The polls are in, Jim! Statistics show that DMs prefer milestone leveling, while players prefer XP! I give my players XP because they like having a tangible measure of their progress in simple numerical terms. It is rewarded only for encounters so t hat slows down level progression. Does it encourage seeing combat as the only solution? Not necessarily. They have to manage resources and consider when they will next be able to recover them. Notice I also said for encounters, not just combat. If they can trick the kobolds into running away or changing their lifestyle, they get the XP for defeating them.
2nd Edition party playing DM: Your party crosses a bridge. Along the handrail people have attached hundreds of padlocks as a sign of love to one another. Rogue: Give me a day guys I got some leveling to do.
The point of having NPCs gain a full share of xp is to discourage players from bringing an army of hirelings to do all the work for them while they get all of the rewards.
Also, I just did the numbers. Awarding a half share of XP to henchmen and hirelings still means they advance very fast, because of the semi-geometric way that xp required to level-up increases.
I award hirelings full XP, but they only realize half of it. They get a full share in the calculations, but as hirelings, they only get to keep half of that XP. So it's like how Willian Canavan says, but to an even greater degree.
Over the past year, I've completely replaced the 5E XP system with what I call "Simple XP." I found that going with milestones based on campaign objectives can lead to players mainlining straight to the end as quickly as possible while ignoring anything they see as "side quests." Also, as Jim said, having XP as a tool in the GM's pocket gives them the ability to reward desirable behavior at the table. That's why I made the switch. The system works as so: Gaining a level (any level, the amount of XP doesn't escalate as levels increase) costs a player 100 XP. A player can spend XP during any rest (short or long). At the end of every session, all players 10-30 XP depending on what got accomplished during the session. Side quests can be just as valuable as the primary quest, or may be more or less depending on what goes on during them. Absent players receive this XP as well so they don't get left behind. In addition, during play I have two trays of poker chips at each end of the battle map, so they are within easy reach of all the players. At any point during play when a player or players does something cool, fun, interesting, helpful, etc, I'll say "take a chip." Each chip is 1XP. We use chips because at first it was annoying for the players to have to track each individual XP on their character sheets during play. Some examples of "take a chip" moments are: Players at the table having an interesting conversation with one another. A player or players coming up with a good plan. A player doing something fun and/or unexpected which is consistent with their character, whether or not it works out. A player cracking a particularly funny joke OOC. The entire team working together for a goal. (two XP for people who are specifically helping another PC accomplish a personal goal) The list goes on, but over the course of a session, it's pretty typical for everyone to have gained 5-10 chips. I find that giving these things out frequently at the table really helps break my group out of what I call "Spreadsheet D&D," where people tend to play their character sheets rather than their characters. Giving players XP for trying stunts that aren't specific abilities on their sheet can lead to a far more dynamic game for groups that have gotten into a creativity rut. Obviously, your group may not need any such prodding, so YMMV.
I know this comment is a year old, but it has no replies and I feel bad about that because this is an awesome idea! The 2nd edition rules Jim liked but without the bookkeeping - what's not to love?
I totally empathize with the sentiment of checking the CR table after the fact. I have done this numerous times, andI'm always shocked by what it tells me. Apparently I have murderous tendencies, but my players usually survive.
Dungeon Dad the 5e encounter design charts need SERIOUS work. After about 5th level, they are waaay off, with in my experience characters easily handling encounters 4 or 5 levels higher.
Dungeon Dad Dungeon Dad the 5e encounter design charts need SERIOUS work. After about 5th level, they are waaay off, with in my experience characters easily handling encounters 4 or 5 levels higher.
After doing the math on my own PCs damage outputs, I realized there is no single chart that could possibly encompass encounter design. Each class is so different in what it is capable of, putting out widely different amounts of damage based not just on class, but specific spell, ability, or subclass options. The types of spells and the amounts of them that your players use...whether the cleric prefers guiding bolt and spiritual weapon to healing spells, whether the Bard uses Dissonant Whispers or Tasha's Hideous laughter...every little thing changes things so dramatically.
I LOVE low levels. it's seriously my favorite part of the game. when the town guards are threatening, you're excited yet nervous about every adventure, every scrap of gold and treasure feel significant. you don't have access to the high level spells and abilities so players have to get creative. it means goblins are meanacing and that houseplant might kill you and idk about this encounter, we might actually have to run because we can't afford to resurrect anyone and that giant looks scary.
Maromania I have mixed feelings about the lower levels, but mainly because of a lack of variety in options. Not power, like high level spells, but simply having more options either for combat options or social situations. I guess part of that is on the DM to provide interesting combat encounters with options available in the environment, and also on player creativity, but still.
Draeckon You'd be surprised with what players can do with a bunch of sandbags, a pile of dry leaves, sligshots and some stones while climbing a cliff. Or what they can do to get info out of people. Interrogation my butt, they scarred that poor guy... Erm, what I want to say is that if you encourage creativity, it's going to get more and more frequent.
I agree, though the inherit tools given to the players is rather limited the fun is in roleplaying and finding ways around it. You can't get the guards yet! Get your FACE who also is a NOBLE to talk himself into the place you have to be, for a mere two hours later to open a side window and guide you in.
I'm a bit scared of low levels cause my Monk died in two hits at level two and my friends Rogue got one-shot by an ogre at level three. But you're right, it makes encounters have a much bigger impact
I gotta say, I love your videos. I just recently started playing and every time something like alignment, experience, or multiclassing becomes relevant to my character, you guys coincidentally upload a video on it. Thank you for all the information and keep up the great videos.
Wow, at 13:30 when you talk about how you level up based on number of sessions, that blew my mind. I love the simplicity of it thank you so much for that I'm going to use it in the future! You guys are great!
As a video producer, I am incredibly glad to see someone else do "tell me about your breakfast" for sound checks. My editorial team always think I'm nuts for making them do that.
THANK YOU So Much! You guys just helped me out a lot. This is the first I've heard of the XP for Gold system and I think it would be perfect for a Viking setting I'm making where raiding/looting is the primary job of the PCs.
Another bonus to the milestone approach - covering downtime between adventures. Particularly if you have a game with a group that can't meet very often, it's helpful to maintain a sense of continuity if you can say "well, after that last adventure/while en route to the next location, the party has been working, learning new spells, practicing with their weapons," etc. I run a game where we only get together once or twice a year, and it's a great way to get the players back in the D&D mindset AND reacquainted with their character to describe what they've been doing "in the meantime" to have earned that level increase. (plus, it can be a great hook for a new adventure: "you've been accompanying a traveling circus as protection, learning new skills from the performers along the way, when one day...")
I use Milestone leveling now a days. Players level up, but they level up when I say so. It lets me keep things easily balanced because I always know where the players are and what level they will be.
Terminally Nerdy I think milestone xp has taken off because it’s so easy to handle. No calculating xp at the end of a session, just ding! when you hit the milestone.
I do it like that for a year now and everyone loves it. It´s easy, keeps the party internally balanced and most importantly, my players know they get as much ,,XP" for roleplaying as a bunch of true polymorphed racoons as they do for kicking in the door and fight. Therefore I never had any sign of the murderhobo syndrom.
Same but for a different reason, I just don't like the hassle of players asking me for XP. I don't care how many of my chimeras your level 2 party has slain, you get level 3 when I say so! >:(
It also makes so much more sense on many levels. Like one of my PCS want to become a dual class barbarian/Bard..Bardbarian as well lamely call it but for that to happen he need to get his magical instrument made. The Sorcerer needs to get some training by another magic user and the fighter need to get a bit of training as well. It doesnt really make sense in the long run that you can just be out in the forest and suddenly go "Ohh hey I suddenly know this spell!!!"
