V.A.L.U.E. Season 4 - PREPLANNING

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To add to that, since it happened this friday - it was basically the textbook case for downleveling to a lower tier:

I joined @frogemiah’s T2 table, which was the second session of a multi-session adventure/campaign (I was not able to attend the first session). As they recapped the first session and frogemiah told me about the setting and lore, I recognized the game this was inspired from as one of my favourite JRPGs. I had a VALUE character who was heavily inspired by one of the characters from the very same game and had a strong connection to the main deity/church of that game - which also played an important role in the campaign. That character would have been a perfect fit, only issue was that she was T3 already (level 16; she originally started out in T1).
Therefore I approached the DM, told her about that and asked if I could level that character down to T2 for this game - which she happily allowed. I set her back down to level 10 and removed any items except for the three she already had back then when she was T2 (two of which were DM rewards).

We had an amazing session; and when the campaign continues, I will most likely continue playing that character in T2.

I also had some T2 characters ready to go, but none of them would have been even remotely close to how well that T3 character fit into the game.

Considering all that, I would be strongly against banning downleveling. It of course should not occur regularly, but in certain situations it is good to have the option.

I don’t think that is too much of an issue, assuming we only allow downleveling with a good reason.

You are limited both by rarity and number of items (although I am in favor of increasing the numeric limits for the new season) and if you go down a tier you of course have to adhere to that tier’s limit. Therefore, as I said, when I downleveled from T3 to T2, I reduced the amount of equipped magic items to 3 (the current T2 limit) and did not use any very rare item.

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Technically downleveling is in a “gray zone” as it is not allowed per se but, not explicitly forbidden.

Personally, I don’t like it and I didn’t even think of your example. It allows people to jump around levels and leveling itself is of no consequence anymore.

Saying we allow downleveling within good reason is no reason at all, because for anything a “good” reason can be found and at what point is a good reason simply a convenient reason.

Proposed Fixes:

  • Long: Downleveling takes downtime days and you lose all magic items from the higher tier. You cannot simply revert back to your original level, you have to level up again. In my opinion this makes sense from a mechanical and storytelling standpoint.

  • Short: Ban downleveling alltogether. Stay true to the path your character takes. If you really want to play at a lower tier create the character anew.

I guess some people won’t like it but it is a complicated topic.

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@Nepu downlevelling was never allowed by RAW
but since it was never explicitly forbidden, some DMs allowed it

I personally never allowed it on the VALUE tables when I was DM-ing

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btw. for me this feels like

“it was never exp. forbidden to add extra features to my Elf” :person_shrugging:

I also think that storywise to level down makes no sense - unless you play a campaign with ‘downleveling’ as a story-focus:

e.g. you are all super heroes, who got cursed by the endboss … and now have to remember your abilities while re-starting at level 1

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btw. because the table where I played discussed it for a couple of seconds^^

(I think someone else brought it up before … can’t remember who)

:point_right: suggest that should be a Tier 0 (levels 1-2) with Tier 1 (levels 3-4)

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Of course downleveling during a campaign does not make sense storywise, as you said. But downleveling in a case like the one I described to join a specific VALUE campaign with a specific character makes sense.

VALUE sessions are open, and have no connecting story - so it isn’t that big of an issue story-wise if a character gets downleveled between sessions. Of course if a player prefers to not do it to keep their character’s personal story conssitent, that’s fine.

That I disagree with, I don’t think you can compare downleveling to this. Adding extra features would result in an illegal (as by 5e rules) character; and it would be cheating if done without consent.
Downleveling a character (and adhering to the limits of the new, lower tier) results in a legal character of a lower level. Downleveling (correctly) without consent would be bad behaviour, bot not cheating.

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@Arthilas you simply could have created a new level 5 character with the theme of the JRPG

no need to use a high level character with tons of magic items and gold

for your specific example: that new character would also have fit the level range of your group better … just saying

@Arthilas That I disagree with, I don’t think you can compare downleveling to this.

I wrote, that this is how it feels to me. By downleveling you do something that was not exp. forbidden, just because it was not exp. forbidden. :person_shrugging:

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Gold is an irrelevant currency in the current value system. Except for resurrecting (and scribing spells as a wizard) I’ve never used significant amounts of gold (yes i know there’s also plate armor)

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Even worse, it is not even useful for resurrection outside of Revivify diamonds (which are easily affordable in T2), because with our current pricings, resurrection is straight up unaffordable in cases Reviviy does not work and True Resurrection is required (i.e. disintegration).

Even my richest characters who have been in multiple T3 and T4 sessions, have never been close to the required 50k gold - and in T4, PCs themselves typically have access to Wish, True Resurrection or Divine Intervention to resurrect a disintegrated party member.

