Hi all, I'm sure this has come up before and if so, can someone please point me in the direction of maybe a quick/rough comparison between Genesys Experience and D&D Levels?

For example, a starting Genesys character has about 100XP to build with. This give him the equivalent of a D&D 'Level 1' character. So at how many Geneyst XP would a character be roughly on par with a Level 2 D&D character? Or level 5? Or level 10 etc. I realize you can't make a direct comparison between the two because the systems are so diverse (especially in the 'hit point' area) but I've been asked by one of my players what the rough 'progression' should feel like in Genesys and I really don't have a good answer to that yet.

My gut impression from the few sessions I've run is that starting Genesys characters are a bit more capable than a level 1 D&D character but the progression is much flatter. In D&D, capabilities grow by leaps and bounds in the early game. A Level 3 or 4 character typically has more than twice the HPs of a starting Level 1 and (depending on edition) will have access to more access to powerful feats and abilities.

To put it in campaign perspective, right now the starting party is dealing with a local Kobold threat (backed by a few critters here and there). At roughly how many XPs should they be able to progress to things like Bugbears/Gnolls? Ogres? Trolls? Giants? Vampires? Dragons? etc. My sense of it is that creature survivability increases quite a bit but their lethality doesn't scale up quite as quickly. PCs seem to be about the opposite. Their survivability seems pretty incremental but their damage output can increase quite a bit from increased skills/talents.

So is there a rough guide out there to compare apples to oranges?

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks!

It gets tricky, because in D&D the XP scales. Level 2 is way easier to reach than level 14. For that reason alone it can be really hard to try and get a good sense of power level, not to mention that D&D has always featured a fairly linear progression across the board—in 5e, for example, your proficiency modifier and hit points increase as your level increases. This is a function of earning XP and has little or nothing to do with development choices (relatively speaking, anyway). In Genesys, you have branching paths of specialization that can easily lead you towards a character that you’ve been playing for years and never increase his would threshold, or never develop several of his starting skills. They’re just different games with different concepts at work.

That being said, 150 XP in genesys could translate fairly well to a 5th-level character in D&D. At this point you’re about 6-10 sessions in and should have a good picture of how your character is developing.

Beyond that level, I don’t think the XP systems really lend themselves towards comparison very well.

There isn't any practical comparison. A group of 12 th lvl characters in D&D is pretty much unkillable without an absurd threat level of antagonist. My guys are 600 xp+ into their fantasy characters and I'm still kicking their asses with pretty basic opponents. The defensiveness and durability of characters in this game doesn't spool up equally as offensiveness. My answer to your guys would be apples to hot dogs, there just isn't a good comparison.

if you want a formula and discard the quadratic magic and item power creep:

a base template of 2,2,2,2,2,2 is worth 180XP, so with some extras a base genesys character is worth 280~320XP

a Xth level character from 3.5e/PF is worth around (5^LN(X))*25XP+100XP in genesys ("LN" is logarithm naturalis, "^" is power of)

so a base genesys character is around level 4 in 3.5e/PF

@Terefang ... show your work? I can’t tell how you got there. What are all these “extras” that factor into XP level, and how are you determining equivalence?

7 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

.. show your work?

on Attributes:

CRB p44 "Improving Characteristics": from the text you can derive the following attribute cost table:

1 -> 10XP
2 -> 30XP
3 -> 60XP
4 -> 100XP
5 -> 150XP
6 -> 210XP

Example 1: basic template is 6*2 = 6*30XP = 180XP

Example 2: 3,2,2,2,2,1 template is 4*30XP + 60XP + 10XP = 190XP

if you want to convert PF attributes directly use the following table:

PF(Attr + Mods) -> Gen(Attr)
1-8 -> 1
9-15 -> 2
16-24 -> 3
25-35 -> 4
36-47 -> 5
48+ -> 6

Example: a PF/Dwarf with a natural Wisdom of 14 (+2) and a Racial Mod of +2 uses (14+2+2 =) 18 for lookup on the table which gives a Cunning of 3 in Genesys.

on Race:

a Genesys Dwarf has:

3,2,2,2,2,1 template (190XP); WT: 11+Brawn (=5XP); ST: 10+Willpower; Starting Experience: 90 XP; one rank in Resilience (=5XP); Dark Vision (=5XP); Tough as Nails(=5XP)

sums up to 300XP

on Class Level:

if you take my formula ( (5^LN(X))*25XP+100XP ) you get the following table:

PF Levels -> Genesys XP
1 -> 125
2 -> 176
3 -> 246
4 -> 333
5 -> 433
6 -> 547
7 -> 673
8 -> 810
9 -> 958
10 -> 1117
11 -> 1286
12 -> 1464
13 -> 1652
14 -> 1848
15 -> 2053
16 -> 2267
17 -> 2489
18 -> 2720
19 -> 2958
20 -> 3204

Note 1: Remember that quadratic magic spell casting power and item power creep are not accounted for (and never should).

