S'mon's New XP System

[Blue]

No problem! I think the ideal way to disrupt the Pavlovian response to combat is for it to be dangerous enough that if the PCs charge in without care they might easily lose more XP than they gain. I.e. instead of removing the cookie, mix in some electric shocks. This is difficult to do with vanilla 5e however, and involves a higher PC death rate than what most people want - certainly compared to classic D&D where PCs might have only 1/3 - 2/3 chance of making it to the next level.

Agreed. That easier to implement in a system that supports longer term repercussions outside the dead/not-dead-and-soon-healed of vanilla 5e.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Thanks, that's good to know!

I ran my first game with it today - Primeval Thule, only about 3 hours play time after chargen.

I should have added that my game is also a Primeval Thule game and I'm using the "XP for gold" rule. XP (coins in the bowl) is only gained from getting loot back to town and from major story goals.

 

[Blue]

I'm doing that in a game and I feel it is working great.

I have a plastic bowl on the table and I'm putting little plastic coins in it (from a pirate playset). Each coin is one moderate encounter (which could be from any of the three pillars). Ten coins is a level.

Players aren't allowed to take the coins from the bowl and apply them to characters until the characters have a day or two of relaxation and reflection. I don't like the idea of levelling up in the dungeon.

I really like the physicality of what you are doing, but looking for a clarification. When you talk about "players taking coins from the bowl", is it that taking 10 coins levels up all of the characters, or that taking 10 coins levels up just the character of the player who took them, so with 5 PCs it's actually 50 coins to level everyone?

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

I really like the physicality of what you are doing, but looking for a clarification. When you talk about "players taking coins from the bowl",

It is when the players actually write the XP on their character sheet and, if they have got a multiple of 10, actually level up. 10 coins is one level for everyone.

I let one of the players take the coins out and hand them back to me because it's more tangible for them. The physicality is great for all of us.

When I first started doing it I threatened to remove coins from the plastic bowl in dire situations, like really bad failure of mission goals, but the looks and sounds of absolute horror from the players made me reconsider. In hindsight, the "XP for gold" rule covers this already - if the mission fails then you don't get paid.

 

[timbannock]

Related: pulling from a bunch of brilliant sources, I came up with some thoughts for a system not unlike what the OP is going for.

I tried to make sure to cover the aspects of the core D&D leveling system where there are plateaus and stuff, so hopefully it might help, but in fairness it is mostly just guidelines and thoughts, as opposed to something highly structured.

 

[S'mon]

I would much prefer doubling the numbers to allow 1 XP for easy encounters/minor achievements. This precludes the weirdness of 0 XP combats and is only slightly more complex. I also kinda like 20 XP to level for symmetry reasons.

So 20 XP to level. 1 XP - Easy encounter/minor achievement, 2-3 XP - Medium-Hard encounter/achievement, 4-5 XP - Deadly encounter/major achievement.

Returning to this...

I was a bit dismissive before (sorry), but after my first session on Sunday in the Primeval Thule game, I think you may have a good point about using 20 XP. At 10 XP/level, I found it hard not to award excessive XP, since there were a lot of relatively minor but still somewhat significant achievements. I ended up with a 7 XP award in a 3 hour session, and the PCs still have the 'boss fight' and 'quest completion', plus a likely 'carousing bonus' - that's at least +4 XP. If it had been a 4 hour session the PCs would easily have hit 2nd, or died in the attempt, I think.

20 XP would allow for more granularity, I would probably have ended up with an 11 or 12 XP award and could have been more relaxed about when to make awards, plus I'd be able to be a bit more generous in the boss fight. Hmmm.

With the Princes of the Apocalypse game starting on Saturday, I'm likely to have a 7 PC group, and it's likely to begin with stuff like chasing off/killing a small group of bandits, that at 5 or 10 XP to level, arguably shouldn't really merit an award at all*. At 20 XP it'd be easier to give an award.

*In 5e RAW 4 bandits = 100 XP, or only 25 each for a 4 PC party, so 'no award' would be fair enough I guess!

