D&D XP the Fast & Easy Way!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.ค. 2019
- Level up! In episode 87 of Dungeoncraft, Professor DungeonMaster simplifies the Experience Point System so it takes just moments to calculate XP for the session. No charts, no flipping through rulebooks, no calculators, no Apps.
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How to gain XP: "I run in circles in the tall grass for 2 hours, waiting for a random encounter"
Lol. Good one.
Playing the players? That's a whole Seth Skarkowsky style there. I think that was spot on.
Was about to say the same
They should do a collab :D
L
Oops
I’ve introduced a ‘downtime’ mechanic into a sandbox campaign that allows the players to gain abilities and spells as if they leveled. This allows me to keep the game paced a little more slowly and still give the advancement that carbon based life forms seem to enjoy.
In reality, you're going to get deminishing returns on experience, and eventually go backwards with injury and age. Olympic athletes spend most of their day at their craft and don't keep improving indefinitely. The real difference between a special forces soldier and a more elite soldier is less physical capability and more about tactics they learn. Grounding the combat and reducing the numbers just makes more sense.
Exactly! 'm not saying everything needs to be realistic--just grounded in reality. Thanks for the comment!
You're assuming improvement is purely physical. It's not. More advanced PCs start to get by more on wisdom and guile and less on physically dominating their opponents. That's what role play is really about. And btw, I usually award more xp for role playing than I do combat/defeating opponents.
@@brianjacob8728 so your wisdom and maybe attacks and defence won't directly go down, but your strength, speed, and constitution will. As for reduced returns, you're still going have plateaus in progress and slowed progress even mentally. It then takes more repetition, more studying, or more information to progress in a meaningful way.
that is true, but what DND Campaign let the characters plays for decades in game time until the get more injuries and age? Most of my campaigns are having only a few years in-game time and the characters are the fantasy hero version of young sport prodigies who get from beginner to world championship in a matter of years. Level 20 is the potential peak of a heros carrier, not the retirement.
@@TheOriginalDogLP if 20 is the peak, then the bonuses you get through out and at 20 should be much lower or negated partly because of injuries/old age, and/or require constant training. Most player characters are too busy traveling and actually adventuring to spend much time training.
A successful football star has to be in the top 1% of the highschool players of his school and the others they play against. Then they have to be in the top 1% of college to possibly get drafted, then most of them drop out in a season or two. Those that stick with it more than a flash in the pan get laid up with injuries all the time and either retire on a high note or drag it out like Brett Favre and Tom Brady (who now has to coast by stacking the roster) as their abilities nose dive.
I like this because it floats between the standard XP system (which IMHO is too complicated) and Milestone progression (which IMHO is too arbitrary).
I like your ideas and your style. I'd have a lot of fun in your game. You make RPG'S your own thing, for your own group. More people should do that.
And now in my head canon, all D&D worlds have a forest of screaming antelope.
Just need to come up with a stat block for the dire screaming antelope! :-)
@@michaelshoen2762 I may stat out the Screaming Antelope. We'll see!
I was wearing a head set when I heard that it jumped scared me
In the course of teaching D&D to some older players (50s), I selected 5e due to the simplicity and popularity. However, adults don't "sponge" up new material like teens do... so they had problems playing their characters proficiently through 5th level. Class powers, spells, and basic tactics were overwhelming to them due to having to learn them all at once.
I examined the 5e experience chart and compared it to 1e and found out some interesting things:
1. In 1e, each class had varied level targets for XP.
2. The level charts ended around 10th - 12th level.
3. The average XP needed to reach each level is dramatically lower in 5e (to accommodate all the new levels).
4. Every GP you found also counted as XP, so you were getting double frequent slayer miles back then.
5. It took around 10 sessions (depending on how generous with treasure your DM was) in 1e for you to reach 2nd level (instead of 2-3).
6. Getting to level 10 (on average) in 1e took 340,001 XP (5e level 20 is 355,000).
7. In addition to the rapid leveling for 1-3, there is a slow down for 5-7 (where WOTC surveys say the average campaign ends).
