TESC: Campaign Overview - The Ceraan Sea

The Ceraan Sea

For centuries the waters of the Ceraan Sea were home to a multitude of various cultures, religions, and races.  These civilizations were merely beacons of light in a  world of darkness, however.  The threat of Chaos loomed on the horizon every day.  Barbarians, monstrous creatures, and evil far more foul haunted the lives of the Ceraan Sea.  During these years city-states existed across the land, all vying to increase their sphere of influence.  The only true and certain thing in life was that change was inevitable.  Lands exchanged hands.  Dragons burned villages.  Life was cruel, short, and precious.

A little over five hundred years ago a sorcerer named Feltharos sparked the series of conflicts known to history as the Supremacy Wars.  For one hundred years battles were waged.  What was once a small army led by Feltharos's dark magic soon turned into legions of evil.  One by one, the city-states were defeated and subjugated.  Their fallen raised once more as undead to further support the sorcerer's army.  Some states capitulated rather than be purged, willingly joining Feltharos's armies.  Nations of Elves and Dwarves would experience civil wars over whom they should side with.  Alliances were formed to pool strength to stop the dark wizard but they all failed.  

The Region of the Ceraan Sea eventually became united under the Empire of Feltharos.  The gods of the people took second importance to the worship of the God-Emperor.  Languages and currencies were standardized.  A common tongue and standard of precious metals were instituted.  The various regions of the Empire were divided into eleven Imperial Territories, governed by an Imperial Overseer.  The oppression of the Empire impacted every creature in the region.  Men and women were drafted into service for the Army and Navy.  Weapons and armor were restricted from the commonfolk.  Humanoid creatures were enslaved, their cultural identities stripped.  The elves and dwarves whom sided with Feltharos during the Supremacy Wars were given opportunities to serve the Empire and keep their homelands relatively unharmed.  Magical teachings and research became heavily controlled by the Empire, no hedge wizard would suffer the will of the God-Emperor.  Dragons and other monsters were hunted and driven back into the dark places of the world.

Feltharos built a grand dark spire on the Peninsula of Chaktau and a grand Imperial capital grew around it.  It's central position in Empire meant both the Army and Navy could project its power equally across the realm. 

For all of the darkness Feltharos brought to the Ceraan Sea, he did bring a measure of Law.  Where once peoples suffered the Chaos of the darkness beyond their city walls, the strong arm of the Law of the Empire kept the other forms of darkness at bay.  For three hundred years the Empire would hold dominion over the Ceraan Sea.  Feltharos was the unifying force in land, but this was not to be for eternity.

A little over one hundred years ago, a fellowship of fifteen heroes, tired of the oppression of the Empire, staged an assault on the dark spire in the capital.  Their goal was to cut the head off of the beast so the body would fail.  It is unknown how the fellowship faired, truly.  After the assault eleven bodies of the fifteen heroes were found in the halls of the spire, fallen in battle.  What IS known, is that at the end of the conflict, the remaining four heroes and the God-Emperor Feltharos were nowhere to be found.  The servants of the dark sorcerer could no longer hear the commands of their lord in their minds.  Many magics held in place by Feltharos failed.  The spire burned and spit flames, many parts collapsing on itself.  Whatever had happened, the Empire shook.

When it became evident the God-Emperor no longer held power, the Overseers of the Imperial Territories began warring amongst each other to claim the Imperial throne.  The conflicts have been raging for over three generations now.  Many territories have collapsed back into city-states.  Others are now ruled as independent Kingdoms of the old Overseers.  Some regions have attempted to exert power over the capital in order to proclaim their leader Emperor.  Today, an Emperor named Kroknell takes residence in the abandoned spire of Feltharos, but Kroknell's power only reaches a few dozens of miles out from the city walls of the old capital.  The civilization and Law of the old Empire, for better or worse, has vanished, destroyed through constant warring and the encroachment of darker evils at the borderlands of the known world.  The monstrous humanoids break free their bonds of enslavement, now practicing their own form of slavery on any creature weaker than themselves.  Slowly, sleeping dragons wake.  Greedy and power-hungry warlords feast upon the weakened world.  Old imperial ruins fester with old relics and treasures once lost.  Your adventures await.         

