D&D 5E Downtime XP farming with animate dead or conjuration spells

[Coroc]

Has anyone else run into this little gem?

1) 5th level necromancer has corpses
2) Casts animate dead on them
3) Orders them to attack him.
4) Slays his own undead for xp.
5) Rinse and repeat
6) Profit to level 20

Also works with conjuration spells, perhaps even better because you can get more xp out of higher level creatures.

Yea and buying ladders for 5gp and sawing them in two, so you can sell the two resulting ten foot poles for 10gp each. Rinse and repeat and you be richer than King Midas.

 

[Coroc]

So you'd be OK with frenemies? (Two necromancers that send their animated dead to attack the other guy every day?)

Frenemies? so BFEF?

 

[Coroc]

We're not really talking about the real world we're talking about the NPCs in your fantasy world. Do they not understand that a dagger does less damage than a two handed sword?

Nope they do not. Most of them are peasants with up to 4 hp . A dagger, especially in the back, worse by a badass assassin (with loads of sneak attack dice) does kill them as good as some hit with a two handed sword, and they understand this

If unarmed versus an opponent with armed with one of these weapons, they will not be intimidated more by one or the other.

Imagine the situation IRL. You are unarmed and someone is armed with a deadly weapon and threatens you. You would fear for your life no matter what that weapon is (Unless you were a fool believing: "Oh it is only a knife, not a gun or a two handed sword")

 

[Coroc]

For some people, of whom I am not one, levelling up is the game.

Yea, "ding" and stuff

 

[Coroc]

Me, if I had decent chainmail and both a stiletto wielding guy and a guy with a greatsword were attacking me, I'd take out the stiletto guy first as he might kill me. I'll take a big hit from the greatsword guy and might get a broken rib and some serious bruising, but he's nowhere near the threat to my life the other guy is.

A greatsword is not actually terribly great in practice. It's too slow, and too easy to read, so you'll nearly always be able to take the blow on an armored area. A dagger will either do nothing, or incapacitate you.

Rolemaster models this well. A rapier against plate will almost never do any damage, until it kills you. A greatsword will almost always do a bucketload of concussion hits, but not often a critical, and even then mostly bleed / stun / bruise as apposed to "... and you die"

Agree with most everything you wrote, except the slow part, a greatsword is far faster at its tip than a dagger ever could be. If it is readable depends on the skills of the opponents.
Still, an experienced great sword wielder versus ONE opponent in armor especially plate, will almost certainly go into halfsword techniques and either use the greatsword like a spear (vs chain) or as a lever to topple the plate mate wearer with wrestling moves, at which point he will switch to his dagger and kill the opponent with a stab into some armor opening.

 

[Coroc]

That explains why all the knights historically went into battle and attacked each other with daggers.

Well, not initially but the killing blow was most often dealt with some dagger, later on mostly some misericord style dagger which is more akin to an awl (it is without edge just a very hard three- or foursided metal thorn instead of a blade)

 

[Lanefan]

Tell the PCs that need more levels "You now have more levels. Starting next game you will be level x and have y more gold. I'll give you an inspiration point if you come up with a good story for how you got there."

And do yourself out of running a large proportion of your campaign? Why?

 

[Fanaelialae]

When was the last time an easy or medium difficulty encounter TPK'd your party?

That's the thing though. Even as a method for solo leveling this isn't going to be a fast solution (assuming the DM allows it at all). Bring the entire party in on it, dividing the XP equally, and you may as well not bother (IMO).

If a high level character is sitting in the wings "babysitting", I would probably rule that the fight doesn't constitute a legitimate threat (therefore no XP). At a minimum, I would divide the XP as if the other character participated (which, in a sense, they are by being a "safety net").

A party is robust. They mitigate each other's weaknesses and frequently also magnify each other's strengths.

A solo character lacks those advantages and is far more susceptible to the vaguaries of chance.

This isn't theorycraft either. It's not uncommon at my table to run a solo game if only one player can make it, and I've seen a disproportionate number of solo characters die, despite that the DMs of those games tend to be overly generous at character creation for those solo games. Sometimes they have a henchman with them, but it doesn't seem to matter too much. A couple lucky crits on the DM's part and the character is rolling death saves while the henchman (if there is one) gets overwhelmed. All it takes is one streak of bad luck.

 

[Oofta]

And do yourself out of running a large proportion of your campaign? Why?

I focus on story, not mechanics. So yes, if someone missed sessions or their previous PC dies, they get auto levelled.

I don't use XP. The reason to level is to have progress in the story as the PCs face tougher and tougher challenges. It's something I've been doing for a few releases.

 

[Fanaelialae]

FWIW, one of my DMs is running a campaign where NPC henchmen are fairly important (he tracks your reputation with each party NPC, each one is a unique and detailed individual, etc). What he did is offer a special technique that can be learned that allows your NPCs to gain 50% bonus XP if their level is below the PC's. It's made catching up low level NPCs effortless (you need to be careful with them in those first couple fights, but they level so quickly that it really only takes 2-3 encounters before they can at least hold their own).