Note 2: the table above does not work for creature/monster conversation, since Genesys Adversaries are build a lot different than PF ones.

Note 3: you may want to use XP to pay for specific equipment (eg. i used a rate of $5 per XP).

I am not sure it's worth comparing the two. My favorite thing about this system is I don't have to have the "tiered" enemy approach like I do in D&D. A starting level party could go after kobolds, gnolls, drow or even a beholder.

Thanks for the input all!

I guess the questions was more about what will/should progression feel like in the system? One of the biggest draws to RPG for many folks is seeing their character evolve and grow more powerful over time. D&D clearly has that covered as characters go from being challenged by the weakest of foes all the way up to contending with greater demons and practically demi-gods towards the end of the campaign.

Genesys doesn't seem to follow that track very tightly but we were just trying to get a feel for how different it will be. So far, fighting bolstered Kobolds has proven to be a challenge for the party but they have overcome them. I'm hesitant to throw anything significant at them yet but perhaps they have more capability than I originally thought for 'starting' characters.

So we were just trying to get a few benchmarks of what is a 'low level' vs 'mid level' vs 'high level' character in Genesys. We weren't looking for anything rigid but it looks like the answer is more along the lines of 'well just have to see how it play out'.

Thanks again for the discussion!

Most of the character growth in Genesys is lateral, not vertical. What I mean by that is there is little growth of bigger numbers, but rather a growth of breadth of skill.

Even though there is a ranked talent that lets you increase WT by 2 each tier, you won't be taking that at every tier since there are other, better, talents to take at that tier. For example, there's a tier 3 talent that lets you reroll one skill check each session. I would take that over a boring +2WT.

As you gain skill ranks and talents, you'll get better at what you do, sure, but since gaining ranks just upgrades to you won't be rolling more dice, just better dice. And even the talents you take that improve your abilities don't do so to a high degree. Lucky Strike is the main talent that increases damage dealt. And that caps out at +5 (since it's linked to a characteristic). And most of the defensive talents do similar things: Defensive Stance, Dodge, Side Step, etc all upgrade to . And the Defensive talent increases your Defense (which caps at 4, another limitation to dice bloat).

6 hours ago, Terefang said:

if you want to convert PF attributes directly use the following table:

 PF(Attr + Mods) -> Gen(Attr)
1-8 -> 1
9-15 -> 2
16-24 -> 3
25-35 -> 4
36-47 -> 5
48+ -> 6

Example: a PF/Dwarf with a natural Wisdom of 14 (+2) and a Racial Mod of +2 uses (14+2+2 ? 18 for lookup on the table which gives a Cunning of 3 in Genesys.

I take issue with this. First, because d20 math doesn't correlate at all with the narrative dice math in that way, and second because in PF there's no upper limit to what your ability scores can be (unless I'm very much mistaken?). So talk about apples and hot dogs

I mean you could at least compare it to something like D&D 5e, which does have upper limits on ability scores (like Genesys does for characteristics).

And I'm still not seeing a rationale for the equivalence...? It seems like you're just saying "Here you can use this table" without explaining why we should actually be using that table.

4 hours ago, Uncle_Joe said:

Thanks for the input all!

I guess the questions was more about what will/should progression feel like in the system? One of the biggest draws to RPG for many folks is seeing their character evolve and grow more powerful over time. D&D clearly has that covered as characters go from being challenged by the weakest of foes all the way up to contending with greater demons and practically demi-gods towards the end of the campaign.

Genesys doesn't seem to follow that track very tightly but we were just trying to get a feel for how different it will be. So far, fighting bolstered Kobolds has proven to be a challenge for the party but they have overcome them. I'm hesitant to throw anything significant at them yet but perhaps they have more capability than I originally thought for 'starting' characters.

