Are there levels above 20?

[Malfi]

My real problem is that it can break the credibility of the world.
If very high level characters exist and nothing can challenge them, why don't they defacto rule the world? If monsters or whatever can challenge them, then you need high level characters for the setting to make sense.
You can get around this with certain in world explanations, but it always stresses the limits of the setting further and further and thus may diminish anything that happens in a smaller scale.

I find that it's the other way around that breaks the credibility of the world.
Having creatures with huge HD wandering around is not a good idea.
Those creatures would just wander around and destroy everything.
That always happen in games like Elder's Scrolls or Fallout where the mobs levels with the PC.
The towns get overrun and the key NPCs get slaughtered.
In all the games I played, it's not the level per say that determine the strength of a character but the items he accumulates and if you let everyone know you have powerful items, it becomes a game of king of the mountain and it's soon time to start over with a new character.

Maybe Its my fault for not explaining this better. But when I wrote "If monsters or whatever can challenge them, then you need high level characters for the setting to make sense. " I basically meant sth pretty close to what you are saying.

[Dimirag]

It fits the world where only the ones who keep pushing their mortal limits can then go beyond them.
Do you have any examples in mind?

Nothing really, but it could be things like fighters getting extra attacks or a fray die like in other games, or the ability to do double damage... thieves could increase their backstabbing damage, casters could earn the ability to prepare "reserve" spells that can be cast by sacrificing a prepared spell...

I think you have sth wrong or I am misunderstanding sth.
MU 20 Thief 35 seems to follow the table.
MU 33 Thief 40 doesn't seem to follow the table.

After level 9 a thief requires 75,000xp, a MU requires 150,000xp
Using those number, i.e, continuing the table with the same increments, yields a level correspondence of MU20/Th33 (1950000xp) and MU23/Th40 (2475000xp).

Here are the tables, maybe my numbers are off...

XP.jpg (626.71 KiB) Viewed 209 times

Again I am confused, I meant doubling required xp after level 20. This certainly doesn't make a 20th level MU equal to 21st level Thief, which I think would be unbalanced and unfair to thief, if anything in the game is.

A 20th level thief requires 975,000XP for level 20, double that is 1950000 for level 21, same number for a MU to reach 20th level, after that the thief is always one level above (the Thief XP table is half that of a MU).

[GrimlinJoe]

Though I know this isn't necessarily and answer to what you are asking but something a friend of mine does in his games that he DMs is once that character hits max level he allows a prestige system where the play is allowed to start back over at lvl 1 and gain a few points to put into their stats to raise them up alittle. This does create a grind complex to the game but its an interesting concept.

Another option is once you reach max level, if you haven't employed the quasi-classes into you campaign then once you hit max level you can choose a quasi-class to begin leveling in somewhat like a master class/profession

The first solution is kinda weird to me. The second one seems pretty elegant though I haven't read much about quasi classes.

Yeah it seemed weird to me as well but hey each Dm has their own way of doing things.

With the introduction of adding a quasi class to the character once they hit lvl 20 then it adds that extra road for their character to progress. Or you could just allow multi classing after lvl 20. Fits kind of the same vein.