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Egregious Example #1: Respect the Badge?

I am starting off with a subtle, low-key example. It is nowhere near as egregious as my other examples, and unlike every other example I give, it does not actually come from a heroic fantasy game. However, I still think it counts, because it is in the exact same spirit.

The nWoD core rulebook (2004), pp. 205-207, has statistics for mundane police officers and SWAT. They are rather high-powered for what they are. Maybe this could be forgiven for SWAT, since they tend to be couched as "elite" in some way, but even run-of-the-mill police officers are superbly competent: significantly, significantly above and beyond a starting PC, especially in terms of Attributes and Skills.

Why? Because, as Tales from the 13th Precinct (2006), p. 13, explains:

>Super Troopers
>The police officer and SWAT officer on pp. 205–207 of the World of Darkness Rulebook are veteran characters. They’re designed to be challenges to characters who have supernatural edges. A “stock” cop will have a much humbler spread of capabilities, as you’ll see herein.

Nowhere in the nWoD core rulebook (2004), pp. 205-207, is it ever stated that "Yep, these are veteran super troopers designed to challenge supernatural PCs even one-to-one." This comes across more like after-the-fact justification than deliberate design intent.

And even if it was, in fact, deliberate design intent, I would question the logic. If the game lets parties consist of vampires, werewolves, mages, etc., why should that alone be a reason to inflate the competence and statistics of run-of-the-mill police? Why does threatening PCs require regular cops to be superbly competent veterans? Why can we not threaten PCs with weight of numbers, coordinated tactics and equipment, and escalation of reinforcements?

In Black Vans (2026), p. 81, Deviant: The Renegades author Eric Zawadzki presents drastically, drastically more modest statistics for police officers, SWAT, and other goons.

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Egregious Example #2: City of Heroes

Ideally, in a high-powered, heroic fantasy game, mid-level PCs should feel like they are actually needed to save the day.

D&D 3.5 City of Splendors: Waterdeep (2005) fails miserably at this. It is in Faerûn, a continent heavily influenced by meddling deities and wandering troubleshooters like Elminster (CG Chosen of Mystra [very strong template!] fighter 1/rogue 2/cleric 3/wizard 24/archmage 4).

Waterdeep is stuffed with many, many high-level characters, including, but not limited to:

- Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun, LN Chosen of Mystra(!) wizard 24/archmage 3
- Laeral Silverhand Arunsun, CG Chosen of Mystra(!) ranger 7/sorcerer 4/wizard 19
- Mhair Szeltune, NG wizard 5/guild wizard of Waterdeep 10/archmage 4
- Kappiyan Flurmastyr, NG wizard 7/master alchemist 10/loremaster 3
- Tessalar Hulicorm, LN wizard 18
- Telbran Nelarn, CN sorcerer 24
- Savengriff, LG wizard 20
- Duhlark Kolat, CG transmuter 20
- Hanor Kichavo, LG monk 10/Sun Soul monk 10
- Naneatha Suaril, CG cleric 6/silverstar 10/divine disciple 4
- Hykros Allumen, LG paladin 20
- Texter, LG paladin 20
- Nymmurh, LG ancient bronze dragon(!)
- Alathene Moonstar, CG archlich(!) wizard 15/arcane devotee 5
- Maskar Wands, LN wizard 20/archmage 3

Most of these NPCs are leaders of vast, sprawling organizations of like-minded defenders of the realm; those that are not must have plenty of free time, right? Again, this is very far from an exhaustive list. It would be hard for mid-level PCs in 3.5 Waterdeep to feel like anything other than Z-list scrubs, or itsy-bitsy cogs in the machine.

Villains include, but are not limited to:
- Halaster Blackcloak, CE wizard 25/archmage 5
- The Xanathar, LE elder orb (33 HD) with 12 sorcerer levels on top
- Marune, NE necromancer 5/shadow adept 14/archmage 5
- Keilier Twistbeard, NE wizard 20/planeshifter 4

Every casting prestige class here is full progression, by the way, aside from planeshifter. Lotta 9th-level and epic spells here.

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Egregious Example #3: Are You Not Entertained?

13th Age is a 10-level game. 1st through 4th level are the adventurer tier, 5th through 7th level are the champion tier, and 8th through 10th level are the epic tier. Examples of epic-tier monsters are balors (13th-level double-strength), pit fiends (14th-level triple-strength), and ancient red or gold dragons.

The Crown Commands (2016) is a book of twelve mini-adventures. One of them, "Games of Power," has a fairly run-of-the-mill fantasy plotline. A noble lord and lady are practicing forbidden necromancy, so the PCs go into their mansion and beat them up.

In many heroic fantasy RPGs, this would be a low-level plotline, or maybe low-mid-level at most. In The Crown Commands, it is an epic-tier adventure for 9th or 10th level. I imagine it was originally a low-level adventure, but then the book's writers and editors realized that The Crown Commands needed another epic-tier to round it out.

A good deal of the enemies here are mundane, non-magical gladiators and house guards:

- 11th-level mook: A gladiator in training. The adventure says, "The gladiators in training have raw strength and some skill." A single one is as strong as an entire circle of fanatical druids, or a whole squad of militant rangers, both of which are statted out as 11th-level mook mobs in the 13th Age Bestiary 2. (Yes, a single gladiator in training is as dangerous as battlefield unit of druids or rangers working together to combine their firepower.)