I used that data to make my own level chart for 5e (1,000/2,000/4,000/8,000/15,000/30,000/50,000/100,000/175,000). The slower start helped my players learn their characters and teamwork, tactics, and basic 5e rules without getting overwhelmed.
Your idea of simplifying the thousands down to tens is a real gem that I will be able to incorporate in the future. Thanks PDM!
Thanks for tour response and your research into 1E. I think it's great you are teaching others how to play!
1e also gives much less exp for killing monsters. Most exp comes from treasure. You’re incentivized to get treasure not so much fight.
It’s why wandering monsters worked. They didn’t have treasure.
I think the xp system might only work well in a dungeon crawl though.
Juice box, lol. You sir, are the bee's knees!
I knew it was coming, but every time he says "The Wiggles" with that adorable smile, I crack up again!
I love the milestone idea. I will use it but instead of an epic adventure it’s an epic journey to the local pub. Fighters have to drink a dwarf under the table, a rogue has to bed a beautiful lass (or lad) and a wizard has to experiment with the various spirits and alcohols until he creates an interesting drink, all while experiencing wild surges until he gets it right!
Very DungeonCraft! You'll enjoy my next prep session. It airs on the first Thursday of August.
I don't do XP by creatures defeated. I just do it when it feels right according to the story.
Chapter XP, i agree.
Milestone xp achieves this as well, and still can scratch the "I need to see my progress bar" itch for some players.
For whatever reason, I like the idea of the milestone being the "chapter close" or "feels right" moment, like I had a hand in advancing the character, instead of it just feeling like it's an arbitrarily awarded power up. Even though either system is practically the same thing.
I concur!
TL;DR: Milestone Achievements have been my default for about 10 years now lol
The way most of my games go is that the players like to either take their time with one thing or rush through others, this leaves the sessions a bit more uneven so granting XP has never been something I've felt good about. I always prefer to A.) Do the entire party leveling up & B.) Granting it as they become bigger elements in the world.
The group saves a town? They're about Lv 3-5
The group saves a major city? 7-9
The group is instrumental from preventing or concluding a war? 10-15
The group is handling world/reality ending events? 16-20+
Its nothing hard and fast but what feels like what they've earned. I rarely start the game at Lv.1 but if they do they get to Lv.3 within a few sessions and will be there and at Lv.4 for awhile.
Another idea that I kind of love is Paired Levels. Instead of 20 single levels its 10 paired. If you're wanting to run through a quicker more high powered campaigns, its something I've kind of embraced when I know the party of players isn't 1000% invested in the narrative and wants to do more high-flying action beats.
@@olbluehat Thanks for taking the time to write. You sound like an awesome DM!
This is the best XP and Advancement advice I have ever heard. Thanks, Professor!
Wow, thanks!
The countdown begins. All hail the Professor!
Edit: I don’t need a chart!.... I’m still waiting on your simplified character sheet in PDF form.
Haha, we might be waiting a while.
In the meantime, you can just pause the screen, and copy it yourself.
Yeah keep it simple is the key!!
I've been working on an RPG, more focused on complicated duelling mechanics (it's a bit bloated, but the trade off more more interesting combat choices for non-spellcasters makes it worth it imo). You've given me so much inspiration, thank you! If in the far future I manage to publish it, I'm going to dedicate a special thanks to you.
I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to post your videos. I have watched many of them and you have helped me improve my games.
Thanks for watching and that's great to hear!
Another awesome video and prospective on the game, Professor 👨🏫! I like how you made it both easy and challenging. It’s so simple yet effective. Thanks for the “food for thought”! Cheers 🍻
I never realized how "close minded" I've been all these years (D&D'ing and DM'ing since '85) until stumbling upon your channel. Just amazing!! Wish I'd found something like this years ago!
Keep up the amazing channel!
I do something slightly similar.
I give the group a grade, and I give the character grades.
And it’s all based on points!
I reward players with points for things such as, role playing in character, coming up with creative solutions, actions true to how they describe their character to be, occasionally they can get points for having a character act different than it usually would if it benefits the group, (like a "scaredy cat" running into danger to save a team mate), being funny.
I also take into consideration who my players are, so two o& them is introverts and they get more points for role playing in character, than the player I have who barely steps out of character during the entire session.
