Questions tagged [character-levels]
For questions about character levels, the numbered steps used in some RPGs to indicate advancement of character capabilities. The higher a character's level is, the more broadly powerful the character is.
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How high level should my party of 4 be before facing the lich bbeg?
A bit about the story of my campaign- the party is an elite adventurers guild employed and funded by the emperor. When they complete the quests of delivering the items to the emperor, they discover ...
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Can an Intellect Devourer in its new body continue to gain levels? (D&D 5e)
In D&D 5e, When an Intellect Devourer consumes the brain of a 3rd-level fighter, for instance, can it continue to gain fighter levels?
Or due to its monstrous nature, is it locked to that 3rd-...
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Can a revived character keep levels they gained while they were a ghost?
Assuming a human (Ftr 1) becomes a ghost, gains a level on Wizard (Ftr 1/Wiz 1) and now is revived by resurrection, would he lose his wizard level, or would that level not be counted and cause him to ...
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Does the Draconic Aura feat improve by character level or class level?
Let's say you're a silverbrown human and have the draconic aura feat. Normally you'd be stuck with a +1 aura, but since you have the dragonblood subtype, the feat states that:
If you are of the ...
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Epic Characters and Creatures Advancement Rules
The reason why I asked Level up with Humanoid, is because I was asked by one of my player what happens to his character when he get to ECL 21.
I have two non-standard characters in my campaign that ...
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Level up with Humanoid
Can a Player Character, say a 1st Elf Fighter, pick the Humanoid as their next Level, and become Elf/1st Fighter/1st Humanoid?
Also say you are a 20th Dwarf Cleric and you would rather not become Epic ...
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When are advancements gained?
When you complete a Drive, you gain an Advancement; you have two Drives and each can be completed once per session. As far as I can tell, an Advancement is an immediate improvement to your ...
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How does Anarchomancer handle a high Leadership score?
In Dragon Magazine #315, a prestige class called
Anarchomancer
was introduced.. It comes with a class feature called "Ritual of the Dark Infiltrator", which is described thusly:
Ritual of ...
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Lost Mines/Icespire Peak Combo Campaign Milestone/XP Hybrid, Does this look resonable?
I'm setting up to run Lost Mines and Icespire Peak at the same time. I wanted to use milestones instead of XP but I didn't want to feel like progress only happened at certain times so I assigned each ...
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What story points make suitable level-up milestones in Lost Mine of Phandelver?
I'm running the Lost Mine of Phandelver module with my players, and I've been using monster and reward XP as the book says so far. I have 5 players and they're all level 2 and have just cleared the ...
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Do the books offer any guidance for PCs who stray from the WBL curve?
Rust monsters are iconic. Nightwalkers less so. But they can both destroy PCs' expensive magic items, placing the party far behind the wealth-by-level (WBL) curve. I might expect that, to compensate, ...
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Can a Magic Jar-possessed body level up?
I was looking over the Magic Jar spell, and there are lots of ways to simulacrum and cheese and clone shenanigans. But I haven't seen this question yet and I was wondering...
Simulacrums specifically &...
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Is there any estimate of average damage output per turn for PCs by level?
For monsters, we have the guidance of how much damage they are expected to deal in a round based on their CR from the DMG on page 274. In contrast, there is no such explicit guidance for expected PC ...
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New Character on Player Character Death, what level?
I have just had a character death. The party are 14th level but there is little to no chance of resurrection etc (and not sure the player would want to anyway), the character was the party Cleric and ...
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Is it possible to get the Sentinel and Polearm Master feats at 1st level?
Is there a way to get the Polearm Master and Sentinel feats at 1st level?
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Player erinyes ECL (equivalent character level)?
One of the players of our campaign (level 30) is planning to play an erinyes.
Reading the savage species, a monster character erinyes has 6 HD and 7 Level adjustment (LA) for a total of 13 ECL (...
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At what level does each class get its subclass?
At what level does each class get its subclass?
user73918
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How do you play a LA+1 race at level 1?
How do you play a LA+1 race at level 1?
I have a group starting, and want to keep things equal with the players. I have one player who would like to play a LA+1 race.
How do I balance all of this to ...
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How fast (in game-time) would you go from level 1 to level 20 using the DMG encounter guidelines?
The DMG does have guidance for encounters per day and XP per encounter, as well as for gold earned from treasure hoards by level.
There are already tables that calculate how much gold you would have ...
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How much gold should a character gain per level?
I DM a group of 5 level 2 PCs, and currently they each have approximately 150gp each. I was just wondering if there's an average or recommended amount of gp that a PC should gain per level?
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Why is Level Adjustment (LA), even with buyoff, generally considered a terrible idea from an optimization perspective?
From an optimization point of view, unless the race in question is remarkably broken, then common wisdom appears to be that:
LA+1 can sometimes be justified, but it usually can't
LA+2 requires ...
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Mechanically speaking, why does level 1 seem so different from level 2?
I find that the survivability and general performance of my party increases massively from levels 1 to 2. At times, level 1 feels like a completely different game from level 2. However, I can't fathom ...
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How is cantrip damage determined when cast by NPCs? [duplicate]
A Green Hag (MM, p. 177) has an Innate Spellcasting trait that includes the spell vicious mockery. The description of the vicious mockery cantrip states, in part:
[The target] must succeed on a ...
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Does Effective Level Stack with Actual Level?
I am building a level 7 Exemplar Brawler/level 2 Dirge Bard. Exemplar gets Inspiring Prowess, which is effectively inspire courage with its effective Bard level equal to Brawler level -2.
Since I have ...
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Is the Oathbreaker paladin's Channel Divinity option Control Undead based off of character level or paladin level?
The Oathbreaker paladin's Channel Divinity feature states (emphasis mine):
Control Undead. As an action, the paladin targets one undead creature he or she can see within 30 feet of him or her. The ...