- 11th-level standard: A house guard. This is as strong as an ice devil (gelugon).

- 10th-level double-strength: A gladiator champion bodyguard. This is as strong as a Large red or silver dragon (clarified to be an adult dragon in 2e).

- 11th-level triple-strength: Evra, Master of Gladiators. She is as strong as a Huge green or copper dragon (clarified to be an ancient dragon in 2e).

At no point does the adventure ever establish them as necromantically or supernaturally augmented. It is strange.

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Egregious Example #4: Step Aside, Gods

Godbound (2017) is a game wherein, right at level 1, PCs are immensely strong. The (free, by the way) core rulebook, p. 4, says:
>Godbound drive back the creatures of night. They defeat monsters and renegade gods that no mortal could hope to overcome.

To Godbound's credit, some enemies do feel awesome. Parasite gods are a great example. The Buried Mother ( https://i.imgur.com/85wZjro.png ) is specifically designed as a boss for four 1st-level demigods, and she feels cool and epic: a lost goddess over a thousand years old, ever half-buried, over seven feet tall from the waist up. The veteran Many-Skinned assassin ( https://i.imgur.com/vAAB7H0.png ), "a veteran of centuries of murder," feels like another appropriately epic boss for four 1st-level demigods.

But then we have Eldritches and True Strife masters: mortals of great supernatural power. I really, really do not understand why these have to be so strong. Greater Eldritches ( https://i.imgur.com/HdUnw52.png ) include "Great magi of the Black Academies, patriarchs of the Unitary Church, court wizards to emperors, lich-lords of ageless learning, and other great figures of magic," and are significantly more dangerous than the Buried Mother or a veteran Many-Skinned. Why is a patriarch of the Unitary Church a dire threat to a whole party of low-level demigods?

Garak Red Chorus ( https://i.imgur.com/nFNu244.png ), merely "one of the greatest hunters of his generation," is even stronger than a greater Eldritch. He is a scourge of villages and border cities.

Bishop Lazar ( https://i.imgur.com/VMwVZJe.png ) is even deadlier than Garak Red Chorus. He is an extremist who travels around zombie-infested Ancalia, murdering the living and sanctifying their corpses so that they cannot become undead.

These hyper-mortals feel off. Garak Red Chorus and Bishop Lazar would be low-level villains in any other heroic fantasy RPG, not powerhouses who can solo a party of low-level demigods.

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Egregious Example #5: Loicense fer Stabbin'

Pathfinder 2e eventually finalized the rules for troops. Each statistics block represents ~16 blokes working together as a unit.

- 16 conscripts are a 3rd-level creature: https://2e.aonprd.com/NPCs.aspx?ID=3523
- 16 city guards are a 5th-level creature: https://2e.aonprd.com/NPCs.aspx?ID=3558
- 16 professional line infantry are, a 6th-level creature: https://2e.aonprd.com/NPCs.aspx?ID=3526
- 16 "finest fighting forces" are, a 13th-level creature: https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=3915

Four 5th-level PCs could fight ~16 professional line infantry as a 6th-level creature: very much an easy encounter, making the PCs feel cool and awesome. Troop rules are hardly perfect (e.g. overreliance on Reflex saves makes Reflex save specialists take virtually no damage from them), but I find them neat.

Before then, things were rough. The worst offender was Agents of Edgewatch #5: "Belly of the Black Whale" (2020). During three separate encounters, PCs encounter nameless goons of the Bloody Barbers, Absalom's largest criminal syndicate. Each of these nameless goons is a 12th-level combatant: the same combat level as an adult green or copper dragon or a lich.

During two separate encounters, PCs encounter lieutenants (not big leaders, just lieutenants) of the Bloody Barbers, each of which is a 17th-level combatant: same as an ancient copper or green dragon.

At no point whatsoever does the adventure call out just how crazily powerful these enemies are. There is only the flimsy assumption that, well, the PCs are high-level, so they need to be challenged by similarly high-level enemies, right?

"But Absalom is the city at the center of the world!" one might rebut. "Of course its criminals should be strong!" If we assume such a zany idea, then why do these goons not just move away from Absalom and carve out whole kingdoms for themselves? How did the low-level PCs even make it this far without being solo'd by a random criminal goon?

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Egregious Example #6: Ay, Tone

D&D 5.5e Eberron: Forge of the Artificer (2025) presents baffling power levels and sample campaign arcs for Sharn, the City of Towers. The power scaling of Sharn was originally supposed to be such that mid-level PCs would be movers and shakers, but this new book had different ideas, such as:

>Levels 17–20. Assuming the characters haven't joined the Boromars, the clan leadership tries to eliminate them. The Boromars can't muster a physical threat to challenge characters of this level, so they wield their political power instead. Under pressure from Boromar leaders, the city council declares the adventurers a threat to Sharn's safety and security. Officials revoke their inquisitive agency's operations permit and ask the characters to leave Sharn.

