FAQ: Why is E6 designed this way?

Q: Where did E6 come from?

A: E6 was inspired by the article Gandalf was a Fifth-Level Magic User by Bill Seligman. The article was published in The Dragon (which became Dragon magazine) in issue #5, March 1977. When I first had the concept of E6, where we used the first six levels for the whole game, my very first step was pitching it to my players. Some thought it was a great idea, and the rest were willing to give it a try, so I gave it a shot. E6 worked really well for our tastes, and we've done lots of playing inside E6 since then. Back then E6 was a lot more convoluted than it is now: there were intricate quasi-gestalt rules and several other little things that weren’t so much about the cap as they were about my group’s thoughts on D&D class balance. Over time, we found that the only rules we were really using (on both sides of the screen) were the feat rules, and that was producing a great play experience. So when I returned to E6 just recently, that’s how I wrote it up: As it was actually played.



Q: Why 6th level for the cap? Why not 12th, or 20th?

A: My experience in D&D is that at around 6th level the characters are really nicely balanced, both in terms of balance against other classes, and against the CR system. Also, there was an element of setting assumptions; each class is strong enough that they're well defined in their role, but not so strong that lower-level characters don't matter to them any more.



Q: How did you arrive at the cost of 5000 xp per feat post 6th level?

A: Originally, I considered that if I wasn’t giving level 7, maybe 2 feats for the same price would be a good comprimise (3000xp / feat). That way they would have this great feeling of advancement without popping the top off the power level." But in play, the players found it was so fast that they did not have time to enjoy their new abilities. There just wasn't time in-game for their characters to grow, so I upped the cost to 5000 xp, and it works like a charm.



Q: Why not use [system of character points / experience purchases / incremental gestalt rules] instead of E6?

A: Feats, if they don't work out in a particular case, are less controversial to tweak than, say, the XP table. If you find out that the XP table, or stats, or whatever else you've changed doesn't work for some players, it's a big deal to change it because it then affects everyone - and sometimes has effects that cascade through the system.



I have found that if a feat is too good, it's not that big a deal to say "Hey Ned, I think the feat I made for you is too good, but I don't want to take it away from you. I think it should have a prerequisite, like Skill Focus (Knowledge - nature) instead of being straight-up available. I'd like to leave you with it but say that your next feat needs to be that knowledge thing, rather than take it away now. We could do that, or if you want you could swap it out for something else. What do you think?"



It's important to me to keep the rule changes minimal, because players really don't want to read a lot outside of the game and they get frustrated if there's too many house rules.



2 years ago (before E6 was called E6) I worked up these complex gestalt XP-buy rules, but eventually my players and I realized that with all the options available all that was really getting used were feat purchasing, because they were so easy to approach.



Q: Why not just stop advancement at 6th, and have characters just not advance after that, or slow experience down so much that you can game for years and never get higher than 6th level?

A: In my experience, players prefer to have characters that can grow – and have that growth reflected in the mechanics of the game.



Q: I like high-magic, high-powered campaigns. Is E6 for me?

A: Probably not. Just as D&D can’t be all things to all groups, E6 caters to a specific set of tastes.