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I am wanting everyone's opinion, so don''t just read this, please hit reply. weigh in, don't just linger in the shadows like 50% +/- of you do.

at level 16, should your character be aloud to pick a new class at level one, if the player doesn't want to retire the PC? Or should he or she be allowed to continue playing the class only adding the amount from 15 level (ie, the master collector has to acquire 53,000 points for every level after 16)? and continue to give skills and such? or what? I am trying to come up with some options for my friends.

You could continue your class, sure. It's easy to see how much more exp you'd need.

But it's silly to do so unless you're a class that gains spells or psionic powers as it levels. Men of Arms would be much better served by switching to a new class because Hand to hand runs out at 15 and the gained skills from making 80k or so exp, and gaining them every other level is just a slap in the face, really.

Of course, if you want to come up with new abilities for classes to learn past 15, then that works too. If you're past 15, things would likely start getting silly anyway, so using stuff like the enhanced skills or weapons specialization/mastery found in Rifter 30 would be on point, in my opinion.

Well, I wouldn't make it the same amount of EXP to gain level 16 as 15. It should be higher.

-Vek
"I can only assume there are years worth of playing to attain level 15."

ShadowHawk wrote:I am wanting everyone's opinion, so don''t just read this, please hit reply. weigh in, don't just linger in the shadows like 50% +/- of you do.

at level 16, should your character be aloud to pick a new class at level one, if the player doesn't want to retire the PC? Or should he or she be allowed to continue playing the class only adding the amount from 15 level (ie, the master collector has to acquire 53,000 points for every level after 16)? and continue to give skills and such? or what? I am trying to come up with some options for my friends.

Assuming the GM allows for PCs to go past the 15th level, you could, in theory just continue on. The amount of XP though would keep going up and would have to be calculated for each level.
Or of course you can move on to a second class as PF is where the rules for this are from.

I'd say most folks would continue in the same class. I'd be willing to extend HTH tables above 15th level in that case, with extremely high level combatants improving critical strikes, death blows, and the like.

Don't force a class change, leave that in the player's hands to decide. Keep leveling past 15, but the XP needed doubles for each level. So whatever it took to go through 15 to 16, double it, then keep doubling it for every level after.

The only EXP table I can think of, off hand, that goes past L15 is the Dragon Exp table in Dragons & Gods page 17.

You can do the maths of how much (% or Ratio) does each level costs. and then transfer those numbers to the other tables to figure out how much the other exp tables go up with each of the levels above L15.

I'd probably take a page from AD&D and just start giving a flat amount per level.

Mark Hall wrote:I'd say most folks would continue in the same class. I'd be willing to extend HTH tables above 15th level in that case, with extremely high level combatants improving critical strikes, death blows, and the like.

I think most would stay in class if the GM was offering awesome high level stuff. By the book, though, it's better to change.

Yeah, but that's partially because Palladium's classes are heavily front-loaded... the ideal situation is to switch between 6 classes, get to 2nd level in all of them, then find a 7th class and go to infinity level with that one.

That's just meta though. Would be a feat just to explain why you did it.

Unfortunately, my rules for Hedge Wizards, Lay Priests, and Suppressed Warlock didn't make it into MOM. I had a way for a Knight to be all of them, eating up an enormous amount of skills.

Mark Hall wrote:Yeah, but that's partially because Palladium's classes are heavily front-loaded... the ideal situation is to switch between 6 classes, get to 2nd level in all of them, then find a 7th class and go to infinity level with that one.

This is why officially you can only change classes once (twice if your changing back), specifically to prevent this exact scenario.

Of course the GM can do what they want. But if they changed the rules to allow something, then the results of that are on them, not the game designers.

eliakon wrote:

Mark Hall wrote:Yeah, but that's partially because Palladium's classes are heavily front-loaded... the ideal situation is to switch between 6 classes, get to 2nd level in all of them, then find a 7th class and go to infinity level with that one.

This is why officially you can only change classes once (twice if your changing back), specifically to prevent this exact scenario.

Of course the GM can do what they want. But if they changed the rules to allow something, then the results of that are on them, not the game designers.

That is only if they are using the canon rules in the High seas book. The optional ones (the ones superseded by the published ones when High Seas came out) posted in the Cutting room floor under the title "Dual O.C.C.s" have no such limitation in their text.

However, it is clearer in the the "Dual OCCs" rules, that PCCs could not be a apart of the CC round robin Mack suggested. The Duel OCCs rules mention that they cover changing from OCCs and RCCs in their 1st line, & ISP is not one of the things that increase with the new CC. Even then all the text in the Duel OCCS says that the new CC is an OCC. this is contrasted to that only OCCs are mentioned in the canon text in the High Seas, that can be misconstrued to mean all CC because the writers often misuse the label OCC to mean all CC's.
(Yes, I almost always mention the exclusion of PCCs [even if they are mislabeled for any reason] are specifically excluded from the changing class rules if the changing class rules are mentioned.)
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Mark Hall wrote:Unfortunately, my rules for Hedge Wizards, Lay Priests, and Suppressed Warlock didn't make it into MOM. I had a way for a Knight to be all of them, eating up an enormous amount of skills.

Do you know when MoM2 will be considered for publication? Or is MoM1 be the only MoM?

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Do you know when MoM2 will be considered for publication? Or is MoM1 be the only MoM?

I have no earthly idea. I did my last work on that nearly a decade ago. Since I touched that, I've lost one wife, changed careers, gained another wife, and a son. There's enough material in what I sent for Palladium to make 3 or 4 books the size of HoM.

I say at 15 you are allowed to dual class, gaining the occ skills and other skills but not secondary skills advancing as normal.
Hp continues to advance as normal, Upto thirty D six in hp is definitely a cool thing.
Mondo number of skills, lots of benefits.