TESC Houserules

So it's been a little over a month since my last post.  Real life happens I guess.  Had some life stuff to deal with.  My girlfriend's father passed away unexpectedly, went to a friend's wedding, work things.  I have been able to think a little bit more about my proposed The Episodic Sandbox Campaign.

One thing for sure is that TESC is going to have some houserules.  And nearly everyone is going to be inspired by or lifted from Adventurer Conqueror King.  I just love that rules system.  A lot of modern 'enlightened' rules are in there and I took the best ones to be imported into Swords & Wizardry.  I didn't choose them because they facilitated TESC any better, but because they are just neat ways to make S&W a little more interesting.

Anyone familiar with ACKS will recognize these but here they are:

• Fighters do additional bonus damage based on level, that stacks with strength bonuses.  This is taken from the ACKS fighter table.
• Fighter (and ONLY fighters) get cleaving.  This is again per ACKS, but comes down to killing an enemy means an extra free attack, going up to the fighter's level.  The fighter may take 5 foot steps between attacks up to their movement rate unused in their turn. 

I make those changes to give fighters a buff.  They need it.  They can become truly awesome killing machines this way.  I didn't want to give it to any other class like ACKS does because Paladins, Assassins, Rangers, etc. all have other good stuff going for them.  Monster are not getting cleave, as they usually get multiple attacks anyway.

• Thieves use the skill chart taken from ACKS instead of S&W Complete.
• Assassins similarly use the skill chart taken from ACKS but now get move silently, hide in shadows, and backstab at the same level as Thieves instead of two levels behind.  To be more clear, Assassins ONLY get move silently, hide in shadows, and backstab from the Thief class.  Other skills are not included.  They do retain their expertise in poisons.  

I want this because rolling a d20 for skills is easier than the different scales in S&W.  I also buffed Assassin skills because in S&W behind 2 levels behind never sat well with me.  They don't get the other skill monkey abilities, but stay good at what they are supposed to be good at.

• Clerics and Magic-Users now have repertoires, as per ACKS.  Quick summary is that a spellcaster can cast any spell in their repertoire up to their spells per day.  They don't need to memorize each spell for the day.  They can choose like a sorcerer would in 3rd edition of D&D.  A Cleric has all spells in his repertoire the DM decides (default spell list).  A magic-user's repertoire is equal to his spells per day plus extra based on high intelligence.  A spellbook can contain many more spells than a repertoire can have, but if a spellcaster wants to put in a new spell, money and time is required.   

Vancian magic is sort of funky.  Always has been.  ACKS found a good compromise, so I'm using repertoires to make spellcasters less OCD about spell selection.  I absolutely love ACKS's flavor explanation about why a spellcaster can only have so many spells in his repertoire.  I recommend reading it!

• On character generation, instead of wealth and initial spell selection, the class templates from the ACKS Player Companion will be used.

This one may or may not work out.  It's still fundamentally rolling 3d6 for wealth, but it's taking away the options of the player in favor of a more flavor-driven gear-set.  I think they are neat so we'll see how it goes.

•  Mortal wounds and tampering with mortality charts from ACKS to be used

Another one of those 'neat' things from ACKS.  When you are brought to 0 hit points or incapacitated in combat the mortal wounds chart is consulted to determine how bad you really got it.  Lots of cool results here.  Tampering with mortality is the result of raise dead and resurrection spells.  Also fun stuff.

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Now I think that may be it.  The campaign isn't near happening so I can change this if I need.  It's very much a "peanut butter in my chocolate" set up, but ACKS does so many things right.   You might say, "why not just use ACKS?"  Well, trying to have my players learn yet another system would be annoying I'm sure.  They have the PDF or print version of S&W so giving them some houserules is a lot easier than having them buy new rulebooks and relearn some things based on the mechanics of ACKS.  I don't need the proficiency system or any other frills.  I'm just taking what I think is the best of the best and grafting it onto my S&W.

