unified XP system, what I have a problem with is any claims the classes are actually balanced between one another and should get the same XP's.

I am much happier with having classes of varying power, and paying varying XP's for those powers. IE how C&C does it.
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[mmtbb]

Interesting topic. I don't know which XP system I like better. I believe they both have advantages. I don't entirely agree that a 17th level wizard is THAT superior to a 17th level monk. I remember fighting a 17th level wizard as a 17th level monk. First round I had initiative, did ~60 points od damage and stunned the wizard. Next round I did 40 something total damage and killed the wizard without even using my 27 SR. Perhaps luck, but one thing 3.x did was create a paper, rock, sissor effect with the classes. Monks were great wizard killers, Wizards were good against fighter, and so on.

Anyway, I guess this is off the original topic. My question is, someone mentioned here that someday the CKG will be released and it will have addition material to make the 12+ levels more challenging. Does present C&C not have enough material to support upper level adventures?