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Satyr Bard Spells and College Choices [closed]
I'm a new Level 3 Satyr Bard! Any suggestions on college preferences (and why), along with spells that I might want to use for unexpected damage! Background, my Satyr is a freeloving girl who talks ...
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What levels of spells can a Profane Soul Blood Hunter have at 11th level?
The Spells Known column of the Profane Soul table shows when you learn more warlock spells of your choice of 1st level and higher. A spell you choose must be of a level no higher than what’s shown in ...
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Does Know Your Enemy provide all class levels or just fighter levels?
I have a battle master fighter in my group who would like to use this ability while spending time at a party where a lot of my NPCs are attending. He would like to know the class levels of each one. ...
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Earning new spell levels in Dungeonslayers
When a mage earns a level, I don't quite understand the spell learning mechanics.
Applicable rule:
LEARNING NEW SPELLS
When a spellcaster reaches a higher level,
he can learn new spells. This doesn't ...
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Do 1st-level-exclusive feats count class levels, total HDs, or ECL?
Some of the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Setting regional feats say "Special: You may only take this feat as a 1st-level character." Dragon Magazine #319 follows up on this idea with some more ...
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Starting play at higher levels and ability point buy
My players just finished Curse of Strahd and are ready to move on to Rise of Tiamat. I have two players with two characters each, and they left Curse at 10th. One player is happy with his characters ...
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Do the levels at which Battle Master fighters gain more maneuvers refer to class level, or character level?
The Battle Master subclass for fighters says that you can get more maneuvers at different levels:
You learn two additional maneuvers of your choice at 7th, 10th, and 15th level. Each time you learn ...
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Leveling up of Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
I'm currently working on a clockwork soul sorceror in D&D 5e, which uses clockwork magic. There seems to be a discrepancy between how I understand it and how some sample builds I found in various ...
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What does "An adventure for players levels 1-3" mean?
What does "An adventure for players levels 1-3" mean? I see this on the front of module books. Does this mean the players should begin the adventure between levels 1 and 3, with no hint as ...
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Do you gain XP based on your "level" or your XP total?
Let's say a 3rd-level character with 5900 XP (100 away from reaching 4th level) clears two EL 5 encounters during an adventure. The PHB says on page 58 that XP is handed out at the end of each ...
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Milestone leveling for a party of players who drop in and out?
Historically I have generally used XP for tracking character progress in my party. But my latest new campaign I intend to move to a milestone approach.
However the one thing I don’t fully understand ...
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How many hit dice does a Sidekick start with?
In Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, the published Sidekick rules say (p. 142):
A sidekick can be any type of creature [...], but the challenge rating
in its stat block must be 1/2 or lower. You take ...
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Can a character somehow gain more, or less, hit dice than they have character levels?
I find the wording of regaining Hit Dice during a long rest very odd:
The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice
equal to half of the character's total number of them (minimum ...
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Is there a way to cause an arbitrary magical beast to gain character levels in a chosen class?
I was looking at this answer from our fine cheese collection, and it occurred to me that it would be quite a lot more practical if we could arrange for the assistance of a gorilla and war mammoth with ...
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Applying XP to a pre-created adventure with milestones?
I have bought my first DnD adventure, Dragon of Icespire Peak, mainly because I wanted a good opening adventure to introduce some new players to the game.
However the module uses milestone leveling ...
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If OSR modules are unbalanced by design, why do they often have recommended level brackets?
Unbalanced encounters is one of the staples of the OSR/old school modules. However, most of them have some kind of recommendation regarding PC levels and/or numbers. For example, this extensive list ...
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Are ability modifier benefits to things like HP and trained skills retroactive?
In Pathfinder 2e, a character's Constitution bonus affects HP total. A character's Intelligence bonus grants training in additional skills and languages.
Are these benefits retroactive?
Examples:
If ...
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What is the best way to help a new player join a mid-level party?
Having spent lockdown watching us play from the sidelines, and having played in one-shots of a couple of different systems, the partner of one of our players would like to join the D&D campaign I ...
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Is Bard level 20 utterly worthless, mechanically?
Bard's level 20 "capstone" ability:
Superior Inspiration
At 20th level, when you roll initiative and have no uses of Bardic Inspiration left, you regain one use.
It seems quite possible ...
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Are there alternative XP/Level Tables in 5e?
In an old tweet from Mearls, he states the Dungeon Master Guide would contain a "quick progression XP table" (as well as a slow progression, by the way). However, the section Experience ...
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Are there any feats that grant at-will ranged attacks that scale off of character level?
Feats which grant damaging effects that scale based on character level seem to be uncommon, but they definitely exist--for example, for monk-type (Superior Unarmed Strike) and rogue-type (Craven) ...
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Are there any published guidelines on how much PCs' expensive/magical gear affects the EL of which challenges are appropriate for them?
Page 40 of the DMG suggests that a large quantity of CR 1 enemies has the potential to challenge a 10th-level party that had lost their equipment. That's an interesting idea, but written kind of ...
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In what ways are high level martial characters better than a high level spellcaster with True Polymorph?
I am a DM running a high-level campaign. My group has recently leveled up to 17, and one of the casters has taken True Polymorph. They have stated their intent to turn into the most powerful kind of ...
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Do pact archetype wizards have full curse progression?
I'm pretty sure that I can't be reading this right, but the pact wizard archetype from 5th level says you gain an oracle curse and you count your oracle level as half your wizard level. Looking up the ...
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How do domain powers that reference cleric levels work for a non-cleric that gains a domain?
I'm familiar with what happens when a non-cleric acquires a domain (spell-wise - they don't get domain slots but can add the domain spell to their list and may only cast that spell 1/day). But what ...
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