Anyway, if any of my players read this, I'll have a single page handout with all the applicable rules for you.  Should be good stuff. :)

GAGP's Solution: The Episodic Sandbox Part 3

Continued from Part 2

The Episodic Sandbox Campaign (which I may refer to as TESC for my personal campaign when I run it) relies on the shorter independent adventures for ease of drop-in-drop-out of players and on the evolving sandbox to retain player agency and a feeling of a living changing world.  The last important piece of the puzzle is allowing for player flexibility.

Going back to player attendance, there is always the chance that the only guy playing a Cleric can't make it.  Who wants to go dungeon delving without turning or healing right?  To deal with this, I will allow players to have more than one character.  I'm not quite sure what the limit might be, but there would be a restriction that a player can only take ONE of their characters on an adventure at a time, except in maybe dire circumstances.  There are pros and cons here.  If Phil plays 4 different characters and changes them up, he will take longer to have a higher level character than someone who focuses on a singular character.  The option does allow for players to try out different classes, so they don't get bored of always being the Fighter, for instance.  This also allows for newer players to fit into a group.  If Kim joins the group and starts with a level 1 magic-user (and needs time to get used to that class's capabilities and how to play in general), the other players can use their lower level characters and go on less dangerous adventures.  This means the group can bounce between high-level giant lair jaunts, and the more classic, low-level goblin slaying as needed.  This may also create interesting scenarios.  A particular dungeon may call for a magic-user to open a door.  The party that day didn't  have it's magic-user.  The party could go back and get him/her.  That magic-user may be much lower level, and now the adventure takes on a more "protect the VIP and get them to the important location safely" shade, than just dungeon clearing.

The goal here is flexibility.  I want the players to make decisions about their party composition.  This may not always need to be an important decision, but it could be interesting to have the players need to make the decision on whether or not to bring a Cleric to hunt the vampire, as the Cleric is a neophyte and may not last long.  The opposite coin being the stronger characters must contend with the vampire without divine assistance.

In addition to some extra house-ruling (like adding the cleaving mechanic from ACKS to Fighter abilities and ACKS's mortal wounds and tampering with mortality charts) one idea I am also toying with is restricting starting classes to Fighter, Thief, Cleric, and Magic-User.  More of the advanced classes like assassin, demi-human races, etc. can be "unlocked" by completing certain adventures that are presented.  This gives a feeling of progression for the overall gaming group.  In one adventure, the party may end up with a choice of supporting the Assassin's Guild and gaining an uncertain ally, instead of some other action of consequence.  After this adventure, the group has the option of creating assassin characters for the party.  They will start at level 1, so advancing these characters means taking time off their original character.  I may or may not be clear about which adventures might unlock more races/classes in the adventure hook descriptions, but if for instance Dave really wanted to be a ranger, I may specifically create and advertise that particular adventure to the group so they know it's there to tackle.

This means the longer the campaign goes, the more it grows, and the more options that players have.  If eventually they wish to create stongholds or keep new bases, I can support that as well.  Some high level characters may retire and become NPCs with occasional player control, while allowing them to continue playing their lower level characters.  If the sweet spot of DnD is level 3-7 or similar, there will always be an option to play in that sweet spot, while retaining the familiarity of the setting sandbox they have been developing with me.  In the mood for low-level, spring the trap and you're dead? Play your new level 1 assassin, ranger, bard, and druid.  Want to deal with expanding your strongholds?  Play your level 12 fighter, cleric, thief, and magic-user.  Or anything in between.

I think that does it for describing the solution to GAGP, or my planned implementation of it.  I may make additional posts if there are other things I feel I can expand upon.

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

GAGP's Solution: The Episodic Sandbox Part 2

Continued from Part 1

So the idea of an episodic sandbox is predicated on episodic adventures that can stand alone and be enjoyed by players in attendance, and those that can't make it that week won't feel like they are missing a big part of the story.  The setting and sandbox the players interact in SHOULD be familiar though.  When you are adventuring, certain elements should be familiar.  The town the players live in is the one that is attacked.  The same lonely mountain that the player's delved into for treasure may have a hidden bandit fortress somewhere on the other side.