One of my players can be quite dominant, and I give him extra points when he listen and let the others be more part of the decision making.
This also means that even if they fail a quest, they sometimes get to level up anyway because they came up with interesting solutions, role played a lot, helped making the session great for everyone, etc...
The reason I do it this way is that I want it to reflect lessons learned in real life - I don’t want levels to be something you win if you succeed, but rather something you gain, because you learned something, (and contributed to making it a great session)
I love it! I've been wanting to do something simpler, but always felt like milestones were a cop-out. This seems like the best of both worlds!
It does not matter that the monsters they will face get stronger, when the adventures get home for a rest they will interact with non-adventuring humans, in that context they will be stronger, hands down. This is satisfying!
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 You are welcome, your material is top quality. I'd love more crafting stuff though! I am sure they take a while to be produced, but they are really good.
@@SebastienlovesCookieswirlc Glad you like them. When they air, please share them. They get far less views than my GM advice (although Ultimate Dungeon Terrain HAS gotten nearly 100k views!)
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Will certainly do!
Great video. Love the simplicity.
Thanks. I love your viewership!
Using this for my upcoming west marches game! Thank you for the insight!
As ever, great stuff!! I am totally with your thoughts on D&D.
I may have to try this out on my kids.
We’ve used “fail forward” approach, if a character fails a roll they mark XP, once they have XP equal to their next level, they can level up. Simple, and takes the sting out of failure.
Thanks for sharing. We always struggle with experience systems.
I use a far simpler system for D&D, every 3-4 sessions I let them level up. 3-4 sessions also happens to match up almost perfectly with how long I tend to write an adventure, and how often we swap between games. Easy, no keeping track of numbers, no counting to 10, I just let them level when it feels right in the story.
You're slowly turning into the Lewis Black of D&D and I love it. Thanks for making me choke on my lunch with the "Wiggles" line.
I'll take that as a compliment. LB is a lot more cynical than me but he's a funny guy.
Awesome as always!
I always felt like leveling in d&d was a little too slow, this is a good alternative. Cuts through the tedious part of exp and leaves the fun part still open. Leveling players is a super easy incentive for them, and as pcs get stronger it lets you as dm have more freedom in what you want to create for a session. Lots of idea fodder, great video!
Another great one! I personally make heavy use of the 5-room dungeon method in my sessions so this seems like it would work perfectly at my table.
5 rooms dungeons are awesome!
Great ideas! Love this video!
Love this! No quibbles from me! Much simplified and for the better... wait... forest of the screaming...antelope? That's going in the next adventure!
You had me at cut the crust off their PB&J's lmao
Prof throwing that shade. Love it.
I love the idea of experience points for finishing objectives. Killing monsters gains nothing unless it helps you accomplish the objective.
Hey Elaine. Yes, I still receive email @ dungoencraft@yahoo.com. I apologize for any delay. I am terrible at responding to email.
This was some good guidance. Thanks!
Hey bro I'm super new to d&d and am trying to do a game with my kids, thanks for advice! Quick n to the point.
You made it to Rivendell, Everyone level up.
YAY!
I recently started dming for a new campaign. After the first session, some of the more experienced players were expecting to have enough experience to level up. When I told them the amount of experience points they got they were confused. Jokingly around I said, well you guys are inexperienced travelers, it’s going to take a while for you to understand why you succeeded. Now, my players are ball buster. I was expecting them to fight me on this, but as soon as I finished my sentence one of my players said “that makes sense” and we moved on to talking about how well everyone did on the session.
Btw using your hit point for monsters was a great success. Combat was a lot smoother.
OMG, you so entertaining, Informative, succinct and clever.
Opens the hood, takes out all the moving parts. Let's play Splendor!
Great video Prof DM. I wish I had implemented this when I started my home game. I may have to develop this in the future. I have seen this sort of system once before, but it was in a video game. I kind of liked the concept and will implement it into my game.
Love your idea on XP. It makes it less about bean counting and grinding. Capping HP makes people focus more on skills and spells, which is also more narratively interesting. If a wizard in a novel gained HP and spells the same way as in most games, by the end of the story, he could be a tank on top of having powerful spells. (Think of it sort of like Doc Ock just being a normal human with high Intelligence and the mechanical arms.)
