Of course. But since the modern-day inflation level is the only frame of reference most people have (or need), that's what I was referring to. Comparing fictional medieval fantasyland currency with currency of the early twentieth century industrial age wouldn't really serve much purpose as a useful point of reference for non-time-traveling D&D players. ;)

I had a DM who was all about AD&D 2nd, and he actually inserted the electrum piece into a 3.5 game. A harmless addition, to be sure, but I'm not sure what the point was.

You know it would be interesting if they used it somehow, like used in alchemy for making certain tools, or monsters only affected by electrum plated blades (much like silver)... Or if it was used more as ingredients for spell casting...

At least he chose something relatively harmless to bring back. Imagine a DM that brought back racial level limits (though the question is how such a rule would interact with 3e style multiclassing).

Hmmm...

I'd like to see a D&D game take up the leveling system of Disgaea. Basically every level you get 1/2 the base to boost your current stats. So 4th level? Add 1.5x from you original stats (5 str? now it's 17str!) The first 4 levels or so there's a much larger power gap than later on.

As for racial limits, i've heard of it before. 'You're elf? level 10 the max. Oh you got this nice belt of strength? Now your max is 7'... Heh, just have everyone fighters with daggers, screw everything else.

Let's suppose we also take Disgaea's scaling. When everyone else in the party's levels are in the thousands, being limited to level 10 basically means you're useless, and being targeted by any attack means you're dead.

(Actually, in Disgaea 3's postgame, from what I understand the game does get to the point where being targeted by an attack means you're dead, as the developers added a way to upgrade special attacks but no defensive option that can counter that.)

.... i don't really see why everyone else in the party in the thousands would work well with someone at level 10. But then again since D&D 3 and on are based on D20, that means scaling stats and stuff to work with those becomes a pain, unless it's all done by a computer. Not sure.

I haven't played too far into D3's game, i beat the first two games and had fun, but the tactics gameplay and controlling everyone started becoming too tedious to be worth it. On the other-hand the spinoff game Unlosing Ranger vs Darkdeath Evilman removes that since you only have a party of 1, thus instead of controlling 10 characters you controlled one (so every move/action was quick and streamlined, and is more akin to a rogue-like), dealing with those issues quite nicely from what i did play.

In the world of Disgaea, there are certainly reasons this could happen; for example, the level 10 character might be someone who just recently reincarnated, losing all levels but getting increased stat growth in return.

Also, unlike in D&D, in Disgaea equipment can make up for being a low level and give you very high stats, allowing the character to fight alongside much higher level characters.

I could also point out that Disgaea has fewer scaling issues than D&D would have at such high levels. For instance, if we assume 3e epic rules, a level 4040 character can consistently (95%) hit a target that a level 4000 character can almost never (5%) hit; just a 1% difference in level has such a drastic effect here. In Disgaea, a 1% level difference won't have nearly as much of an effect.

D&D (and the d20 system as a whole) do not scale well at all to high levels (where high means 3 or more digits).

Heh, yeah... i remember that in the first game. Reincarnate, give 4 copies of the most powerful plate armor i had, then go through trials and getting to like level 100 in a couple minutes. But i wasn't considering reincarnation for a D&D-like game.

Indeed. Such scaling at higher levels would probably be better off if they were logarithmic or something in effect, which makes them less effective over time while not unbearably so. Much like how Herosystem uses 3d6 on attack/skills, which gives a nice bell curve for chances to hit/skills/anything.

Honestly I've never gotten to play any D&D games at higher levels, games tend to fall apart before 4th level, and the highest level character i had was 9th in 2e.