>Levels 17–20. While Daask stirs up riots in the Cogs and Malleon's Gate, the characters discover that the gang has also planted arcane explosives across the city. The characters must find the explosives before Sharn is thrown into utter chaos.

This is vastly, unacceptably overinflated. Keith Baker said as much ( https://i.imgur.com/jCx2idR.png ), suggesting that the campaign arcs above should instead cap out at 7th or 8th level.

Beyond this, Forge of the Artificer posits that a generic Boromar underboss (not a big leader, but an underboss) is a CR 8 combatant, the same as a hezrou; while a generic Daask gnoll bruiser is CR 9, matching a glabrezu. Maybe it is just me, but I do not think mundane, non-magical criminal enforcers should be as dangerous as heavy-hitting demons.

For comparison, back in D&D 3.5, the head of the Boromar Clan, Saidan Boromar, was a rogue 8. Meanwhile, the leader of the Sharn branch of Daask, Cavallah, was an ogre mage with 3 rogue levels on top. 7th- or 8th-level PCs in 3.5 could definitely dismantle either or both of these organizations with ease, and I strongly believe that 5.5e characters of the same level should be able to do so, too, as Keith implies.

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Positive Example #1: City in Need of Heroes

Eberron, as it was in 2004, let mid-level PCs be extraordinary heroes. Post-2004, 3.5 books like Races of Eberron, Five Nations, Magic of Eberron, the Player's Guide to Eberron, and Faiths of Eberron inflated more and more NPC levels; Keith Baker even remarked on this ( https://i.imgur.com/wo76VSu.png ). The Dragon #337 article on the Lords of Dust, Secrets of Sarlona, and, worst of all, Dragons of Eberron jumped the shark by presenting lots of hyper-powered rakshasas, Inspired, dragons, and other antagonists.

But 2004-era Eberron? It had the right idea. This is best expressed in 3.5 Sharn: City of Towers (2004), the polar opposite of City of Splendors: Waterdeep (2005).

Sharn is the biggest in city in Khorvaire, but its strongest defenders are only so powerful:
- Luca Syara, CN ghaele eladrin, is deeply depressed. Maybe mid-level PCs could inspire her through their deeds?
- Banarak Tithon, LN fighter 7/Citadel elite 5, "renowned as one of the deadliest swordsmen in the kingdom," is also depressed. Mid-level PCs can inspire him, too.
- Khandan Dol (LN warrior 11/fighter 5), Meira (warrior 8/ranger 6), and Molin Kaine (warrior 10/fighter 2) are stuck with warrior levels, a very weak NPC class.
- The wizardly Esoteric Order of Aureon and Guild of Starlight and Shadows cap out at 9th-level NPCs, with only 5th-level spells.

Villains, too, are modest. They include:
- Ythana Morr, LE cleric 11
- Merrix d'Cannith, LE artificer 9/dragonmark heir 3, head of Cannith South
- Gath, NE lich cleric 14
- Madra Sil Sarin, LE rogue 7/assassin 5, "the deadliest assassin in the service of the Trust"
- Saidan Boromar, LE rogue 8, head of the most powerful criminal syndicate in Sharn
- Zathara (NE rakshasa sorcerer 2) and Nethatar (NE zakya rakshasa fighter 3)
- Six radiant idols, CR 11 each

All of this is carefully crafted to place mid-level PCs in the front and center. They wipe out the city's villainous groups and make a difference.

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Positive Example #2: Another City in Need of Heroes

The D&D 4e Neverwinter Campaign Setting (2011) was designed to let PCs eradicate villainous factions from levels 1 to 10 (in a 30-level game).

>Characters Make a Difference
>The heroes in a Neverwinter campaign can make a difference and change things, for good or ill. This is not a setting where the adventurers are stuck facing flunkies of the villain because their enemy is an epic-level threat. The legendary villains of the setting are designed to be within the reach of heroic tier play, and the famous heroic nonplayer characters who might otherwise interfere are offstage. Whether they like it or not, the adventurers are on their own, and what they decide to do matters.

>Killable Villains
>Many settings describe their greatest villains as epic threats. Although this might be an adequate representation ofthese characters' power, the effect can often be to make players feel as though their efforts to defeat such villains will never bear fruit until they attain epic level themselves. Until then, the heroes remain trapped in conflict with a seemingly limitless supply of underlings.
>For this reason, the villains presented in the Neverwinter Campaign Setting can be defeated by characters of the heroic tier. Some will make tough opponents at 10th level, but the heroes always have a chance to win.

Here, major faction leaders like Lord Dagult Neverember (level 7 standard), the plaguechanged succubus Rohini (level 9 standard), the infernal cult leader Mordai Vell (level 6 standard), the lich Valindra Shadowmantle (level 9 elite), the shade prince Clariburnus Tanthul (level 10 elite), the plaguechanged elder brain (level 9 elite), the duergar Kholzourl the Fire-Speaker (level 9 standard), and the fire giant Gommoth (level 8 standard) are within reach of heroic-tier PCs.

It is up to the PCs to save the city. No hyper-powered NPCs can do the job instead. Past the heroic tier, the PCs move on to the wider Sword Coast.