THANK YOU! You get it. I get so much @*$! for capping HP. You'd think I said I didn't like the musical "Hamilton" or I hate babies.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 if you're trying to build a better munchkin, I could see it being a problem.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 When are you going to stream an actual game?
@@williamtweed6377 Possibly not ever. Here's why: Matt Mercer plays with professional actors. When you have Felicia Day, you KNOW her character will be interesting and she will do interesting things. Actors do voices, develop character arcs, and are skilled at improv. My players are not actors. They are everyday people. They arrive late, talk about their kids, spend 20 minutes deciding to go left or right, and vacillate when when it's their turn. No one would want to see it. If you want to play at my table, I'll be making more and more convention appearances, including GenCon in 2 weeks and Pax Unplugged in Philadelphia in the fall. GREAT question, BTW.
LOL - I loved teen professor dungeon master.
Your channel is really fascinating to me. You give really good advice I don't hear from a lot of dungeon masters that I can definitely use. On the other hand the tone you like to play with is 100% not something I'd want to be involved in. That's not a value judgment though. Some people prefer more grit than others. I just find it fascinating because I've never come across a source of advice I agreed and disagreed with in such equal measure.
Cool! The tone is gritty, for sure. However, I love high fantasy--I just cannot run it. Thanks for commenting!
The best rewards to drive behavior are surprises. My system-agnostic method is to contact players between sessions and award perks that both relate to what they did well and will contribute to the campaign. Almost always a new ability or an improvement on a current ability/tool. I never promise perks beforehand, and players always dig them when they show up. It builds tension to reveal shiny new talents at the next session, surprising the other players who often find the abilities to be uncannily synergistic or helpful for the group dynamic.
It helps to ask players what they're aiming to next session. And to present situations where the players' new perks are important to use.
I actually really enjoy going through the objectives over come and tallying up my xp
Thanks, Prof! Great vid.
Thanks for ur info, dungeon master! now, i can finally create a nice xp n lvl-up system for my fantasy webnovel!
This channel got me hooked on DCC so I've been playing that over D&D. My players want a juice box and the wiggles though... :(
Very nice on both counts :)
DCC is a great experience. Nothing like a funnel to make the "character development by attrition" system seem less tongue-in-cheek Old School reference and more like a valid, fun system.
"This guy is gonna be my Paladin, he's got massive strength and CHA. He'll bash down the door easy"
"The magic trap on the door explodes on contact. The momentum of the lump of charcoal that was going to be a paladin succeeds in breaking the door off its hinges and lands in the next room."
Two hours later, the four surviving peasants are furiously scribbling down notes about the "treasure" they've uncovered, which amount to a fancy bowl, a few sticks of incense, and a some notes written in a language they don't understand. They believe they've entered a flying space temple of some kind, which the GM determines it must be for the next session.
When everything can kill you, everything becomes important and interesting, and the characters spend a lot of time seeding their own campaign. :)
Fruit salad, yummy yummy! DCC is a lot of fun.
@@GavinRalston13 My favorite part of the funnels are the farmer characters and their random livestock. My players always sacrifice them in epic fashion. We've had chickens exploding in fireballs to goats being pulled into the interdimensional realm of chaos.
@@GavinRalston13 Some players who are too conditioned can struggle to adapt to this, its a shame because it has so much going for it. As you say there is more value in things that otherwise get overlooked in other play styles. Plus players seeding their own campaigns is such an amazing thing to experience. It doesnt have to be the whole campaign, or it can be parts of it but when players and their actions drive events that come back to haunt them its a delight to run and write for. Theres nothing like it.
Rock solid approach to XP, less number crunching in Dnd makes better Dnd.. "Murder hobos" made me chuckle. Appreciated the Splendor reference. Great game! I like the way you cut away the useless fluff and keep games focused on the story that happens when you play. Looking forward to every episode!
Splendor is fun indeed.
This is the best thing I ever saw.
This is a really good idea!