Personally, I think part of the problem is the accuracy focused combat mechanics of D&D. In D&D, as you gain levels, the primary offensive attribute that increases is accuracy (not damage), and armor has the effect of making you harder to hit. Some problems with this system are as follows:
* For this to be meaningful, accuracy needs to be relatively low at first, otherwise there's no room for improvement. This results in attacks missing a lot, which is extremely frustrating for the players.
* At high levels, either accuracy or evasion will likely outpace the other, depending on how the game is balanced. This results in attacks either almost always hitting or almost always missing If the attacks are hitting, there's no more improvement from further leveling. If the attacks are missing, attacks that require to-hit rolls become useless, and the strategy becomes looking for attacks that don't require to-hit rolls (like spells). This balance is very precarious.
* Once you reach 100% accuracy, there's no improvement, so levels don't really provide much of a benefit at this point.
* As I mentioned, a proportionately small difference (like the 1% level difference) can have a huge effect. Essentially, if the system somehow manages to be balanced at such extreme levels, the balance is very unstable, and a small change to one parameter will throw the entire thing out of balance. This is not a good thing if you are trying to ensure that things stay balanced.

A better approach is to make the system damage-focused instead. Make it so that attacks rarely miss (or only do so in special situations), have higher level characters deal more damage, and have armor reduce damage received. When combined with HP increases, this creates a situation where game balance isn't quite so unstable, and things at least have a chance of scaling to higher levels in at least a semi-balanced manner. It also avoids the problem of being unable to improve past 100%; there's always higher amounts of damage that can be dealt (assuming you don't accidentally create a pun-pun like situation).

Sounds workable. Might separate it to say 10 action points, and in an attack where you just multiply how many vs damage minus defenses. Would take out a bunch of the randomness though. You could also mix & match, so if say an action (drink a potion) is 3AP, then you could do 7*dmg.

Course that doesn't seem like it would work too well. If we go Herosystem logic, defenses should be cheaper than attacks, so maybe 2AP per attack and 1.5AP for defenses (blocking?). Armor would always provide defenses but removes some of your AP (but is more effective than doing it with a shield/weapon, so a logical tradeoff. Plus moving a lot in heavy armor, not happening :P)

But unless we have a testing group to try some of this stuff out, just hashing it or doing tables of how it should play in theory will only go so far.

This is Paladium.

I guess a case could be made for DMs determining acceptable levels of handwaving. Like how in many grand adventure animes or videogames, nobody seems to need to poop, so in a D&D campaign, it could be made that nobody needs to eat.
Or a basic level of common knowledge could be set. Like usually spoken languages had to be a filled up non-combat skill slot, other than your racial language or Common, and reading and writing had to be another skill slot. But a campaign could be run where everyone automatically knows how to read and write and speak to everyone. Nobody wants to play a hero who sounds like a primary school dropout just because he's a fighter with intelligence 9 who never picked up a reading skill instead of a wizard with intelligence 18 and reading and writing multiple languages comes naturally to him. Exceptions could be made for barbarian races, solitary races who guard their knowledge, the language of the gods, or even the "bad guy races"(unless you play as one). Or concerning the lighting a fire bit, it could be assumed that every adventurer has basic survival skills. So no "rolling to check if you succeed" for fire lighting or even for a day of hunting, unless you're hunting the king's deer, in which case you'd roll to see if you got caught. Or the local Adventurer's Guild's Hero Starter Pack could have a magic artifact that starts fires automatically. LOL.

Honestly, when I did DM, everything followed the basic plot line in my head. The details would wash out any which way, but if the last man standing had to miraculously beat the ogre who had not so thoroughly bashed in his compatriots head so they could rise up after some rest, so be it. For me it was more about Advanced Story Telling. Almost a choose your own adventure book. There are a few ways to get there but they all get to the same destination.

Unless we used the modules, then it was whatever the dice said. But that was almost like cheating as a DM to me :).

Thinking about it, I cant recall an adventure we went on that was pure dice driven. Certainly a few were heavier on the rolls than others, but most everyone had their story to tell and you were along for the ride. And the soda and chips. Lots and lots of chips. Combos! My personal favorite when they came out with the pizza ones.

Also reminds me why I loved Dark Sun. All the mechanics the average "high fantasy" adventurer takes for granted work differently in the world of Dark Sun.

I want to get into it, We should set up a discord and do some online D&D, that would be so bad ass!! lets get this going people!! :D