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Positive Example #3: Sherlocks and Superheroes

This is a reprised summary of a thread I posted 7 years ago: https://www.enworld.org/threads/i-absolutely-love-the-power-scaling-of-zeitgeist.669229/

Zeitgeist (2011-2016) is an adventure series where PCs are both detectives and superheroes. It has D&D 4e, Pathfinder 1e, and D&D 5e versions, but I think the latter two are poor conversions. I assert that the 4e version is leagues better, and I have played it from levels 1 to 30. (I also wrote for the sequel setting book, but that is another story.)

Zeitgeist has 13 adventures. Midway into adventure #5, 4e PCs jump from heroic to paragon (level 11). Midway through adventure #9, they cross from paragon to epic (level 21).

Even at the very start, PCs are street-level superheroes. When common police officers and extremist rebels are level 1 minions, and professional soldiers and rank-and-file mummies are level 5 minions, PCs feel like powerhouses.

By late paragon, PCs are unprecedently powerful. A unit of 100 riflemen and mortarmen is a level 17 standard: easy pickings. A band of 40 satyr archers is a level 20 minion: cut down in an instant.

In this setting, the world's most powerful magician (a frontline war magician, at that) is a level 22 standard. Named archfey lords and named legendary warriors cap out at level 20 standards, sometimes lower. Remember that in 4e, given even moderate optimization, four PCs of level X are overwhelmingly more powerful than four standard monsters/NPCs of level X.

By late paragon, the antagonists feel both powerful and yet desperate. Extremely few NPCs can fight the late-paragon PCs on a one-to-one basis, so the bad guys enact extreme measures: ambushes, weight of numbers (e.g. entire military units), gigantic war machines, crack squads of short-lived super-soldiers, and more. The PCs are Superman, while the bad guys are Lex Luthor fielding armies super-science-bolstered armies (which still fail to stop the PCs!). It feels so great.

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Positive Example #4: From Pirateslayer to Godslayer

This section was originally going to cover both Draw Steel and Daggerheart, but I decided that the latter has a more satisfying and epic progression of enemies. I prefer Draw Steel overall, and find it hugely more suited to my style, but there is something about the narrative of Daggerheart's bestiary that I find compelling.

I am talking exclusively about the narrative of Daggerheart's bestiary. The actual mechanical balance between enemies is a crapshoot, making encounter budget points annoyingly inaccurate; have a look at this Reddit thread ( https://reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1lruylw/ ) and this other thread ( https://reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1qf7xvu/ ). I have been running Daggerheart from levels 1 to 6 so far, and yes, it is janky.

Daggerheart PCs progress by tier. Level 1 is tier 1, levels 2 to 4 are tier 2, levels 5 to 7 are tier 3, and levels 8 to 10 are tier 4. Enemies in the bestiary are tier 1, 2, 3, or 4. PCs are generally supposed to fight mostly enemies of the same tier as them.

Tier 1 enemies are bandits, pirates, sellswords, zombies, ogres, minor demons and elementals, etc. Even here, PCs feel heroic. Like in Draw Steel, a PC attacking, say, a bandit or sellsword minion can spill the damage into other minions, eliminating many at once. Other weaklings are "hordes," like the "pirate raiders" enemy, which represents a dozen pirates working together; it feels good to squash a dozen foes at once!

Tier 2 baddies include master assassins, 8-man trained archer squads, and elite soldiers (actually just standard enemies, because PCs are strong).

The only tier 3 humanoid foes are monarchs and mystical stag knights. It is all major supernatural foes from here.

Tier 4 minions include the personal troops of the very gods. Tier 4 solos include the dark god of war; it was not too long ago when the PCs were fighting bandits, and now, they are so mighty as to battle the overlord of bloodshed!

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Conclusion

If your intended genre is high-powered, heroic fantasy, then stop for a moment to contemplate power levels and power scaling. Think back to the five bullet points way back above:

- Flashy abilities.
- Forced movement.
- Larger-than-life enemies.
- A sense that the PCs can completely demolish lesser opponents.
- A sense that the PCs are rare and remarkable paragons (i.e. heroes like them are not a commonplace commodity), and are actually needed to save the day.

The first two bullet points mostly depend on the system's mechanics. The latter three, however, call for some thinking. Consider:

- If an enemy/NPC is a major threat to powerful PCs, even on a one-to-one basis (or as a solo boss!), does the narrative support this? If the enemy/NPC is just some mundane, non-magical criminal or soldier or whatnot, then the presentation of the enemy should be recalibrated. Maybe the enemy/NPC is juiced up by supernatural power, or perhaps they are instead some demon, devil, dragon, or other great being.

- Does a given town, city, or nation really need high-powered NPC defenders to keep it safe? Every high-powered NPC protector is one less reason for the PCs to actually be heroes and save the day. This is not to say that a town, city, or nation should be totally undefended, or that PCs should have no allies whatsoever; try to strike a reasonable balance.

- Do the villains at hand feel like they will eventually be within reasonable reach of the PCs? This is not to say that the antagonists should be instantly beatable by PCs starting fresh off; again, try to strike a reasonable balance.

- There is always room to expand scope. If the PCs clear the city of Sharn or Neverwinter, the world of Zeitgeist, or some other setting of threats, they can always venture out and tackle bigger foes elsewhere. Alternatively, ancient or otherworldly menaces might rise up and imperil the world.

