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r/ProgressionFantasy•
RedbeardOne

No Power Ladder

Request

I’m looking for recommendations for PF stories with no distinct power ladder (think ranks, stages, levels, etc).

The only example that comes to mind is Mage Errant, which only has a few subjective titles that don’t actually represent much other than a general level of competence. (EDIT: recalled that Instrument of Omens also mostly qualifies, for those interested in the topic.)

P.S.: I know it’s very much not standard for the genre, but wanted to see if there’s anything of the sort to be found.

Posted May 15, 2023, 12:20 PM UTC · edited

3247
RoRl62•

Off the top of my head, there's Mother of Learning, Art of the Adept, and Re: Monarch.

27
afterly•

MoL has numbered "circles" for mage ranks, if I recall correctly. Then there's the Archmage title.

5
RoRl62•

Maybe I need to reread it, because I don't remember the circles at all. It has been a while. I'm pretty sure Archmage is just a title conferred onto a powerful mage, like Great Powers in Mage Errant. It's not a literal rank in the magic system.

25
_Monotropa_unifloraSlime•

From what I remember, circles are mentioned only in regards to all the students in the protagonist's year just having passed the 'first circle' certification which means they can legally practice magic/take magic related jobs and learn some slightly dangerous spells. It felt more like a degree which limits what you are permitted to learn/practice and less of a fixed power-level. There's different levels of clearance for the library which I assume is linked to other circles/degrees but I don't think anything besides the first circle is ever mentioned.

'Archmage' is someone who's considered by others to be at an expert-level in multiple disciplines of magic. So someone who isn't great at one field but multiple and recognised for it by others. Again very vague, it just means you are likely very well respected and talented.

18
Lord0fHats•

They're not really important to the plot and work more like a professional grading system than power tiers.

14
Discardofil•

Yeah, I don't remember any "circles" in MoL. Even if it is a thing in-universe, it's not something Zorian ever pays attention to, so the story doesn't either.

11
EmergencyComplaints•

The whole concept only exists in the early chapters when he talks about finally gaining access to first circle spells and questions why so many are first circle that should be 0 circle.

We never really find out what circle any of the spells he learns actually are.

9
guri256•

Do you remember all of the spells that he learned in the restricted section of the library? Many of those spells were restricted from him because he wasn’t a high enough circle mage, because he wasn’t licensed for higher circles.

This mattered a lot less by the time we reached the end of book 2, because he had progressed from restricted spells to learning spells that were outright illegal

1
Lightlinks•

Mage Errant (wiki)

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0
Dionsz•

They exist but they don't get mentioned a lot because of the timeloop.

1
Lightlinks•

Mother of Learning (wiki)
Art of the Adept (wiki)

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1
JohnBierceAuthor - John Bierce•

In Sarah Lin's Street Cultivation the tiers, while well-defined, seem mostly to be defined socially, not actually in the magic system!

Katrine Buch Mortensen's Patron Wars lacks clear tiers. (Also has one of the trippiest, magic-rich settings I've ever seen!)

Travis Riddle's Jekua series is a Pokemon tribute progression fantasy without tiers.

Tobias Begley's The Enchanter has somewhat limited tiers.

22
Lightlinks•

Street Cultivation (wiki)

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1
Boruto•

Codex Alera Series, Nightlord Series, and the First Series

8
timelessariiAuthor•

Nightlord is a good rec, didn’t even think of it for this question but it works

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

3
Lightlinks•

Codex Alera (wiki)
Nightlord (wiki)

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1
lindendweller•

Both Mark of the fool and jackal among snakes have spell ranks, but they don't account for strength, lifeforce, much less talent and strategy.

edit: to clarify: In both stories, spells are ranked by complexity, but one is looser than the other.

In jackal among snakes, there are minor breakthrough in the complexity of spells, (like from the lowest level to the next, F to E, the spell matrix becomes tridimensional, then E to D, it moves, and higher steps are more vague.
there is a major breakthrough to be able to cast A ranked spells that requires body alteration to support and improve high level spellcasting, but that's the only breakthrough that can be perceptible from outside.
However, spellcaster are ranked by the highest level spell thay can cast. Non spellcaster aren't ranked, but vampirism, special items, divine blessings can make people superhuman in a way that can't really be ranked.

In Mark of the fool, there is a requirement in terms of mana pool and skill to generate the spell matrix of higher ranked spells, but individual spellcaster are never really ranked, because there are many factors, like speed, adaptability, mana manipulation skill, elemental affinity, and equipment that come into the power of a spellcaster, that the spell ranking system doesn't account for.
All that renders individual rankings hard to measure, and people don't bother to do it, especially since the highest level wizards we meet are very secretive about what they can actually do anyway.

7
EmergencyComplaints•

Mark of the Fool is very heavily rooted in the Pathfinder rule set. That's where most of the spell rank system comes from, but in this case it's more like the difficulty rating to cast an individual spell rather than "aha! I finally broke through. All 4th rank spells are now available to me."

3
Elthe_Brom•

iirc the ranks are defined by the size of the spell forms and you have to have a mana pool that is big enough to contain them. So it's not just difficulty but it plays a rolle, since bigger forms are more complex and as such more difficult.