I've found a system that works really well for my group. I give a token (i use poker chips) when a player does something cool, like maybe playing up a character flaw or taking a risk for an npc. At the end of the game, we collect all the tokens the players got through roleplaying, multiply by their level and again by 10, so tokens*lvl*10=xp. It gives a rich game, full of interesting moments and the players seem very happy. I also give half xp for defeated monsters, just to balance it out, since roleplay doesn't come as easy during combat. I can recommend it, as it naturally meshes with whatever's happening.
'BOUT dam time you did this one. Nice work guys. While I always liked the gold = XP, we did it slightly different. Each of us that wanted EXTRA XP could gift some of our gold to whatever made sense. Clerics gave tithes to the church; magic users "spent" gold on researching new spells/components; fighters gave to the king of the area to keep in their good graces; thieves had to bribe the thieves guild or pay dues; you get the idea. This way, if we were tantalizing close to the next level, we didn't have to wait to get it, we could just "buy" it, but it cost you. And, of course, the higher the level, the more the cost.
hey irrelevant to the video specifically but I just thought I'd mention I'm new to D&D and I'm enjoying the videos. I struggle meantaining interest in the content creaters but you're a funny pair and you seem like cool guys. the info is always good too.
I used to calculate XP for everyone at the end of the session based on number of encounters and CR + bonus XP to individual players for good roleplaying or clever tactics, etc. It got cumbersome and there was too much math, and sometimes after a long session, I have to go back through my notes to see all the little things worth awarding XP for. Now, I simplify it to awarding XP immediately after each encounter with a 2-step process: 1. Each character gets an equal amount based on party level and encounter difficulty (easy/ medium/ hard). 2. Individual characters get bonus points for player making especially good decisions at combat tactics, roleplaying, etc. This method has the benefit of being a good motivator and lets players know what actions are rewarded. If players know right away what it was that they did that got them points, then they are encouraged to do more of those things.
New ecnounter system in Xana's seems to be a bit better than the old one. It doesn't beef up the encounter from added trivial enemies and it has less math to worry about.
typoko Yeah, I skimmed through it at the bookstore yesterday, and I agree. But how do the encounters fare against varying numbers of characters? I might have skipped over that.
There is a quick table for parties of 4, 5 and 6 and then a separated table that gives a list how many of what level CR monsters anyone should be able to take at certain levels. 4 player party of level 6 characters could have their CR allocation shared so that two players would be used to add a CR4 monster, one player for a CR2 monster and then last player can give 9 CR1/4 monsters. What i like about this is that you can add riffraff to the fight without shooting up the encounter difficulty. The old system didn't care how dangerous basic goblins were but they added a multiplier that didn't represent reality in any way.
The main usefulness of the Xana table (and there was an unearther arcana article too) is how many CR X monsters equals one PC - and the reverse. So by average damage my 8th level PCs are about one CR 3 monster by the table. I think it is four CR 1 to an 8th level PC, and then how many PCs for a CR 4 or CR 5. Allows putting together enemy groups with small numbers for math rather than hundreds of XPs.
I've been looking at session milestones for advancement using a "factorial" style of methodology. After one session, 1st to 2nd; after 2 more sessions, 2nd to 3rd, after 3 additional sessions 3rd to 4th; ...
I am finding that the more of these videos of yours I watch, the more free and inspired I feel to do homebrew rules. And honestly, I'd love to hear what you have to say about D&D's economy.
Having seen some creature's CR ratings, i feel that the ability of creatures to take a PC out of the fight temporarily is vastly undervalued. Any creature that restrains, stuns, scares, or otherwise immobilizes players, as a player I find are massively more powerful than their CR suggests. My party recently had an encounter with a 5 demons. Each of them had an AoE scare and a single target stun. CR wise we should have stomped them without trouble. My fighter was put at 0 twice, the Wizard got killed and the cleric almost went down too, and the ranger/rogue got to attack like twice (granted each time he attacked he killed someone, but still). It was a miserable encounter, too. It was not fun, and the DM didn't expect that at all. He looked at these little punk demons and the pitiful damage they did and their crappy HP pools and thought we would crush them in 5 minutes. It took an hour. In my opinion, Every ability that can temporarily remove a PC from a fight should increase its CR. We stomped Demogorgon and a Balor and we were fine. Little beat up but still standing. These 5 punks almost party wiped us. Something is wrong there.
I like your idea on leveling up. Your game is a virtual life, level 1 your just starting out, level 20 your life is full and complete, you have to complete so many milestones to get to that fulfillment in your characters life. A level down is like well you get to the point where you find you want more kind of outlook.
It’s not the fragility of early level characters that for me makes them less fun to play, it’s the lack of variety in actions a lot of the time and cool options that the higher level characters have access to.
I like to put exp points into a guideline.. over a 3 to 5 year setting, 1 to 20, I e had this one group going for ten years, but you want to reward your characters especially for new and interesting ideas. Like going into dungeons gets you exp for the first 3 times fully, then half the next 7 then after that no exp for the dungeon hunters, then you sit in a circle and summon enemies to kill, reward the change and different idea, then go out into different planes accordingly, but if you keep going back and learning nothing you get no more xp, then you spend money a certain way and use it for a neat way to achieve goal, you get exp
the variable experience for different actions like "magic-user" learning spells, "thief" picking locks/stealing, "warrior" combat. this I feel could only work if you were to make it so you are more or less every class at once and you gain exp to use in those categories gained as a group. so 1 of two thinks you all get to be slightly different variations of the same thing shaped by your adventure or you let them for a tax convert exp from one category to another so even if you are only doing combat you might have a full fighter, barbarian with a few warlock levels and a ranger with bard levels. categories for 5e I would use: Magic-user, Light-footed, and warrior. (note this would be from what the base class is not a subclass) magic-user would include (free of conversion tax) wizard, artificer, sorcerer, warlock, druid, cleric, bard, paladin. Light-footed would include (free of conversion tax) Monk, ranger, bard, rogue, sorcerer, warlock, wizard, fighter, barbarian Warrior would include (free of conversion tax) Monk, ranger, rogue, fighter, barbarian, druid, cleric, Paladin, artificer that should allow each to cover 2 categories and would make multiclassing a big part of the game with subclass synergy being important, but more importantly, it would shape your characters based on the adventure and party actions that are taken. (If anyone does not want to multiclass they would get the benefit of being more focused and have higher level abilities basically depth vs breadth at the cost of slightly slower leveling)
My group tends to award exp for good roleplaying and creatively resolving situations in addition to combat. If the obstacle is in some way dealt with, exp tends to be given
I take a large portion of the encounter EXP off the total, split it evenly among the party, and then distribute the remainder according to who were the MVPs that encounter. Then, anyone who is below the level of the highest-levelled player gets a little bonus EXP (because they're shadowing someone more experienced). Dead players start at the same level as or one level below the lowest-levelled player (minimum 1). However, the EXP for gold idea sounds cool, I will probably implement that as an alternative way to gain EXP at some point. Might stop the party living like savages.
This came at a perfect time because I'm in the middle of planning my first campaign as a DM. I've been stuck between leveling up based on attendance or XP. The main issue is that I want to enourage them showing up and want to reward doing actions other than combat (i.e. social interacting, solving a puzzle, exploring, coming up with unique solutions). I have an idea of what to do, but I wanted to open it up to the Wed DM community. Maybe you'll get some XP for your own unique solutions haha
I use a semi-milestone based xp system, where each player has the ability to gain a mote of experience for the party. These motes are gained through various ways, such as but not limited to big rp moments or doing something fitting to your character, regardless whether that action ends up being beneficial or detrimental. After the party accrues 5 motes, there's a level up at the end of that session.
I've wanted to try using the XP system as it's part of the rules. Thanks for the long-awaited video on this topic. :) Also I wanted to say the editing on this video is jarring... switching cameras a lot, wow... Okay thanks!