 

[Satyrn]

Returning to this...

I was a bit dismissive before (sorry), but after my first session on Sunday in the Primeval Thule game, I think you may have a good point about using 20 XP. At 10 XP/level, I found it hard not to award excessive XP, since there were a lot of relatively minor but still somewhat significant achievements. I ended up with a 7 XP award in a 3 hour session, and the PCs still have the 'boss fight' and 'quest completion', plus a likely 'carousing bonus' - that's at least +4 XP. If it had been a 4 hour session the PCs would easily have hit 2nd, or died in the attempt, I think.

20 XP would allow for more granularity, I would probably have ended up with an 11 or 12 XP award and could have been more relaxed about when to make awards, plus I'd be able to be a bit more generous in the boss fight. Hmmm.

With the Princes of the Apocalypse game starting on Saturday, I'm likely to have a 7 PC group, and it's likely to begin with stuff like chasing off/killing a small group of bandits, that at 5 or 10 XP to level, arguably shouldn't really merit an award at all*. At 20 XP it'd be easier to give an award.

*In 5e RAW 4 bandits = 100 XP, or only 25 each for a 4 PC party, so 'no award' would be fair enough I guess!

Neat. Although I suggested your players might find it satisfying if you were judging combats as significant/insignificant, I'm a little surprised you were the one finding it a little unsatisfying. Well, uh, the DM is also a player so I'm gonna claim I was right(ish).

Of course, @Libramarian gave you far better advice than I did by suggesting a solution.

 

[Libramarian]

Returning to this...

I was a bit dismissive before (sorry), but after my first session on Sunday in the Primeval Thule game, I think you may have a good point about using 20 XP. At 10 XP/level, I found it hard not to award excessive XP, since there were a lot of relatively minor but still somewhat significant achievements. I ended up with a 7 XP award in a 3 hour session, and the PCs still have the 'boss fight' and 'quest completion', plus a likely 'carousing bonus' - that's at least +4 XP. If it had been a 4 hour session the PCs would easily have hit 2nd, or died in the attempt, I think.

20 XP would allow for more granularity, I would probably have ended up with an 11 or 12 XP award and could have been more relaxed about when to make awards, plus I'd be able to be a bit more generous in the boss fight. Hmmm.

No worries - yeah with 20 XP you can give a point for most everything the PCs do, and then just worry about increasing the award based on significance/difficulty.

To avoid giving too much XP at the end of adventures, you could use an even simpler guideline of 1-2-3 XP for easy-medium-hard encounters/achievements. That way you can let them stack naturally, e.g. completing a quest tends to follow a treasure score which tends to follow a boss fight, so 6-9 XP max for that sequence.

Another consideration is whether you will have replacement PCs come in at a lower level, and if so whether you want them to catch up to the rest of the party in XP. In that case you might consider simply doubling XP for any PC adventuring alongside higher level PCs.

 

[S'mon]

Another consideration is whether you will have replacement PCs come in at a lower level, and if so whether you want them to catch up to the rest of the party in XP. In that case you might consider simply doubling XP for any PC adventuring alongside higher level PCs.

Yeah, I'm planning to give x1.5 if 1-3 levels lower, x2 if 4+ levels lower. That's for the Thule game, the PoTA game will use a single Party Level.

Edit: OK for the Thule game decided I'm going to use 20 XP/level for levels 3+.

 

[S'mon]

Used it for second time Saturday - Princes of the Apocalypse, 1st level pcs, 7 of them - pcs only earned 4 xp in close to 4 hours of play. I gave an extra xp for a great session account so they could level to 2nd. System seemsto work fine for that game which has a lot of talky stuff and we only play 1 per 4 weeks so I want fast levelling, I am pretty sure they could not have reached 2nd using standard xp.

So I decided pota monthly 7 pc game will use 5 xp 1-3 then 10 xp, thule fortnightly game will be half that at 10 xp 1-3 then 20. I think that will well fit the tone of both settings.