D&D 5E Wandering Monsters 01/29/2014:Level Advancement...

[AntiStateQuixote]

I find that gaining XP solely from fights turn the game into one combat encounter after another and that's boooooooring.

Two of the most frustrating changes from AD&D to D&D 3 (and 4):

1. No XP for treasure
2. Treasure by level expectations

The change to XP for monsters as the primary mode of PC advancement gave PCs a perverse incentive to kill everything. I saw it at my own table: players chasing down monsters to kill them for the XP. "Dude, stop. You have defeated the monster; you'll get the XP."

When PCs meet a wandering monster it's "extra XP" instead of a challenge that they may want to bypass in order to get to the actual goal (treasure, quest, etc.).

I'd really like to see XP guidelines that divorce PC advancement from pure monster killing.

 

[delericho]

I just feel like an average value is meaningless for this purpose.

Well, given that they have to pick some sort of baseline, they might as well go for the one that suits as many people as possible.

And while every group is different, having that data is still useful - if nothing else, it allows them to advise DMs on how to adjust things for the particular ways that their game varies from that average.

Also, I have grave personal doubts that once a week is any kind of /average/. That implies there are a lot of groups out there meeting /more/ often.

It's possible I've misremembered the exact number. But the point is that there was a number, arrived at through market research, and which was used to set up the advancement rate.

And I don't find the notion of groups playing more often all that outlandish - for several years there my group would play once a week for 8 hours at a time.

 

[delericho]

Two of the most frustrating changes from AD&D to D&D 3 (and 4):

1. No XP for treasure

This change was made in AD&D 2nd Edition.

 

[steeldragons]

What is "regularly?"

The more I think about it, the more I think that advancement rate is a useless discussion for the core rules. Every group is different. One might meet weekly for four hours a pop. Another might meet monthly for that long, while a third meets monthly but sets a whole day aside for 12 hours of marathon campaigning.

Both session length and session frequency are completely unknowable variables. Not only is it useless to talk about advancement in terms of real time, but it is also useless to talk about it in terms of sessions because even the difference between a four- and a six-hour session is going to dramatically skew expectations in a group that is advancement-focused.

The rules should specify XP awards and XP requirements and just leave the rest up to the dungeon masters. They're smart enough to figure out what works for their group, and they don't need to be made to feel inadequate because their gaming schedule doesn't match some Platonic ideal.

[emphasis mine]

All this a hundred times!

Tell me how much XP defeating (note this does not necessarily mean slaying) an Ogre. Tell me how much/many gold (or, I suppose now would be silver) pieces = 1 XP. Give me guidelines/suggestions for the DM to calculate "completing a mission" or "story arc", "successfully negotiating the trade agreement" or "resolving the inter-kingdom conflict", "saving the princess", "exceptional role-playing/advancing the story", etc...

One can play a four or six hour session one week with minimal killing/treasure accumulation/accomplish little. A two hour session a month later might include a massive combat with the BBEG! The DM is supposed to say, well, we played two sessions, everybody have a cookie!

Absolutely not. Not on my lawn!

The only thing saying "level at X many sessions", placed in the books even mentioned as a guideline/option, does is instill and encourage player entitlement. The only thing saying "kill 20-30 goblins to get to level 2" does is instill and encourage murdering psychopaths. Neither of these are games I want to be in. No, no, and no.

For those who don't use XP in their games...or prefer a "level up by session" mentality/playstyle, its moot. They still won't use XP so it doesn't matter what the books say is an appropriate amount.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

This change was made in AD&D 2nd Edition.

It's been a LONG time, but I seem to remember giving XP for treasure up until 3e.

And Wizards says I'm right . . . and so are you.

From D&D Archives:

What were the major changes in AD&D 2nd edition from 1st edition?
"Experience points given per gold piece of treasure acquired is now an optional method for assigning experience."

