How the XP tables work (Forked thread: Consumable item pricing)

[Truename]

Forked from: Consumable item pricing: A method to the madness?

Dracorat was talking about XP progression.

Yup - but if I recall correct (no books here) it's on 10 and 20 where the math breaks down. (They force you to "earn" the next teir by artificially inflating the next level goal)

Not exactly. I spent some time looking at this a few weeks ago. As far as I can tell, the XP tables work like this:

The XP required is always equal to 10 equal-level encounters, except...

• In the Paragon tier, the amount required is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 1,000. It turns out that this only affects how much you need to reach level 11.
• In the first half of the Epic tier, the amount required is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5,000.
• In the second half of the Epic tier, the amount required is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 25,000.
• Level 30 is rounded up to 1,000,000, 'cause that's just cool.
• (The Heroic tier has no rounding.)

This raises the question: where do the experience points for equal-level encounters come from? Well, they come from the monster XP table in the DMG. Here's how that table is generated:

The XP for a monster is "X" more than the previous level. X doubles every four levels (with two exceptions). See for yourself:

Lvl 1: 100
Lvl 2: 100 + 25 = 125 (X = 25)
Lvl 3: 125 + 25 = 150 (X = 25)
Lvl 4: 150 + 25 = 175 (X = 25)
Lvl 5: 175 + 25 = 200 (X = 25)
Lvl 6: 200 + 50 = 250 (X = 50)
Lvl 7: 250 + 50 = 300 (X = 50)
Lvl 8: 300 + 50 = 350 (X = 50)
Lvl 9: 350 + 50 = 400 (X = 50)
Lvl 10: 400 + 100 = 500 (X = 100)
Lvl 11: 500 + 100 = 600 (X = 100)
(etc)

The two exceptions to this rule are: At level 22, "X" becomes 950 rather than 800 as it should be. And then at level 26, "X" becomes 2000 rather than 1900. I'm not sure why they did this, but I presume it was to make level 30 a nice round ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!! ...ahem. I mean, XP.

You can see this by looking at "X" for the whole table:

Lvl 2-5: X = 25
Lvl 6-9: X = 50
Lvl 10-13: X = 100
Lvl 14-17: X = 200
Lvl 18-21: X = 400
Lvl 22-25: X = 950
Lvl 26-29: X = 2000
Lvl 30-33: X = 4000
Lvl 34-37: X = 8000
Lvl 38-40: X = 16000

I'm not sure if this is news or not (and I'm pretty sure it's only interesting to ultrageeks like myself ) but there you go.

 

[Starfox]

I would have expected an exponential table.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm not sure if this is news or not (and I'm pretty sure it's only interesting to ultrageeks like myself ) but there you go.

Yep, I noticed that, too and came to the same conclusions. Welcome to the ultrageeks!

 

[Nikosandros]

I'm not sure if this is news or not (and I'm pretty sure it's only interesting to ultrageeks like myself ) but there you go.

I don't know if I qualify as an ultrageek, but I find this (and similar threads) extremely interesting.

 

[Dracorat]

OK, evaluating the table progression the easy way.

As in ... I don't think it quite works how the OP says. I think they used a different method and using Excel shows the method a bit more obviously.

I think what happened with encounted XP is that they tooled that after the fact, not made progression XP based on it. (IE, combat XP is a function of level XP, not the other way around.)

If you have Excel, do the following to see what I mean...

Create a new spreadsheet

Label A1: Level
Label B1: XP
Label C1: Delta
Label C2: Delta 2

Now, Type "1" in A2 and "2" in A3
Grab the grip of cell A3 and drag downward till you see a tooltip "30" and let go (neat eh?)

Now, open your PHB to page 29 and enter the XP values down column B
(I am purposely being elusive on the actual values as I know XP was a nono in 3E OGL and I suspect that it'd be no different here)

Now, in cell C3, enter:
=B3-B2

Press enter, click the cell again to highlight it, grab the grip and drag downward till you have the whole level range highlighted

Next, go to cell D4 and enter:
=C4-C3

Do the same highlight, drag, fill as before (downward)

Notice something?

The pattern is a bit more... regular...

 

[Dracorat]

Did anyone do the exercise?

 

[Truename]

Did anyone do the exercise?

It was a bit patronizing... I know how to use a spreadsheet and that's how I made my initial analysis. And at any rate, there were several irregularities in the pattern. What did you see that I didn't?

 

[Dracorat]

It was a bit patronizing... I know how to use a spreadsheet and that's how I made my initial analysis. And at any rate, there were several irregularities in the pattern. What did you see that I didn't?

I'm not sure how it was patronizing, unless you mean that I was explicit in how to reproduce my example.

At any rate, what I saw is that there are only two irregularities in the pattern.

One happens to split a difference in a way where both numbers would continue the pattern as normal if normalized, the other is inflated, probably to help the set reach the magic 1 million number.

However, those are the only two irregularities and when you see the Delta 2 column you also see that there is a more regular pattern than initially appears.

 

[CapnZapp]

I would like to discuss this matter too, but not in this highly veiled way. Leave the teasers for Wizard's marketing department.

If there is a formula I can enter into my excel-sheet, I'd like to know it.

Cheers,
Zapp

 

[Dracorat]

I am not sure how I could have been more clear, Capn. The only part I left "veiled" was the actual numbers, but even then, I point out where to find them.

I'd very much welcome the discussion on the matter, but you'll have to reproduce the example I typed above. That said, I do provide the necessary steps and formulas.

It only takes a couple minutes and you'll be on the up-and-up!