Whats the current thoughts on this from the DM staff? If it's the same as a few other servers what would be the appeal of coming to this server instead of staying where we are?

What that means is that the playerbase is very similar, the levels are the same, and the only thing truly changing is a bit of scenery. Though I don't care much about levels, it would be a nice change, I think, to offer a different range of options for players.

I wouldn't oppose higher levels than on Arabel for example. I don't want to see everyone and their dog at lvl 16 and over though. It should be something for those that work for it but not impossible.

Concept Whats the current thoughts on this from the DM staff? If it's the same as a few other servers what would be the appeal of coming to this server instead of staying where we are?

Personally I don't find a level range change to be a distinguishing difference between multiple servers of this kind if everything else was the same. However, your question is legitimate so I'll try to address it. Before I do so, however, let me say I have a tremendous amount of respect for the various other persistent story-based servers out there and fully hope to imitate the parts about them that I liked. I'll also say that there are absolutely reasons to stay on these other servers: the big ones have hit on formulas that keep an active player base, and we haven't done anything yet except attract the attention of a small group. EfU could easily disappear in a cloud of smoke.

That said, I'm also absurdly optimistic about the chances of success with this one, and completely convinced that once it goes live everyone who chooses to participate will be absolutely blown away.

There will be real and meaningful differences between the various servers that are out there, and I see absolutely no reason why players can't enjoy all of them depending on their preference.

This is what I think makes us stand out though:

(1) Very favorable player to DM ratio. We have 11 active DMs covering every single time-zone across the globe. Each DM is excited and motivated to make the world come alive.

(2) Completely non-canon location. The town of Sanctuary was designed from the start to be the perfect setting for what we're trying to do. We're not adopting the stale NPCs of some source book. This has enormous implications for having the freedom to change the world, and for a more flavorful and interesting setting.

(3) Non-Lawful Good atmosphere. What's the point of being a hero if your deeds are over-shadowed by the organized heroism of a powerful group? Sanctuary isn't an evil city like Zhentil keep, but what it is is a PC character driven place: the focus of the story is always on the PCs. The town will become what players choose to make of it.

(Being elected to town council and changing laws, taking on major NPCs and winning, faction conflict with lasting implications, etc.)

(4) Greater emphasis on non-scripted activities. This ties in with the larger DM team aspect, but I simply think players will spend a greater percentage of their time doing other things than a handful of scripted quests.

(5) Larger, character-lifetime goals. I think the challenge of escaping will interest a lot of players. I see all characters as having a story, and the best stories don't linger on for an eternity: we hope to provide a really great beginning, middle, and end.

(6) Goofy-hippie welcoming attitude: whenever I get all excited about the grand possibilities of what this server has to present, I have a little voice in the back of my head. "What about the casual player? Somene who is new to role-playing, or who wants to RP something simple" All I can say is that that kind of player is more than welcome to play here, and will hopefully find it just as satisfying an environment as someone more experienced.

There's more, but I'm running late --

What that means is that the playerbase is very similar, the levels are the same, and the only thing truly changing is a bit of scenery. Though I don't care much about levels, it would be a nice change, I think, to offer a different range of options for players.

The level range will be lower (equivalent to other RP-focused servers) at the start because nothing makes for a more unwelcoming server when a small handful of players are level 16 and everyone else is level 3. When new people sign on, we want them to instantly feel like they can make a difference and aren't completely over-shadowed by older characters.

It's also just harder to do to build a server with flavorful and awesome quests for a broader level range. So give us time.

All that being said, our level range will increase with time as the server matures. Honestly, I personally think NWN is a more interesting game mechanically at the 10+ range. If you look at our DM base, lots of us tended to drift towards the higher level range when we were players on other servers.

The game starts to take a big turn for "boring" after about level 8. It simply becomes a matter of who attacks first, and things like good spell use don't really matter as much, because you have such an abundance of powers.

Expect the average level of the server to be very similar to Arabels. Pretty quick to 4-6, a bit to 8, slow at 10. However, because we have legions of DMs, expect there to be a good deal more attention from that direction (and probably more XP from that direction).

-Cross

Personally, I'm favorable towards lower level ranges than Arabel's. As a level 3 or even level 5 character, you've got a lot of power compared to common folk.

Guards and even soldiers in canon often don't have a lot of levels comparatively - the champion of an army might be level 4. This way, I think players will recognize the power they wield a lot earlier than they would with a higher level setting, since they'll be comparable very quickly to city guards and whatnot, which is a big sidestep from Arabel where city guards are level 8 and house guards level 11 (I don't see a lot of PCs this level - why should NPCs in this range be so abundant?).

Actually, that's quite a good point.

