Unearthed Arcana WotC's Mearls Presents A New XP System For 5E In August's Unearthed Arcana

Over the Hill Gamer said:

I think this demonstrates a weakness with leveling systems. Why should one receive xps for having a great rp "scene" when the reward for advancing a level is greater power in combat? It doesn't make much logical sense.

Click to expand...

Nope, it never has made much sense for beating something to death in combat because your only offensive spells is Push, to make you a better magic-user, either. And, yes, it's a weakness with leveling systems, a 'known bug' I suppose, and D&D has had plenty of time to fix it, and largely declined to do so.

What's close to a rationalization is that you do tend to get better, via Proficiency, at your skills, so if you do have proficiency in anything you used in that Social/Interaction (not RP, RP is part of all 3 pillars) scene, at least that /is/ being improved. It was maybe a bit better at rationalizing 3e, when you could devote Ranks to the skills you used most, or 4e, where all your skills got a bit better as you leveled, but it helps.

Also, you are likely to level, under a system like this, that gives exp in each pillar, from experiences in all three pillars, so there's that. You may win a debate with the vizier and 'ding,' but since the last time you 'dinged,' maybe you've fought a cult of Yuan-ti and their pet hydra, explored a lost temple, and recovered a fabled treasure, as well.

I guess in a skill-based system a great rp scene might be reflected in advancement in a socially based skill like persuasion.

Click to expand...

That's how it worked in RQ1, the earliest example of an RPG I'm aware of that was skill-based, and used something like experience (Traveler was earlier & skill-based, but your character didn't improve once it was generated - it just got older).

robus said:

Agreed - milestone leveling really drills home to the players that they're on a linear path and must jump through the DMs hoops to level. It's starting to grate with me as I feel too powerful in the relationship. "You level when I say you level!"

This might redress the balance.

Click to expand...

That is why I hate it myself an don't use milestone in my campaign though its had some problems since OotA is kind of setup around it.

Nothing new, nothing special, nothing well thought out.

There is one and only one valuable thought in the entire thing, and that's the concept of having XP to level be a nice round number for easy math. But it's only a valuable feature if the DM is ad-hocking experience, which the rest of the system is designed to get rid of.

Otherwise this system:
Has random arbitrary breakpoints with big swings. 6 players halves your xp, but 5 is fine? A demilich in his lair is the same XP as the tarrasque or 7 goblins to a level 10 character? But if you're level 11, then it takes 3 demiliches in their lairs to match up...
Doesn't support catching up levels.
Discovered a site of planar significance at level 1? Well, those guys over there killed 20 goblins, 1 at a time. Guess you're even. And you're both even with those guys that killed 20 orcs in one gigantic battle, and those guys that killed 20 giant rats one at a time...

I don't know. Is a little barebones, but I reallly find this approach interesting. I strive a lot to make adventures not based on combat only, and characters to spend their resources on the Exploration pillar. I acknowledge that I'm not great building social interaction scenes according to any systematic principle, as I don't have a particular guideline to make this pillar a real challenge, but at least I don't suck, because of the Angry GM Systematic InterACTION! rules.

About experience alone, this is great, at least for D&D standards. The XP grind was always cumbersome and counter-intuitive. I don't really get why they use such pointless XP tresholds at all for advancing levels (unpredictability, perhaps?), and this numbers are much easier, and they really benefit the other parts of the game meaningful for character advancement.

Nevertheless, the main "but..." is that there are no real guidelines to make "harder" social encounters, and very little for Exploration challenges, that can be easily done by a level 1 character. The significance of the NPC is useful, but it doesn't escalate as well as the monsters combat abilities. There are loose guidelines in the DMG for both pillars, but there are nowhere near as detailed, polished or engaging as the Combat engine. Maybe stablishing certain difficulty tresholds for certain challenges?
EG:

Local knight: Diplomacy (Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation) DC 10-15. Doesn't require any particular trait to be acknowledge by him.

Baronet: Diplomacy (Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation) DC 15. Requires Nobility trait or the introduction by a knight.

Duke/Baron: Diplomacy (Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation) DC 15 to 20. Requires Nobility trait or the introduction by a baronet or minor noblemen. Also, requires some form of renown and influence. He can grant the Nobility trait (knightship).

King: Diplomacy (Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation) DC 20 to 25. Requires a high Nobility trait or the introduction by a trusty counselor or high noble. To know the king and ask for a favor is only prerrogative of a few, but a king may want to know any high renown folk, such as a hero.

Emperor: Diplomacy (Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation) DC 25. Only a few can claim to know emperors and whisper in their ears. Only the most powerful nobles and kings can grant an audience with an emperor. Only great heroes or villains may be known enough for an Emperor to hear of.

Demigod: Diplomacy (Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation) DC 30. Only the greatest heroes can claim to attract the attention of the divine.

Having renown on a faction may be the threshold to attract attention of an importan figure, such as a duke or king.

