Hot answers tagged experience-points
22
The relevant bit of the Pathfinder Society Field Guide:
At character creation and each time you gain a level, you decide if
you would like your character to be on the standard or slow
advancement track for the entirety of that level.
Primarily, the "slow" XP gain is so that you can keep playing with a particular character longer. Note that when you ...
21
If an XP reward doesn't fit, I'm a big fan of something in the story as a reward:
An important NPC becomes a contact/fixer for the players (someone they can tap for information, rare items, warnings, work).
Along the same lines, instead of a close contact with an important NPC, their actions have gained them audience with someone VERY important in your ...
20
Many modern games now have a concept of "do cool stuff points". Examples include
Hero Points
Pathfinder Advanced Players Guide
Action Points
D&D 4e
D&D 3.5e Eberron
D20 Modern
Fate Points
Fate
Savage Worlds
Bennies
Image courtesy of F. Randall Farmer
These are great because they give the players more power for a day, but don't ...
19
There are three ways to approach this:
Decrease the overall experience for each encounter (for example, only award 500xp for an encounter that would normally award 1,000xp "by the book").
Progressively increase the difficulty of later encounters (add monsters, increase monster challenge rating, or add environmental effects) to account for the higher-level ...
17
No, this isn't novel (although that does not mean that it isn't clever design in Numenera).
There are two separate things married in that mechanic as you've described it. Both have been done before, and I can think of at least one game that has married them in the same way before.
First there is the concept of a pull mechanic. Most GM-initiated events are ...
16
One-shot magic items (potions, scrolls, etc.) - they can even be pretty powerful and still won't unbalance your game for more than one encounter. If the effect is of a defensive/healing nature, it may even instead serve as an insurance against bad luck or decisions that might otherwise kill a PC (or the entire party).
14
Don't use XP. Just level the entire group at appropriate times. It removes a huge amount of busywork from the GM and players to calculate and award XP, avoids this problem entirely, avoids characters leveling at different times, etc. Our gaming group tried it once and never went back - it adds nothing for what it takes.
We've run four full year+ ...
14
From the D20 Pathfinder SRD:
At 4th level, a character can increase one ability score by +1. This is a typeless, nonmagical bonus that cannot be changed once selected.
For example, a fighter with Dex 13 could use this bonus to increase his Dex to 14.
A character can also increase one ability score at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level; it does not ...
13
According to the rules, the XP to be given to each player is the sum of the Monsters' XP, divided by the number of players. See the Dungeon Master's Guide page 120, under Earning XP:
Characters earn XP for every encounter they overcome. The XP reward for completing an encounter is the sum of the XP values for each monster, NPC, trap or hazard that makes ...
12
This is really up to you and how you want to handle your logistics. Strictly speaking, they should probably be awarded the XP immediately after successfully handling the encounter. However, look at your players, your play style, and your session flow to make the best choice. Over the years I've seen XP rewards handled the following ways.
Immediately After ...
12
No, the end-of-session xp award if for PCs only. Extras advance in a different manner.
SW Deluxe Edition p 43:
Don’t create your Extras with the character creation rules.
Just give them what you think they ought to have in their
various skills and attributes and move on.
While that says nothing about their advancement, it most assuredly sets a ...
11
The rule is almost certainly based on ECL, just as how Challenge Rating is based on ECL. Even if not explicitly stated, it's apples-to-apples common sense to assume such. There's no reason a level 14-powered Drow needs to get treated as a level 13 character.
The Drow's player should also consider this, if they really feel slighted: ...
11
Adding to C.Ross's list...
You could award misc. small bonuses to skills or stats for completing the adventure (such as AD&D 3.5/pathfinder traits) For example a small resistance to fire, undead attacks or the like, depending on what they've faced on their jaunt.
Valuable assistance, npc contacts and/or help in future adventures
Similarly; promises of ...
11
Once a henchman is given a domain, they're no longer a henchman, they're a vassal.
Think about it this way. Ser John the Great gives his loyal spear-carrier Walden a title over the Barony of Thicke. Lord Walden of Thicke becomes a peer of another Baron who was never Ser John's henchman, Baron Gwynedd. Baron Gwynedd has income, land, peasants, and all kinds ...
11
Yes, yes it will.
I do have experience with BFRPG. It's a very tidy clone of Basic D&D with some nice mechanical bits from d20, but it's still very much BD&D at its core. (I have experience with that too.) Judging what feel and style of campaign you're going for by your question and comments, giving full XP for gold will level them too fast:
The ...