I actually stopped tracking gold exactly for some of my higher tier characters, especially when they don’t have spells with expensive consumed components, because it matters so little for them - they already have everything gold can buy for them…

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if you read Nepo’s post, you see that technically, the rule to create level 1, 5, 11, or 17 characters make no sense if downleveling would be allowed

why need to spend DM-rewards to level up a character, if I can play any character at any level I want? :person_shrugging:

aside that it makes 0 sense from a character growth point of view

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As far as I’m aware, there is no correct downleveling as there are no rules in any published book that permit it.

We play D&D 5.0 with alterations as listed in the VALUE rules. There are established, written rules as to when you may level, and the process in which to do so. As far as I’m aware, there are no established, written rules in any published book for downleveling. I could be wrong; please feel free to direct me to the appropriate book & page.

For the most part, D&D is a set of rules of what you are allowed to do. Your character class tells you what actions you can take, it’s not a list of things you can’t do. Otherwise, I can say “I crush the enemy with my mind… the book doesn’t say I can’t, so therefore I can!”. Yeah… that wouldn’t work so well :slight_smile: That’s usually how most games work I believe, please feel free to think of the board games you know. I understand that some may feel that downleveling is different than empowering a character, but there is no written difference for intent in performing unauthorized actions, and as of now, we go specifically by published books and VALUE rules as written because it’s easier for DMs to have a common ground.

To my knowledge, there are no written rules permitting downleveling. As normal, DMs can house-rule anything for their table, so of course a DM could house-rule a down-level at their table… but since it’s not a written rule, that would be a house-ruling valid only at their table. Outside of an official written mechanic or a DM’s ruling, I am not aware of any other D&D 5.0-approved methods of altering a character.

Thus, for myself and the way that I view the matter, I believe that doing something that alters a character, is not in any written rule, and does not have a DM’s approval as a house ruling, would constitute cheating, not bad behavior. (Edit: please note that’s just how I feel. I’m not an authority here in VALUE or anywhere in life, just expressing my thoughts)

However, if anyone wants to change that and add such rules into the VALUE rules, that’s a completely separate issue. I’m only addressing things as they stand now.

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This seems to be a contentious topic - which I did not expect tbh.

My 2 cents after reading some of the replies: I am with @BufoBufo and @Darthbinks on this one.

Downleveling solves the same problem that creating characters at the appropriate tier does (being able to play at any table at any tier) - only it creates way more problems doing so

I will be using @Arthilas reply as a baseline to my answer as why I think downleveling is not a good idea and should not be allowed as a rule every DM has to adhere to (if a DM wants to do it, they should be allowed, but not obliged to)

Story-Based Reasons: That’s the only positive I could think of - a character might know some NPC or other PC from the past, even though they technically cannot play anymore. This could easily be solved by a multiversal counterpart / long lost brother / other-arbitrary-reason-we-find-or-dont-find-I-dont-care that has those connections. It is easily possible for the DM and other players to assume that they worked with the technically new guy, we play pretend after all. The internal consistency of the character to be down-leveled is already broken through the downleveling, so a little metagaming would be not out of line.

Downleveling without good reason is just DM fiat, I think they should be able to allow it, but not be obliged to it. “No” should be the norm.

Magic Items is the biggest problem for me: If you make downleveling a rule DMs must adhere to, you need to know which magic item has which rarity. @Arthilas downleveled in good faith and did not use any higher tier items. If somebody does not do that (which is why we have rules), every DM needs to check which items are allowed to be used - a tremendous new workload, that is absolutely not necessary.

The only upside to downleveling, that cannot be more elegantly replicated via a new character at the appropriate tier is that you definitely lose a lot of power - but everybody already agreed that that is not the issue.

TLDR: Cut downleveling from the rules

It creates a bug with the create-a-new-character-for-a-tier and needs a lot of additional rules (which items are allowed, how far do you need to downlevel, which character options were not available at lower levels - but are now (e.g. warlock invocations) that you need to give back, etc) and more workload for the DMs than just creating a new character (that has the RP ties that the old character had, if needed)

Thoughts?

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I know it’s not the current discussion, just wanted to say that I really like this idea because there is a huge jump between 1-2 and 3+, though I think it only makes sense if with that new tier, you could create new characters at level 3 too like at all other tier separations

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well downlevel was never in the rules to begin with,
but it might be nec. to expl. state that downleveling is not an option

btw. an alternative would be to kick “Tiers” altogether, since with downleveling anyone can play at any level they want anyway :person_shrugging:
… aside from making the DM-reward to level-up a character obsolete
(I am not a fan of this alternative :point_up: btw. - I just wanted to bring it up)

:point_right: we will prolly gonna vote on it

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Removing tiers would need a level table for items you can bring but I think In total there aren’t many problems created by doing so.

I always thought it’s weird that I can’t play with the people I played with last session because my character leveled up (with the same character)

DMS just give a level range instead of the tier

Specifically banning downleveling at the DMs discretion sounds unnecessary/harmful.