I have found milestones much better to use in order to level up PCs since it keeps things easy to moderate and simplifies book-keeping. If I do use exp, I award it based on accomplishments and not monsters killed/traps disabled. In essence dealing with an encounter in any way and resolving it, be it combat/social or whatever awards players for the actions/decisions they took.
I am old guard, i guess. I grew up with experience points, spell points (not everything is vancian) and hitpoints (no healing surges). And i know these systems work very well consistently because that is how it was back then. Experience can be awarded instantly for good roleplaying and that creates a very good feedback for players during an adventure. It also helps you to break down and balance things by more than "you gained a level". Awarding experience at the end of a session is something i do, but not exclusively so, which means you can gain a level during an adventure which i personally really like to have in the game. Difference in leveling by class never really felt like a problem and you want a little bit of diversity, too, i'd say - difference in leveling by not showing up more so.
DungeonCraft made a video about a simple combined XP/Milestone way of tracking level up progress. Use small numbers (1, 2, 3) and at a maximum (10 for example) it's time for a big thing to happen, which when resolved the characters level up. It was something like this: 1 or 2 xp for playing the session 1 xp for solving a problem (more if it was a big deal) 1 xp for defeating a creature (not necessarily kill) Can be more ways of gaining xp, but these are just what comes to my mind now.
My 4E group uses milestone levels each time we pass DMship in the group, while my 5th group uses experience per session, and I personally prefer milestones a lot, cause it doesn't come with a lot of extra number management. just run them on a decently long, say 5 session or so quest, then have them level once that quest ends and they have some time to relax and train a bit.
The thing about playing a first level character in a high level campaign is that they would level up quickly. In one of the baldur's gate PS2 games if you started on hard with level one characters it got interesting. Solo was basically impossible but with two people, one could block and the other attack. The first kill gave like four or five levels.
What I am considering is changing this to a different method. Using milestones as normal, but granting bonus tokens for things like RP, great ideas, heroics, and the like. Saving up 10 tokens means you can cash them in for an extra level. These tokens can also be cashed in for Inspiration. That leaves the players with a choice: do I want to save up for a level, or really make that attack/save/ability check? Do I want to save myself or save my ally, or hopefully gain a bonus level one day? Using one to save an ally (give them inspiration) does not exchange possession of the token. It simply burns it to grant inspiration to that other player. My players have only had one session in the latest campaign thus far (and a great one at that), so I may address this at the upcoming session and put it to a vote.
In terms of level 1 fragility maybe it could be fixed by adding the user's constitution SCORE instead of/ as well as the modifier for HP at first level; only modifiers are used for every other level (recalculations work as usual)
In most games I end up running we don't always have a lot of time. So I usually end up giving each player the total experience for the session, and if someone did something awesome and unique I'll give them a little more
I'm old school, so tracking xp feels natural. Plus it's an easy way to give players immediate rewards. But, I do like the milestone leveling system, which would make my life easier when designing optional encounters and branching paths, or drop in quests. Right now, I have to calculate every point of first level experience before planning and pacing second level events, and so on for each level. Which is the standard method. Honestly, I might switch to the milestone method. It would make adventure design a lot faster.
I like the guideline of each encounter should award enough XP (on average) so that 3-4 gaming sessions of about 4 primary encounters each is enough to level up. If PCs can fit in extra secondary encounters (random monsters, quick side-quests, etc.) or get more bonus XP from just playing extra-well, then they can level up after two sessions at the most frequent. (Those would likely be 3-5 hour long games full of major plot elements to be that quick though). If 5 or more sessions go by (unless they are all 1- to 2-hour max, twice per week games that are mostly inconsequential role playing and random monsters) and there hasn't been a level up, then depending on where the PCs are in the adventure, it might be time for an across-the-board every one levels up moment. To keep something like that fair and make sense, it would be best to figure how much XP is needed to get the PC furthest away from a level-up to that next level, then give everyone slightly more than that amount: that way, every player gets the same XP, and coincidentally, it is enough for everyone to get to next level. This is best done after a major story plot point encounter, and can be explicitly explained to the players as such.
I had never thought of gold as xp before but I really want to try it out now. I did some math an came up with a quick conversion from gold to xp per tier. Lv 1-4 1gp = 3xp. Lv 5-10 1gp = 2xp. Lv 11-15 1gp = 1xp. Lv 16-20 2gp = 1xp. Surprisingly, this comes out to almost 1:1 average over 20 levels.
I like Rob. J. Schwalb's leveling system: the GROUP level increases by 1 after every completed adventure. No mix-matched players feeling bad for being five levels lower, no xp calculations. Max lvl in the base game is 10, so a full campaign could easily be completed in four months (assuming once per week play sessions and allowing for a few adventures to take more than one session or be downtime-related). That's four fleshed out campaigns a year which is good considering that player character death or derangement is so easily achieved (a la Warhammer/Call of Cthulhu). For the sprawling, years of play sessions campaign, obviously this leaves something to be desired but I feel it could be easily adjusted by awarding levels after sequences of adventure arcs instead as the party level rises, and creating a sense of progression with more ephemeral rewards like loot, social standing, favors etc. Regardless, I don'don't think I'll ever calculate a creature's xp value unless I wish to create a table top Diablo hack n slash campaign
I think the milestone system seems very practical and sort of defuses a little bit of the "powergaming" instinct that many gamers have, unwittingly or otherwise. I'd certainly stay away from awarding XP primarily from combat - and much rather award minor and major milestones for "acomplishing goals", whatever they may be. I think that going split-xp requires pretty adult and mellow-minded players, because jealousy and suspicions of favoritism are toxic - wheter real or imagined. The group should always be a team and never be set against eachother (unless everyone is totally on the same page to roleplay out a difficult situation like that). I also really like the idea of rewarding small things with something. If someone comes up with a particularly ingenious plan for overcoming an obstacle. If someone diplomatically solves a situation via excellent roleplay. If players stay true to their character and act accordingly (especially when they make themselves vulnerable or at a disadvantage by doing so). If a player really stands out in a particular battle or otherwise by showing courage and initiative. And last but not least - to anyone who makes good contributions towards just telling a good story - be that via leadership, roleplay or even making excellent suggestions for the DM to expand upon. I think it would be cool to have some sort of very loosely defined tokens you can hand out for that to show appreciation. Rather than being tied to XP or anything very mechanically tangible it would be more like "DM-goodwill" or "karma" points. You'd spend them with the GM to gently nudge the game in a direction you want. Maybe a character wants to bend some book rules to develop his character in a certain way - and as long as it's not a pure powergaming play the DM facilitates that. Maybe a player is itching to have an adventure that explores something from his background in one of the next sessions. Perhaps a player really wants to accomplish some goal in-game. A few goodwill points might result in the creation of a few openings and opportunities later in the game that might make something like that possible. I think that's a nice middle-ground that can feel fair to everyone while incentivizing the behavior you want, and the nebulous nature of these points leaves you fairly unrestricted in how to reward your players. It's a lot easier to applaud your fellow players for earning such tokens for good play instead of suddenly being the only level 5 in a level 6 party and feeling like you are the worst player who didn't contibute anything... especially when the token systems rewards could often be angled towards being relevant to the entire party in make cases.
I had a player try to "tame" a Rage Drake. He had disadvantage. Both were 20s. He and the other party member went to kill a Gnoll Warlord taking over nearby dwarvish and gnomish towns. He rolled a Nat 20 on the Rage Drake attacking the Gnoll Warlord. Rip the modified lvl 20 Gnoll Barbarian. (The 2 players were like 2nd to 5th level.)
