Questions tagged [experience-points]
For questions pertaining to "experience points" or any other kind of point gained during play and used to "level up" or otherwise permanently increase a character's abilities.
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Why does the experience-to-next-level not change between some levels?
At every level from 1st to 11th, the experience needed to reach the next level (from the current level) increases every level. However, this pattern gets broken for most of the later levels:
Going ...
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Determining "level" of an NPC ally for purpose of budgeting encounter XP
Hypothetical party:
1st level human wizard (PC)
3x guard NPC
1x acolyte NPC
This is the player's first time, and it's a solo campaign. The first mini-adventure involves recovering the cargo of a ...
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My party bypassed a combat encounter. Should they still get XP?
Some thug bandits set up a road block on the main road to extract a toll from passersby. It was twilight when my party encountered them. They used the Rogue to scout ahead, and they ultimately decided ...
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Are there alternative ways to gain XP?
As a new DM I'm wondering Is there's such a thing as noncombat experience? For example, can PCs gain xp from finding and disabling traps, discovering secret doors, or solving puzzles? What would be ...
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Is the XP for an encounter split among the party members or not?
At this point, I am unclear as to how to handle encounter XP. Does each surviving party member receive a proportional share, or the full amount?
That is, assume a 4-character party had completed an ...
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Why don't players get extra xp for large encounters?
Based on the table Encounter XP Multipliers from the Basic Rules' DM section, Page 57, when you're building encounters in 5E, you include an XP modifier depending on the number of creatures your PCs ...
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How much XP should you award if the encounter was not solved via battle? [duplicate]
I have created an encounter with monsters, with their relevant CR and XP. Normally, when the party kills everyone, they are rewarded the XP. If the party chooses to, and succeeds in, resolving the ...
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Reward distribution and story continuity with rotating players/GMs
There are some people who like to GM, and maybe even like it more than role playing themselves. If you have one of those rare specimen in your group consider yourself lucky. Others are not averse to ...
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What do NPCs do with gained XP?
I'm the DM of our group with several player characters, and often there are NPCs with the party as well (partly because the party really likes persuading friendly creatures to come join them, and ...
user37158
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Should a PC get XP for assisting outside of combat?
Related, but about a PC not participating at all in a combat: Do people get XP for battles they weren't in?
Generally, experience points for a combat encounter are divided equally among the ...
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How much experience should a PC be worth?
Long story short, I'm about to betray my party (by trying to kill them). I'm playing this betrayer on behalf of the GM. Assuming they defeat me, how much experience should they get? I am a level 14 ...
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Does taking levels in a prestige class cause XP Penalty?
In D&D 3.5, does taking levels in a prestige class cause the XP penalty like multiclassing does? Please provide the source of the answer so I can show it to my players.
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How do I deal with absent players missing out on levels or XP?
If a player is absent and nobody chooses to play this absent character and instead I let it vanish for a while with a suitable reason or excuse, does this missing player gain levels and XP with the ...
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Where do I go from the Red box?
Me and my group just finished the essentials red box, and are looking at moving to the full 4e game. I'm doing some preliminary reading of the books and one thing is confusing me a little.
The ...
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Can a character gain two levels with the same encounter?
We played with the Deck of Many Things last night and a character drew the card that gives you 50000 XP. The character was 14 and the XP amount was enough for him to gain the next two levels. 15 and ...
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How should XP be awarded for an encounter when enemies flee, get intimidated, or are convinced to help?
This is my first time DM'ing and I'm playing DnD 5e's "Lost Mine of Phandelver" campaign with 3 other players.
The PCs seem to have a trend of encountering a group of enemies, start fighting and ...
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Does 5e address the murderhobos problem?
In DnD 3.5, the system by default only gives significant XP for killing things (monsters, vermin, shopkeepers, etc), which often leads to player characters becoming "murderhobos" in an ...
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Does a True Polymorphed player character continue to gain experience?
Suppose a 5th-level human wizard (let's call her Morgan) is subject to true polymorph, and the spell becomes permanent. While polymorphed, Morgan remains with the party and contributes to adventures. ...
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Do people get XP for battles they weren't in?
I'm a real new DM here. If a character does not participate in a battle, do they still get the XP from the fight?
My main issue is that I had a character refuse to participate in a fight due to moral ...
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Removing XP as a requirement to level
I was reading on geek-related.com that there is a large debate on the effectiveness of using experience points as a means to level up for D&D Next. I want to start using a non-XP method of ...
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How to manage XP in non-combat missions
So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how ...
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Do experience points in 5e continue to stack or do they get expended and leave carry over points towards the next level?
I run two campaigns and decided to run them differently based on the PC desires. In the combat-heavy war-torn campaign I expend all points except those over the leveling up threshold to make it ...
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General Gold value of XP
The context of my question is mostly related to crafting items (with an XP cost) and then trading them with other PCs within the party.
In the case where a Gold<>XP ratio does not scale the same (...
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Level adjustment reduction for high(ish)-level new characters
I am running a 3.5 D&D campaign and I have allowed my players to use the level adjustment reduction rules from the SRD. It is explained fairly OK for characters as they advance through new levels, ...
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Do familiars and animal companions earn XP?
Rules as Written, experience is split evenly in adventures between all creatures that meaningfully participate.
