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Level Pairing a.k.a. Squires and Champions

THIS ARTICLE IS OUTDATED. SEE LEVEL PAIRING FOR CURRENT MECHANICS.

Any game system in which player characters have levels invariably gives rise to the issue of level disparity. In effect, level disparity is exactly what it sounds like; multiple members of a group, be it two or more, seperated in level by a large or simply noticeable margin. There are several reasons for this, however none of them are within the scope of this article to tackle. The point of this page 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.

Level Pairing

When two characters pair their levels, they become very similar in some respects, but not in others. Squires and Champions below explains the difference between the two. A squire may only squire themselves to one champion. A champion, however, may have up to five squires, though surely each squire is bound to get a little jealous.

Initiating a Pairing

Initiating a pairing requires that both the champion and their squire(s) study together over the course of a short rest. After this time (which may be longer at the game master's discretion), the two character's are considered to be paired at the appropriate level.

Terminating a Pairing

Both squires and champions may end their pairing at any point the game master allows, or after a short rest.

Level pairs automatically terminate at the end of a game session.

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 effects access to class powers and feats in the case of character's that have lowered their level.

Exceptions to a character's effective level include wealth by level and level based increases to ability scores.

Limitations

A squire and champion must remain within some kind of contact with each other to gain the benefits of the pairing (visual, audio, mental, etc). If they do not, the benefits of the pairing are lost until contact is established.

The net effect of this process should be that a squire ends up slightly below average power for their effective level, but is still effective, and a champion ends up above average power for their effective level, but not devastatingly so.

Squires

A squire is a character that is lower level than their paired partner, and has had their effective level increased.

Effects:

• raise the effective level of the character to that of their champion.
• all items with an enhancement bonus are increased in level by an amount equal to the increase of the character.
• if they choose to access it, a character receives the benefits of three of the following items, a Magic Weapon, Magic Implement (holy symbol, rod, staff, wand or totem), Magic Armour or Amulet of Protection, equal to their level.

Limits:

• a squire must be more than two levels lower than their champion before the pairing.
• a squire does not gain any additional class powers as a result of their effective level.
• the effects of becoming a squire last until the end of the game, or until terminated.

Champions

A champion is a character that is higher level than their paired partner(s), if any, and has had their effective level lowered.

Effects:

• lower the effective level of the champion to any lower value.
• the champion loses access to any and all powers that are higher level than their effective level.
• if the champion loses access to a power that was replaced (such as 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 pairing.
• if the champion's effective level is low enough that they would lose access to one or more feats, the champion must choose a like number of feats to lose access to. A champion 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 items with an enhancement bonus are decreased by five levels for every five levels that the character is reduced. f an item drops low enough in level that it could no longer be purchased at the given level, it becomes a Magic Weapon, Magic Implement (holy symbol, rod, staff, wand or totem), Magic Armour or Amulet of Protection of the appropriate level. If a magic item is lower level that its owner, and drops below level 1, it becomes non-magical. This reduction does affect the benefits of masterwork armour.

Limits:

• the effects of becoming a champion last until the end of the game, or until terminated.
• a champion does not lose access to ability score increases, such as those attained at 4th and 11th level.

Mismatched Levels

It's entirely possible for a champion character to reduce their level to any lower level and to squire a character from there, thus allowing both characters to play in any game whose adventure level is lower than the champion's level.

Free Level Boosting

Optionally, a game master may squire every character in the party to a higher level in order to make a chosen module easir, or even a chosen encounter. This is not recommended, however, and should be well justified.

Experience

When assigning threat-based experience to a character, use the highest effective level the character possessed during an encounter. For example, if a 12th level character spent most of the adventure as a champion of 8th, but fought one encounter at 12th level, they still receive experience as if they were 12th level for the entire adventure. The same is true for squires.

Making Sense for Game Masters

The level pairing system doesn't really make sense in terms of style, especially in the case of champions, 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 champions lowering their level is to maintain the challenge of an adventure regardless of the character. Allowing a champion 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 squires can only gain from the pairing, whereas a champion suffers a consequence. However, no adventure should consistently require more than half of the party to squire themselves to another player.