Mark Hall, can you pit them on a website or google? sounds interesting.

They belong to Palladium, as they were part of the MoM submission.

Mark Hall wrote:They belong to Palladium, as they were part of the MoM submission.

They didn't get used though. You might want to check with Kevin and see if you can.

ShadowHawk wrote:I am wanting everyone's opinion, so don''t just read this, please hit reply. weigh in, don't just linger in the shadows like 50% +/- of you do.

at level 16, should your character be aloud to pick a new class at level one, if the player doesn't want to retire the PC? Or should he or she be allowed to continue playing the class only adding the amount from 15 level (ie, the master collector has to acquire 53,000 points for every level after 16)? and continue to give skills and such? or what? I am trying to come up with some options for my friends.

You could always up date their position a bit...Squires become knights, knights become nobles, nobles become greater, wizards become guild masters, Priests become the highest short of the top position, rangers become outpost captains, etc.

Funny enough, I just saw this available for pre-order...

https://palladium-store.com/1001/produc ... gicks.html

As for the OP, I'd let the player decide. Then we'd find out if I could make level 16 worth it.

Past 15th level is pretty epic so I would so to go to level 16 you would need %150 of the xp needed to go from lvl 14 to lvl 15.
I would also make up high lvl abilities for them too (Things like failed skill re-rolls and that sort of thing), but none of my players have gotten there so haven't had to yet.

I have 1 character (in rifts, and just a human at that, hah on your MDC!) that made it past 15, but he changed classes since no one wanted to design epic stuff.

Only took like....10 years.

The experience tables are designed to tell you exactly how much experience you need to reach level 16. Even though it lacks a row, knowing the upper limit of 15 does this.

So yeah, get there, enjoy the heightened skill/spell and utter lack of any benefit to your hand to hand abilities.

As for changing OCCs, you can do that at any level.

Certain rccs such as Sea Titan and Dragon continue advancing past 15th level.

Is it really that hard to come up with additional bonuses for combat skills past level 15?

Just because Palladium Books doesn't offer support for characters past this point doesn't mean that no one gets past it. There are many races that live for hundreds (if not thousands) of years that likely have truly ancient members who have reached beyond this plateau of power. Yes... many likely expand their knowledge into new areas (becoming multi-class), but there are likely just as many who don't wish to do so.

Now, assuming that a character just doesn't want to start all over with a new profession, just what are the bonuses past 15th level likely to look like? Some think they should be epic in scale since these characters are of an epic level... but then don't they already have epic level bonuses just by reaching 15th level? The truth is... the closer one is to the top of their game, the smaller any improvement will seem in comparison to when they were just starting out.

For example, a 1st level soldier (with average stats) starts with very few bonuses... so even a small bonus will seem significant. By the time that same soldier reaches 15th level, the accumulation of bonuses are likely to be quite significant... so much so that even a small bonus that seemed significant before will seem almost insignificant now. This is true in all professions... the better one gets, the less improvement one sees (for one is often measuring from where they are rather than where they were).

My point is that combat bonuses don't need to be that big at levels past 15... simply because the amount that can be improved upon is probably not that much to begin with. Even so... a +1 to strike, parry, dodge or roll (or even a small improvement on criticals) will be all that is really needed. Yes... it takes longer to make any improvements and the improvements don't seem as significant as before... but that is life... and even if one changes professions, one isn't likely to see a great improvement in abilities either... just learning more tricks.

In the end, either way should be viable for players. If a player wants to continue past this point without changing the character into something he doesn't want... why not let them and give them something for doing so. Why should only those characters who decide to change into something else be allowed to gain even a small benefit for continuing to be played?

I agree, any numerical gains should be small and few. That's why you give them technique.

Let a fighter type get a power attack, double their damage bonus (Minimum +4) by taking a -4 to strike.

Let a wizard select a number of spells equal to 1/4 their IQ to either cut PPE cost in half, reduce casting time by 1 action (minimum 1) or increase spell strength by 2.

Allow assassin to Death Blow for 1 action if their enemy is unaware or distracted by another opponent...or allow them to ignore AR on any called shot.

Any character might choose Automatic Roll with Impact.

Things like that.

I am just going to throw out a counter idea here.
Why assume that you keep on improving indefinitely? Perhaps you eventually plateau out as a master of a craft and to improve further you will need to either add on additional factors (your extra skills that you keep collecting), or add in a whole new way of looking at the issue (another OCC or five).

We've already thrown that idea in. It's there. /shrug

I have one player at level 18, and one at 16 currently. I granted an "epic wish" (item, spell, etc) for each character at 15. I continue the path of progression at higher levels, give bonuses to perception and initiative, and allow players to create things that are not in the books.
For my xp scale you can go here, where I have broken it out to level 25.

I allowed player to go past 15. I used the dragon table as a guide to see the % between levels and rolled with that. I also allowed them to change classes. I didn't put a limit on how many classes you could learn, but I did require you to be at least level 5 before changing classes and then you start your new class at level -1. having to make them gain enough experience to get to level 3 before they are considered level 1 of that class. (no bonuses at level -1 all class abilities have 50% skill check, half at 0 class abilities have 75% skill check) I also require them to have a teacher or the very less books for the subject (books xp gain is half)

I only ever had two players use either of these, one kept getting to level 5 and changing. the other ended up getting level 40 (granted he played a hatchling dragon starting a few hours old and was 300 years old last we played)

Looking at page 17 of Dragons and Gods would make you think initially that you only knew how much experience it took to reach level 30 (40,000,001) but since we know where level 30 ends, we also know where level 31 begins (60,000,001) and that's just prime.