Is Progression too Fast?

[joe5mc]

Hey guys, I'd just like to get everyone's thoughts on this as I take the game forward:

Do warbands progress too fast? Do wizards level up too fast? Do warbands gain too much treasure?  Now, I'm pretty sure that in all cases, warbands are not progressing too slowly, but I'm not sure about the inverse.

As a follow-up question. If I was writing the game today, I think I would have only 5 treasures on the board. How do players feel about that?

No right or wrong answers here. I just wondered about people's opinions.

[Mason]

In my opinion, and I really have not played enough games for it to mean much, I would say: Yes!

Especially the treasure gains as you are well ahead of a starting wizard with henchmen quality alone after only a couple of games.

I am sure others can elaborate more thoroughly, though.....

[h0unskull]

I think that there is no correct answer for this...

For me it is like a computer game, there are casual and "hardcore" players and the xp values need to fit for both of them. If you play 2+ games a week progression might be way too fast but if you only get together to play once in a month you need to have some progression at all...

Therefor imho a scaling factor for "fast" / "slow" campaigns might be better than a general reduction of treasures (keeping this as an optional rule for the future also keeps the old books up to date...)

Edit: But this will not take into account a game between someone playing on a regular basis and a player that will only play now and then...
Another possibility would be to keep the number of treasures in the game the same but afterwards some might turn out as worthless trash (e.g. roll for each treasure and on 5+/6 you do not get to roll on the treasure charts)

[Gulix]

A number of treasures that can't be equally divided amongs the player is a good idea, that I applied in my games (generally 8 treasures in 3 players games).

[JohnDSD2]

My thoughts would be:-

Progression, it depends how you want to take the game forward.
At the moment, it is relatively easy to get stuff. However, as the game expands with various expansions then if you were to introduce more expensive stuff, rare things and 'one-off' items as you have already in Lich Lord then the diversity could reduce the impact. If we assume the gear in the original game is run of the mill, easily available and therefore relatively cheap then better items should be priced accordingly, not on a straight line. That +3 sword isn't good value but it's a +3 sword.
It would be nice to have more things back at base to buy too.

Number of treasures, I think three is right.
I can see why an odd number might make things more competitive. If its runaway victories and 'Kill Wizards' getting all the treasure that you want to stop, then it would be easier to change the rule about last warband standing gets all the unclaimed treasures.

Thanks for asking and thanks for listening!

[Mithras]

I like the leveling aspect of this type of games, breaking your head about how to allocate your upgrades and customizing your wizard is one of the fun things. So I think the leveling-rate is fine.

I agree though that accumulating treasure goes too fast. To tackle this you don't necesarily have to reduce the number of treasures on the board but could also reduce the amount of gold/items per treasure. Furthermore I think it would be good if magic items (of all kinds, so grimoirs, weapons, items etc) would be bit more 'special': as it is it's  easy to find loads of them and then you can sell them easily and buy other, better ones back. So finding a magic item (or treasure) does not feel very much like a special achievement. If I may refer to Mordheim, you could find some very rare treasures in the exploration phase only if you rolled something like 6 6's. Getting one really felt like a great achievement and usually lead to modelling the artifact on your miniature  

Another solution to this problem could be to make it not possible to buy magic items at the shop so the ones you found will hold more value.

BTW I agree with the above poster: thnx for asking, it's great that you seek this kind of feedback from the community!

[monkeylite]

I don't think the progression is too fast. I also think that a lot of the idea that there is a big power difference between various levels is over stated. I think a level 0 wiz can have a good game with a level 10 wiz, etc, no problem.

When I first read the rules that the treasures should be divisible by the number of players, I was skeptical that would make a competitive game, but actually playing has proved my fears to be unfounded. Some of the best games I've played have been me just scraping home with 3 treasures, rather than romping away with five, or everyone just getting their fair-share despite a hard fought battle.

The main criticism I would make of progression/treasure balance is that imo there should be another higher tier of soldiers, eg a large pool of interesting  specialist mercenary types for hire. This could make interesting games, give warbands novel tactics to think about and try out, and be a good excuse to blow loads of gold.

[Salanthas]

Hello,
i like the speed in which you level up. It enables you to build up different warbands with different wizards to have more different matchups in your group. Also for people who only play once a month or so, they always get a level up, can buy a new model or something, without getting bored needing half a year for that.



What i absolutely don't like is that the treasure system gives you absolutely no reason for not exchanging all your thieves and thugs for better soldiers as fast as possible. That practice is clearly more efficient than everything else you can spend gold for.
The thing is: It is just crap to build and paint some thieves and thugs for your warband when you know they will be gone in 5-10 games.
A solution for this might be upkeep-costs for all models except thieves and thugs? I don't know.



For the treasures: I see games end very often end 3:3 without many risks being taken. Often it's not worth risking expensive models (with magic items maybe) for another treasure.  Very often 3 treasures are easy reachable for each of the players, and the other 3 are not worth it. Of course this is not the case in special scenarios which are usually more fun anyway, but using a an asymmetric number - such as 5 - might make it more interesting.


So long, have a nice weekend,
Alexander

[Evil Doctor]

I think cash gains and therefore warband quality upgrades are too easy - they are way more useful in many ways that the wizards going up levels.

What about some kind of retainer for the band you currently have? That way you don't have to reduce the amount of treasure gained, but even maintaining your band will cost so it's worth saving some money just in case. At the moment, there's no reason not to spend all you have.

Also agree that magic items should be a bit rarer and more special.