I like your system, sir. I have been doing it this way the past two campaigns I've run:
Each character gets one xp per hour of game time. At 5 XP, the characters will level up. According to my rules, the number of XP required will grow based on how often the group can play. We have only been averaging play about 4-7 hours per month over the past 12 months so this will have characters level up every or every other month. It works for us.
I recently discovered this channel and am really enjoying your alternate systems for 5e.
I just use milestone leveling from 5e mixed with the Level by session. I dont use any math or numbers assigned to anything. It’s always been amorphous and tied to the plot.
I have thought of a similar point system but without the milestone quest, each level needs 2 points.
So to get from 19 to 20 you need 40 points.
But I like your 10s system
Thank you the campaign is about to happen and I'm just been scrambling to get as much information as I can
definitely going to take pointers from this, if not utilize it as is, for my current game. thanks!
Your system is similar to how Pathfinder Society organized play works. You get 1 XP per scenario, or 3 XP for a module (which is an extra long scenario.) Every 3 XP you level up. You have to have 3 encounters (not necessarily fights, it can also be a puzzle or a diplomacy encounter), complete a faction quest (no longer used in newer scenarios), and complete the overall objective. If you do at least 2 of these 3 things (including the overall objective) during a scenario or module, then you get your XP. If you complete at least 2 of those objectives, but have to run away (or your party is collectively knocked unconscious/killed/permanently disabled and can't continue), you still get 1/2 xp and gold.
However, if you think that you advance too quickly and you want to enjoy playing your character more, you can also choose to do Slow Advancement, where you get roughly half the amount of gold and XP per scenario or module. So you get 1/2 an XP point for a scenario, requiring 6 sessions to advance instead of just 3. You do get a tiny bit more gold during slow advancement because you get twice as many Day Job check sat the end of each scenario or module. Though not a lot, it can mean the difference between an extra +1 on a weapon or better armor by mid-level. So I think it's worth it.
Pathfinder does that in the actual rulebook? Did not know that. Generally that game has too many rules for me. That's a good rule, though.
Hey i would like to see an example of a session focused on non-combatant encounters!
Keep up the good work!
I really like the achieve a milestone to advance, I have been trying to think of a way to blend the old training to level with natural advancement.
I just use a basic milestone (in 5e) and level up when I feel they have achieved enough at the end of an adventure, I also keep everyone the same lvl as it makes it easier. Im not trying to sim im running a game.
Another good thought provoking video.
My players are so into role-playing and creating a good story, that I wouldn't *dare* try to incentivize them towards some beat I came up with. I just try to provide them with as much verisimilitude and meaningful choice as possible, and let them kinda do the milestone-like things naturally, rewarding them with a level at the end of a narrative arc. It's really nice because the players will have surprised "oh!" moments in the story, and so do I hahaha. My NPCs sound impressed with the PCs because *I'm* genuinely impressed.
I also keep track of XP the normal way in case they should reasonably be leveling up otherwise: Just in case they get through some epic story arc that just wouldn't stop escalating and then we all realize they should have probably progressed in power in the middle of it all.
I'd love to play with your players. They sound cool!
I was on a group where we played with a similar system, but instead you can exchange the exp not only for leveling up, but to being proficient with a skill, get a feat or multiclassing, everyone in the group enjoyed it and it gave a lot of personalization, the best part is that since we were a more narrative group, we didn't even though to exploit the system if we had a lot of accumulated exp
I'm implementing this STAT. Love this mechanic.
The sas in this episode made me snort beer out my nose! 10/10
I like running large sandbox campaigns (tons of work up front) because then leveling up does mean more power for the players. The baddies they once had to hide from or didn't dare challenge gradually become their rivals or even must now yield to the players whims.
Love this video! Funny player impersonations too! I think this is a really great story driven xp system that works great! I'm more of a level up each individual skill guy myself. But I like this a lot and think I'll give it a go next time I DM a 5e game
Thanks for watching and commenting, Korey!
Nice, seems like a fast and easy system.
I definitely relate to "who's up for a game of spledor??" haha
Splendor Duel is even better!
Incentive given. Thanks professor.
Another great episode for "getting the rules out of the way of the game".
I love milestone advancement. But I also love the idea of giving XP for gold spent, so players are encouraged to spend their treasure.