If everyone could get used to it, I think a very low level range would be really good. Everyone could get to level 4 and that would be considered a very supstancial level.

The problems with that is the DMs would find themselves continually running quests based around "Oh noes! Fend off the rat horde!" and such like, and at the end of the day, everyone likes a piece of phat loot or shiney high powered spell to stroke. It makes it fun.

Also, multiclassing wouldn't work as well. I find multiclassing is a really good way of adding to a character's personality (not to say that pure classing is at all bad) and it wouldn't work quite so well if you could only get one level of each class.

Still, I can see what you're getting at, but I prefer a level range of 1 to 17 or 18 ( 17 and 18 being the sort of level that very, very few PCs would acquire of course).

I don't like ultra low levels personally. I like something a bit higher to work for. 3-10 is my preferred range. You have a nice selection of stuff. By then spellcasters have gained enough abilities to equal out a bit more with fighters. Bards have a few spells, so do other "1-4" casters such as rangers and paladins. Youve had enough feat choice to customise your character beyond power attack and cleave, and so on.

Perhaps I wasn't being quite clear. As it is at the moment, most PCs in Arabel can find themselves reaching 8-10 pretty easily. I'd personally like the "soft cap" as it were to be near level 6, with higher levels being harder to get to. This leaves spells like Raise Dead to be something a little rarer than most of us have seen it. A level 6 fighter would still be powerful compared to the level 2-3 guards, but still not able to slaughter them by the dozen.

I think we also have to remember that we're in the underdark, and that there's going to be Drow, Beholders, and other nasty stuff down here. Surviving down in the underdark would be pretty hard at such a low level, even with a town to hide in. Otherwise I agree with what Crosswind said.

I would hope that we, as DMs, will do a pretty good job of providing alternative ways to spend your playing time other than levelling. It has been my experience that people level when they have nothing else to do. If non-levelling activities are made sufficiently interesting and rewarding, I think everybody will end up fairly happy.

-Cross

A gold dispencer would keep me happy for hours...

Will this server be low magic like CoA is?

As ever, Search is a good friend to have.

Certainly compared to most servers out there, it's low magic and roughly equivalent to CoA. Probably even lower magic than CoA is at the start, but gradually increase in magic level as time goes on and the server matures.

Think of EfU like a giant persistent PnP campaign that changes in substantial ways as time goes on.

So how high do you expect the level cap to go here? Are we talking level 20 as the highest feasible levels, or are we going into the epics here? I would think that levels would max out at around 16 to 18, and maybe levels 15-18 would be for characters who have had a serious impact on the server, kind of like Pree.

OGROKTEHHORRIBLE Are we talking level 20 as the highest feasible levels, or are we going into the epics here?

Epic level characters would have a dramatic impact on the setting and cause some real concerns in ensuring the server is balanced for all level ranges. The stories being told in and around Sanctuary may indeed be epic, but character levels will not.

Will there be adjusted level caps for races with ECLs >0? Ie. Will dark elves only be able to attain a level 2 lower than the standard race set because dark elves have an ECL of 2?

Thanks.

socialmisfit Will there be adjusted level caps for races with ECLs >0? Ie. Will dark elves only be able to attain a level 2 lower than the standard race set because dark elves have an ECL of 2?

I think that's roughly how it works at present. I'm open to comments on whether it should be that way or not, though. :)

Will there be good RP tokens in the current exp system?

In my opinion, and maybe it's slightly biased. Drow should be kicking more ass because they have that ECL. If you plan to nerf their abilities to put them on par with "Lesser" races, you may as well remove the ECL or just their abilities entirely.

All subraces are an approval only priviledge, at least the ones that have an ECL. They will all be more powerful than normal races, to varying extents. And to answer your question, PRC's are also approval only.

Sinister Seneschal All subraces are an approval only priviledge, at least the ones that have an ECL. They will all be more powerful than normal races, to varying extents. And to answer your question, PRC's are also approval only.

I understand :-). My question is: will shifters be allowed by application? There are some unavoidable bugs last time I checked, even if one is not intentionally exploiting them.

Shifters likely won't be approved until we adjust the PrC substantially.

Inquisitor In my opinion, and maybe it's slightly biased. Drow should be kicking more ass because they have that ECL. If you plan to nerf their abilities to put them on par with "Lesser" races, you may as well remove the ECL or just their abilities entirely.

Perhaps. I think that we agree that the abilities and stat bonuses associated with those classes give advantages that exceed the benefits of the levels given up. I respectfully differ in the case of SR. I think that a 20% relative success rate is far more palatable than a 40-50% one, and would still maintain the trade off in favor of the special races. As-is, I see a few possible character builds that are powerful beyond what is necessary to beneficially differentiate the races.