A couple thoughts based upon this conversation.

1. It seems a little strange that the D&D guys are worried about rethinking initiative and experience. These were things that were supposed to be done before the books went to print. Shouldn't they be concentrating on other things?

2. This variant XP suggestion and the fact that recent hardcover adventures utilize milestone XP seems to indicate that the WOTC staff don't use the XP model in their own game. They seem to be suggesting that they largely "hand wave" things and are introducing this variant so we can play more like they do. Again, this seems odd.

HobbitFan said:

A couple thoughts based upon this conversation.

1. It seems a little strange that the D&D guys are worried about rethinking initiative and experience. These were things that were supposed to be done before the books went to print. Shouldn't they be concentrating on other things?

2. This variant XP suggestion and the fact that recent hardcover adventures utilize milestone XP seems to indicate that the WOTC staff don't use the XP model in their own game. They seem to be suggesting that they largely "hand wave" things and are introducing this variant so we can play more like they do. Again, this seems odd.

Click to expand...

1. Yeah, totally, they shouldn't, in the light of a few years of experience and observation, ever rethink what they've done and offer, through the means they set up to offer such things, any alternatives based on that experience and observation.

2. Absolutely! I mean, clearly they're not making a product for the broadest section of the market because they're running a business, it's totally that this is how they play! I bet they're not even developing these things and just giving us what they ran at their own tables last year!

[/snark]

I appreciate the sarcasm Ovinomancer but I still think I raised valid points.

HobbitFan said:

I appreciate the sarcasm Ovinomancer but I still think I raised valid points.

Click to expand...

Eh, not really. That they occasionally go back and look at what they've done and provide a barebones option or something they're trying out in their home games (which I expect look nothing like anything published) isn't odd. It certainly doesn't prevent them from doing their day job, which is 99+% of what we see out of the design team. Secondly, Merls pretty clearly said when he presented his recent alternate initiative system that he uses it in his home game, so.... Maybe he doesn't use this in his game, maybe he does, we can't say. What we can say is that milestone leveling is one of the most commonly upvoted methods in polls, so using it for published adventures means you're using a broadly liked by potential consumers method, AND eliminating the need in the adventure to either railroad through enough encounters to provide enough XP or dealing with games that skip those side quests and are now underpowered for the next plot arc. Milestone leveling is the absolute best business call they can make as it simplified their job, eliminates the need to railroad everything, and appeals to a broad base of consumers. What they do in their home games doesn't have any of those constraints, and, honestly, we shouldn't be trying to guess what the designers do 'off camera' and then try to use that as justification for an argument. I don't know, you don't know, let's not base arguments on what we don't know, yeah?

All of that aside, props on being able to take a ribbing without offense!

Ovinomancer said:

Eh, not really. That they occasionally go back and look at what they've done and provide a barebones option or something they're trying out in their home games (which I expect look nothing like anything published) isn't odd. It certainly doesn't prevent them from doing their day job, which is 99+% of what we see out of the design team. Secondly, Merls pretty clearly said when he presented his recent alternate initiative system that he uses it in his home game, so.... Maybe he doesn't use this in his game, maybe he does, we can't say. What we can say is that milestone leveling is one of the most commonly upvoted methods in polls, so using it for published adventures means you're using a broadly liked by potential consumers method, AND eliminating the need in the adventure to either railroad through enough encounters to provide enough XP or dealing with games that skip those side quests and are now underpowered for the next plot arc. Milestone leveling is the absolute best business call they can make as it simplified their job, eliminates the need to railroad everything, and appeals to a broad base of consumers. What they do in their home games doesn't have any of those constraints, and, honestly, we shouldn't be trying to guess what the designers do 'off camera' and then try to use that as justification for an argument. I don't know, you don't know, let's not base arguments on what we don't know, yeah?

All of that aside, props on being able to take a ribbing without offense!

Click to expand...

Fair enough.
I just thought it strange they were talking about alternatives for initiative and leveling. I wasn't aware that these were areas that people really had complaints about. I haven't heard in person or read online about alot of problems with these areas. So, the choice seemed strange to me.
I wasn't meaning to say they can't develop alternatives...that's part of their job.
And I wasn't trying to make a judgement about milestone xp.

HobbitFan said:

Fair enough.
I just thought it strange they were talking about alternatives for initiative and leveling. I wasn't aware that these were areas that people really had complaints about. I haven't heard in person or read online about alot of problems with these areas. So, the choice seemed strange to me.
I wasn't meaning to say they can't develop alternatives...that's part of their job.
And I wasn't trying to make a judgement about milestone xp.

Click to expand...

No worries -- everyone occasionally slips up and forgets they're not the target (or not always the target). I just spent far too much time arguing about how a relatively minor detail in a published WotC adventure was dumb (it is) while forgetting that I usually don't buy WotC adventures -- because they often contain stuff I find dumb. So, yeah, everyone's occasionally a bad critic.