Though the adventures are episodic, I want player agency to remain important like any other sandbox campaign.  If the players are unable to finally hunt down and kill that manticore, they may find a few friendly NPCs have gone missing at the start of the following game session.  If the bandit leader escapes death and flees his fortress, he may come after the players with assassins to get revenge.  Choices during the episodic adventures still matter.  The consequences of the player's actions will spawn new adventures down the road.  If the players discover and take over control of a borderlands fort, their adventures may include defending the supply lines to the fort, defend it from attackers, etc.  If the player's start acting more evil, they may have to contend not only with other villainous creatures, but also the forces of "good".

The next question is, how do player's get hooked into these adventures?  When we accept this type of campaign, we must give up notions of some save-the-world story.  Things are more local, gritty, and since we'll be playing swords & wizardry, deadly.  The player's will operate out of some sort of base.  To start, this will probably be the cliche'd tavern in town.  We can accept cliches because it facilitates the campaign style needed.  In typical fashion, the players will begin their adventures here but also end them.  At the end of each episodic session, they will return to the tavern to rest up, count treasure, etc.  When the characters in drinking ale, they will become privy to adventure hooks.  There may be a bulletin board with rumors, ads for 'heroes needed', etc.  May also include the occasional bursting in of a troubled NPC with an immediate problem.  This will be summarized to players by me describing what's new or current on the bulletin board, what they have heard around town, etc.  Either at the end of the session or via email between sessions, the players will vote on which lead interests them most.  This will allow me to make sure I have time to properly prepare.  The player's can then prioritize what they want to do.  Dave really wants to hunt down that hydra but can't make it next week.  The others decide to leave that trail alone for now and instead look to take down the slavers' operations down the river.  That hydra can wait for Dave, though it may ravage a few farms in the mean time.

I will be looking to craft a sandbox out of the steps shown in the ACKS rulebook, but I will allow for "Schrodinger's Dungeon".  That is, a particular adventure site may or may not exist until I need it.  Sure the player's have been to hex 1016 before, but the wizard's tower wasn't really "there" until I had an adventure set there.  Perhaps it was illusion'd.  No, the player's did not notice the cave in hex 2034 until they had the treasure map leading to it.  The large amount of square mileage available to me means the players will never truly explore every nook and cranny.  I can fill the sandbox as much as I want.  Goblin hordes move in from the north and set up new villages, earthquakes unveil new cave structures, etc.

So far I have explained facilitating adventures and making the sandboxes feel alive.  In the next post, I'll discuss how player flexibility will keep things interesting and allow for progression of the campaign over time.

GAGP's Solution: The Episodic Sandbox Part 1

In today's previous post I talked about the Great Adult Gaming Problem.  It is not a new problem by any means, but I think I have a solution that will work for my future campaigns and maybe it can help yours too.

First and foremost, I must give credit to Beyond the Black Gate, as most of the underlying concepts are taken from the blog author's series on episodic play.  You can read them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

The essential bits to be taken from that post series, is that episodic play relies on bite-sized adventures that can be done in 3-4 hours and are relatively compartmentalized from each other.  Al, the author of Beyond the Black Gate, gives a short list of adventure types: Relics & Ruins, Tiny Dungeons, Monster Hunting, Megadungeons, and Random Generator Travel.  For my purposes, I ideally want to narrow this down to basically three types of adventures: Small dungeon delving, monster set pieces, and multi-terrain objective.

Small dungeon delving is essentially Al's Relics & Ruins and Tiny Dungeons categories combined.  These would be micro-dungeons with 5-10 rooms, able to be explored within a session.  They would probably include typical dungeon denizens inside, typical treasure, but the reason for being there is clear.  There is an artifact to be found, a bounty to be collected, a hostage to retrieve.  These areas need not be underground, but it is the idea of a multi-roomed structure to explore, possibly clear, with a goal in mind.