I hope that this essay can give you some ideas on how to properly calibrate power levels.

>Egregious Example #2: City of Heroes
>Egregious Example #3: Are You Not Entertained?
While you definitely have a point on run-of-the-mill cops and robbers, you seem--despite your obvious weeb credentials--to be unfamiliar with the concept of jianghu. Simply put, power that exists outside the normal, mortal world will still end up forming into a society of sorts. It is the same structure that permits the existence of those who create and trade in magic items that normal people would have no use for. This is the world that opens up to heroes as they exceed the limits of normal society, a world in which they'll rub shoulders with other heroes and those who would previously have been seen as insurmountable villains. This world has its hierarchies, its kings and princes, and those who fill the roles of servants in such a world would once have wielded great power in the normal world, only realizing after their emergence into this one how lowly they were.

A once-reviled assassin who disappeared might be found as a house servant in such a society, serving to tidy up messes that would be seen as below his master's notice. Men described as having "some skill" might be seen as overwhelmingly powerful in comparison to a soldier of mortal society. And that is because those beneath such thresholds never emerge into this society at all.

The existence of such social structures is desirable from the perspective of both author and game master, as they allow for powerful characters to still interact with others with any level of tension. If the player characters are walking nukes that can only reasonably be threatened by other walking nukes, a king who is not a walking nuke isn't going to be able to speak with them on even an equal footing. But if Murderhobo Court has its own king, a king who can't solve all these "minor" issues that could spiral into world-ending catastrophes if left unchecked because he's busy waging war on the League of Lorefags, there's still a place for PCs.

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>>97964710

Addendum to Egregious Example #3

Later editions, to their credit, actually toned Waterdeep's power levels down. For example, Laeral Silverhand goes down from a Chosen of Mystra ranger 7/sorcerer 4/wizard 19 in 3.5 to a CR 19 spellcaster in 5e. The Xanathar goes from an elder orb (33 HD) with 12 sorcerer levels on top in 3.5 to a (mostly) stock beholder in 5e.

I do not think 5e has dared to stat out Elminster yet, but he did go down from a Chosen of Mystra fighter 1/rogue 2/cleric 3/wizard 24/archmage 4 in 3.5 to a decidedly less loaded level 19 solo in 4e.

>>97964916

In the case of Waterdeep, I would buy your argument if later editions did not tone down some of Waterdeep's power levels. That, to me, is an indication that 3.5 Waterdeep has unwieldy power levels, and that it is necessary to tone them down to give PCs a chance to be relevant.

In the case of 13th Age, I would buy your argument if the adventure in question actually stopped for a moment to highlight these NPCs' sheer power levels. The adventure does not.

>If the player characters are walking nukes that can only reasonably be threatened by other walking nukes, a king who is not a walking nuke isn't going to be able to speak with them on even an equal footing.
Does the king absolutely have to be on even footing?

Let us take, say, Queen Aurala of Aundair in Eberron. She is a noncombatant: an aristocrat 7 in 3.5. There is no chance that she could put up a decent fight against even mid-level PCs.

Aurala's royal guards would, with home field advantage, give pause to even mid-level PCs. High-level PCs could probably pull off a win, though... but so what? High-level PCs in Eberron have to deal with dragons, fiends, quori, and daelkyr: problems that a royal throne could not, in and of itself, solve.

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>>97965161

Here is another way to look at it. Let us say I want to run a scenario of some big, bad dragon swooping in and attacking the city that the PCs are in, and the PCs being the only ones who could possibly slay said dragon. This would be very difficult to justify in 3.5 Waterdeep, given the resources at the city's disposal. (I do not know about the current status of the dragonward, but if it is up and running, then that is yet another reason why this scene could not work in Waterdeep.)

On the other hand, this would be fairly easy in Sharn, given mid-level PCs. The city is simply unprepared for such a strike. (Dragons randomly attacking cities just does not happen in Eberron.) A powerful dragon really could gravely imperil it, given the desire to do so. I have run this exact scenario a couple of times before (and indeed, I am running it again soon in my 4e Eberron game).

The big bad dragon can be replaced with whatever else, really, whether a great demon or some eldritch aberration.

>>97964760
>During two separate encounters, PCs encounter lieutenants (not big leaders, just lieutenants) of the Bloody Barbers, each of which is a 17th-level combatant: same as an ancient copper or green dragon.
kek I remember seeing screenshots of their sheets

I have nothing to contribute to this thread.

Thanks for posting about Last Arc: Tactics Analog, though. I backed it after seeing your post in the 3.5 general thread.

>>97965161
If there are not kings that can negotiate with player characters on an even footing, it becomes necessary to explain why the player characters are not themselves kings. And, if they are kings, it then becomes necessary to explain why they aren't delegating more of their adventures in order to actually run their kingdoms.

>>97967536
You ask why they're not kings before immediately pointing out how being kings would limit them.
Instead of continuing to adventure, gaining more wealth and power to stop whatever demon lord or lich is threatening to destroy the world, why are they instead going to sit on a throne and decide on tax policy?

