WotC Milestone leveling in WotC editions?

[Distracted DM]

It's a video game I know, but Baldur's Gate 1+2 had tons of milestones, I think they just called it quest XP instead.
Did they make that up or take it from 2e?

 

[Staffan]

I was replying to someone's suggestion that levelling be based on number of sessions played. i.e. gain a level per x-number of sessions.

Ah, right.

Also opens the door to the game becoming a railroad, though, in that if the milestones are at set points in the story and the players know where they are they've little to no reason to do anything else. Left-turning or changing tack won't be rewarded. Ditto for side quests, or doing anything else that doesn't get you to that next milestone point.

Sorry, but...bleah.

Yes, it rewards being goal-oriented. If you want to reward side quests and exploring, make sure those have other rewards that make them worth it. Did we need to check out the secret door behind the book case? No, and fighting off those wights was pretty tough, but the hidden treasure of a wand of frost and the 3,000 gp in various jewelry we found were pretty nifty.

Not all rewards have to be in the form of XP/levels.

None of that applies in my game. New characters come in a level behind. Level-drainers exist, along with occasional effects that can give extra xp or a level. I use different advancement tables for different classes. And not every character is involved in every adventure; they cycle in and out irregularly and sometimes unpredictably, based on a combination of the whim of the player and what the character would do.

Diff'rent strokes, I guess.

 

[Staffan]

It's a video game I know, but Baldur's Gate 1+2 had tons of milestones, I think they just called it quest XP instead.
Did they make that up or take it from 2e?

That was definitely a thing in 2e. The video games may have scaled it up or down from the suggested levels, but it was definitely a thing.

 

[Red Castle]

Also opens the door to the game becoming a railroad, though, in that if the milestones are at set points in the story and the players know where they are they've little to no reason to do anything else. Left-turning or changing tack won't be rewarded. Ditto for side quests, or doing anything else that doesn't get you to that next milestone point.

Sorry, but...bleah.

Not from my experience. You can still give a level as a reward even if the quest was not part of the main one, I know I did. In my current campaign, the players decided to stop to help a village and ended up exploring a dungeon, something I did not prepared at all. I still gave them a level at the end so they ended up one level higher than what I planned at first and just went and readjusted the difficulty accordingly.

A milestone is not only about moving the story forward, or whatever your campaign is about, it's about rewarding players for their achievement, be it from a main or side quest. You give one when you as the DM consider it a good time for it.

But I don't think it would work particularily well in a system where not every class has the same level progression and/or a system where creatures drain levels. So if I was to play 2nd edition again, I would still use the XP system. But for my 4e campaign, I let my players choose and they always prefer Milestones, so Milestone it is.

 

[payn]

Really depends on the playstyle you are leaning into. If you are approaching the game with a more skill play focus, as old school is wont to do, it probably doesn't make sense to use milestone. Take that with a grain of salt though as when I play an older edition or OSR product, im looking for that specific experience so wouldn't use milestone even if it is now my preferred style.

 

[CleverNickName]

We never used milestone leveling either until 5th Edition... and only for one campaign (Eberron). Our DM at the time was using pre-written adventures, and didn't want to rebalance the encounters to fit the level of the party. Which is a funny thing to say, in hindsight--I don't think I've ever seen a "balanced encounter" actually happen. CR has always felt more like wishful thinking than an actual formula.

 

[payn]

We never used milestone leveling either until 5th Edition... and only for one campaign (Eberron). Our DM at the time was using pre-written adventures, and didn't want to rebalance the encounters to fit the level of the party. Which is a funny thing to say, in hindsight--I don't think I've ever seen a "balanced encounter" actually happen. CR has always felt more like wishful thinking than an actual formula.

I prefer the horseshoes and hand grenades approach to CR. It makes encounters less predictable and more fun. I also realize this makes GMing more difficult and why folks do not prefer it. Though, I think its a great point to bring up encounter balance in editions. Modern games are designed for an equal or close to party level, where in the past it was part of the power scaling to have PCs 1,2,3 levels apart.

 

[CleverNickName]

I prefer the horseshoes and hand grenades approach to CR. It makes encounters less predictable and more fun. I also realize this makes GMing more difficult and why folks do not prefer it. Though, I think its a great point to bring up encounter balance in editions. Modern games are designed for an equal or close to party level, where in the past it was part of the power scaling to have PCs 1,2,3 levels apart.

I guess I design my encounters differently than most people. I just place the monsters that would be appropriate for the setting, in a quantity that makes sense, and let the players decide if they can "win," or if the battle is going to be "worth it." As long as I'm not a jerk about ambushes and retreat, it works out fine.

 

[the Jester]

There was in my head, since I was, 99% of the time, the one playing catch-up, being assured I’d be fine, and watching others doing more of whatever I wanted to do and doing it better than I ever would, since campaigns never lasted long enough for me to ever actually reach others’ level. (I didn’t have as much free time every week as the others.)

I believe others when they say disparate levels worked fine for them. It was major anti-fun for me.

In 2e and earlier, you could have the same xp total and be a different level. If you had 1,700 xp, you were 1st level if you were a fighter or wizard, or 2nd level if you were a rogue or cleric.

 

[the Jester]

That was definitely a thing in 2e. The video games may have scaled it up or down from the suggested levels, but it was definitely a thing.

2e had individual awards for class-based things- for instance, thieves got xp for stealing gold- but there was no 'quest xp' until 4e.

(Speaking of cool 4e innovations that were thrown out with the bath water...)