The Gaming Den

I think the name got nabbed from a Kaelik comment somewhere. Anyhow, this is about the idea that characters should escalate from fighting small packs of wolves to stabbing entire armies, and that the scaling shouldn't be annoyingly abrupt. Hence, the idea of character sheet layers.

There would be, say, four layers of ones' character sheet. (1) The first is a set of "You v. Him" statistics for stabbing a fool in the face, just like normal. (2) The second would be a set of "You v. Them" statistics for combat where you're facing down a mob or a pack or something, and you don't want to roll for every dog and dirty peasant you shank, and also want the kind of model the idea that you're literally in a moving crowd of people. (3) The third layer would be a set of "You v. That Army" statistics, where you're wiping out regiments of soldiers per attack instead of knocking back a handful of villains. (4) The fourth, and kinda ridiculous-seeming statistical block would be for "You v. Nature"... sort of... where you're effectively a deity, controlling spawning your own armies, making storms, causing natural disasters.

At low levels, since the power level doesn't really start at earthquake-level effects, you only have your first layer. The second layer would kick in quick, around 20% (level 4/20) advancement. The third layer seems like it would appear way later, like 45% (level 9-ish), and then the fourth layer is kinda open to interpretation (my vote is at 75%, level 15-ish).

Each character sheet would have some number of powers. Let's say we're playing Pokemon, and go with 4 per layer. A level 60 Nidoking could have Horn Drill, Leer, Horn Attack, and Poison Jab for its first layer, then Toxic Spikes, Double Kick, Spikes, and Roar for his second layer, etc. Powers from a higher layer could be used for lower layers, and would have some different effect (Roar could inflict demoralize and disorder penalties on a group, but just push back 1 target if chosen). 4th-layer abilities could totally change a combat environment, and 3rd-layer abilities could inflict the "blown away" status or somesuch.

How does this idea sound? It'd take a lot of work to put into anything, but I think it's cool, at least.

It sounds like the tiering idea that the Den has been kicking around for like 3-4 years.

main problem I see with this is the jump in power. people in my experience want to gradually rise in power, not suddenly jump from one power set to the next.

I was expecting something fancy like printing actual layered character sheets onto transparent photo-copier film.

Is this a good time to mention that modern home and home office printing technology now lets you do fancy character sheet thingies that would have been ridiculous in the past.

Most character sheets are black and white due to legacy and laziness. This is bad. All character sheets should use and abuse color printing!

Also, photocopier film! Available in transparent or a paper look alike. And it is almost indestructible and much better for rubbing out pencil marks and other junk on. Also, its waterproof.

Etc...

PS, this has nothing to do with anything I've ever said, I think it may be JE, which if it is, makes me all the more pissed at you.