@Arkandel said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:
Yes, that, and also where that relative power level ought to be.
Do you prefer high end games where characters have access to the most incredible feats available in the system? Do you prefer them being beginners with access limited to the first few powers? Somewhere in the middle?
So you are asking what the ideal absolute power level is and not just the range between characters?
I don't think it matters. The critical part is the difference in power between the PCs not the average around which they are all playing. If they're playing dung beetles, as long as the game is fun, they're all dung beetles in power. If they're playing gods, as long as the game is fun, they're all gods. The issue is when the game is gods vs. dung beetles.
The problem with your example of D&D is that it isn't designed for play above level 10. The original white Box D&D topped out at around level 11, I think. The next edition of Basic D&D - B/X - had a max level of 14. I'm not sure what first edition of Advanced D&D had as a max level, but BECMI Basic D&D introduced a max level of 36 and Immortals - characters who had transcended levels.
The thing is, even in the original White Box, after about level 5, you weren't doing as much dungeon crawling. Instead you were building fortifications, claiming lands, etc. The game changed as you got more powerful. It wasn't until AD&D, particularly Third Edition, that that entire aspect of the game was jettisoned and the expectation was that 20th level characters are doing the same stuff as 1st level characters only their dungeons are the outer planes. Unfortunately the game mechanics aren't designed for that and it just falls apart. The game is built for dung beetles, but you're trying to cram gods into it and expecting the gods to keep doing dung beetle things. It would be like running Call of Cthulhu with PCs consisting of Superman, Goku, Haruhi Suzumiya, Dr. Who, and Q. The game mechanics couldn't handle it and the game would fall apart.
Then, equally as importantly, do you think all characters should be in the same range of mechanical power as the rest? How much should they be able to deviate if not? And how do some PCs then get to that point - is it a function of how long they've been active? Do they earn it through some risky means? Do their players just choose or apply ("I'll play a veteran", "I'll play Superman") for those outliers?
The latter option for me; though, I would have it tied to age. I have for a few years now supported the idea that xp should be awarded as an equal amount to everyone every in-game month. When you roll up a character and decide on an age that determines the starting xp you have to invest in your starting skills. If you want to play a character who has top of the line skills, he/she can't be a smooth-faced youth who just left the farm yesterday to seek adventure. He/she is going to be the grizzled badass, 40-something veteran of two wars, a coup attempt by the royal vizier, the attempted ending of the world by a chaos cult, and that one time a dragon attacked his/her unit, killing all but 10 soldiers.
