A friend of mine was very vary of games with classes and levels. He felt they were unrealistic and the characters were to static. He did manage, oddly enough, to gather quite a few games of that kind, though. Some of them are now in my collection and I wonder everytime I see them about his problematic relation to games with levels. T&T is a game with levels, but compared to D&D they mean fairly little. This Friday I'll take a closer look at levels in T&T.
On page 36 the section on levels start. A sure sign of the importance of levels is the page count alloted to this subject. All in all it ends on page 39. Got that? Now, let's see what it's all about.
Levels have never been a big thing in T&T. Actually, while some adventures have been written for "level 1 or 2" characters, it often meant next to nothing. increasing stats have always been the effect of experience in T&T, and back in earlier editions different stats increased quicker than others, so it was very nebulous what a certain level meant. Often Combat Adds was a much better gauge. Now in the 7th ed Ken has changed all this a bit.
A Type now has a list of stats that are "level attributes". The rating of the best of those determine what level your character is. Simple, eh? Well. A have a small complaint. How about listing those in the descriptions of the Types, much earlier in the book? That would help you when you have rolled your stats and wan to choose a fitting Type.
So what are the benefits of having a high level then? Well, here's where it becomes clear that T&T is not a game where level matters much. When you have failed a Saving Roll, you can add your level and hope that it help you reach your target number. For some odd reason the example talks about "level attributes" here, which obviously is a remnant of an earlier rule, since that's never mentioned anywhere else and obviously wrong. That's it! Well, at least if you only read the section on levels, anyway.
If you, like me, thumbed through the descriptions of the character Types in hope of finding the level attributes listed there, you would have noticed that Warriors get to add their level to their combat damage! Also, Wizards get a redution in cost for spell casting when having a higher level than the spell being cast. Taking a peek at a chapter further ahead in the book I also noted that your Wizard can't invent new spells until reaching level 5, or level 10 for a Paragon. Why on earth is the list of benefits of levels limited to just mentioning the SR bonus?! Obviously it's used for more things. Still, I see why the importance of levels is played down, especially compared to D&D where your level determines the extent of almost all of your abilities.
Would me dear friend have accepted T&T even though it's a game with levels? I would have hoped so. My experience tells me that the most intense dislike for levels is usually when they determine a lot about your abilities.
Personally I wonder about the usefulness of levels in T&T. Maybe it could instead be that your SR bonus would be 1/10 of any of your level attributes (which would then be called something else) could be added to those saves? Maybe a limit where the level of spells you can invent be 1+(INT/10) and keep doing stuff based on your stats? It sure feels like the stats is the traits or general abilities whereupon everything is built in T&T. Why not get rid of that D&D artifact and skip the "level" thing?
Next up! Equipment!