Discussion: One more level until I can RP!

I am very fond of developing my characters as they go through the game content and level up. It makes the gameplay feel more a part of my Roleplaying experience and keeps me interested.

I know there's often the tendency to go completely in another direction and sort of breeze through the in-game content.

Often what someone wants to do isn't necessarily allowed within the confines of the game, certain costume elements, power combination, back-stories, Powers, so Roleplayers are often forced to ignore what's in-game.

And it is certainly bothersome for your character to have certain powers or to be viewed as strong or imposing or even just use their powers in a unique way, in-concept ..... and be at level one in-game.

My question is, who here splays through the game and develops their character that way, treating a level fifty as their fully fleshed character, or one at the end of their career, and who here treats their character at level 1 to be the same as their character at 50, changing and growing their character through other methods, or waiting until level fifty to really begin exploring their ideas?

Put simply:
Do you RP up to fifty?
Do you RP irrespective of level?
Do you get up to fifty and then RP?

RP I do on every level... the character I play may be less powerful but that can be the result of a diversity of reasons and easily explained.

Depends on the character. Usually its fairly easy to explain why a character gets more powerful as they level up, and thats fine by me. IN some cases, my re-rolled Invul/Elec tank for example, I do RP him as if he was still 50. It's not my fault that EnrgMelee got nerfed, after all And he hasn't suddenly got more spannerised all of a sudden, or lost a limb. It' a purely OOC change that prompted it, so OOC it remains.

On the flipside, certain characters I will wait till a certain level to RP with. I waited till level 24 to RP my Traditionalist Rikti Psi-Scout, Ky'Net, because he's using a Fortunata as a build base (+ Rikti costume code) so it made sense to wait till then.

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I tend to develop them over the 1-50 journey. Though, like Techbot, it really depends on the toon in question.

Some are simply as powerful as they'll ever be right from the start. I just explain away the 'lack of powers' as why use overkill? I don't need Total Focus to 'arrest' this Hellion when a well placed Power Blast will do. My villains would consider it beneath them to over-exert themselves on weaker prey.

Once I start encountering higher threat mobs though I have to break out the heavy artillery.

Others though, I view as just having been bestowed the powers, either through an accident or mutation suddenly manifesting or etc. These toons do indeed start out trying to figure out their abilities and what works/doesn't. Adding powers down the line as they figure out new 'tricks'

All my toons, regardless of origin/backstory view the 1-50 as a career arc. 1-14 being the initiation phase, when you 1st start your career.
14-22 being the getting comfortable in the city phase.
22-38 being the "Hey I'm starting to gain some recognition! Not as revered as the Phalanx but still!
38-50 being the twilight of the journey heading into retirement.
At 50 they are semi-retired as they've seen and done it all by then, saving the world on countless occasions and are as respected as most of the big name Heroes in the lore. Letting the new blood take up the mantle so to speak and only coming out for the huge universe shattering threats.

I find it very much depends on the character.

For example, one of my toons is an experienced mage who has been practising magic since the early 1700s. I don't play her as the level 20-odd that she is in game because although I do not consider her to be hugely powerful, having nearly 300 years of magecraft under her belt puts her at level 50 in terms of experience.

Another of them (who happens to be the mage's familiar when he feels like it) is a cat - he has some IC powers that he uses more to annoy people than anything else - but I wouldn't even consider him to be level 1. After all, he's a cat!

And for my last example; I didn't RP my main's Praetorian double at all until she hit level 20 purely so that she could get into the rest of the game.

Equally, I don't tend to pay too much attention to the alignment of my characters because most of the time I'm using that either for badges or for the ability to go either red or blue side, not as any reflection of what kind of hero/villain they are.

I view the level of characters as an actual in character thing. A rating by the F.B.S.A of how reliable or how much of a threat a person is.

In this game, I'd never consider waiting until level 50 to lay a character. That's mostly because I'd never play most of them if I did.

Nitoichi was specifically roleplayed as rising through the ranks. Her reason for doing hero stuff was to be "assessed at level 35 so that Vanguard would accept her" since she wanted revenge on the Rikti for what they did to her brother.

Her Praetorian counterpart is kind of different. She's got more skilled at avoiding being hurt (HP) and has created new gadgets (got new powers), but she isn't a "level 50 hero"; her 'level' hasn't changed since she got to Paragon City and started kicking Skull butt around King's (though her reputation has increased over time). Fundamentally, she's a street hero who can go toe-to-toe with some of the big bads if she has to to keep her part of the city safe.

Unless there is something that i feel the Tonn needs to be able to do, say fly, i tend not to worry about level, with supersidekicking and the removal of most zone level limits there is not much of an RP issue.

Some toons do evole and become more powerful as they level some dont, i have a lvl 7 who is RP'ed as a very powerful and a level 43 who is no more than a human with a gun.

TBH the need to be at a certain level normally only comes when you are RPing with a fixed set of people and you want to do the same TF's or the like.

Very much depends on the character. My main's progress from 1-50 was essentially him learning about his powers, learning new tricks he could do with his powers, and learning to use more of his inherent power - but he was powerful from Day One.

I have another character who is (technically) a god, and languishes somewhere in the 20s. The amount of power s/he is able to manifest on Primal Earth is severely limited, though.

Yet another character is a tricky one. Due to her character story, she's as powerful as any other L50 you'd care to mention, but the amount of power she can use (due to a not-insignificant problem she has) makes her actually far less powerful than her level would indicate (while still being superhuman). She tends to get by on bravado and attitude. It's worked so far.

And another character, my main's mother, is currently level 7, but just because I've played her a TINY bit. She actually has zero powers, gadgets, abilities, gear and so forth. RP-wise, she's just a normal woman.

So... it varies. When I play a character, I'm playing the character, not the abilities wrapped around that character by the game.

As far as I'm concerned, combat levels are nothing but an OOC game mechanic and can safely be ignored as far as RP is concerned. You don't suddenly get NPC heroes giving you new powers! New powers are either something you've just learned to do, or some new tech you've built or been given etc.

Security level, on the other hand, is different. I *do* use that ICly for the most part, and I see it as a measure of the level of trust the city places in your ability.

I'm part of the level is irrelevant crowd. I RP my chars at all levels (though I do tend to hit level 3 so I can use my PD porter) and let the character's story decide how powerful they begin and develop their abilities as I play. Some are more capable than others whenfirst rolled, but this is again down to story.

I've got chars who do indeed grow as they level, but mostly that's a result of ICteaming and RP interaction with other chars taking the character in new directions. So as others have said, it's a story-by-story thing. Some are made to be potent or competant, others grow naturally over time.

I'm not a big fan of the no RP until 50 idea I have to say. It smacks of power play, or min-maxing or whatever you care to call it. Some of the most interesting chars I've RP'd with have never hit twenty, let alone fifty. And, what with people being PL'd to 50 in under a day or less in some cases, max level is pretty redundant.

I'm another who goes on an alt-by-alt basis. The situation can be complicated more by the fact that IC some characters may not even have had a hero/villain career and just 'spring complete' at 50, or they are already retired when I roll them at Level 1 but haven't lost any of the power they would have had as a Level 50.

I don't RP in-game, but that beside, I only have around 3 lvl 50s and a mess of others of various levels. And when I get a character to lvl 50, I tend not to play them. Not because I don't want to, but all the other characters I made need to 'catch up'...so if I end up RPing in-game (that is, I still get into the mindset of the character, I just don't type it and interact it with others), level wouldn't make a difference.

And I don't RP with respect to the level, but the relative power of each character. Even though my main is lvl 50, he's actually not more powerful than the big-bad villain of his story despite her being only lvl 41 right now.