So we were just trying to get a few benchmarks of what is a 'low level' vs 'mid level' vs 'high level' character in Genesys. We weren't looking for anything rigid but it looks like the answer is more along the lines of 'well just have to see how it play out'.

Thanks again for the discussion!

I prefer character development in this system vastly over D&D. D&D is a tedious slow slog from level to level. In this system players get xp every session and grow every session. In addition the system is more open ended in that one need not make the painful Feat allocation choices like in D&D in deciding between something flavorful or something mechanically beneficial. You can also spool up capability faster in this system. My guys have played both fantasy settings and completely prefer this over any kind of D20 system.

I find it vastly easier to run as a GM as well. It's just too easy to challenge them, so encounter design doesn't become a pain in the *** as they advance balancing between trying to make something actually challenging or creating something that is pure meta-game geekicide BS. Since I don't have to labor over the nitty gritty of opponents that frees up time and ultimately makes game prep a lot easier imo.

1 hour ago, awayputurwpn said:

without explaining why we should actually be using that table.

because the table is adjusted for Genesys from the original i developed for WHFRP 3rd edition.

you can take it or leave it -- it worked for me -- your milage may vary.

if you want proof, stick to science.

over and out.

@Terefang thanks very much for the clarification! Wasn't asking for proof, just a source/rationale. And now you've given both.

Thanks again

The proof is that D&D FORCES you on upward progression with each level increase. Genesys allows many for horizontal progression and very little change in power.

6 hours ago, Uncle_Joe said:

So we were just trying to get a few benchmarks of what is a 'low level' vs 'mid level' vs 'high level' character in Genesys. We weren't looking for anything rigid but it looks like the answer is more along the lines of 'well just have to see how it play out'.

Yeah since there's no upper limit to the XP you can earn, and seeing as you can ultra-specialize and min-max in Genesys just as easily as you can generalize, there's really no cut-and-dried "benchmarks." IMO, the best you can do really is just "play it by ear," or "go with your gut." I've played Star Wars RPG games where characters ranged from 150–650 earned XP, and they played together just fine. I made sure the lower XP characters invested heavily in their skill ranks, and the only real difference was the talents & Force powers that the higher XP characters had. Everyone had a grand old time.

16 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

Yeah since there's no upper limit to the XP you can earn, and seeing as you can ultra-specialize and min-max in Genesys just as easily as you can generalize, there's really no cut-and-dried "benchmarks." IMO, the best you can do really is just "play it by ear," or "go with your gut." I've played Star Wars RPG games where characters ranged from 150–650 earned XP, and they played together just fine. I made sure the lower XP characters invested heavily in their skill ranks, and the only real difference was the talents & Force powers that the higher XP characters had. Everyone had a grand old time.

Interesting XP range. If a new character comes in, did you start them at the base XP regardless of the group's average XP? I feel like I'd want to start them higher than that just so the character held an approximate level of interest (fun more than durability or combat competence).

(I haven't had a chance to start our campaign yet, so new characters and character death is all theorycraft for me at this point, but it's good to get some perspective)

1 hour ago, Dragonshadow said:

Interesting XP range. If a new character comes in, did you start them at the base XP regardless of the group's average XP? I feel like I'd want to start  them higher than  that  just so the character held an approximate level of interest (fun more than durability or combat competence).

I haven't done this yet, so grain of salt, etc. But what I'd do in this case is create their starting character then give 'em the 50 "Experienced Characters" XP (CRB44). Or even 100XP more, if the rest of the characters have several hundred banked. After each session give them 2x or 3x the XP you give everyone until they are at a comparable XP level.

That way, they can still grow their character organically, as opposed to spending several dozen XP at once. Heck, I'd even let them spend XP on a single rank of a skill or talent during play (for the cost of one Story Point) oncer per session. That'll let 'em have the right skill/talent at the right time without undue "punishment" for not having all the XP at once.

1 hour ago, Dragonshadow said:

Interesting XP range. If a new character comes in, did you start them at the base XP regardless of the group's average XP? I feel like I'd want to start them higher than that just so the character held an approximate level of interest (fun more than durability or combat competence).

(I haven't had a chance to start our campaign yet, so new characters and character death is all theorycraft for me at this point, but it's good to get some perspective)

I don't like handing a big wad of xp all at once. PCs invariably create a dice pool with that approach as opposed to organically growing a character based on in game experiences. What I do is give them a chunk to start. Then for the next few sessions give them a bit more than the others. In my fantasy game since I made trees for race, career, spells, formulas, signature moves, etc, it's easy to give out some bonus directed xp as well.