 

[DMZ2112]

That said, the XP totals for monsters are helpful for building balanced encounters. (Assuming that they're accurate.) If I have a chart that says 2000 XP worth of creatures will be a tough encounter for a 8th level party, that's a VERY helpful resource. As long as I have that, I don't care how many XP WotC says it takes to hit each level.

Encounter experience budgets are a pretty recent addition to the D&D canon. Both Pathfinder and D&D4 have them, but D&D3.5 did not. I don't like them for the reason I stated earlier about experience awards being determined by subjective difference in level rather than objective total level. But it's not a bad mechanic.

Well, given that they have to pick some sort of baseline, they might as well go for the one that suits as many people as possible.

No, they really don't have to pick any baseline at all. That's kind of my point.

 

[Uller]

Two of the most frustrating changes from AD&D to D&D 3 (and 4):

1. No XP for treasure
2. Treasure by level expectations

That's odd...I found these two things to be incredibly helpful. I don't have the books in front of me, but I always awarded xp for defeating challenges, not killing monsters. That included talking your way out of a fight or disabling or frightening a monster into fleeing. IIRC the DMG in both 3e and 4e touched on this. I don't remember if the 3e DMG explicitly said there should be story awards, but I always gave them and even 2e and 3e base CRPGs gave them. I always thought xp for treasure was odd...kill a monster that happens to have a 1000gp gem in its pocket and you gain xp?

And the treasure expectations always served as a helpful guide to me for many things. My players understood that its a guide.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I prefer XP awards to be goal-driven.

If the goal of the party is to track down loot, award XP for achieving that.
If the goal of the party is to track down lost magic, award XP for achieving that.
If the goal of the party is to barter peace with the orc tribes, award XP for achieving that.

 

[Manabarbs]

Yeah, the wandering monster question bugged me as well. The Shire? Once a day, if that often. Angband? Just keep rolling, we'll tell you when to stop.

I suspect that the survey question was probably designed to feel out how frequently people use random encounters in general. One sort of tricky survey design thing is that you have to be careful with "It depends..." options, because they tend to suck away a bunch of your respondents, not necessarily symmetrically from the other options, and without necessarily giving you much real information. If the role of the survey question was just to get a literal answer to the question, then they could put "It depends..." as an option in there and they'd learn that for most groups, the answer is "It depends", but they likely already know that. There's definitely room to quibble about how the question is written, but most likely they didn't include an It Depends answer because it'd just pull all the votes.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

That's odd...I found these two things to be incredibly helpful.

Different strokes.

I don't have the books in front of me, but I always awarded xp for defeating challenges, not killing monsters. That included talking your way out of a fight or disabling or frightening a monster into fleeing. IIRC the DMG in both 3e and 4e touched on this. I don't remember if the 3e DMG explicitly said there should be story awards, but I always gave them and even 2e and 3e base CRPGs gave them. I always thought xp for treasure was odd...kill a monster that happens to have a 1000gp gem in its pocket and you gain xp?

Yup! Kill = disable = frighten = capture. One thing though . . . it DOESN'T equal avoid . . . usually.

Awarding XP for treasure always depended on the DM being reasonable about it. The AD&D DMG treasure along with treasure types by critter in the MM were pretty good guidelines.

I guess it's just the feel of the game I'm interested in playing (today . . . as I write this; it'll change next week): I want some good ol' S&S games where the "heroes" aren't necessarily heroes and their goal of finding the Magnificent Gem of Magnificence is all the motivation we need for a good time romping through the dungeon. If treasure = XP then the PCs will sneak into the dungeon looking for the most expedient path to the loot. If fighting/overcoming monsters = XP then the PCs will rarely (never?) avoid an encounter.

And the treasure expectations always served as a helpful guide to me for many things. My players understood that its a guide.

They set up a player expectation (I'm personally guilty of this as a player) and also determine how the game will work (especially at higher levels). Try running a D&D 3.5 game with significantly lower or higher treasure by level. It's hard to do and the work to fun ratio isn't worth it to me.

One of the things I'm really hoping will be what I think I've seen advertised for D&D Next: flat math means no treasure/level expectations.