Character level often does not reflect combat power

[Maidenstalker]

Could there be a (hopefully minor) change in the way Character Level is displayed that might give more information on that character's combat power?

My first thought is that character level could be displayed as "7/37" which would represent a character that had 37 total levels but was currently 7th level and had reincarnated from level 30 once.

Heroic completionists (20 x 15) are going to have numbers like "7/300" and most of my toons will have numbers like "14/14" (altoholics unite!).

There will be good and bad ramifications from that. It would indicate more accurately the potential combat power the character might have. It would allow discrimination based on that. Some would appreciate that and some would not.

It might also bring this to the game's producers attention and invite them to address this disparity somehow.

Is this a problem that needs a solution?

[rabidfox]

Character level often does not reflect combat power

Gear, build, player knowledge... Past lives don't matter without those. That / number would hold little to no value other than creating the illusion that somehow past lives is where all the power is. Different builds mature via different leveling curves; some rock heroics and are meh in epics and vice versa. There's too much about the game to simplify it to any single metric for what's strong/not strong at any given level.

[TheAlicornSage]

First, this is pointless because you could give two people identical characters and one can find success easily where the other would find success nigh impossible. Read up on Tucker's Kobolds, in which standard ordinary kobolds become difficult and scary for players of much higher level due to tactics and strategy despite the absolutely pathetic stats. (I wish they'd have adventure combat like that sometimes)

Second, people abuse such notions. They tend to look at combat power as some sort of equation in which the higher combat power should nearly always win and then call it unfair when that doesn't happen. They should never rely on stats for that anyway, but it's even worse when it becomes an excuse to say things are unbalanced.

Third, CR in the ttrpg was mainly a reference point. The players could get a general understanding of how likely a creature might make a save or something but not the overall effectiveness of the creature. The GM on the other hand, could use it to have a rough idea of how much trouble it would give the players, not in the sense that a certain CR would always be a certain difficulty but rather that their players might be newbies that find equal cr difficult, or veterans that find equal CR easy, and from that make adjustments as required.

I would expect therefore, that CR in this would serve the same purpose for players, a general idea of the save and bab bonuses, but not so much total effectiveness. Whether that is the actual case or not, I don't know.

[Annex]

On the one hand, if such a feature existed, players at the same place in the game could more easily find one another and form meaningful groups. This would especially help players near the bottom of the power curve, as they could exclude characters with too much power.

On the other, some group leaders would use such a system to exclude people with low scores from their groups. They would bounce out all the players who join for the sole purpose of being carried. This would greatly upset the many, many players seeking an easy quest completion. In addition. players who feel they are super skilled, regardless of the character, would become upset because they would be excluded from groups of super characters.

In other words, human beings ruthlessly seek to establish dominance within tribal groups and will use such a system for that purpose.

The problem is that the system suggest will work extremely well.