Dungeon Master's Guide (1st printing, pg. 260):
When adventurers defeat one or more ...
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Who created the idea of Experience Points?
The idea of XP in all its many forms has been around for quite some time.
What designer had the idea of quantizing success and advancement through a numerical method? What game was it for?
The ...
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Do PCs understand the leveling system and its experience requirements?
Do PCs understand the nature of the leveling system and its experience requirements? For example, suppose a PC is just below the XP requirement for a level and is planning to undertake a major quest. ...
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Does a PC who was KO'd earn experience for that combat?
A friend of mine's character just died, and as we chatted he lamented all the bad luck he had over the course of the campaign. One thing that stuck out (other than his death being at the hands of a ...
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What's the difference between XP and adjusted XP?
What's the difference between XP and adjusted XP in D&D 5th edition?
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Should the party get XP for a monster they never attacked?
Attempting to keep things vague to avoid possible spoilers for Dragon Heist
During the first session, after the barfight, a couple monsters crawl out of the hole in the middle of the tavern, one big ...
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How should I budget for ally/third party NPCs in 4e combats?
I've done a few combats recently where the PCs and their enemies were not the only participants in the fight. I wasn't sure how to budget XP in this case.
In the case of an NPC ally to the PCs, I ...
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Item Creation Without Experience Points [closed]
Suppose you're playing an RPG with item creation rules that require you to spend experience points as part of creating the item, such as D&D or Numenera.
Suppose further that your gaming group has ...
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Do I reset XP to zero on a new level?
In the D&D group I play with one of the players insists that when you reach a new level you have to zero your experience. However when I checked the PHB1 there is no reference to this. PHB1 uses ...
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How are experience points given to back-up characters?
I've been playing D&D 5e for a while now, but I've recently run in to a new issue. I am going to be starting a new game soon with a new DM, and this campaign is going to be primarily nautical ...
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Can you earn XP for defeating a creature, then raise as undead & destroy it for more XP?
The party defeats a group of creatures by killing them, earning XP. Can they then raise the corpses as undead, release control so they're uncontrolled undead, then kill the undead for more XP?
Is ...
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Is there a mathematical formula to determine how much XP is needed per level?
Is there a mathematical formula to determine how much XP is needed per level? In other words Is there a consistent formula for determining how much XP is needed to go up to any given level?
I ...
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Why is the XP awarded from an encounter the sum of monster XP values and not Adjusted XP? [closed]
The Dungeon Master's Guide presents guidelines for gauging encounter difficulty based on the Adjusted XP of monsters faced. The Adjusted XP is the sum of the monsters' experience values, modified by a ...
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Do imps and pseudodragons serving as variant familiars earn XP, or share XP with the party?
This question is directly related to two other questions:
Do familiars or animal companions earn or share XP with the party?
How is a variant familiar imp and pseudodragon (in the Monster Manual ...
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How do you calculate DM XP reward for an AL module without a prescribed time?
I recently started DMing Adventurers League sessions, and I've been told about DM rewards, being particularly interested in the XP I get after each DMed session.
Reading the AL DM guide, I understand ...
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What is the CR calculation for an NPC with class levels?
I found this related question: What is the CR/XP-Character Level relationship for opponents? but it was asked before the DMG was released and it does not appear to have been updated to include ...
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Increasing experience gain in session
I want to increase the experience gain per game season for several reasons:
My group does not play too often, something like once a month, therefore some players seem to loose sense of achievement if ...
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How to handle experience point distribution for inconstant group size?
Two of out of four party member are inconsistently participating due to their jobs. Up till now that was not a problem for us since we were playing self made adventures but now we start Wrath of the ...
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When skipping over fishing, how much experience should be gained?
I recently asked a question about how to handle the contest between a large fish and a fisherman using fishing tackle, and the answers seem to mostly agree that such contests should be abstracted to ...
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What is the reason behind "one level at a time" level advancement in D&D? [closed]
During the answering to this question about large experience point gains getting truncated -- when a single XP award would raise a character more than one level at a time -- the following question ...
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What do I do with a player who's always trying to go out on their own to farm XP?
This is my first time being a DM, and one of my players (the reason I became a DM), is constantly going out on their own, hunting or stealthing ahead of the group, to kill things before any one else ...
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What rewards can compete with experience points? [closed]
My group is running a series of published adventures. I am GMing one of the modules (level 21-24) after which another member will be taking the reins.
I have plans for a side-adventure that will take ...
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DM taking away XP from players as a form of punishment
So I got a group of friends in high school and were all nerds but with no way to play together. Not all of us had a computer or console. We found someone who claims to have a lot of experience as a DM,...
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Is leveling up mandatory?
In D&D 3.5e, being behind in levels compared to the party grants the relevant characters more experience per encounter. Intuitively, this is because the encounter is relatively harder for them and ...
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Can PCs gain XP from “defeating” an enemy who actually just used Feign Death?
I have a NPC who, when is about to be killed, uses Feign Death just before it is killed. As the point is to trick the players, do they gain XP for its death or not? And if so, the full amount or less?
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How much XP can the Wish spell grant?
If someone had the Deck of Many things, drew the Moon and got a wish spell, and wished to "Level up as much as (They) can", how much XP would the wish spell give to the player?
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