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Why? DM Discretion is the keyword. If you do not like downleveling, you can just not allow it for characters at your table. DMs who are fine with it can allow it at their table. Maybe we could clarify that in the rules for the new season, but I do not see a need to ban it entirely.

Example rules text:

Downleveling Usually, characters can only increase their level, not decrease it. if you want to play a character whose level is too high for the game in question, you may ask the DM if they allow you to decrease the character’s level to fit into the game’s tier or level range - but bear in mind, DMs are not obliged to allow a level decrease. If the decrease in level puts the character into a lower tier (e.g. going from level 11 to 10), you have to adhere to the new tier’s magic item limits. That means you can only equip as many items as the new tier allows and you cannot use items of a rarity greater than what is allowed in the new tier. The character gains rewards as usual with the exception of getting no level-up - a level decrease always is of temporary nature, meaning the character returns to their original level at the end of the session.

For DMs: Downleveling should only be allowed if the player has a good reason for why they want to play that specific character instead of one with an appropriate level, as allowing level decreases too freely would dilute the boundaries of our tiering system. Good reasons for allowing a level decrease are that your adventure is part of a serious of interconnected adventures or a campaign and that character was played in these earlier games already, thus already has etablished connections with the world, NPCs and other player characters; or that the character otherwise fits perfectly into your game due to their specific backstory, origin and relations.

I don’t think we should get rid of tiers entirely. They are a good way to have a simple, intuitive system of level ranges, and they coincide with the traditional power spikes of 5e’s character design, namely cantrip scaling, 3rd/6th/9th level spells and Extra Attack(s) - that aspect remains the same with the 2024 rules. This helps with balancing and is a good guidance for DMs.
A level range like 4-5, 7-11 or 16-18, despite much smaller in terms of numbers than any of the AL tiers would result in a much greater power gap between the characters than our current tiers.

Also, DMs are already free to give narrower level ranges within a tier (something like “low T1” for level 1 and 2s or "high T2 for level 7-10 is not unheard of here in VALUE).

I like the idea of a T0 below T1. That allows completely new players to make their first steps at level 1 and 2, while more experienced players can start straight at level 3 (or 4 with just one DM reward). Even the 2024 PHB states that with experienced players a start at level 3 is recommended.

On the other hand, it makes our tier system a bit more complex and probably reduces the amount of games that are available for entirely new players - at least for me DMing for level 1 or 2 hasn’t been much fun either compared to DMing for level 3 or 4 characters, as level 3s and 4s can not just do much more, they can also take much more before they falter. I assume that other DMs also find DMing high T1 more engaging and thus would end up DMing the new T1 instead of T0 more often.

I agree, although you need to remember that you are not forced to level up your character. You can just stay at your previous level if you prefer. That “wastes” the level-up (you don’t get to store level-ups for later use), but you still get the other rewards including downtime (and you can use stored downtime to level up multiple times at once).

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so when I join a Tier 1 (level 1-4) game, I can create a level 17th character and downlevel that character to level 4?

does not sound right to me :person_shrugging:

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If the DM is fine with that, yes. But the DM can as well say “no”, then you can’t. And I would say “no” in this case. :wink:

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so you are suggesting a DM should ask:
“if a player at their table has downlevelled their characters before”,
and then ban / restrict affected characters in a case by case basis?

:thinking:

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To be honest this is the discussion for a rules document and not DM discretion. What I and I think many people want is a short, concise and comprehensive overview over our houserules. If we make wishy washy this just opens the door for exploits and thus more work for the DM.

I don’t want to check my players sheets if they downleveled properly each session. I believe downleveling needs the DM to be more controlling, the players to read more extra rules, and the slow erosion of trust between certain players and DMs.

Because we can take homebrew as a counter example. Right now it is more banned because it says that only things from the WoTC books are legal. But If we allow downleveling on DM Discretion we can use the same arguments for Homebrew. And that just opens the door for all kinds of problems. I would have to check people, they would have to tell me all their homebrew. I might allow something only to see it doesn’t work.

Problem with campaigns and people who bring downleveled characters is that, they have a repertoire of magic items (some of which don’t fit or might even break some things) and jump right up to a higher tier again with all those magic items which is a power advantage compared to others. People can outshine others that way and thus steal spotlight.

We saw it with your character in the last session. Everyone was around level 5-7 and you came in with a level 10 character loaded with magic items and outshone everyone in combat. Now if we go into T3 this will be even worse.

My opinion on this rules text. It is too long, It is too malleable, not concise enough and needs breaks.

We already had people who didn’t properly read the VALUE rules because they were too long. This will just add confusion and make it worse. Also personally I think the rule is over-complicated and doesn’t make sense from a character progression sense. But that is my opinion.

tl;dr: What is good for the goose is good for the gander in regards to homebrew and downleveling. And use the KISS principle.

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