I personally love the mixed level party idea. It's well grounded in iconic lore. Willow was a zero level Farmer. Pippin was basically a 1st level rogue and he killed a Nazgul. Both of those characters were surrounded by fairly high level companions, and while they struggled, they also contributed immensely to the campaign.
Anyone else ever consider using the XP rules from Cypher system for D&D? Copy the 2 XP split reward for natural 1's, add in 1 or 2 XP for combat encounters, 2 or more XP for rolling high on skill checks to diplomancy your way out of fights, find treasure, find hidden dungeon entrances, solve or "win" social encounters and puzzles, etc... And when the players rest they can trade in XP equal to 4 times their current character level to level up. Or they can give XP to their teammates to buy tokens that give advantage rerolls. Just in case one player skyrockets ahead by rolling lucky and wants to hand out their excess points to keep the levels close.
Neil Turner old but good is the player opens a box in the next room and their character is paraylzed for the rest of the dungeon session and is cured when they get back
Achievements that get xp encouraging playstyle REALLY works: For a 'Gladiators in the Arena' style game, with a slightly tongue in cheek, bloodbowl-esque slant, I've had success with creating a series of 'xbox Achievements' that can be won at any time, and I award advances based on this, for eg: "Reject of Hell" go to zero HP from an opponent's hit, be revived and go on to win the fight = 450xp and you can claim a trophy from among the gear of the creature that first put you down. " R U not entertained" perform in and survive 5 arena bouts without a short rest = 1000xp, a rare healing potion and a post match Hype interview with 'Colossus' Magazine. "Paint the town red" inflict 15 or more points of damage in a single melee hit, OR sustain 20 pts from a single source of damage. Gain 450xp and a potential sponsor awards you a night on the town celebrating your prowess. Therafter, any match where you wear their name on your armour, you will get a complimentary potion of resist poison, and all the free wine you can drink. it totally lends itself to a sports-entertainment WWE style of play
I'm running a hexcrawl with a more literal milestone levelling where the characters need to uncover certain locations to level up. I'm currently trying out an experiment where the players level up individually at the locations. It works pretty well, but it's much slower. I might change that at later levels
"We want you to fuck!" I don't always fuck, but when I do, i prefer Web DM I don't dislike the first few levels because im fragile, I dislike the first few levels because everybody feels kinda "samey" in combat and really even in skills. Especially the martial classes. if you start at, say, level 5 then everybody has their subclass, everybody has their fighting style if their class offers one, everybody has 1 stat bump or feat, everybody has had their proficiency bonus go up, spell casters have a larger variety of spells and don't need to almost exclusively use their cantrips, etc. Your characters actually feel a bit more unique and flexible now. THAT is why i personally hate level 1 and 2. Fragility isn't even on my radar.
I agree, also it allows for multiclaseers to have the framework in place so you don't need to explain why they vanish off screen for 6 months to train as a wiz.
I usually do session based xp. At the end of the session I look at my notes and add the monster cr and good roleplay xp and split it equally among the party. I do this so the whole party stays on the same level. If a player does something exceptional I make a note reward them when I get the first opportunity with either extra gold or a special item.
i think the CR formula was designed for the standard point array, which only works when you USE the standard point array, which idk a lot of groups that do. I personally prefer milestone leveling and exponential leveling.
Let's start of with the fact that I like to listen to you guys discussing different topics of D&D. At the moment I am creating a campaign for my first time being a DM. For this campaign I have the idea to lvl the players according to progression in the campaign itself. The party here would also be gaining xp they could use to gain a feat or proficiency in a skill, if they have the the money and xp. Then they need to seek out someone who wants to train them. Ofcourse after they have learned something, they will need more xp for the next "upgrade". The ideas are just roaming in my head.
I like the idea of milestone xp, but I still think it’s worth tracking xp rather than a straight-up “level when I say so” system, because you want to be able to reward achievements “to scale” so to speak, and to reward unexpected achievements and goals the players have set themselves. Awarding normal xp for completing goals, making discoveries etc. allows for a lot of granularity in terms of how much character advancement a certain accomplishment represents, without tying players to a “kill all the things” playstyle.
Hey Pruitt (I hope you read these) you mention using attendance as a leveling guide at your game in the bar. That your friend increased the number of sessions required to gain a level at level 5. Did he do that for later levels? What level?
I've grown to give out experience roughly based on how impactful a given session is. My campaigns tend to average about one encounter every two sessions, and the PCs often have trouble affording a horse ten sessions in if they haven't saved for one. If I weren't to provide experience on a per-session basis, they would never get their due. My players shouldn't have to suffer because we run a high-role-play, street-level style. In addition, as has been mentioned, if you tie experience directly to killing enemies, you tend to encourage murder-hoboism rather than the overcoming of difficulties with one's wits.
Have you messed around at all with accelerating 5e's feature unlocks? I'm working on something now where all of the class and subclass features are unlocked by level 10, and hit dice, prof bonus, spell slots, and ASIs catch up
I also use milestone levelling, and as a DM I am super stingy with levels in lowest tier compared to any DM's I've ever had myself. I also always start my players at 1st level for campaigns (one shots and triptychs are another beast for me) In many ways, first level is my favourite level as a player too.
I love that "Attendance Leveling" was mentioned, for the exact reasons they already harped on - it ENCOURAGES ATTENDANCE. I mix it with Milestone XP to get a nice healthy balance of discouraging truancy and encouraging quest completion. Basically, I bring everything down to the single-digit level, where you get 1 xp every session, +1 every milestone, with an average xp-to-next-level of 5xp, so you usually spend about a month in each level.
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The polls are in, Jim! Statistics show that DMs prefer milestone leveling, while players prefer XP! I give my players XP because they like having a tangible measure of their progress in simple numerical terms. It is rewarded only for encounters so t hat slows down level progression. Does it encourage seeing combat as the only solution? Not necessarily. They have to manage resources and consider when they will next be able to recover them. Notice I also said for encounters, not just combat. If they can trick the kobolds into running away or changing their lifestyle, they get the XP for defeating them.
2nd Edition party playing
DM: Your party crosses a bridge. Along the handrail people have attached hundreds of padlocks as a sign of love to one another.
Rogue: Give me a day guys I got some leveling to do.
The point of having NPCs gain a full share of xp is to discourage players from bringing an army of hirelings to do all the work for them while they get all of the rewards.
seems to me that a better solution to that problem would be ”just cut out the middleman and run a campaign about managing a mercenary business”
I like the system in an earlier edition (I think 1st ed AD&D) that henchmen get a half share of XP, because they aren't the ones making the decisions.
Also, I just did the numbers. Awarding a half share of XP to henchmen and hirelings still means they advance very fast, because of the semi-geometric way that xp required to level-up increases.
I award hirelings full XP, but they only realize half of it. They get a full share in the calculations, but as hirelings, they only get to keep half of that XP.
So it's like how Willian Canavan says, but to an even greater degree.
Over the past year, I've completely replaced the 5E XP system with what I call "Simple XP." I found that going with milestones based on campaign objectives can lead to players mainlining straight to the end as quickly as possible while ignoring anything they see as "side quests." Also, as Jim said, having XP as a tool in the GM's pocket gives them the ability to reward desirable behavior at the table. That's why I made the switch. The system works as so:
Gaining a level (any level, the amount of XP doesn't escalate as levels increase) costs a player 100 XP. A player can spend XP during any rest (short or long). At the end of every session, all players 10-30 XP depending on what got accomplished during the session. Side quests can be just as valuable as the primary quest, or may be more or less depending on what goes on during them. Absent players receive this XP as well so they don't get left behind.
