whiteTiki
October 19th, 2015, 17:24
Hi there everyone.
Small background story:
Some time ago I started realizing that having your character in certain Character Level (1-20), <lets say for this example level 5> wasn't the whole story when speaking of "Character Advancement"; You also had this Tier Level (1-4) (which you can find at the DMG rather than the PHB) which at Character Level 5 you're Tier Level 2. This type of level dictates the impact a character is making in the material plane or even other planes of existence. After that It also came to my attention that some faction rank system existed. You could also gain Faction Ranks (1-5), which you get by gaining renown points rather than experience points and you find the details of this system among 2 books (PHB and DMG) and 1 online free manual from WotC (Adventurers League Quick Start Guides). At the same time, this faction ranks have names according to the reputation you've made within your faction and they also have specific requirements and benefits also listed in different books or manuals.
Solution:
At the end I simply thought this was all kind of a little mess, so I decided to:
First, grab all the information available regarding all this systems, requirements, impact levels and benefits and analyze it so that it became more clear.
Second, create a MS Office Excel spreadsheet and place all the information in a simple, summarized, yet complete layout
Third, grab some of the official content available (such as character sheets and so) to replicate the same line of design WotC uses and make all this look neat and organized using some Adobe products and of course, giving the proper credit to WotC for their designs
Result:
At the end this was the result:
11396
If anyone likes a clean PDF of this, you can download it here (https://www.grupoarcon.mx/archives/CCA.pdf) (It's hosted in my personal web page just in case someone feels something's wrong)
NOTE: The renown points in-between each Faction Rank are the "Suggested" renown for the character in that particular Character level.
Comments and Suggestions (Using it in Fantasy Grounds):
The next thing I did of course, was to add this to the "Notes" section in Fantasy Grounds as a "Public" entry. This way me and my players have access to this chart all the time. I've found a lot of positive feedback from my players when using this; they say they understand better how their character is advancing through the adventures and the world and the most interesting part is that players actually start bending the adventure a little bit (making it kind of more dynamic) when they decide to do things or missions for their factions, request certain benefits they didn't know they had, etc.
This also encourages players and DM's to not only look at the "XP rewarded" each time a session ends, but it helps to keep track of your character as a whole and you can easily identify when your character is gaining a lot of XP in contrast with its renown or vice-versa, this way the characters also know when its time to stop doing "adventure related quests" for a moment and start doing some faction missions.
I'm posting this here of course for anyone that likes it or is interested in it to grab the image or download the PDF and add it to their "Notes" in Fantasy Grounds. I would also like, if anyone is interested in taking the job, to incorporate this into Fantasy Grounds, not just as an image in the notes section, but instead in some other creative way such as a module or a table in some specific part or whatever.
Hope you guys like it, feel free to use it, share it and modify it or make any suggestions if you like.
Small background story:
Some time ago I started realizing that having your character in certain Character Level (1-20), <lets say for this example level 5> wasn't the whole story when speaking of "Character Advancement"; You also had this Tier Level (1-4) (which you can find at the DMG rather than the PHB) which at Character Level 5 you're Tier Level 2. This type of level dictates the impact a character is making in the material plane or even other planes of existence. After that It also came to my attention that some faction rank system existed. You could also gain Faction Ranks (1-5), which you get by gaining renown points rather than experience points and you find the details of this system among 2 books (PHB and DMG) and 1 online free manual from WotC (Adventurers League Quick Start Guides). At the same time, this faction ranks have names according to the reputation you've made within your faction and they also have specific requirements and benefits also listed in different books or manuals.
Solution:
At the end I simply thought this was all kind of a little mess, so I decided to:
First, grab all the information available regarding all this systems, requirements, impact levels and benefits and analyze it so that it became more clear.
Second, create a MS Office Excel spreadsheet and place all the information in a simple, summarized, yet complete layout
Third, grab some of the official content available (such as character sheets and so) to replicate the same line of design WotC uses and make all this look neat and organized using some Adobe products and of course, giving the proper credit to WotC for their designs
Result:
At the end this was the result:
11396
If anyone likes a clean PDF of this, you can download it here (https://www.grupoarcon.mx/archives/CCA.pdf) (It's hosted in my personal web page just in case someone feels something's wrong)
NOTE: The renown points in-between each Faction Rank are the "Suggested" renown for the character in that particular Character level.
Comments and Suggestions (Using it in Fantasy Grounds):
The next thing I did of course, was to add this to the "Notes" section in Fantasy Grounds as a "Public" entry. This way me and my players have access to this chart all the time. I've found a lot of positive feedback from my players when using this; they say they understand better how their character is advancing through the adventures and the world and the most interesting part is that players actually start bending the adventure a little bit (making it kind of more dynamic) when they decide to do things or missions for their factions, request certain benefits they didn't know they had, etc.
This also encourages players and DM's to not only look at the "XP rewarded" each time a session ends, but it helps to keep track of your character as a whole and you can easily identify when your character is gaining a lot of XP in contrast with its renown or vice-versa, this way the characters also know when its time to stop doing "adventure related quests" for a moment and start doing some faction missions.
I'm posting this here of course for anyone that likes it or is interested in it to grab the image or download the PDF and add it to their "Notes" in Fantasy Grounds. I would also like, if anyone is interested in taking the job, to incorporate this into Fantasy Grounds, not just as an image in the notes section, but instead in some other creative way such as a module or a table in some specific part or whatever.
Hope you guys like it, feel free to use it, share it and modify it or make any suggestions if you like.