Monster Set Pieces are much like Al's monster hunting.  I don't like to use the word hunt because the situation could be that the players are reacting to monster attacks, not specifically hunting them.  The monsters serve as set pieces, wherever they are encountered.  An entire adventure is dedicated to a specific monster.  This monster is probably much stronger than the players, and thus each encounter will be dramatic.  For example, the town and country-side is being ravaged  by a roaming manticore.  The player's must find a way to eliminate the threat.  This will include tracking the creature, fending off the creature when it attacks the town, and possibly going after it's lair to neutralize it.  I've been looking at numerous monster books, thinking about which ones make great singular monsters for these types of adventures.  They should be monstrous, iconic, and be something that requires proper preparation by the PCs.  I fortunately have many monster books to use and select unique monsters from, especially ones the players have never encountered before (standard trolls are too easy!).  For old school rules (including Swords and Wizardry and OSRIC/1E) see: Monstrosities, Tome of Horrors Complete, Tome of Horrors 4, the Teratic Tome, and Monsters of Myth(free!).  Since OSRIC is so close to Swords & wizardry Complete, I will be able to use any of those monsters pretty easily in my S&W games.

Multi-terrain Objective adventures are the catch-all for anything else I can think of.  Perhaps it's an urban investigation, diplomatic role-playing story, hexcrawl of discovery, etc.  The idea here is that the player's should have a clear goal to accomplish, but it is neither a dungeon crawl or pure monster slaying.  Perhaps the characters must race to find the location of a lost city or temple.  This in turn might lead to further adventure possibilities.

Al does some great write-ups about these general ideas, so again I recommend reading his posts as well to get a deeper understanding of how to prepare these adventure types.  Supplements like the Tome of Adventure Design and the D30 Sandbox Companion provide tables and ideas for creating the episodic adventures.

Now, so far this has all been based Al's work, but here our my personal plans.  These individual episodic adventures are more like episodes of the X-Files rather than Game of Thrones.  There will be the one-offs, but also some possibilities of several of these episodic adventures be connected.  Like the X-Files' overall plot about government conspiracies, certain things will be recurring elements because they are parts of the sandbox world that exists around the characters.  More on this in the next blog post.

The Great Adult Gaming Problem

Look another blog post!  Unfortunately I don't have the Part 2 of the Slumbering Tsar Saga conversion done yet.  I have made some progress on it though.  Today I wanted to talk briefly about something many gamers are familiar with, what I call the Great Adult Gaming Problem (GAGP).  I think most gamers have encountered this in one form or the other, I'm just giving it a name so I can talk about it more easily.  This problem, and how I am going to try to tackle it, will be covered in the next few blog posts.  I will break them up so they are easier to consume.

The root of the problem is one that I'm sure the founders of the hobby encountered many times.  As opposed to when you are a teenager or kid, when you are an adult you don't have the luxury of summer breaks, free weekends, etc.  Work, spouses, errands, and all those other things we adults worry about keep us from having a consistent schedule for gaming.  I may have weekends off and can make time, but maybe some of my players have to work weekends.  That sort of thing.  You can't guarantee everyone is going to be at every session.  You sometimes see players bring friends for a one-off occasion, which may not mesh with what is going on in the campaign.

In addition, longer adventures (including modules, megadungeons, and many story arcs) can't be completed in a single session.  It seems these days, 8 hour long marathon sessions just aren't possible.  I'm typically able to have 3-4 hour sessions or the sometimes 5-6 hour session.  If a dungeon, module, or what-have-you takes longer than a single session, people begin to forget what is happening when we get back to playing.  My last SWN game ended this way.  We are in the middle of a dungeon area.  If we sat down to play again we'd spend half the session trying to figure out why they were there, what had they done so far, and what room they were currently in.  Even with my notes.  If schedules get out of whack, it could be weeks or months until the game could be picked up again.  Long stories with numerous variables is too much paperwork to keep if attendance is so variable.  Dave can't make it to the session, guess his assassin is in drone-auto-pilot through the rest of the dungeon.

Relying on adventure path modules won't work, they are too "on-rails" to maintain unless you have a super consistent group

So how do you insulate your campaign from these problems?  How do you make every session enjoyable, no matter what the attendance is, or how often you meet?  How do you continue to make the players have agency and let the world feel alive?  I believe the key is in a particular form of sandbox gameplay.