Howland Shifters likely won't be approved until we adjust the PrC substantially.

Glad to hear it.

Aren't Drow ECL2? Which later on is a massive XP hit. I'd like to see Drow pretty powerful personally. Since we have to have Someone to go up against.

It should definitely be that way, and strictly so. In fact, svirfneblin and drow should additionally have their SR reduced by 5. A level cap from ECL that stops a drow character 2 levels below a caster character already creates a face off against SR that has too big of a chance of not passing; 40% (8 (lvl) + 10 = 18 vs. 10 (lvl) + 1d20) for drow against a caster 2 levels up, 50% if they are the same level; way overpowered.

There are also feats available to the casters to reduce that % by 20%. In an underdark setting, people will learn that spell penetration is VERY useful. I also think that the spell resistance that will be much more prevailent than on surface based games is what will help keep casters from becoming too dominant. They tend to be slightly overpowered in low magic games

The point of PC drow, like any evil character, is to provide entertainment for the server, not to steamroll everyone. Yes, you have special abilities, yes you applied to play a special race, but no, you shouldn't be the same level as everyone else. You are trading in those extra two levels for the massive amounts of very, very useful special abilities. People playing drow characters are relieved of the normal limitation of having to start two levels behind everyone else in this setting. I think that is more than enough to get characters off the ground.

ECL matters less and less as you gain levels. There isn't much difference in power between a level 11 and a level 13 wizard compared to a level 3 and level 5 wizard, for example. The effect ECL has on the total amount of exp gained should also become less and less as you level up.

Since I'm not a DM, I won't be saying how things should be done, but since this will be a PW roleplaying server, I think we have to look at the whole thing in the way of PnP.

On CoA, I've never really understood the NPC militia being of such a high level - after all, most armies in the PnP setting host only a few units with lvl 1 fighters - most of the soldiers are from the NPC warrior -class and the few lvl1 fighters are mostly officers. And despite the levels, the lvl 4 fighter, a captain, will take orders from the lvl 1 aristocrat prince.

I understand, of course, the PW servers have to have higher level NPC guards because of those who might start killing the guards. However, I'd suggest one certain way to fix this: make the individual guards lvl 2-4 at best, but if someone attacks one in a public place, make the server spawn a host of ten or so guards (and perhaps a couple spellguards as well, with their clockwork summons, of course).

Then to the topic of character level. In my opinion it should be made possible to obtain the higher levels through excellent roleplaying. Tokens or not (and I think the system of people voting for the tokens is sort of a bad idea, because it can really lead to people just patting and recieving counter-pats on eachothers backs), I'd like the DM decide amongst themselves after careful observation on possibly granting a player either a temporary token or some extra XP for their roleplaying.

Of course, we could have a thread for thanking people of good roleplaying, which in itself might serve as a small heads up for the DM saying "hey, here's a player who has been given praise for his roleplaying of a particular character - you should take a look at him playing and then consider, if he is worthy of some small bonus".

If we are looking to recreate a community of commoners, we don't need levels higher than about 6 at most, but it also limits some possibilities - in short, it limits the PC ability of becoming much more than just a commoner. If, however we want more than commoners - heroes and champions both good and evil, we will need higher levels. However, we should then also reserve the possibility for characters to either escape the Underdark as per the server name, or to retire (if they so choose) on the server as NPCs. The pros and cons of either option can and should be discussed - if not by all those on the server, by the DM at least.

So far, however, I've seen only good things on the server and I hold the DM in high esteem. Do not let yourselves become as alienated from the player stock as the DM on CoA have mostly become.

Drow ECL will likely figure into our level cap system, however that will generally mean that the RP expectations are simply that much higher. As a general rule, I personally think perks (subrace, faction position, etc.) should be actual perks and not just minor advantages heavily draped in undo XP penalties or disadvantages.

Drow, of course, do have quite a bit of RP disadvantages (and advantages), and I would fully expect and encourage Drow PCs to be targeted by other PCs.

NPC character level should be considered OOC. Don't go by the CR. For instance, "Tobur the Delver" is out hanging around where PCs spawn in the Underdark -- he's a pretty high level. This is largely because I don't want other PCs dragging monsters to the newbie spawn zone.

We're not having a RP-competition poll.

Howland

NPC character level should be considered OOC. Don't go by the CR. For instance, "Tobur the Delver" is out hanging around where PCs spawn in the Underdark -- he's a pretty high level. This is largely because I don't want other PCs dragging monsters to the newbie spawn zone.

For PCs dragging monsters to the newbie spawn zone, I'd recommend an ingame punishment for risking the Sanctuary. It's supposed to be a semi-secret hideout, isn't it?

We're not having a RP-competition poll.

Splendid. That was generally the my point anyway.