[Eberk]

Having not played the game yet but read the rules completely, I still want to chime in due to my experience with other games/game systems (close to 30 years gaming)


-Wizards do level up to fast in my opinion, 2-3 levels per game is just to much.  Reducing the amount of experience is a good option but perhaps another option is to make each level worth more experience points.  So 100xp to reach 1st level, 125xp to reach 2nd level, 150xp for 3rd level.  That would make initial advancement high but helps it to slow it after several levels.  (something like first 5 levels 100xp per level, next 5 levels 150xp per level, etc... would also be a possibility)

-Gold can indeed accumulate fast (I always do some try-outs and roll to see what a table might generate) but I think it is also because the wizard does not have costs other than to buy other soldiers, magic items, base upgrades, etc...   Why is there for example no soldiers and/or base upkeep between games ?  Soldiers like to be paid after each battle I would think    but nothing like Mordheim were strong warbands got almost no money because the upkeep costs were to high.  Paying upkeep for soldiers would give Wizards something to think about when employing 8 Knights instead of 8 Thugs.  Those 8 Knights could for example cost 80 gc each turn (1/10th of their initial cost) while those 8 thugs could only cost 16 gc (also 1/10th of their initial cost).  Wizards should keep some money in the vault so they can pay their warband or else see some of them walk away.

- 5 instead of 6 treasures seems like a nice change.  It would make the game more intense I think (you really don't want that other warband to run away with 3 treasures while you get only 2   )  And would also help with the 'to much treasure issue'  


No critisism here... just some thoughts and things I was thinking about to create some 'house rules' for.

Keep up the good work joe and thanks for listening

[Laniston]

My only complaint with progression is that wizards who want to be more supportive than combative in their playstyle suffer an obvious leveling disadvantage.  Most of the experience chart is devoted to points given to wizards who eliminate enemies.  Unfortunately, even a more aggressive wizard, if taken out by some lucky crossbow bolt (sooooo many times....)leaves a warband which struggles to gain xp for that game.  Certain scenarios (like the living museum) award xp if anyone in the warband kills something.  I think there should be more opportunities like that.  

Another alternative is to get extremely generous in what it means for a wizard to eliminate an enemy.  For example if my wizard summons an imp (which he has) and that imp gets attacked by an overconfident enchanter (which it has) who is promptly killed when the hapless imp rolls a 20 (which it has).  The wizard wasn't directly involved but that imp sure wouldn't have been there without him.  Or a wizard uses leap on a soldier to put him high up and next to an enemy. The enemy charges the soldier, loses, and is pushed out of combat and off a high ledge.  That could only happen because a wizard created the situation with magic.

Our house rule is that no wizard can gain more than 3 levels per game because we saw that certain builds of wizard were able to gain a lot more xp than others, and we wanted everyone to be able to play the kind of wizard they wanted. (eg one of our guys has a witch with a hearty love of messing with everyone by conjuring fog everywhere.  He especially likes using fog to direct creatures away from him and towards opponents.)

[Dakota Mike]

Caveat- I have been playing with most of Bad Karma's campaign changes and also with a 10% maintenance cost for each Soldier after every game.  (Sorta like their "cut" of the treasure).  So a thug costs 2 gc maintenance and a barbarian costs 10 gc.  Gives some advantage to keeping low-level Soldiers, at first anyway. 

I think level progression is just fine.  The only way to learn a new spell is to "spend" a level-up, and there are plenty of other ways to spend levels.

Treasure-wise, its been fine.  The maintenance costs and Bad Karma's changes (which don't allow you to buy and sell whatever you want, whenever you want), have helped keep high treasuries from being a problem for us.

That's just my experience, but of course Bad Karma's suggestions were created specifically to address gold and level accumulation.   Awesome game though Joe!  I'll be playing this for a long time!

[flytime]

I think the Experience is just fine. Playing only about once per Month I would hate if i had to do several games to get level ups.

The Money amount might be lower, but my experience isn´t extensive enough to judge that.

[Awesome Adam]

I think the leveling speed is fine. We've been averaging 2-3 levels per scenario, which is great. Any slower than that and any acutal improvements to your Wizard would be almost negligible.

We could possibely do with less gold on the treasure table.

If I were to ammend the the treasure table I would cut the gold from any result that awards you a magic item.

Less overall gold = less disparity in soldier and magic items

Treasure Table
1 - 100GC
2 - 200GC
3 - 300GC
4 - Potions (3)
5 - Potions (2)
6 - Scrolls (3)
7 - Scrolls (2)
8 - 9 Magic Weapon / Armor
10 - 13 Magic Item
13 - 19 Grimoire
20 - Grimoire (2)
 
I also elimiated the random GC amounts, as it was too easy to roll low, and get some junk amount like 20GC. The random amount is fuffy, but it's subpar to any other result more than 50% of the time.


Just an example from the current campaign I'm playing it. My first wizard died in his first adventure, so my second wizard started at a slight disadvantage. He then  managed to aquire an amazing 5 treasures in his first forray into Felstad. Rolled the results and ended up with under 200GC and 2 Grimoires he didn't want to learn and couldn't sell. The 3rd session went sinilar to the second were I managed 4 treasures and the most XP, but the smallest GC amount. Between random GC rolsl and Grimoires, I was the poorest wizard, who had played more games than anyone else. Up until his 5th scenario the only upgrade to the warband had been an Apothacary.
What eventually allowed him to keep pace, soldier wise, was selling 3 magic items and 2 grimoires he had found for 900GC.


I like the current system. I have not found XP or GC disparity to be crippling. I feel that a player's game play decisions, as well as adequite line of sight blocking terrain, are significantly more important, and can overcome the disparity.

[LCpl McDoom]

I'm happy with it as it is. After all, it all depends on the type of game and campaign you want, and the players you game with.

What I think you have successfully done is set a reasonable benchmark, to which you can adapt the stats up or down to suit the level of progression you and your playing crew want. More or less treasure to go after - that's simply altered by mutual consent at game-start. And different tables would be straight forward to create to reflect easier or more challenging circumstances for advancement.