In addition, during play I have two trays of poker chips at each end of the battle map, so they are within easy reach of all the players. At any point during play when a player or players does something cool, fun, interesting, helpful, etc, I'll say "take a chip." Each chip is 1XP. We use chips because at first it was annoying for the players to have to track each individual XP on their character sheets during play. Some examples of "take a chip" moments are: Players at the table having an interesting conversation with one another. A player or players coming up with a good plan. A player doing something fun and/or unexpected which is consistent with their character, whether or not it works out. A player cracking a particularly funny joke OOC. The entire team working together for a goal. (two XP for people who are specifically helping another PC accomplish a personal goal) The list goes on, but over the course of a session, it's pretty typical for everyone to have gained 5-10 chips.
I find that giving these things out frequently at the table really helps break my group out of what I call "Spreadsheet D&D," where people tend to play their character sheets rather than their characters. Giving players XP for trying stunts that aren't specific abilities on their sheet can lead to a far more dynamic game for groups that have gotten into a creativity rut. Obviously, your group may not need any such prodding, so YMMV.
I know this comment is a year old, but it has no replies and I feel bad about that because this is an awesome idea! The 2nd edition rules Jim liked but without the bookkeeping - what's not to love?
Commenting so I can remember this style. Some good ideas in there,may have to steal
I totally empathize with the sentiment of checking the CR table after the fact. I have done this numerous times, andI'm always shocked by what it tells me. Apparently I have murderous tendencies, but my players usually survive.
Dungeon Dad the 5e encounter design charts need SERIOUS work. After about 5th level, they are waaay off, with in my experience characters easily handling encounters 4 or 5 levels higher.
Dungeon Dad Dungeon Dad the 5e encounter design charts need SERIOUS work. After about 5th level, they are waaay off, with in my experience characters easily handling encounters 4 or 5 levels higher.
After doing the math on my own PCs damage outputs, I realized there is no single chart that could possibly encompass encounter design. Each class is so different in what it is capable of, putting out widely different amounts of damage based not just on class, but specific spell, ability, or subclass options. The types of spells and the amounts of them that your players use...whether the cleric prefers guiding bolt and spiritual weapon to healing spells, whether the Bard uses Dissonant Whispers or Tasha's Hideous laughter...every little thing changes things so dramatically.
I am so pumped for. Dungeons and Dragons economy episode.
0:34
*"J I M D A V I S"*
"yeah"
I LOVE low levels. it's seriously my favorite part of the game. when the town guards are threatening, you're excited yet nervous about every adventure, every scrap of gold and treasure feel significant. you don't have access to the high level spells and abilities so players have to get creative. it means goblins are meanacing and that houseplant might kill you and idk about this encounter, we might actually have to run because we can't afford to resurrect anyone and that giant looks scary.
Maromania I have mixed feelings about the lower levels, but mainly because of a lack of variety in options. Not power, like high level spells, but simply having more options either for combat options or social situations.
I guess part of that is on the DM to provide interesting combat encounters with options available in the environment, and also on player creativity, but still.
Draeckon You'd be surprised with what players can do with a bunch of sandbags, a pile of dry leaves, sligshots and some stones while climbing a cliff.
Or what they can do to get info out of people. Interrogation my butt, they scarred that poor guy... Erm, what I want to say is that if you encourage creativity, it's going to get more and more frequent.
I agree, though the inherit tools given to the players is rather limited the fun is in roleplaying and finding ways around it. You can't get the guards yet! Get your FACE who also is a NOBLE to talk himself into the place you have to be, for a mere two hours later to open a side window and guide you in.
Consider playing DSA if you are really into that
I'm a bit scared of low levels cause my Monk died in two hits at level two and my friends Rogue got one-shot by an ogre at level three. But you're right, it makes encounters have a much bigger impact
Props for the mention of West Marches style play.
Also, I would be delighted to see you folks do that episode on the economy of D&D.
I would like to second the vote for a D&D economy video.
Kriss Morton I third a D&D economy video.
4thed.
Fif! -Dave Chapelle
Sixth. Literally want a D&D economy vid to be as close to being the next vid as it can be.
0:30 That's some good cracking, Pruitt.
I guess you could say, he knew it was time to get cracking
I love how much Jim Davis is both into old-school D&D as well as 5e. It's the best of both worlds right here.
I gotta say, I love your videos. I just recently started playing and every time something like alignment, experience, or multiclassing becomes relevant to my character, you guys coincidentally upload a video on it. Thank you for all the information and keep up the great videos.
Timberwolf thank you for sending us the exact show idea you needed through retroactive astral projection!
Jim Davis I'll be sure to let you guys know if I have more ideas!
Wow, at 13:30 when you talk about how you level up based on number of sessions, that blew my mind. I love the simplicity of it thank you so much for that I'm going to use it in the future! You guys are great!
man, your videos are so consistently gold. this is my favorite intro yet. keep up the good work, Travis.
As a video producer, I am incredibly glad to see someone else do "tell me about your breakfast" for sound checks. My editorial team always think I'm nuts for making them do that.
Another excellent video. I feel like y'all's videos are getting better every time. Must be all that XP
THANK YOU So Much! You guys just helped me out a lot. This is the first I've heard of the XP for Gold system and I think it would be perfect for a Viking setting I'm making where raiding/looting is the primary job of the PCs.
Another bonus to the milestone approach - covering downtime between adventures. Particularly if you have a game with a group that can't meet very often, it's helpful to maintain a sense of continuity if you can say "well, after that last adventure/while en route to the next location, the party has been working, learning new spells, practicing with their weapons," etc.
I run a game where we only get together once or twice a year, and it's a great way to get the players back in the D&D mindset AND reacquainted with their character to describe what they've been doing "in the meantime" to have earned that level increase. (plus, it can be a great hook for a new adventure: "you've been accompanying a traveling circus as protection, learning new skills from the performers along the way, when one day...")
I use Milestone leveling now a days. Players level up, but they level up when I say so. It lets me keep things easily balanced because I always know where the players are and what level they will be.
Terminally Nerdy I think milestone xp has taken off because it’s so easy to handle. No calculating xp at the end of a session, just ding! when you hit the milestone.
I do it like that for a year now and everyone loves it. It´s easy, keeps the party internally balanced and most importantly, my players know they get as much ,,XP" for roleplaying as a bunch of true polymorphed racoons as they do for kicking in the door and fight. Therefore I never had any sign of the murderhobo syndrom.
I honestly am amazed whenever I hear people aren't using this system.
Same but for a different reason, I just don't like the hassle of players asking me for XP. I don't care how many of my chimeras your level 2 party has slain, you get level 3 when I say so! >:(
It also makes so much more sense on many levels. Like one of my PCS want to become a dual class barbarian/Bard..Bardbarian as well lamely call it but for that to happen he need to get his magical instrument made. The Sorcerer needs to get some training by another magic user and the fighter need to get a bit of training as well. It doesnt really make sense in the long run that you can just be out in the forest and suddenly go "Ohh hey I suddenly know this spell!!!"
Good stuff as always. I was always a DM in isolation and your experienced outside perspectives have been enlightening.
Level Up in Intros for Web DM. Very nice
I just started using gold as experience. So far I'm loving it.
I've found a system that works really well for my group. I give a token (i use poker chips) when a player does something cool, like maybe playing up a character flaw or taking a risk for an npc. At the end of the game, we collect all the tokens the players got through roleplaying, multiply by their level and again by 10, so tokens*lvl*10=xp. It gives a rich game, full of interesting moments and the players seem very happy.
I also give half xp for defeated monsters, just to balance it out, since roleplay doesn't come as easy during combat.
I can recommend it, as it naturally meshes with whatever's happening.
Wonderful!
Yay! New Web DM video! Time to watch it 5 times in a row!
Honestly extremely accurate
I'd love to see an episode on the Web DM table... all those minis, and the castle DM's Screen... I wanna see them all up close!
