D&D 5E Do the official WotC adventures cheat with xp?

[Arilyn]

I vastly prefer milestones as well, but not happy with the increasing tendency for published adventures to rush players through levels. It's getting crazy, and so I understand why some people may feel like they are not getting a full 15 levels worth of adventures with published arcs. Honestly, shouldn't an adventure that takes you from 1st to 15th be a really thick book? Are players wanting to level up this fast, or is this a mistaken assumption based on the idea that players want their table top games to be more like video games?

 

[CapnZapp]

Well done! Kellyanne Conway has nothing on you!

Reported.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Tobold]

So, has anyone actually gone through one of the adventures like PotA, calculated the XP of the set encounters AND THE random encounters (and how many of these) and divide by 4? So how much is it off?

I did this for the 4 first dungeons in Princes of the Apocalypse:

Feathergale Spire: Supposed to get you from level 3 to 4, which would require 1800 xp per character. Actually gives 4175 xp for monsters. For a group of 5 players thatis only 46% of the xp needed.

Rivergard Keep: Supposed to get you from level 4 to 5, which would require 3800 xp per character. Actually gives 7900 xp for monsters. For a group of 5 players thatis only 42% of the xp needed.

Sacred Stone Monastery: Supposed to get you from level 4 to 5, which would require 7500 xp per character. Actually gives 13300 xp for monsters. For a group of 5 players thatis only 35% of the xp needed.

Scarlet Moon Hall: Supposed to get you from level 4 to 5, which would require 9000 xp per character. Actually gives 21700 xp for monsters (including all the neutrals you probably shouldn't kill). For a group of 5 players thatis only 48% of the xp needed.

In short, using the milestone xp system in Princes of the Apocalypse speeds up leveling by a factor of 2 to 3. If WotC wants people to level twice as fast, why didn't they simply lower the values in the xp per level table by half? What sense does it make if published adventures level your characters twice as fast as RAW homebrew adventures? Is this a marketing trick to make published adventures more popular?

 

[Aldarc]

This trend is unfortunate for those who feel they are being short-changed of content, though I probably would not have noticed if not for this thread.

(1) It's possible also possible that WotC miscalculated their own sense of the XP table in the context of their desired rate of level progression.

(2) There may be some desire for more rapid progression for the sake of either (a) pace of storytelling, and (b) the needs/demands/etc. of Adventurer's League play.

This issue may only really affect a small subset of people. I am not saying that it is wrong to care or feel short-changed, but this may be a complete non-issue at most tables of D&D players. This is where [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]'s observation about "the shifting times we're living in" comes into picture. When most games never see past 8th level and campaign time is a precious scarcity, this rapid leveling may reflect how there is a tremendous amount of D&D content that would otherwise never be seen or experienced at most tables. So in some regards, though admittedly an imperfect analogy, the official adventures look like movies (or even mini-series) adapting lengthy books, things get left out to create a slimmer and more affordable product that still provides the highlights.

 

[CapnZapp]

The question I feel we should be asking ourselves is rather "what is the purpose of still tracking individual xp?"

Just move over to milestone levelling (or in my case, the group levels every three sessions on average as I see fit).

It's so much easier and cleaner and faster.

XP is an illusion in 5th edition. Its purpose is to give off the illusion that progress is objective and scientific and keyed to events in the game, while controlling the rate of levelling to match the adventures played.

...but you can accomplish that easily without XP, so what's the point? (Just award quest XP)
...and as a throttle on the levelling, well, you will still level at the pace that suits the adventures the DM has prepared for you - neither faster nor slower - so why keep up the pretense that this isn't the case.

In older editions, XP was necessary because different classes levelled at different speeds. Or XP was used to pay for magic item crafting.

In 5E there simply is no need to keep using XP just to go through the motions. And I for one is glad the official modules don't even try to keep up the pretense.