I've spent sometime reading other blogs and pondering solutions to the problem.  I think I may have some solutions.  They aren't novel ones, I must admit I will be using the ideas of others.  I'll post links to those sources as I explain it.  I hope that the solution I use, plus some liberal house-ruling, will allow for an interesting campaign that will be hard to derail.

Links to Solution Series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

For readers, how do you address GAGP in your groups?  Leave your comments below.

Back? Maybe.

Hello readers.  If there are any of you out there.  I know my last blog post got some traffic due to my Slumbering Tsar conversion project.  And YES, it's been a year since I last posted.  I hate being one of those folks that writes plenty for a month or two and then dies off, but alas I am/was.

So what have I been up to?  Well I found a wonderful lady to be my girlfriend, moved to a new place, dealt with some career stuff (good stuff), and tried to keep a regular RPG group going (to little success).

The Slumbering Tsar project ground to a halt.  However I've been noticing some interest on the Google+ communities and the FGG forums for the conversion.  I may try to give it another go, complete what I started.  I had a hard drive corruption awhile back and lost a lot of my notes and work from before.  I still fortunately had part 1 saved to google docs.  We will see what happens in the coming weeks.

Gaming wise, I ran a group for awhile.  We did Swords & Wizardry for bit, ran +Matt Finch's Grimmsgate for a bit, but due to player attendance problems things sort of fell apart.  I was able to run a great session of White Plume Mountain and I have to say I really enjoyed it.  May need to make separate post about that day.

And even more recently I had revived my group to play +Kevin Crawford's awesome Stars Without Number game using his Hydra Sector as the setting.  We played two sessions, and my move caused the gaming to halt and now I'm in a gridlock.  I am pretty burned out on DMing.  Even though I haven't actually done much of it over the past year, I miss being a player.  I've been the DM for so long I have forgotten what it is like to play.  Whenever I really want to play RPGs, it's always up to me to get the group together.  I have discussed with a consistent player of mine the possibility of him DMing a game, and I offered to trade off DM duties from week to week.  He is still thinking about it.  Lately I've been very interested in playing or running Adventurer Conqueror King and I have the books for it.  I imagine my friend would run Swords & Wizardry though, unless convinced otherwise.  In order to prepare for those games I may be spending some time creating a new sandbox compatible with ACKS's systems.  Would need to balance that against the Slumbering Tsar conversion.

Anyway, thanks for reading.  Here's to hoping I get off my ass and starting working on stuff again.  Would be good to see the Frog God Games folks at PaizoCon and let them know I got a reason for more people to buy Slumbering Tsar.

Class Careers: The Magic-User

So today, while musing about RPGs, it came to me that taking a look at the career of an adventurer from their lowly beginnings to the top tiers of their class's power.  Unfortunately, a lot of the classes don't have too much going for them (namely the fighting-man/fighter) but there is one class that I simply must write about.

Whether you call it them Magic-Users, Wizards, Sorcerers, or anything else, the magic using classes are always the one with the most progressive power increases over their career.  The term 'linear fighter and quadratic wizard' come to mind.  It's true though.  As a fighter gets higher in level he gets better at... fighting.  And not much else, depending on your game system.  He might build a castle and become a baron or start a mercenary company, but the abilities of a 15th level Fighter versus a 1st level one are not all that different.  Magic-users, on the other hand, experience the starkest changes in power.   They start as pin cushions that will surely die if hit by nearly anything, but eventually can grow to being able to slay gods (in Raistlin Majere's case).

Below, using the terminology of Dungeon Crawl Classics, Adventurer Conqueror King System, and Swords & Wizardry Complete, we'll watch the path of a lowly peasant as he becomes a demigod.  I'll be using male pronouns for ease of use as I'm imagining myself in this role, of course. :)
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Birth through level 0: With a meager amount of hit points and armed with a garden hoe, the pre-mage toils away in the fields as a peasant farmer.  His biggest worries on catching a good harvest before winter and not coming down with some common disease.  Should he fall down a flight of stairs he might just die.  He probably has never left his own village or town and his exposure to magical things are in legends and perhaps meeting a traveling alchemist.