HOT DAM almost exactly as I've been doing it since 88. Loved the video!!!
You should write a book too
@@trouqe 7 on DrivethruRPG & Lulu but thx for the encouragement!
I think I'll check them out. Same name?
This was awesome! I was hoping for a video like this! Keep up the great work! Will you have a Patreon up if we wanted to support you more?
We humans love to see numbers go up.
Althoguh, I personally, I would just do milestone leveling, and mot have any exp at all.
Personaly, I like to play spellcasters, and my favorite part of leveling up, is not getting bigger numbers, but getting cooler and more interesting spells.
Two spells that I can't wait to use in an actual game "fabricate,"
"Otto's irresistable dance."
Fabricate is only avalable to 7th level or higher wizards, and Otto's Irresistable Dance, is only avalible to 11th level or higher Bards.
Milestones are awesome too. The option should at least be in the 6th edition. Cheers!
I just divide required xp by 100. 3 points for 1st, 9 for 2nd, 27 for 3rd and so forth. Likewise, I take XP from monsters and do the same. Players get 2/3 xp for slaying, 3/3 xp for overcoming a challenge without needless slaying (sometimes to complete your mission some -one/ -thing needs to be removed), and 1/3 xp if they are just being murder hobos (just whacking things because you can means you don't learn all that much).
Also very cool!
They have something similar in the 5e DMG. There is a chart that breaks down exp for easy, medium, and difficult encounters. It's the nearly the same as what you're doing, but with regular exp numbers
That's cool. I just think it should be even easier. Maybe their DMs just suck, but my 5E playing friends tell me "getting XP takes too long." Thanks for watching DungeonCraft!
Well done, Professor DM!
Thanks for watching, Timothy. Share the vid if you get the chance!
I think that the milestone approach is great.
Love this idea
Thanks, Mike. I love you watching DungeonCraft. Cheers!
Putting the sensible into grim-dark adventure. Dungeon Craft wins. Again.
Thanks for watching!
You, sir, are a genius
This sounds a lot like adapting the old Storyteller XP system from Vampire the Masquerade back in the late 90s to the D&D Level system. I highly approve, for the reasons you already covered: encourages players to engage more as characters and not as murder hobbos.
In my custom D&D game, players gain experience not by killing monsters, but by roleplaying their characters, and only at the end of the session.
The amount of experience you need to reach a certain level equals the exp requirement for the previous level + the previous level * 10. So for level 7, you need 210 exp (150 + 6 * 10). We have a handy table for reference.
Each character gains an amount of exp between 2 and 10 based on well they roleplayed they were roleplayed and if they acted according to their true beliefs and interests. They also gain an extra 10 exp after completing an important quest.
My players absolutely love it, and it’s great because not only does it deflate the inflated exp values of D&D, but it also encourages roleplaying instead of monster killing.
I use a remarkably similar system, 10 XP per level up. But instead of granting XP for completing specific goals, I grant XP for overcoming challenges (more for more difficult ones), progressing towards or completing 'quests' (defined as any goals the players set out to accomplish), and making relevant discoveries.
That way, the players can decide what they want to accomplish and, if they're successful, they'll earn XP. Rather than me having to set out a quest for them that they need to follow to get XP.
Numbers-wise, each 1st level character, before going on any adventures, starts with 10 XP. This makes the progression more aesthetically pleasing to me, as they reach 2nd level once they have at least 20 XP.
I really like the idea of resetting experience and working up to ten or twenty. It really does simplify everything and does away with the minmaxing 5e tends to cause: I need a couple faster levels to build up hit points before I change classes to… oh and the 20 HP or so idea works well too, something "weak" can still get the drop on you and really hurt you! Crowds of foes would always be terrifying, even if they are level 0 humans in a town, if they gang up on you…
want to make a "tiny adventure" dnd for my kids and will be using this method for level ups... when leveling up they get a chance to train a stat from the pixies/gnomes/etc they've saved so far.
This reminds me a lot of Shadow runs Karma system. If you have that feel like a review for a restaurant or a movie. Like everything was great it was tense and you got your accomplishments done, so you got three stars. I like it
Thanks for commenting, Pablo!
