Xp and level spread in your campaign

Thom's poll of the week. This question relates to fairness in gaming. The D&D and D20 system is designed around the idea that all the characters are about (or exactly) the same level. This makes it difficult for players to have character concepts like the old master and his student. But I have seen it done, the level differences are ignored, and everyone has a blast.

So, how much spread of XP is there in your campaign?

Or if you prefer to think of this in a fariness way: how much of a spread should there be, given your character will be on the short end of the scale?

Works best for me as DM if everyone's basically at the same XP level and character level.

I keep my players within one level of each other, but since I give out rewards for roleplaying that can get a little difficult at times.

In my first 3.0 campaign I found that characters with item creation feats ended up lagging up to 3 levels behind the other players. Make item = massive level drain, if the character makes anything serious. Oh, a character couldn't actually drop a level, and all that, but since such characters were making items on a fairly frequent basis, they were always lagging behind the group in XP in general and never caught up.

Finally my players stopped making items altogether. This proved to be a problem for a while because I don't have many magic shops in my worlds (may 1 per medium City, 2-3 in a Large, never very powerful items, reflecting the fact that the wizards making said items were themselves often drained by XP down to lower levels), so purchasing items was almost out of the question. Also due to this, I found the players were often desperate and were willing to pay 2-3 times the cost for scrolls and potions, just because they were useful. In other words, the XP drain was too costly for the PCs, my magical economics proved unhelpful, and the whole chain broke down.

So in all subsequent campaigns I have instituted the concept that ANYONE can provide the XP.

Of course this led to a wider philosophical debate as to what XP actually represents to the item, including the notion that giving XP = draining off memories of experiences...

I try to keep PCs within 1-2 levels of each other in my games, though there has been a couple of times where there have been a as much as 4 levels between "top" and "bottom".

Actually, the first 3.0 campaign I played in broke down completely (mainly) because the level gap between PCs were too great. The DM made the cardinal error of letting us find a Deck of Many Things... One guy got ALL the cards that could possibly grant XP in any way and left the rest of us faaar behind.

What made matters worse, was that the guy who got all the XP played a wizard who was a bit of coward (we generally called him the wuzz-ard! ). Encounters would typically go like this: Wizard casts Haste and Fly and flies away; the rest of the party gets beaten to a bloody pulp. After several rounds of casting buffs on himself the wizard returns, blast the monster into oblivion and loots the corpses of his fallen comrades...

Wombat said:

I have instituted the concept that ANYONE can provide the XP.

Of course this led to a wider philosophical debate as to what XP actually represents to the item, including the notion that giving XP = draining off memories of experiences...

Click to expand...

I have designed a prestige class (The Artificer) with a class ability that allows the item creator to share the XP burden with the item's recipient (who must voluntarily accept this burden at the time of the item's creation). I've found it to be popular with the wizards in my game.

ARTIFICER
Artificers are magical craftsmen of unparalleled skill and knowledge. They are found among all races who value these artisans and the treasures their arts create. Both arcane and divine spellcasters are found amongst the ranks of artificers, with wizards and clerics most often taking this prestige class. Bards, with their uncanny knowledge of lore and their knowledge of arcane magic, are well suited for this class as well.

Level Special
1st Gift of Artifice I
2nd Bonus Feat
3rd Avoid Curse
4th Gift of Artifice II
5th Bonus Feat
6th Shift Burden
7th Gift of Artifice III
8th Bonus Feat
9th Legend Lore
10th Gift of Artifice IV

BAB progression is poor (+1 per 2 levels)
Fort and Reflex saves are poor, Will saves are good.
This PrC gain +1 spellcaster level per class level.

Game Rule Information
Abilities Intelligence is the most important ability, as it is craft’s key ability.
Alignment Any
Hit Die d4

Requirements
Knowledge (Arcana) 10 ranks
Craft (Any) 10 ranks, which may be in any number of different craft skills

Feats Any two item creation feats and skill focus: craft (any)

Spells To become an artificer, the character must be able to cast 3rd level spells.