Level 1: Whether by fate or design, the peasant goes on an adventure with a number of other normal individuals.  Many die but learning from this experience, our proto-mage becomes level 1.  Perhaps on this adventure he meets a mage who offers to take him as an apprentice, or a chance encounter with a magical artifact and/or spellbook sets him on his path to power. 

At this level of power, the mage is still barely different from his former peasant self.  He has enough mental energy to cast one spell per day.  His more brutish adventuring companions may snicker at his weakness, but when that spell goes off, it is miraculous.  The mage may turn an enemy into a fast friend before the others eyes.  Or illuminate a dark room with pure magic.  He may shoot magic energies at his foes or even put a whole group of malicious foes into a slumber, ripe for throat slitting.  The magic-user does not often show his power, but when he does the others are mystified.  This is sharp power increase from level 0.  The individual has forever stepped beyond their normal existence into one of power pursuit.

Level 2: The mage's power does not increase heavily here.  He is a little more resilient, and is capable of unleashing more of his cantrip-like power in a day.  He is still weak physically, and must be protected by the more physically inclined party members, but they value the arcane secrets the mage brings to the party's power base.  The mage is still mostly an apprentice though, and is finding more spells either through discovery of scrolls or tutelage by a master.

Level 3: Once again, the mage now has gained enough experience to reach a new level of power.  Along with being more resilient and casting more spells of the lower end of power spectrum, he gets his first taste of true power over reality.  The mage will be able to create magical darkness, detect magical or invisible objects and beings, confer invisibility to himself or others, unlock doors magically, levitate objects, bolster the strength of his allies, conjure magical webbing, and more.  Where the 1st level of spells were little more than a magician's farce and slight advantages, 2nd level spells can change reality on levels that would completely blow the minds of normal folks.  At this level, a magic-user could easily scare a small village into worshiping him.  Unfortunately our magic-user is still in an apprentice role.  Fortune either smiles or frowns upon him as he delves dungeons looking for arcane lore and scrolls/spellbooks.  His master may still be helping him, but his avenues of gaining more power are limited.

Level 4: Another 'dead level'.  More resilience and more spell casting capacity, but no true secrets of the arcane are uncovered.  It should be noted that the magic-user can survive a few hits from orcs and the like now, if he is lucky.  However, if the level 4 magic-user could meet his level 0 self, the poor peasant might bow in fear of the strange powers he now possesses.

Level 5: Now here is where things get interesting.  Perhaps leaving his master's wing, or setting up a small library/workshop in some hovel, the magic-user has enough arcane know-how to being researching things on his own.   He is able to brew potions, scribe his own scrolls, and possibly uncover arcane secrets of his own.  Further more, he can now cast spells of serious magnitude.  On a whim the mage can choose to fly, send FIREBALLS exploding on his enemies, summon monsters to do his bidding, and even breath water.  Obviously there are more 3rd level spells but these are examples of just how crazy the magic-user has become.

Level 6: Dead level.  More hit points and more spells per day.  It's important to note we are coming up on mid-career now, or near enough.  Even at this point, the magic-user could pose as a god to a village of dumb peasant-folk and any challengers would quickly be burnt to a crisp. 

Level 7: More fun!  Another spike in power as the magic-user has access to level 4 spells.  Tales could be told of the mage who tamed a monster, drew doors to other places, mastered the elements and caused an ice storm, or crafted walls of ice and fire.  And at least we have the iconic power of reality of turning something into something it is not.  Fighter giving you a hard time?  Turn him into a rabbit.  Though foes can be turned, it's possible they could resist but when you turn a dragon into a salamander, no one is going to mess with you.  The mage's powers of reality are truly fearsome at this stage.  The mage is lucky to have gotten this far into his career without dying.  His tales are surely being told already, legends to be sure.

Level 8: Dead level.  You know the drill.  It should be noted that the mage can now cast a total of TEN spells per day.  His 'work day' is much longer than when he first started out.  He can waste lower level castings on more mundane tasks and save the big guns for dire situations.