Thanks for the video! I think I'll level up everyone after every "arc" and have several arcs in the game!
'BOUT dam time you did this one. Nice work guys.
While I always liked the gold = XP, we did it slightly different. Each of us that wanted EXTRA XP could gift some of our gold to whatever made sense. Clerics gave tithes to the church; magic users "spent" gold on researching new spells/components; fighters gave to the king of the area to keep in their good graces; thieves had to bribe the thieves guild or pay dues; you get the idea. This way, if we were tantalizing close to the next level, we didn't have to wait to get it, we could just "buy" it, but it cost you. And, of course, the higher the level, the more the cost.
hey irrelevant to the video specifically but I just thought I'd mention I'm new to D&D and I'm enjoying the videos.
I struggle meantaining interest in the content creaters but you're a funny pair and you seem like cool guys. the info is always good too.
I used to calculate XP for everyone at the end of the session based on number of encounters and CR + bonus XP to individual players for good roleplaying or clever tactics, etc.
It got cumbersome and there was too much math, and sometimes after a long session, I have to go back through my notes to see all the little things worth awarding XP for.
Now, I simplify it to awarding XP immediately after each encounter with a 2-step process:
1. Each character gets an equal amount based on party level and encounter difficulty (easy/ medium/ hard).
2. Individual characters get bonus points for player making especially good decisions at combat tactics, roleplaying, etc.
This method has the benefit of being a good motivator and lets players know what actions are rewarded. If players know right away what it was that they did that got them points, then they are encouraged to do more of those things.
New ecnounter system in Xana's seems to be a bit better than the old one. It doesn't beef up the encounter from added trivial enemies and it has less math to worry about.
typoko Yeah, I skimmed through it at the bookstore yesterday, and I agree. But how do the encounters fare against varying numbers of characters? I might have skipped over that.
There is a quick table for parties of 4, 5 and 6 and then a separated table that gives a list how many of what level CR monsters anyone should be able to take at certain levels. 4 player party of level 6 characters could have their CR allocation shared so that two players would be used to add a CR4 monster, one player for a CR2 monster and then last player can give 9 CR1/4 monsters. What i like about this is that you can add riffraff to the fight without shooting up the encounter difficulty. The old system didn't care how dangerous basic goblins were but they added a multiplier that didn't represent reality in any way.
The main usefulness of the Xana table (and there was an unearther arcana article too) is how many CR X monsters equals one PC - and the reverse. So by average damage my 8th level PCs are about one CR 3 monster by the table. I think it is four CR 1 to an 8th level PC, and then how many PCs for a CR 4 or CR 5. Allows putting together enemy groups with small numbers for math rather than hundreds of XPs.
Best into ever! 🙂 I can’t believe I missed this video before
Another excellent episode :D keep up the fine work gentlemen!
I've been looking at session milestones for advancement using a "factorial" style of methodology. After one session, 1st to 2nd; after 2 more sessions, 2nd to 3rd, after 3 additional sessions 3rd to 4th; ...
CR system is a great starting point, when im looking for encounters i start by looking at monsters within their CR range but i never reli on it
Putting a link to the unearthed acana acticle you discussed in the doodley doo would have been slick.
But thanks for a well-reasoned episode.
Nice mention of OOTS. That's the thing that got me into D&D in the first place
I am finding that the more of these videos of yours I watch, the more free and inspired I feel to do homebrew rules.
And honestly, I'd love to hear what you have to say about D&D's economy.
Having seen some creature's CR ratings, i feel that the ability of creatures to take a PC out of the fight temporarily is vastly undervalued. Any creature that restrains, stuns, scares, or otherwise immobilizes players, as a player I find are massively more powerful than their CR suggests. My party recently had an encounter with a 5 demons. Each of them had an AoE scare and a single target stun. CR wise we should have stomped them without trouble. My fighter was put at 0 twice, the Wizard got killed and the cleric almost went down too, and the ranger/rogue got to attack like twice (granted each time he attacked he killed someone, but still). It was a miserable encounter, too. It was not fun, and the DM didn't expect that at all. He looked at these little punk demons and the pitiful damage they did and their crappy HP pools and thought we would crush them in 5 minutes. It took an hour. In my opinion, Every ability that can temporarily remove a PC from a fight should increase its CR. We stomped Demogorgon and a Balor and we were fine. Little beat up but still standing. These 5 punks almost party wiped us. Something is wrong there.
I like your idea on leveling up. Your game is a virtual life, level 1 your just starting out, level 20 your life is full and complete, you have to complete so many milestones to get to that fulfillment in your characters life. A level down is like well you get to the point where you find you want more kind of outlook.
It’s not the fragility of early level characters that for me makes them less fun to play, it’s the lack of variety in actions a lot of the time and cool options that the higher level characters have access to.
My table has a rule to somewhat get around that! We ban variant humans, and let every character start with a feat
I like to put exp points into a guideline.. over a 3 to 5 year setting, 1 to 20, I e had this one group going for ten years, but you want to reward your characters especially for new and interesting ideas. Like going into dungeons gets you exp for the first 3 times fully, then half the next 7 then after that no exp for the dungeon hunters, then you sit in a circle and summon enemies to kill, reward the change and different idea, then go out into different planes accordingly, but if you keep going back and learning nothing you get no more xp, then you spend money a certain way and use it for a neat way to achieve goal, you get exp
Actually started running a West Marches style this week and the three pillar UA has been really helpful
the variable experience for different actions like "magic-user" learning spells, "thief" picking locks/stealing, "warrior" combat. this I feel could only work if you were to make it so you are more or less every class at once and you gain exp to use in those categories gained as a group. so 1 of two thinks you all get to be slightly different variations of the same thing shaped by your adventure or you let them for a tax convert exp from one category to another so even if you are only doing combat you might have a full fighter, barbarian with a few warlock levels and a ranger with bard levels.
categories for 5e I would use: Magic-user, Light-footed, and warrior.
(note this would be from what the base class is not a subclass)
magic-user would include (free of conversion tax) wizard, artificer, sorcerer, warlock, druid, cleric, bard, paladin.
Light-footed would include (free of conversion tax) Monk, ranger, bard, rogue, sorcerer, warlock, wizard, fighter, barbarian
Warrior would include (free of conversion tax) Monk, ranger, rogue, fighter, barbarian, druid, cleric, Paladin, artificer
that should allow each to cover 2 categories and would make multiclassing a big part of the game with subclass synergy being important, but more importantly, it would shape your characters based on the adventure and party actions that are taken. (If anyone does not want to multiclass they would get the benefit of being more focused and have higher level abilities basically depth vs breadth at the cost of slightly slower leveling)
My group tends to award exp for good roleplaying and creatively resolving situations in addition to combat. If the obstacle is in some way dealt with, exp tends to be given
Please do a show on how to DM a group when some players can't show up? What tricks to you use to keep the game/story flowing?
I take a large portion of the encounter EXP off the total, split it evenly among the party, and then distribute the remainder according to who were the MVPs that encounter. Then, anyone who is below the level of the highest-levelled player gets a little bonus EXP (because they're shadowing someone more experienced). Dead players start at the same level as or one level below the lowest-levelled player (minimum 1).
However, the EXP for gold idea sounds cool, I will probably implement that as an alternative way to gain EXP at some point. Might stop the party living like savages.
This came at a perfect time because I'm in the middle of planning my first campaign as a DM.
I've been stuck between leveling up based on attendance or XP. The main issue is that I want to enourage them showing up and want to reward doing actions other than combat (i.e. social interacting, solving a puzzle, exploring, coming up with unique solutions). I have an idea of what to do, but I wanted to open it up to the Wed DM community. Maybe you'll get some XP for your own unique solutions haha
Jonic_P best way to do that is if you're not there you don't get XP.