Class Skills The Artificer’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge (each skill, taken separately) (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int) and Use Magical Device (Cha).
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Class Features All of the following are class features of the Artificer prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies Artificers gain no additional weapon or armor proficiencies.

Spells per Day When an artificer level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he belonged to before adding the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (feats, hit points), except for an increased effective level of spellcasting. If the character had more than one spellcasting class before becoming an artificer, he must decide to which class he adds the new level for purposes of determining spells per day.

Item Creation Level Prerequisites The artificer’s level stacks with his spellcaster level for the purpose of meeting level prerequisites for item creation feats. If the character had more than one spellcasting class before becoming an artificer, he must decide which class his artificer levels stack with.

Gift of Artifice (Ex) When determining the cost, in XP and raw materials, and creation time for an item’s creation, subtract 5% per level of Gift of Artifice from the total cost and time required. Thus, a character with Gift of Artifice IV subtracts 20% from the cost and time required to create a magic item.

Bonus Feat (Ex) The artificer gains bonus item creation feats as he progresses in level.

Avoid Curse (Ex) The artificer is well versed in the arts of crafting and analyzing magical items. If an artificer handles a cursed item, he may make a WILL save in order to immediately discard the item. The DC for this save is 10+the level of the item’s creator. This ability does not remove the curse from the item.

Shift Burden (Su) When commissioned to craft a magic item, the artificer may ask that item’s future owner to share the XP burden of that item’s creation, with each person paying 50% of the XP cost. This decision cannot be made under duress or under the influence of mind-controlling spells… the XP donor must voluntarily do so. The XP cost of the item is still reduced by the artificer’s Gift of Artifice ability.

Legend Lore (Sp) At 9th level, the artificer may cast legend lore, once per day, on any magical item or device. Use of the ability requires the artificer to examine the item for 1d4x10 minutes.

The diplomatic way

Personaly I don't realy care wether everybody has about the same level or xp. XP (and resulting level up) should be a reward for good rollplaying, not the goal of the game, but that's just my opinion. I now there's a good deal of folk arround who's goal is XP, and I respect them for it! Whichever way you get to enjoy yourself is fine. To me rollplaying is the game and it may be an extra chalenge to be the odd one out (either higher or lower level). And higher character level does not automaticaly mean your a better rolllpayer.

The one thing I don't like: going all-out in a session, playing like your life depends on it (and your character's life probably is depending on it) and then when the DM hands out XP, you get peanuts because you cast one spell or solved one puzle. Worst that happened to me: a DM that, after I asked him why I didn't get a bit more XP as I felt I played well, answered: "I know you played well but what you did was not on my list ...." Doh

As a DM, again I don't mind, BUT as a matter of diplomacy I tend to make sure everybody gets about equal XP. I wan't to avoid it being an issue between players and, anyways, it's a team effort isn't it (or at least it should be!).

While I strive to have all party members be of the same level, three factors tend to work against that: Character Death, XP for item creation and finally, player missing a session. As a result of those three factors, characters have gotten as far as two levels apart. The cleric is the only character to have died, and is the main crafter.

Counteracting this is the new experience system in 3.5 which is a godsend for helping to fix this problem. Back in 3e, once characters starting diverging, there really was no mechanism to bring them back into line. But now with the XP rewards being based on level for each character, it makes it much easier for those falling behind to catch up. In general, it looks like a 1 level difference adds about 25% extra exp for the lower level characters, though it varies somewhat depending on their level. After just a few encounters, this can quickly add up to bring characters back in line.

I have the problem that most of my players have wildly variable work schedules or other hobbies that occasionally demand their presence elsewhere during the weekend. As a result, only very rarely I get the full team. People tend to get behind on XP. I try to patch this by awarding a percentile bonus to characters that are relatively low-level. Overall, the difference is contained within 1-2 levels. A couple of times a player couldn't play for an extended period of time; in those cases, I made sure that the character vanished from the story in a neat fashion, reappeared when the player got back, and awarded him a big chunk of XP - enough to make him playable in the party.

In the games I play in, the spread goes from 0 to 4 levels (because of deaths and player attendance). The highest level character in our various games is about 13-14.

AR