For example the barber-surgeon took a break and came back 4 months later. I gave him a couple three basic alchemy plans he didn't have prior, and a step or two in some of his existing plans. Gives him a boost up, and avoids the sprint to Dedication/min/max.

1 hour ago, 2P51 said:

I don't like handing a big wad of xp all at once. PCs invariably create a dice pool with that approach as opposed to organically growing a character based on in game experiences. What I do is give them a chunk to start. Then for the next few sessions give them a bit more than the others. In my fantasy game since I made trees for race, career, spells, formulas, signature moves, etc, it's easy to give out some bonus directed xp as well.

For example the barber-surgeon took a break and came back 4 months later. I gave him a couple three basic alchemy plans he didn't have prior, and a step or two in some of his existing plans. Gives him a boost up, and avoids the sprint to Dedication/min/max.

If I give someoen a chunk of xp to start new characters, I tend to put a tier 3 and rank 3 limit on xp spending and all the xp just to be used, none banked (or maybe 5 xp banked depending on choices left)

8 hours ago, Dragonshadow said:

Interesting XP range. If a new character comes in, did you start them at the base XP regardless of the group's average XP? I feel like I'd want to start them higher than that just so the character held an approximate level of interest (fun more than durability or combat competence).

(I haven't had a chance to start our campaign yet, so new characters and character death is all theorycraft for me at this point, but it's good to get some perspective)

When new characters came into the campaign, I started them at Knight Level. I highly recommend it. Not sure if there's a Genesys equivalent yet, but it's not that difficult a concept to translate in any case

Quote

.. I started them at Knight Level ...

could only find these in BX/BECMI/RC:

1. Veteran
2. Warrior
3. Swordmaster
4. Hero
5. Swashbuckler
6. Myrmidon
7. Champion
8. Superhero
9. Lord

do you mean Lord level ?

... beginning D&D with 9th level is pretty hefty tho.

transmogrified to Genesys would mean some extra 600XP.

... maxed to 40 Talents

... raising important skills and attributes instead

... plus upping ranked talents

... would mean only 20-33% output

... so around 15 Talents in the pyramid

=> still problematic for entry level players

i would recommend starting characters with Genesys as-is (it is in reality comparing pineapples with kiwis).

Knight Level play was introduced in, I believe, Force and Destiny . It just means +150XP and either a lightsaber (for actual Jedi knights) or an equivalent item for non-Force users.

On 6/3/2018 at 11:34 AM, Uncle_Joe said:

Hi all, I'm sure this has come up before and if so, can someone please point me in the direction of maybe a quick/rough comparison between Genesys Experience and D&D Levels?

I will stand by my previous calculation from the F&D beta forum: 40 XP is roughly 8 hours of gametime, wherein one can fit about 8-10 encounters, which is the suggested guideline for leveling in D20. A 20th level character is equal to 800 earned XP, and a "Jedi Knight" in the old SAGA game was 7th level, about 300 XP here, and "Knight Level" at 150 XP is more like Padawan level.

Great input guys. I definitely think Genesys feels 'wider' in development than deep. But they definitely are more capable at low level than comparable D&D characters.

Ulimately, I think 40 XP is probably a good baseline with the understanding that a character with 80XP (past the starting build) isn't necessarily THAT much more combat-capable but he should have access to a broader range of skills and abilities.

1 hour ago, Uncle_Joe said:

Great input guys. I definitely think Genesys feels 'wider' in development than deep. But they definitely are more capable at low level than comparable D&D characters.

Ulimately, I think 40 XP is probably a good baseline with the understanding that a character with 80XP (past the starting build) isn't necessarily THAT much more combat-capable but he should have access to a broader range of skills and abilities. 

to refer the CRB p44 - Sidebar:

Quote

EXPERIENCED CHARACTERS

Our character creation rules focus on creating new adventurers. However, you may want to start with characters who are a bit more experienced.

In this case, you can give your characters some additional XP to spend after character creation.

We recommend an additional 50 XP.

This cannot be spend on characteristics, just skills and talents.

In addition, this XP cannot be used to increase a skill above rank 3.

This should make your characters feel more capable but still give them room to improve throughout the game.