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>>97964795

Addendum to Positive Example #1

I am a great fan of the way the 3.5 Sharn: City of Towers book handles Luca Syara and Banarak Tithon. Yes, they are great defenders of the city, but both are deeply depressed and unwilling to actually do anything. Only after witnessing the heroic deeds of mid-level PCs (and, of course, directly receiving encouragement from said heroes) do these great warriors find new motivation to take up the sword and fight the good fight.

This is explicitly stated in the book:
>In the long run, Luca could become a valuable ally for the party. But winning the spirit of the ghaele back from the shroud of gloom should be a long battle—and one that should not be won until the party is powerful enough to consider the eladrin to be an equal.

>>97967178

You are welcome. Fittingly enough, I think that Last Arc's mundane humanoid NPCs (e.g. guards) are way too strong compared to starting PCs, raising the question of why the starting PCs would ever be needed to solve problems around a town, village, or city.

Last Arc does not have minion/mook rules, either, giving few options for practically fielding large quantities of enemies.

>>97967536
>>97967605

It really, really depends on the setting, but yes. In Eberron, by the time PCs can oust Aurala as Queen of Aundair, Boranel as King of Breland, Kaius as King of Karrnath, or, if so desired, Krozen as High Cardinal of Thrane, they would not gain that much by doing so.

There are still all sorts of dragons, fiends, quori, and daelkyr to tangle with. Rapidly liquidating funds from the treasury is impractical given the kind of economy Eberron is working with, and no Khorvairian nation has stores of powerful magic items simply lying around.

It is probably more optimal for powerful PCs to simply turn Aurala, Boranel, Kaius, Krozen, etc. into a subservient puppet (or just a really thankful friend, which would have happened naturally anyway), so that these figures can keep doing the grunt work.

>>97967178
>>97967665
I suppose it's slightly off topic, but I have to say I wasn't too impressed with Last Arc either, at least not the demo rules.

There was some CR 7 knight that, if I was doing my math correctly, could basically just block half of the party's attacks and had a high enough Reflex to only get hit half the time, compared to some CR 1 and 2 enemies where it felt like the PCs had like a 75% hit rate. And at a glance it seemed more dangerous than the similar CR nonhuman enemies in the book.
Granted, it's trying to emulate JRPGs, so I'm not sure if that's an intentional way to ensure that some evil monarch can have a reason for still being a threat in the middle of a game, but from the final fantasy games I've played, that's usually just accomplished via numbers and a handful of named elites.

I think a lot of this just fundamentally stems from the designers realizing that at a certain level, the PCs are basically untouchable by normal guards/soldiers, and so they come up with increasingly powerful generic soldiers purely as a way to keep up with their scaling.
As opposed to trimming down the number of levels they include in their game so that standard soldiers aren't hopelessly outmatched, or otherwise designing the game so that low level enemies can still be dangerous in numbers.

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>>97967749

I am a strong believer in having minion/mook rules, swarm/troop/mob rules, or, as appropriate, combining both to let PCs really devastate dozens (or hundreds!) of foes.

>>97967797
Minion rules are the thing that seemed like the most glaring omission from Last Arc given how it seemed to pull from 4e in some spots.
It even had a way to implement it better than 4e, since on top of Reflex it had damage reduction on basically every monster.
So just set up a mid-level guard with better armor who has 1 HP but 10 deflect so as soon as they get hit for 11+ damage they're out, but they otherwise shrug off anything less.

I think the fact that your options to have the PCs outnumbered in Last Arc basically just boiled down to using low CR enemies that they could basically never miss due to the scaling is what turned me off the most about the system.

>>97964710
All of Faerun is like that more or less, one of its gimmicks is “you aren’t the only hero in the world”, which when I put it that way reminds me of comic books.
Absalom is like Rome to the power of Rome, and Golarion is a setting where every region has setting-tier gimmicks, so I would expect its center-of-the-world city to be designed so as to make “normal” kings feel like minor players.
In both cases, the material is not designed or intended to make the pcs feel strong, it’s intended to be a change of pace from that.

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>>97968112

>All of Faerun is like that more or less

Yes, I understand this, but I appreciate how 4e and 5e actually tried to tone down NPC power levels, as pointed out in >>97965161

I think that 3.X was when the Realms were at their most egregious, simply due to the sheer power of high-level and epic spells, and the way in which writers were generous about assigning lots of class levels.

>Absalom is like Rome to the power of Rome, and Golarion is a setting where every region has setting-tier gimmicks, so I would expect its center-of-the-world city to be designed so as to make “normal” kings feel like minor players.

I would believe this to be the case if the rest of the setting was actually congruous with the absurd power levels presented in Agents of Edgewatch #5: "Belly of the Black Whale."

We do not see those 12th-level nameless street thugs venturing out of Absalom and carving out kingdoms of their own, nor is there a solid explanation for why low-level PCs (Agents of Edgewatch starts at 1st level) did not get instantly obliterated by nameless street thugs.

Agents of Edgewatch #3: "All or Nothing," pp. 69-73, shows us the power levels of the leaders and lieutenants of "some of the most notorious gangs in the City at the Center of the World." Most are low/mid-level-ish, and only a single one of them has double-digit levels: a 12th-level slaver who leads a slaving gang.