Level 9: Alrighty.  What a long road it has been!  Chances are the magic-user decides he needs a place for all his library books of arcane lore he's been finding and builds some sort of Sanctum.  He may be approached by apprentice mages, much like himself at levels 1-3.  He also begins to dabble in the creation of magical items.  Maybe does his Fighter-buddy a solid and crafts a burning longsword for him (or curses it for fun).  To get the materials for such ventures he may begin creating his own dungeon to hold monsters he is raising or has charmed into living there.  He is 'that strange wizard who lives in the tower on the hill'.  Children tell scary stories about him.  He may be playing a larger role in the politics of a region, perhaps playing an advisory role to his fighter-buddy who built a fort in the wilderness.

He has access tot he fifth level of spell casting, meaning he can create terrible undead to do his bidding, conjure walls of stone or iron out of thin air, appear magically in places in an instant, and more.  He is a force to be reckoned with, even on his own.  We begin brushing the heights of power reserved for mythic beings.

Level 10:  Yeah yeah, keep it coming.  If the wizard hasn't retired yet he will now start getting into heavier stuff...

Level 11:  If before he only had a sanctum (ACKS) he now goes full-bore for a big ol' Wizard's Tower (S&W:C).  He may start researching great rituals of ultimate arcane power.  More servants, apprentices, mercenaries, and creatures folk to him.  His power reaches beyond even just spell casting.  He controls the fates of many others.  His dungeon might be getting quite large, with adventurer's plundering their deeps for treasure.  He might spend his free time creating magical constructs to do his will or be his servants.  The blasphemous cross-breeding of different monsters from his dungeon may be occurring.  In a sense, the mage is playing 'god'.  Creating new life forms and breathing new life into inanimate objects.  On the other side of the coin, he could be creating undead, or even working on turning himself into an undead lich so as to prolong his existence and continue uncovering more powers over reality.  Oddly at this level no new spell levels are opened up.

Level 12: More of the same, except level six spells are unlocked. He can control weather itself, magically force others into completing quests, turning people to stone, moving mountains, summoning great beasts, or even simply commanding creatures to die on the spot.  To say there are magical forces beyond this to be learned is insane, but the wizard will pursue this power.  He is nearly a demi-god already. 

Level 13:  Dead level.  Keep going.

Level 14/15:  From here the Wizard's power increase again.  He is charming plants to his bidding, conjuring demons from the abyss, reversing the force of gravity, creating duplicates of himself, and manipulating reality to an even greater extent.  All this as long as he has uncovered the knowledge necessary.  If the secrets cannot be researched by himself, he will use his vast array of tools and minions to help him.  He could be the great villain of a nation, as power corrupts.

Level 16/17: The power spike here is not as noticeable, as the Wizard has already risen to heights of power rarely known on the face of the earth.  He can create clones of himself, pull large numbers of people into his thrall, make temporary magical effects now permanent, and more. At this point these powers are merely a bonus to the incredible power he already wields.  Only one last step to go...

Level 18/19 and beyond: The last rung of magical power is now attainable.  The wizard can use astral projection to be places unseen and still cast his powerful spells, he can open portals to other planes of existence (even the Abyss itself), stop the flow of time, rain down meteors to the earth, and reach the ultimate level of reality manipulation (wish).  The Wizard is a godling.  The vast array of power wielding by this being is immense.

From his lowly beginning as a peasant-farmer, our 'hero' has climbed the mountain of power and is capable of truly incredible feats of magic.  Whether he uses it to challenge gods, keep the peace, or rule the world, he will leave his mark in history.  The equivalent level fighter might be a great emperor and fearless warrior, but even he cannot stand against a 'wish' to remove him and any memory of him from the universe. 

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As you can see, the journey and career of a magic-user is fraught with danger, especially at low levels.  However, eventually the magic-user becomes as powerful as a mortal being can be.  An interesting journey to be sure, not counting the great epic tales the magic-user had as part of that career.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this.  Whenever my players complain about having to be the squishy mage with a handful of hit points, I'll point them here so they can appreciate the power that could await them! :)