10
According to the srd, no, taking a prestige class does not cause an XP penalty. To grab the quote:
Taking a prestige class does not incur the experience point penalties normally associated with multiclassing.
9
FreeMarket blends the language, actions, and motivations of the player with that of the character. For example, "I need to gift my Ultrasonic Screwdriver to Withnail because I need the flow" functions just as well in-character as out-of-character.
One form of advancement in FreeMarket is through improving the character's Experiences (analogous to skills in ...
9
It Depends
I have two perspectives, coming from very different gaming philosophies.
From my 2 year Ars Magica campaign: absolutely not. XP represented the investment of time that could be used for other profitable activities. This was about the lives of the mages with no "group cohesion" to speak of. The idea of linked experience would be profoundly out ...
9
Earthdawn explicitly includes a system where players who keep a scribe or cartographer among their characters to chronicle their journeys get a reward.
My one caution to doing something like this is to make sure that there is something that everyone can do, or distribute the rewards evenly (or at least sanely cap them) so that there's no huge boost to one ...
8
We'll start with this post:
"After 2nd level, the amount of experience you need to gain a level goes up by 250 points
(i.e., you need +1,000 to reach level 2, +1,250 to reach level 3, etc.). After four levels
of this, the 'additional' amount increases to 500. About the point you'd expect this to continue, it gets extremely erratic on levels 11 ...
8
I've come up against this problem before. Sometimes if some of my group can't make a session i'll run a side-quest so nobody misses any major plot. Obviously the characters will end up over-levelled if I gave full xp. Here are some options:
Less XP - As long as they're getting something they won't moan too much. Cutting the xp by half may be an easy option.
...
8
I was first introduced to this idea in the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game, which encouraged player involvement by awarding Good Stuff (a mix of character-building points and general karma) for out-of-character actions.
The main ones used there were more fitting for the Amber setting - drawing character cards (Trumps) of the characters, or writing ...
7
Level 14 Solo Creature is worth 5,000 XP
Which is effectively what you are. However, I can hear arguments for saying that you are just elite, so that would only be 2,000 XP
While Solo Creatures have more HP than a normal PC, and a PC has more abilities than an Elite, the most fair option is to go down the middle, and a level 14 char would be worth 3,500 XP
...
7
I use a table and the VLOOKUP function in Excel for this kind of thing. You can input all the values for the levels in a table similar to what Brian has shown. Put this on another (or hidden) page and then use the lookup functions so the level is automatically updated when the value of the XP cell changes.
When using the VLOOKUP function, the first column ...
7
While the progression isn't readily codified, here's the lookup formula (replace the reference to A1 with the cell with character level) so you don't have to look in the book:
=CHOOSE(MAX(MIN(31,A1),1),0, 1000, 2250, 3750, 5500, 7500, 10000, 13000, 16500, 20500, 26000, 32000, 39000, 47000, 57000, 69000, 83000, 99000, 119000, 143000, 175000, 210000, 255000, ...
7
In the 1970s, D&D was played in a very abstract manner. Were you to get realistic -- such as calculating the treasure available and comparing it to local or national finance -- the result would immediately show the absurdity of the system. But that didn't matter; the point was to have fun and not worry about the details. (My how things have changed in 30 ...
7
Moldvay is great... in part because it's short. Tom and I spoke at some length about the 'tack' he would take. I later used a lot of ideas that he omitted because he just didn't have room. The following will address the BECMI treatment, being the most detailed expansion of Moldvay's data. At this distance (almost 30 years), most players consider the two ...
7
If you prefer to stick by the rules, then all of a sudden the afflicted PC get several Hit Dice and increase in level adjustment (as per template). Recalculate his ECL and - guess what - award xp based on his new ECL.
Furthermore, not only their xp gains are affected. He will obtain next level upon earning an xp total sufficient for being level ECL+1, which ...
6
I either use the XP for gold rule, or I eliminate it entirely.
In my earlier-edition games I prefer to see characters level organically, gaining XP as slowly or quickly as the players' choices enable them to given the opportunities presented by the DM. Taking a laissez-faire approach to the PCs' levelling removes some of the pressure on the DM to make sure ...
6
Thinking about the models of 4e, I would assert something a little odd. By choosing to become an NPC, you quite literally become a "monster" for purposes of combat. Arrange with your GM an opportunity for you to become, thematically, an elite or solo (depending on what level of assistance you want) and to translate your character into a monster.
The reason ...
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