2
EmergencyComplaints•

Yes, but it doesn't fit into that power ladder present in xianxia stories where someone has a breakthrough from silver to gold level and experiences an instant and drastic increase in power. MotF has a smoother, more linear progression of steadily growing knowledge and skills defining what the characters are able to do.

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Elthe_Brom•

I absolutely agree

2
lindendweller•

DnD also has spell levels, though in 5e at least it doesn't go higher than 9. anyway, so I'm not sure I'd call it a specfic reference to pathfinder. But to your overall comment that's indeed my point: spells are levelled, individuals are not.

1
EmergencyComplaints•

The author has explicitly said he plays PF and the story is based off that ruleset. Of course, PF itself having its origins as a clone of D&D 3.5, there's a lot of overlap.

1
HatFun6584•

Zombie Knight Saga fits I think. I don't remember there being clear denotations of strength, only relative levels compared to other people.

4
timelessariiAuthor•

Agreed. There are certain thresholds they unlock ie Pan Rozum but that isn’t directly correlated with raw power.

2
Electronic-Scar-5053•

Saga of the nothing mage, while technically there are ranks, it's just based off how much mana they can hold and output

3
TheWriteMaster•

The Mistborn series might be a fit.

3
cheffyjaypAuthor•

I'd recommend My Best Friend Is An Eldritch Horror by A J Nadir.
There are a few metrics for comparing power, but they're not as hard as in the rest of the genre.

3
Par2ivally•

Super Powereds and The Perfect Run are both good for this - power comes from a combination of starting abilities plus skill and practice. Super hero stories have the advantage of tradition not including standard PF tiers or ladders so stories jumping off them avoid this trope more easily.

3
Lightlinks•

Super Powereds (wiki)
The Perfect Run (wiki)

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1
Dreamliss•

I'm just about to finish The Beginning After The End, then planning on starting The Perfect Run... How is it?

1
Par2ivally•

I really liked it. I had expected the early video game quipping, cavalier violence and extreme protagonist competence to mean it was a bit of a dud, but all of these are deliberately set up as tropes to subvert and portrayed as damage to recover from.

As we are talking time loop, and I love Groundhog Day, imagine the story starts at the point where Phil Connors nihilistically consumes a table's worth of donuts and declares himself God. The damage has been done, and the healing and learning is only just beginning. The progression is less in ability, though there is a little of that, but more about the power of friendship and how the bonds that bind us together can pull us from the dark place and make life worth living. That emotional core carries the rest of the story really effectively.

2
Dreamliss•

It sounds really good, thanks, it's nice to have a little pre-book hype, especially when I'm dreading being caught up with TBATE

2
Par2ivally•

I've only read the webcomic for TBATE. Would you recommend the book? I really loved the early stages of the story before I largely gave up on the comics in favour of more books in my reading time!

2
Lightlinks•

Beginning After The End (wiki)

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1
barrett122•

A Practical Guide to Evil and Worm might be good fits for this, though they're less progression focused than some they're both excellent and worth reading.

2
Lightlinks•

A Practical Guide to Evil (wiki)

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1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
Proterragon•

My man, the defined and quantifiable levels of power are one of the core tenets that differentiate between regular Fantasy and Progression Fantasy...

Edit: fair enough, I yield. It's just very common to have quantifiable or defined power levels. Not a prerequisite.

-9
RedbeardOneOP•

You can quantify power to an extent by directly comparing characters, and progress can be measured against a character's previous capabilities. I agree that distinct levels are overwhelmingly common in the genre, and they make things easier, but they aren't necessary.

Here's some food for thought: take a setting with a defined progression ladder (not litrpg, but many other settings will work), and turn back time to an age where cultivation/magical progress was not well understood. Now have a character slowly research and pave their own way forward, figuring things out as they go along -- is it progression fantasy? I'd say that it is, yet the setting does not (yet) have a ladder. Perhaps it never will.

8
account312•

A common feature perhaps but certainly not a core tenet.

8
PrismaArchives•

In Sarah Lin's Street Cultivation the tiers, while well-defined, seem mostly to be defined socially, not actually in the magic system!Katrine Buch Mortensen's Patron Wars lacks clear tiers. (Also has one of the trippiest, magic-rich settings I've ever seen!)Travis Riddle's Jekua series is a Pokemon tribute progression fantasy without tiers.Tobias Begley's The Enchanter has somewhat limited tiers.

I'd disagree, the gradual progression in strength is all that really defines the difference. It's even mentioned in the sub's welcome post and several of the examples used don't have a clear stage-based strength difference and some ever err away from quantifiable power. Dragonball while it has its forms doesn't break the power system into distinct stages, someone with a "weaker" form can be far stronger in power. MoL doesn't have power stages and the power system is far less quantifiable than dragon balls with intelligence, planning, and skillset variety being far more important.

From my understanding, the OP doesn't want LitRPG levels or cultivation stages; quantifiable power isn't necessarily those and you can have progression fantasy with powersystems that are harder to quantify.

7
Lord0fHats•

I'd also suggest that depending on setting, having stages that are overtly explained doesn't even make sense.

6