NeoExodus Legacies: Level Caps

As the NeoExodus Legacies Campaign Book or NLCB enters its final stage of editing, I can provide some additional information about its contents.

One of the big decision we had to do when I started working on NeoExodus was the starter level and the level cap. These two decisions really make a big impact.

Very early on, I mean when we first started talking about a NeoExodus running campaign. LPJ and I had to talked about NeoExodus, what we wanted it to be. And one of the things that kept coming up was that we wanted the PCs to be directly involved in the events that would shake Exodus. The more we talked about it, the less we could see first-level characters be appropriate for what we wanted to do.

So the question becomes "What level is a good level for characters to start?"

This is not so trivial. On the one hand you want to have characters be able to level up at a reasonable pace. On the other hand, they must have some measure of power to justify NPCs involving them in their games and power plays. Would you call a 16-19 year old kid to get involved in a major corporate activity? I would not call upon them. But a 20-something, maybe. The same kind of logic should apply to the NPCs of Exodus.

With this in mind, we looked at a number of level, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th.

Finally we decided that 3rd level was the one that allowed players to have a level low enough that they don't level out of everything too quickly, that they have time for their character to explore and discover the setting.

This means that every NeoExodus Legacies character start not at level 1, but at level three. Thus, on their first legacy adventure, every character is considered a journeyman adventurer. They fought some minor menace, shooed away the wolves out of the miller's field or fought a caliban or two. In short, NPCs will seek you out based on your reputation!

And leave a legacy upon Exodus!

On the topic of a maximum level - or level cap - that's something we have not really set. Obviously, there will be less higher-level adventures than lower-level ones, but I'm not sure I want to have a hard cap. So after a few exchanges, we decided there would not be any level cap on the campaign.

JP