• View
• Edit
• Attributes
• History
• Print

Level Pairing

Any game system in which player characters have levels invariably gives rise to the issue of level disparity. Level disparity is exactly what it sounds like, multiple members of a group separated in level by a large or simply noticeable margin. The point of this article is to present a system by which characters can normalize their levels around each other, thus reducing the effects of level disparity. This is called level pairing.

Game Tiers

In addition to the normal tiers, heroic, paragon and epic, Path of the Nomad games are differentiated by splitting the three tiers into upper and lower.

Setting a Tier

At the beginning of a game, game masters are responsible for setting the tier of that game. Players are responsible for adjusting their characters accordingly to play within the given level range. If a player's character is too low of level for the chosen tier, then they will need to have their effective level increased. If the character is too high of level, then their effective level is decreased. Characters whose levels are within the chosen tier are not affected.

Effective Level vs. Actual Level

A character's actual level is their unmodified class level. A character's effective level is the level that they are being played at, in spite of their actual level. The character's effective level determines their level dependent bonuses to AC, defenses, HP, attack rolls and skill checks, as well as limits on magic item usage and powers or abilities that have greater or lesser effectiveness depending on level (eg, magic missile and sneak attack). It also affects access to class powers and feats in the case of character's that have lowered their level.

Elements of game play that always use actual level include wealth by level and level based increases to ability scores.

Increasing Effective Level

Characters that raise their effective level need to make the following adjustments.

• raise the effective level of their character to the lowest level of the game tier.
• all items with an enhancement bonus are increased five levels per game tier that the character is increased.
• up to three non-magical items that the character possesses that could have an enhancement bonus applied to them (armour, weapons, implements and neck slot items) are given a +1 enhancement bonus per game tier that the character is increased.

Decreasing Effective Level

Characters that decrease their effective level need to make the following adjustments.

• lower the effective level of their character to the highest level of the game tier.
• the character loses access to any and all powers and class features that are higher level than their effective level, including paragon path and epic destiny features.
• if the character loses access to a power that replaced a lower level power (such as powers gained at level 13 and 15), they gain access to any one power of equivalent type of their level or lower for the duration of the game.
• if the character's effective level is low enough that they would lose access to one or more feats, the character must choose a like number of feats to lose access to. A character cannot lose access to prerequisite feats without first losing access to the associated sub feats. Aside from this, they may choose any of their feats, regardless of the level that they were acquired.
• all magic items with an enhancement bonus that are higher level than the game tier are decreased by five levels for each game tier that the character is reduced. If a magic item drops low enough in level that it could no longer exist at the given level, it becomes a Magic Weapon, Magic Implement (holy symbol, rod, staff, wand, etc), Magic Armour or Amulet of Protection of the appropriate level. This reduction may also reduce the benefits of masterwork armour.
• all magic items without an enhancement bonus that are more than one tier above the game tier are reduced to the closest lower level version that is within one tier of the game tier.

Increasing into Paragon Tiers

Characters that have their effective level increased to a level in the paragon tiers gain the paragon path features of the paragon path for their race. If a paragon path feature allows a character to choose a power, they do not choose a power.

Limitations

• the effects of level pairing last until the end of the game.
• a character that lowers their effective level does not lose access to ability score increases, such as those attained at 4th and 11th level.
• when an item is sold it is sold at the value of its actual level.
• when a player uses a consumable at a lower level than its actual level they should be reimbursed for the difference in value at the end of the game.

Pairing and Experience

Characters that are paired have their experience gains adjusted. For each game tier that a character is raised they gain 10 additional experience points at the end of the game. For each game tier that a character is lowered they receive 10 less experience.

Making Sense for Game Masters

The level pairing system doesn't really make sense in terms of style, which is fine, as it's not really meant to. The purpose of level pairing is to facilitate players being able to play whatever characters they want with whomever they want. Game masters are free to disallow level pairing in their games.

It is strongly advised that game masters not allow characters to spontaneously abandon their effective levels, especially in the middle of a heated battle. The point of characters lowering their level is to maintain the challenge of an adventure regardless of the character. Allowing a character to negate this penalty as they see fit defeats the threat entirely.

Exactly what levels an adventure allows is set by the game master. Players are expected to work within these limits and game masters are expected to set reasonable levels for their adventures.

Ideally, most level pairing is done to raise a character's level, rather than lower it, as increasing effective levels only enhances a character, whereas a lower effective level is much harder to keep track of and incurs consequences.