I use a semi-milestone based xp system, where each player has the ability to gain a mote of experience for the party. These motes are gained through various ways, such as but not limited to big rp moments or doing something fitting to your character, regardless whether that action ends up being beneficial or detrimental. After the party accrues 5 motes, there's a level up at the end of that session.
Dying to see that D&D Economy video!
I've wanted to try using the XP system as it's part of the rules. Thanks for the long-awaited video on this topic. :) Also I wanted to say the editing on this video is jarring... switching cameras a lot, wow... Okay thanks!
Already 20 seconds in and I laughed my ass off. Subscribed.
I have found milestones much better to use in order to level up PCs since it keeps things easy to moderate and simplifies book-keeping.
If I do use exp, I award it based on accomplishments and not monsters killed/traps disabled. In essence dealing with an encounter in any way and resolving it, be it combat/social or whatever awards players for the actions/decisions they took.
I am old guard, i guess. I grew up with experience points, spell points (not everything is vancian) and hitpoints (no healing surges). And i know these systems work very well consistently because that is how it was back then. Experience can be awarded instantly for good roleplaying and that creates a very good feedback for players during an adventure. It also helps you to break down and balance things by more than "you gained a level". Awarding experience at the end of a session is something i do, but not exclusively so, which means you can gain a level during an adventure which i personally really like to have in the game. Difference in leveling by class never really felt like a problem and you want a little bit of diversity, too, i'd say - difference in leveling by not showing up more so.
5:42 - 5:45 fighter, barbarian
5:46 - 5:47 bard
DungeonCraft made a video about a simple combined XP/Milestone way of tracking level up progress.
Use small numbers (1, 2, 3) and at a maximum (10 for example) it's time for a big thing to happen, which when resolved the characters level up.
It was something like this:
1 or 2 xp for playing the session
1 xp for solving a problem (more if it was a big deal)
1 xp for defeating a creature (not necessarily kill)
Can be more ways of gaining xp, but these are just what comes to my mind now.
I moved to an area without a whataburger and every time you guys mention it I get homesick LOL
Jim and Pruitt sitting in a tree, deeee emm eye enn gee!
6:51 I never thought about charging people for say patronage at say, the mages guild. Charge them to see more magic stuff.
My 4E group uses milestone levels each time we pass DMship in the group, while my 5th group uses experience per session, and I personally prefer milestones a lot, cause it doesn't come with a lot of extra number management. just run them on a decently long, say 5 session or so quest, then have them level once that quest ends and they have some time to relax and train a bit.
The thing about playing a first level character in a high level campaign is that they would level up quickly. In one of the baldur's gate PS2 games if you started on hard with level one characters it got interesting. Solo was basically impossible but with two people, one could block and the other attack. The first kill gave like four or five levels.
What I am considering is changing this to a different method.
Using milestones as normal, but granting bonus tokens for things like RP, great ideas, heroics, and the like. Saving up 10 tokens means you can cash them in for an extra level. These tokens can also be cashed in for Inspiration. That leaves the players with a choice: do I want to save up for a level, or really make that attack/save/ability check? Do I want to save myself or save my ally, or hopefully gain a bonus level one day? Using one to save an ally (give them inspiration) does not exchange possession of the token. It simply burns it to grant inspiration to that other player.
My players have only had one session in the latest campaign thus far (and a great one at that), so I may address this at the upcoming session and put it to a vote.
In terms of level 1 fragility maybe it could be fixed by adding the user's constitution SCORE instead of/ as well as the modifier for HP at first level; only modifiers are used for every other level (recalculations work as usual)
In most games I end up running we don't always have a lot of time. So I usually end up giving each player the total experience for the session, and if someone did something awesome and unique I'll give them a little more
I'm old school, so tracking xp feels natural. Plus it's an easy way to give players immediate rewards. But, I do like the milestone leveling system, which would make my life easier when designing optional encounters and branching paths, or drop in quests.
Right now, I have to calculate every point of first level experience before planning and pacing second level events, and so on for each level. Which is the standard method. Honestly, I might switch to the milestone method. It would make adventure design a lot faster.
I like the guideline of each encounter should award enough XP (on average) so that 3-4 gaming sessions of about 4 primary encounters each is enough to level up.
If PCs can fit in extra secondary encounters (random monsters, quick side-quests, etc.) or get more bonus XP from just playing extra-well, then they can level up after two sessions at the most frequent. (Those would likely be 3-5 hour long games full of major plot elements to be that quick though).
If 5 or more sessions go by (unless they are all 1- to 2-hour max, twice per week games that are mostly inconsequential role playing and random monsters) and there hasn't been a level up, then depending on where the PCs are in the adventure, it might be time for an across-the-board every one levels up moment.
To keep something like that fair and make sense, it would be best to figure how much XP is needed to get the PC furthest away from a level-up to that next level, then give everyone slightly more than that amount: that way, every player gets the same XP, and coincidentally, it is enough for everyone to get to next level. This is best done after a major story plot point encounter, and can be explicitly explained to the players as such.
I had never thought of gold as xp before but I really want to try it out now. I did some math an came up with a quick conversion from gold to xp per tier.
Lv 1-4 1gp = 3xp.
Lv 5-10 1gp = 2xp.
Lv 11-15 1gp = 1xp.
Lv 16-20 2gp = 1xp.
Surprisingly, this comes out to almost 1:1 average over 20 levels.
best thumbnail ever
I like Rob. J. Schwalb's leveling system: the GROUP level increases by 1 after every completed adventure. No mix-matched players feeling bad for being five levels lower, no xp calculations. Max lvl in the base game is 10, so a full campaign could easily be completed in four months (assuming once per week play sessions and allowing for a few adventures to take more than one session or be downtime-related). That's four fleshed out campaigns a year which is good considering that player character death or derangement is so easily achieved (a la Warhammer/Call of Cthulhu). For the sprawling, years of play sessions campaign, obviously this leaves something to be desired but I feel it could be easily adjusted by awarding levels after sequences of adventure arcs instead as the party level rises, and creating a sense of progression with more ephemeral rewards like loot, social standing, favors etc. Regardless, I don'don't think I'll ever calculate a creature's xp value unless I wish to create a table top Diablo hack n slash campaign
I think the milestone system seems very practical and sort of defuses a little bit of the "powergaming" instinct that many gamers have, unwittingly or otherwise. I'd certainly stay away from awarding XP primarily from combat - and much rather award minor and major milestones for "acomplishing goals", whatever they may be. I think that going split-xp requires pretty adult and mellow-minded players, because jealousy and suspicions of favoritism are toxic - wheter real or imagined. The group should always be a team and never be set against eachother (unless everyone is totally on the same page to roleplay out a difficult situation like that).
I also really like the idea of rewarding small things with something. If someone comes up with a particularly ingenious plan for overcoming an obstacle. If someone diplomatically solves a situation via excellent roleplay. If players stay true to their character and act accordingly (especially when they make themselves vulnerable or at a disadvantage by doing so). If a player really stands out in a particular battle or otherwise by showing courage and initiative. And last but not least - to anyone who makes good contributions towards just telling a good story - be that via leadership, roleplay or even making excellent suggestions for the DM to expand upon.
I think it would be cool to have some sort of very loosely defined tokens you can hand out for that to show appreciation. Rather than being tied to XP or anything very mechanically tangible it would be more like "DM-goodwill" or "karma" points. You'd spend them with the GM to gently nudge the game in a direction you want. Maybe a character wants to bend some book rules to develop his character in a certain way - and as long as it's not a pure powergaming play the DM facilitates that. Maybe a player is itching to have an adventure that explores something from his background in one of the next sessions. Perhaps a player really wants to accomplish some goal in-game. A few goodwill points might result in the creation of a few openings and opportunities later in the game that might make something like that possible.
