Oddities with the Experience Table

[djdaidouji]

This is just an idea, and I'm not sure I understand 100%, but perhaps the weird levels coinside with PC abilites? Perhaps when they get new encounter powers, the XP increase of a monster's level has to increase. Every time they gain a new ability, the XP of that level's monsters increases more then usual, meaning that monsters one level below the party are even less effective then usual.

 

[Zweischneid]

wait, wasn't one of the strength of 3e getting rid of all the "illogical" rules in the previous edition? so why is now cool to reintroduce designers' arbiter?!?

It's not designers' arbiter, it's designers design. Ya know, the reason you've hired those guys in the first place. And linear mathematics do not equal 'logical' rules or vice versa. Why should they?

 

[woodelf]

The experience chart (PH, p. 29) seems a little... odd. It took me some playing around with the numbers to figure out what was bothering my inner mathematician.

[snip] -- this implies the amount added doubles every four levels.

I think you're using the wrong math. It looks to me like it's basically an exponential function, with some rounding to get "nice" numbers. Simply graph the values, and you'll see that it's very close to a smooth exponential curve. In fact, when i use OpenOffice to give me the best-fit curve, i can't tell the difference between the best-fit curve (an exponential function) and the actual values--the errors are too small. So, I think the reason it looks wonky is you're trying to approximate an exponential function with simple differences. Even at two orders removed (the difference of the difference), it's not likely to map very well. As for the blips in the rate at which the increases increase? I think just an artifact of rounding off. I think you're worrying too much about the details--given that the overall progression is consistent, i'm not convinced that the fact that the rate of increase of the rate of increase is a little wobbly matters.

 

[Tervin]

I think you're using the wrong math. It looks to me like it's basically an exponential function, with some rounding to get "nice" numbers.

His "doubling the increase every four levels" example is basically a form of exponential function - at least closer to it than the actual chart. it seems like they have based the chart on an exponentuial function, rounded some numbers and tweaked it here and there so that they would reach certain numbers in certain places. I also think Hong is right in pointing out that there are bumps where you move from one tier to another.

Mathematically the bumpy chart means a few small things to players' progressions:
1. A normal monster is worth a tenth of what is needed for the next level (like a 11 level monster is worth 600 XP) but at level 20 a normal monster is worth 2800, not 3200 - making that level slightly longer (a 10th level monster is worth 500, not 550 following the same pattern).
2. As players do not only run into monsters of exactly their own levels, this can lead to weird costs for monsters outside their own levels if you yourself are close to a bump level, level 21-23 monsters give quite a bit more xp than level 18-20 for example.
3. On the other hand the players gain more at level 11 and 21 than at other levels, so hopefully the monsters are also balanced for that. (Meaning that the monsters also get a performance bump there compared to other level differences.) This will not happen when we tweak monsters with templates or the basic method, but that should not make a huge difference.

In other words, they certainly made the chart based on maths, but tweaked it so that certain level gains will be more important. This has the advantage of making it easier for a DM to set campaign climaxes at levels 10 and 20, which I am very pleased with myself. (It means one extra encounter needed on before reaching level 11, and one or two more before reaching level 21.) At certain points it might mean that certain monsters pay a little bit more or less in XP than they should, but that could possibly only matter if a DM did everything in their power to break the system.

As the formula seems to be changed in the epic level, I will make a second post exploring what that means to encounter maths.

 

[Tervin]

Encounters per level - epic

Looking at the epic progression charts (where XP costs go up significantly compared to earlier levels) it seems like it is very important to take into account that the monsters also give xp to an extent that they never did before (from level 17 to 21 the monsters increase worth by 400 xp per level, then by 950 per level for four levels, 2000 per level for the next four, and then 4000 per level for another four...).

Comparing the monster xp charts with the player's progression chart the encounters needed per level will slowly increase from level 21 to 30, starting at just under 11 encounters per level (350/32) and ending at over 11.5 (175/15).

If there are math weaknesses in the system it is too early to tell, but the only potential weak spots I can see is in XP evaluation of monsters at high levels, specifically as to what happens when you customize monsters. I have a hunch that hich level versions of mid level monsters might end up rewarding more Xp than they should, considering the threat to the party. I hope I am wrong.

 

[Sylrae]

Kinda wacky. makes me glad I dropped encounter experience a while ago to control level progression better, and now just give XP at the end of a session.

Encounter experience often had players wanting to levelup in mid session. It's a pain and takes time out of the game, but at the same time, I can't blame them, as I'd want the same.

Of course, if you use encounter XP, you can always use your own level table/experience by CR to make things more linear/logical in your head. Or just accept that the table gets a bit wacky at certain levels.

Custom tables for levels aren't that big a deal, they let you control the leveling speed.

at 3 to 4 encounters per day as the average in 4e, and saying you go through 3 days a session, thats a level per session. Faster than I'd like personally. Like, doubly so.

More than double if your sessions run 8-10 hours like mine do.

My preference puts 2 sessions to a level. that 16 hours of play time. but I'm certain my preferences have people level slower than most.

 

[DM_Flick]

11th level is heroic --> paragon
21st level is paragon --> epic

+1 that is it

 

[Jem]

So you can remember it in the following way:

* The amount needed to go from 1st to 2nd level is 1000.

* At each level after this, the amount needed to go up to the next level increases steadily: 4 levels each of 250, 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000, followed by 4 levels of 10000 and 25000.

* The paragon and epic breaks are exceptions: the 11th level takes 1500 more instead of 1000 more to gain, and then at the 12th the increase drops to 500 for one level to compensate; and the 21st level takes 8000 more instead of 4000 more to get, and then at the 22nd the increase drops to 3000 to compensate.

-----

If you just double the increase every 4 levels starting at 250 for 3rd level, you'll only be off by 500 once at the paragon break, and then you're good up to epic, where it gets a bit bigger. Remember that one exception and you're good to level 20, at least.