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This is a totally different world from where I'm comfortable running games, but I respect the philosophy and the willingness to investigate things.

The games I do run tend towards systems like Cyberpunk 2020 where most of the mechanics are accessible from moment 1. There is some overlap there with what you are talking about in regards to being able to feel powerful, but approached from an entirely different direction. Rather than having the players grow in power to match and then outclass strong foes, Cyberpunk puts even strong foes on a relatively low footing. Take picrel for example, who has been hyped up quite a lot since the Anime and Game came out. In the original Shockwave book (when he's not wearing a specialized ACPA) Adam Smasher can be taken out with a single well-placed rifle grenade. Granted, it would be hard to pull off without a hell of a lot of planning and bit of luck, but it's still possible from the get-go. In some aspects I think that can lead to a greater feeling of power even if overall capacity is less, because you're effectively doing more with less and risking much more due to the greater fragility of players in the system.

But I will freely admit that I have had a hell of a lot of fun playing in high-powered games even if I wouldn't want to run them. Our GM was very excited to make new and interesting opponents with fun combos and builds which is something I think you need since otherwise things can get mechanically stale even if the players have access to a lot of abilities. Many of these opponents were high-powered mortals rather than supernatural forces which kind of goes against what you talk about with regards to larger-than-life enemies but each was so unique in how they operated that it was still an "oh shit!" moment whenever a new one would show up or an old one reappear compared to mooks who evaporated in a turn.

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>>97968267

Yes, you are dealing with a genre well outside of the milieu of high-powered, heroic fantasy that I am talking about. Thank you for your perspective regardless; it is interesting to read.

>>97968330
Something fun to consider in theory is a game that combines the two methods via something like netrunning (but not like in the books) where you have a low-power high-risk real world and then a digital realm where the players can wreck absolute havoc and gain levels and everything. Someone really ambitious could probably even do the online sections in a system like 4e and then switch to Interlock for the reality portions.

>>97968330
I'll add one more thing and say that forced movement is fun at any powerlevel, whether it's moving a boss 3 tiles to get them in range of your friend's triple-digit-damage AOE or it's dropkicking Corporate Security out of a third story window and letting gravity do the rest.

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>>97968360

I could see it working with the right pair of systems, the right campaign, and the right group: same as with anything, really. Execution is everything.

>>97968374

Yes, I am a great fan of forced movement whenever it appears. D&D 4e, Draw Steel, and Tom Abbadon's ICON 2.0 have all been great about forced movement: though I maintain that Draw Steel's collision damage can be overpowered, especially when abused by a hakaan null (metakinetic) or a similar build.

Path/Starfinder 2e has some amount of forced movement, but not enough to be appreciable. 13th Age and Daggerheart's respective positioning mechanics make forced movement fuzzy to adjudicate, and it is rare in these games, anyway.

>>97968360
I think that actually would be an interesting avenue that helps to sidestep some of the pitfalls mentioned in these threads. If the PCs have all of this power, but it only exists while within a digital world, a dream world, or some other layer of reality, then there is a fundamental restriction in how much of that power they can muster in the right situations.

Being a level 10 digital assassin doesn't prevent you from being stabbed by some thugs in an alleyway. Which also means that the boss of a crime syndicate doesn't need to be level 15 in order to still be a threat to the party.
Of course, there would still be the sway that actions in the alternate reality could have on the real world. There's probably a lot of harm that could be done to a mob boss' operation if the PCs can wipe out his electronics. Of course, then it's also more plausible for the mob boss to also have some level 15 digital dragon guarding his files, but it all being in a non-reality solves some of the issues of rarity.
It also explains why the overleveled guards aren't the ones solving problems, because if they're just a firewall or security program, they can't exactly chase down threats.

Lots of potential there, but probably requires a very specific setting in order to enable it all.

I think gacha sucks and the aesthetic is bad
I don't have any commentary on the actual content of this thread I just wanted to bitch about the images chosen, thank you for your time.

Not really related to what you're talking about here, but I wanted to get your thoughts on this anyways.

What do you think of "phantom people" created by mechanical merits, such as WoD/Exalted Allies, Contacts, Retainers, etc? They feel like they should be the most overpowered thing ever but always end up deceptively useless in my experience. GMs seem to be naturally disinclined to play NPCs that aren't their own, and twist themselves into pretzels to make up excuses for why you can't use your helper or to provide some reason for them to act in the "background".

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>>97969599

In my opinion, characters should not have to pay points for these. I think that all PCs should simply get a "background's" worth of connections with helpful NPCs, which the GM is encouraged (but not required) to bring in. This also prevents a GM from having to manually assign all sorts of Allies, Contacts, Retainers, etc. to NPCs.

>>97964681
Heroic fantasy is dumb for the reasons you presented. Having no power at hand to keep the PCs in check generally means they just do whatever they want. Heroic fantasy is just superhero with medieval paint and unless there's a built in mechanic to keep them from being evil they will often tend that way. Absolute power yadda yadda.
Low fantasy is far more evocative

>>97967605
>Instead of continuing to adventure, gaining more wealth and power to stop whatever demon lord or lich is threatening to destroy the world,
That requires that adventuring is seen in-universe as a deterministic way to gain power, which is a bit silly. Under that logic, everyone should be an adventurer instead of doing literally anything else. Moreover, a position of power allows one to project power more effectively--it's just not terribly conducive to playing in a group. The way you've presented it also requires the constant presence of one or more world-ending threats. What about when those aren't around? Should the heroes of those times continue to autistically grind for XP?