I think that's a nice middle-ground that can feel fair to everyone while incentivizing the behavior you want, and the nebulous nature of these points leaves you fairly unrestricted in how to reward your players. It's a lot easier to applaud your fellow players for earning such tokens for good play instead of suddenly being the only level 5 in a level 6 party and feeling like you are the worst player who didn't contibute anything... especially when the token systems rewards could often be angled towards being relevant to the entire party in make cases.
Will you guys be doing a video on Xanathar's?
I had a player try to "tame" a Rage Drake. He had disadvantage. Both were 20s. He and the other party member went to kill a Gnoll Warlord taking over nearby dwarvish and gnomish towns. He rolled a Nat 20 on the Rage Drake attacking the Gnoll Warlord. Rip the modified lvl 20 Gnoll Barbarian. (The 2 players were like 2nd to 5th level.)
I'm glad im not the only one using a crown royal bag for my dice
I personally love the mixed level party idea. It's well grounded in iconic lore. Willow was a zero level Farmer. Pippin was basically a 1st level rogue and he killed a Nazgul. Both of those characters were surrounded by fairly high level companions, and while they struggled, they also contributed immensely to the campaign.
Anyone else ever consider using the XP rules from Cypher system for D&D? Copy the 2 XP split reward for natural 1's, add in 1 or 2 XP for combat encounters, 2 or more XP for rolling high on skill checks to diplomancy your way out of fights, find treasure, find hidden dungeon entrances, solve or "win" social encounters and puzzles, etc...
And when the players rest they can trade in XP equal to 4 times their current character level to level up. Or they can give XP to their teammates to buy tokens that give advantage rerolls. Just in case one player skyrockets ahead by rolling lucky and wants to hand out their excess points to keep the levels close.
I just throw monsters at the party that sound scary but take able. We've almost been wiped from two bandits, a bandit leader, and his pet basilisk
still your best intro
How do you deal, in game, with players not showing up to a session?
Neil Turner old but good is the player opens a box in the next room and their character is paraylzed for the rest of the dungeon session and is cured when they get back
Achievements that get xp encouraging playstyle REALLY works: For a 'Gladiators in the Arena' style game, with a slightly tongue in cheek, bloodbowl-esque slant, I've had success with creating a series of 'xbox Achievements' that can be won at any time, and I award advances based on this, for eg:
"Reject of Hell" go to zero HP from an opponent's hit, be revived and go on to win the fight = 450xp and you can claim a trophy from among the gear of the creature that first put you down.
" R U not entertained" perform in and survive 5 arena bouts without a short rest = 1000xp, a rare healing potion and a post match Hype interview with 'Colossus' Magazine.
"Paint the town red" inflict 15 or more points of damage in a single melee hit, OR sustain 20 pts from a single source of damage. Gain 450xp and a potential sponsor awards you a night on the town celebrating your prowess. Therafter, any match where you wear their name on your armour, you will get a complimentary potion of resist poison, and all the free wine you can drink.
it totally lends itself to a sports-entertainment WWE style of play
I like the idea of giving xp based on their character motivations. A greedy thief may get xp when he steals X amount of gold in items for example.
Great Thumbnail!
I'm running a hexcrawl with a more literal milestone levelling where the characters need to uncover certain locations to level up. I'm currently trying out an experiment where the players level up individually at the locations. It works pretty well, but it's much slower. I might change that at later levels
I had to watch the first 20 seconds three times before continuing.
"We want you to fuck!"
I don't always fuck, but when I do, i prefer Web DM
I don't dislike the first few levels because im fragile, I dislike the first few levels because everybody feels kinda "samey" in combat and really even in skills. Especially the martial classes. if you start at, say, level 5 then everybody has their subclass, everybody has their fighting style if their class offers one, everybody has 1 stat bump or feat, everybody has had their proficiency bonus go up, spell casters have a larger variety of spells and don't need to almost exclusively use their cantrips, etc. Your characters actually feel a bit more unique and flexible now. THAT is why i personally hate level 1 and 2. Fragility isn't even on my radar.
Hahonryuu good point. It does take 5e characters a few levels to really come into their own or solidify a char concept.
I agree, also it allows for multiclaseers to have the framework in place so you don't need to explain why they vanish off screen for 6 months to train as a wiz.
I usually do session based xp. At the end of the session I look at my notes and add the monster cr and good roleplay xp and split it equally among the party. I do this so the whole party stays on the same level. If a player does something exceptional I make a note reward them when I get the first opportunity with either extra gold or a special item.
I do the same. I find that milestone xp discourages side quests or any other exploration that might be construed as "off-track".
Fabius Maximus But then that really isn't milestone xp. Which is why I use monster/achievement xp that is evenly split among the party.
i think the CR formula was designed for the standard point array, which only works when you USE the standard point array, which idk a lot of groups that do. I personally prefer milestone leveling and exponential leveling.
Let's start of with the fact that I like to listen to you guys discussing different topics of D&D. At the moment I am creating a campaign for my first time being a DM. For this campaign I have the idea to lvl the players according to progression in the campaign itself. The party here would also be gaining xp they could use to gain a feat or proficiency in a skill, if they have the the money and xp. Then they need to seek out someone who wants to train them. Ofcourse after they have learned something, they will need more xp for the next "upgrade". The ideas are just roaming in my head.
I like the idea of milestone xp, but I still think it’s worth tracking xp rather than a straight-up “level when I say so” system, because you want to be able to reward achievements “to scale” so to speak, and to reward unexpected achievements and goals the players have set themselves. Awarding normal xp for completing goals, making discoveries etc. allows for a lot of granularity in terms of how much character advancement a certain accomplishment represents, without tying players to a “kill all the things” playstyle.
Hey Pruitt (I hope you read these) you mention using attendance as a leveling guide at your game in the bar. That your friend increased the number of sessions required to gain a level at level 5. Did he do that for later levels? What level?
*Throws pen* JIM DAVIS!
I've grown to give out experience roughly based on how impactful a given session is. My campaigns tend to average about one encounter every two sessions, and the PCs often have trouble affording a horse ten sessions in if they haven't saved for one. If I weren't to provide experience on a per-session basis, they would never get their due. My players shouldn't have to suffer because we run a high-role-play, street-level style. In addition, as has been mentioned, if you tie experience directly to killing enemies, you tend to encourage murder-hoboism rather than the overcoming of difficulties with one's wits.
Ok I am going to have to pause before 1 minute because I am about to have a pun overdose...but in a good way.
Have you messed around at all with accelerating 5e's feature unlocks? I'm working on something now where all of the class and subclass features are unlocked by level 10, and hit dice, prof bonus, spell slots, and ASIs catch up
While I never discredited Pruitt's claims of being a level 2 monk, that neck and knuckle crack just proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Level 3, he talked about catching a pencil thrown at him at high speed and i may be imagining it but i think also a fly.
An economy episode would be awesome!
New idea: Give xp to players like Dumbledore points to Gryffindor.
I also use milestone levelling, and as a DM I am super stingy with levels in lowest tier compared to any DM's I've ever had myself. I also always start my players at 1st level for campaigns (one shots and triptychs are another beast for me)
In many ways, first level is my favourite level as a player too.
Great talk, should be required listening to all video game developers too.
I’ve been using the 3 tier System from UA my players seem to like it a lot
I love that "Attendance Leveling" was mentioned, for the exact reasons they already harped on - it ENCOURAGES ATTENDANCE. I mix it with Milestone XP to get a nice healthy balance of discouraging truancy and encouraging quest completion. Basically, I bring everything down to the single-digit level, where you get 1 xp every session, +1 every milestone, with an average xp-to-next-level of 5xp, so you usually spend about a month in each level.