Whether monster XP is 46% or 100% of what's "necessary" is a huge non-issue to me, and I sincerely hope you can take this post to truly examine your own stance on XP, and hopefully come to the realization that this whole "the modules are somehow bad because they don't care about making the XP totals match up" is not where you, IMHO, should direct your energies.

Sincerely and respectfully,
CapnZapp

 

[Tobold]

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] : My main concern is always rules consistency and balance. My home game meets only twice per month, so leving faster is quite all right with me. What I am not all right with is WotC making one set of rules for DMs that play RAW, and another sense of rules for people who spend extra money to buy published adventures. Character advancement is, at least from the players' point of view, one of the most important set of rules in the game. You shouldn't have that rules system "being an illusion", as you put it.

As somebody who is both DM and player, I do think that "objective and scientific" is a great feature for rules to have, especially for rules that the players very much care about. Fairness shouldn't be just an illusion.

 

[CapnZapp]

[MENTION=6691663]Tobold[/MENTION], first off: thank you for your courteous reply.

I really do not wish to antagonize you, but I do need to convey my own conviction here:

As I see it, the claim that xp is about fairness is the illusion.

But that's all I will say on this subject. Have a nice day.

 

[guachi]

Checked the opening part of Curse of Strahd from Appendix B - House of Death, Death House, Domicile of the Deceased. Whatever it's called.

If you kill everything (where "everything" doesn't include the CR 5 Shambling Mound you'll likely run from) you get enough XP to get to level 3 for a four-person party. There actually isn't enough XP to get to level 2 when the milestone says, but overall there is enough.

In this case, I could see milestone leveling being a useful reward for PCs. The XP is there to be had and if the PCs avoid combat, so be it.

 

[guachi]

The fast leveling must be one way to justify coming out with a new 1-10 or 1-15 AP every six months.

My home game has been running old adventures and we've gained 5 levels in 7 months of game time. We play four hours once per week and have played for 8 months with 4 or 5 weeks skipped for various reasons. The PC with the highest XP is about midway to 6th level. There are five or six players per session and you get full xp if you're there and 1/2 xp if you aren't and you let someone run your character.

I think I'd feel robbed of accomplishment if I rocketed up in levels as fast as the APs go.

 

[Nailen]

I did this for the 4 first dungeons in Princes of the Apocalypse:

Feathergale Spire: Supposed to get you from level 3 to 4, which would require 1800 xp per character. Actually gives 4175 xp for monsters. For a group of 5 players thatis only 46% of the xp needed.

Rivergard Keep: Supposed to get you from level 4 to 5, which would require 3800 xp per character. Actually gives 7900 xp for monsters. For a group of 5 players thatis only 42% of the xp needed.

Sacred Stone Monastery: Supposed to get you from level 4 to 5, which would require 7500 xp per character. Actually gives 13300 xp for monsters. For a group of 5 players thatis only 35% of the xp needed.

Scarlet Moon Hall: Supposed to get you from level 4 to 5, which would require 9000 xp per character. Actually gives 21700 xp for monsters (including all the neutrals you probably shouldn't kill). For a group of 5 players thatis only 48% of the xp needed.

In short, using the milestone xp system in Princes of the Apocalypse speeds up leveling by a factor of 2 to 3. If WotC wants people to level twice as fast, why didn't they simply lower the values in the xp per level table by half? What sense does it make if published adventures level your characters twice as fast as RAW homebrew adventures? Is this a marketing trick to make published adventures more popular?

What about if you add in the XP from random encounters that are likely while the players are travelling around? And did you consider the XP from the recommended/optional side treks?

One downside of the milestone levelling option is that if the players come to realise what those milestones are, they will only focus in that direction. In the case of PotA, this could mean they miss out on potentially cool side treks (the Iceshield Orc siege looks cool - reminiscent of the siege of Sukuskyn in B10) because they rightly surmise that they don't need to do them to level up..
Maybe if the party learn that there are other rewards, beyond levelling.. fun magic items, favours from NPCs, Inspiration, that sort of thing.