>>97967797
what is gained by having rules for that instead of just using narrative stunt mechanics
>>97969832
i don't think that it was about power to keep them in check, but that the powers to keep the PCs in check should be less mundane the more they advance in power level.
I should work for campaigns and less so for sandboxes where the problems you described arise.
I also don't think that the problem is being high fantasy itself but being high power. You can have a high fantasy setting like LOTR and the characters are still incabable of doing anything grand without the help of a lot of other people

>>97964694
It sounds like armed forces are written in a way that you can easily siphon a replacement PC from their ranks if something goes awry.

>>97968232
I would believe this to be the case if the rest of the setting was actually congruous with the absurd power levels presented in Agents of Edgewatch #5: "Belly of the Black
The setting isn’t generally that high level, but Absalon’s gimmick is being the most politically-important place (because the local dungeon can make you a god). Can you wrap your head around why someone in the 3rd or 4th century might choose a minor position with an important household in Rome rather than owning land and commanding vassals out in Europe? It’s an easier life with more power.
You might also think of it in terms of the superior tradesman who “could be self-employed” (if he wanted to waste all day making deals and managing employees instead of practicing his trade). Sweeny Todd’s don’t want to run kingdoms, they want to live lives of luxury while practicing their trade in Abdsalom. Becoming a king ruined Conan’s life.
Also, please note that the Bloody Barbers don’t employ “street thugs”, they are the largest and most powerful thieves guild in Absalom because they control the financial district, their agents are hit men who go after high level characters because that makes sense here.
To be clear, Absalom doesn’t actually govern anything but Absalom, it’s just stated that every major power has a major presence here because nobody is going to let their enemies control access to the godstone.
Also, they revised it because it became a meme, that doesn’t mean it was wrong. The real problem (in pathfinder and other games) is the “nameless” soldier that’s level 5 or 6, because he usually appears in an area where level 6 guys are locally a big deal, the barbers became a meme because they seemed like an extreme example of the same thing but really it’s totally different because it’s Absalom.

>>97970491
>what is gained by having rules for that instead of just using narrative stunt mechanics
Nta but if I wanted freeform storytelling then I wouldn’t be using dice or math. It’s not that I can’t compose a fantasy martial arts movie in my head, I totally can, I just can’t run a D&D game at the same time.

>>97970728
i meant for mooks in particular. since running over hordes of low level npcs is not what i aim for in high powered games and a throwaway remark about how i kill hundreds of them sounds less lame than needing to roll dice for it and autosucceeding

>>97970491
High fantasy is generally high power. And the issue occurs with the suggestion that the heroes are "needed" because the implication that they should be the only ones capable of stopping evil logically means that if they become evil then no entity exists to stop them

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>>97970265

PCs in Eberron are supposed to be special, particularly by the mid-levels.

Consider that in 3.5, a 12th-level fighter is "renowned as one of the deadliest swordsmen in the kingdom [of Breland, Khorvaire's largest nation]," and a 12th-level rogue is "the deadliest assassin in the service of the Trust [of Zilargo, the secret police]."

The same book tells us the following about the Clifftop Adventurer's Guild:
>Members tend to be 2nd- to 5th-level characters with good alignments, most of whom have spent some time in Xen’drik.

And the following about the Deathsgate Guild:
>Deathsgate Guild adventurers are mostly 2nd–5th level characters with neutral or evil alignments, and most served in the Last War.

The wizardly Esoteric Order of Aureon and Guild of Starlight and Shadows cap out at 9th-level NPCs who can cast 5th-level spells.

NPC adventurers just are not that strong in Khorvaire, and even the best of the best in wizardly orders are only so powerful.

By the time Eberron PCs reach the high levels, they have become preposterously, unprecedentedly powerful (and wealthy), to a degree that present-day Khorvaire simply has not seen before.

>>97970491

>what is gained by having rules for that instead of just using narrative stunt mechanics

Minions, mooks, and similar rules are more codified as tactical set pieces that can be interacted with through mechanical means.

>>97970669

We have other adventures in Absalom, such as a good deal of Pathfinder Society 2e scenarios, that came out before, during, and after Agents of Edgewatch. Some include the Bloody Barbers.

In none of these adventures do we see the parodically high power levels present in Agents of Edgewatch #5: "Belly of the Black Whale."

In fact, if we turn to 2e's Absalom sourcebook, which is set before Agents of Edgewatch, we see that the leader of the Bloody Barbers is a 9th-level troll. (Not a troll with 9 PC class levels, since that concept does not exist in 2e. Just a 9th-level troll.)

>>97968267
Yeah but the book recommends that if Adam would be matched or greater by the party, the DM ought to give him military-grade backup to compensate, which both makes him scarier to encounter but also makes his encounters more unwieldy and easier to outsmart as he doesn't make a good commanding officer.