Pure Gold!
Thanks!
This is an interesting approach; it certainly makes the calculations easier.
I, however, have stopped using XP in my games and have gone to the milestone/achievement-based method of leveling exclusively. My games are generally longer campaigns made up of about 15 "Chapters", as I call them. Each chapter has one major objective (retrieve this, save that person, stop So-and-so), and the players won't level until that objective is met. So, similar to Professor Dungeon Master, no XP is awarded for monster slaying.
Since I have thrown XP out the window, I noticed something interesting - the "fight everything for XP" players have expanded their game , i.e. they look for alternative ways to get through areas instead of plowing through monster after monster. (Admittedly, this is also due in part to them figuring out that opportunities for "resting" inside of dungeons / enemy controlled areas don't really exist. So resource management has become a real thing for them.)
Anyways, like the video. Keep the topics comin'!
Why give more xp when you succeed? That is basically like being at school : you do as teacher and you get points.
In real life you get exp when you fail and when you succeed (because you prevented failure).
Big names all say that before they succeeded they had many failure which paved their way.
GREAT point! I was going to allow characters to get 1xp per 5 failed die rolls. I cut it for length, but I love the idea (DungeonWorld uses it as well).
This is a great crossbreed of 5E and ICRPG. Milestones vs Leveling never sat well with me. Your system makes it work!!
My hat's off to you Professor, what a novel idea. I have never cared for the x.p. tables in any gaming system & have always worked to try & create my own ( which is a LOT of work). It is so simple, yet elegant. I like the idea of increasing the ratio past say level 5 ( maybe 10 to 15) and the same after maybe level 10 (15 to 20). How do you handle zero level, is the ratio still 10 to 1st level? The players I have had know better than to cry around about my rules. I am the kind of GM that would poke a hole in their juice box & then tell them to suck it up cupcake, or level two will be the least of your worries :).
I thought of increasing the ratio but it requires a chart. I'm kind of against them, but on the other hand--different classes SHOULD kind of go up at different rates. So I'm not even married to my own system,. As for level zero, surviving the 1st adventure gets you to level 1. Cheers!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Possibly a penalty system ?(for lack of a better word) to keep classes from leveling up the same. Either way, I think it is a fantastic idea.
LOL! Replace the background music with the Wiggles is probably my favorite line of this video. I recommend, given some player groups out there, the song Hot Potato as performed by The Wiggles. LOL
Now I'm glad I left it in. It was almost cut. I'm not cynical, but I can be snarky. When you're building a channel, you kind of want to come across as a nice guy. I thought it might have gone a tad too far . Look for more snark in the future.
Thanks man!
Fast leveling = fewer stories. Good video, ty.
Thank you professor, I am catching up with all your content, everything is superb! It will save me so much time and hassles in future campaigns.
How do you go about with magic that requires XP? (But I am guessing your answer will be that you don't use XP to cast some spells).
You know what's interesting? After this video came out, Pathfinder 2 was released and uses pretty much this system. So great minds think alike. I don't use magic items that use XP.
splendor!
I mean--who DOESN'T love Splendor?!
Ok. I have always sort of just 'brushed away' XP. I just kind of chunked up the levels into sessions and let the players level up when we felt it was appropriate. HOWEVER, I really like this system. It is simple, easy for everyone to remember, and I LOVE the 'complete a heroic deed' level up requirements.
Consider that little nugget pilfered to be used at my own table. :))
I adopted your general approach and guess what? Everyone is happier. I'm not doing calculus every combat and each session is more like a GAME than homework.
Keep these coming, it's literally a better version of D&D.
Just as an idea, if you could put your approach to paper ( pdf ) and publish on Dungeon Masters Guild, it would help many thousands more people and net you a few bucks for your time.
Thank you.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. Pathfinder 2.0 adopted it as well.
X-com 2 handled the leveling issue pretty well. The player goes through a series of power-spikes. You research improved armour, you suddenly find yourself happily more powerful than the aliens... for a while. More difficult enemies come along and the challenge increases until you get new gear or abilities - and the process continues.
If everything is always on the same level of difficulty it can become pretty wearisome.
Thanks for the video.