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

[Keldryn]

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.

This is where I stand as well. Awarding the majority of XP for combat tends to encourage PCs to fight everything that they encounter, which in turn contributes towards that whole "5 minute adventuring day" issue.

I see XP for gp as a very rough version of goal-driven XP. A well-designed adventure would typically place all of the high-value treasure in a well-guarded location, which required the PCs to overcome significant challenges in order to obtain (and possibly in order to bring it back with them as well). Sometimes these rewards would be given to the PCs upon completion of a goal or quest.

It wasn't the most elegant system, but it was simple and it emphasized that the risks of direct combat were often disproportionate to the reward.

 

[Uller]

Different strokes.

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

I guess this has never been a problem for me...most of my players are casual (I'm lucky if they even buy a phb) and those that are more than casual are fellow DMs and if I break from the guide lines they don't care. Edit: they tend to follow the most obvious path to excitement and only deviate if I put up some fairly obvious foreshadowing of doom

However...back to the article at hand...I don't think they are saying killing monsters is the only way to get XP...they are just giving the rationale for what a monsters xp is...i.e. if the only thing the pcs do is kill monsters in party level encounters this is the rate of advancement you will see. I would be stunned if they don't have story based awards and awards for avoiding monsters etc. Maybe I'm wrong...don't really care because I'll manipulate xp awards to pace advancement to suit my group anyway and us whatever guidelines they present as a tool for helping me do that.

 

[howandwhy99]

Is XP gained as a result of accomplishing certain results in the game?
Does gaining XP occur per character in the game?
Does its challenges (and amounts) account for parties with characters of differing levels?
IOW, can my 1st level PC adventure with your 20th and the game supports it?

Varying ability due to magic item trading goes side by side with individual XP based on individual player/character actions. I put the ring on, I turn invisible. You attend 3 session I missed, you get the XP for what you did.

EDIT:
Also, I'm in the XP and XP totals are different for different classes. So Fighters get XP for accomplishing different things than a Thief, Cleric, or Magic-User necessarily would.

 

[am181d]

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

Any chart that says "you need this much XP to level up" is a baseline.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I really like the phrasing of the question! And the analysis gets into brass tacks, which is how I'm inclined to think of the game these days.

So, I'm going to take a point to start from. I want to level up about once every 3 sessions (so, once every, say 9-12 hours of game-play time). Assuming one "full recharge" (extended rest-equivalent) per session, and using the elements, this works out to 15 "standard challenges" per day.

Since goblins are supposed to be weak, something like 40-60 makes sense.

But yeah, I'm liking the way they're thinking about this. Good design must understand how the audience is likely to use the thing designed.

I think this translates into things like XP-for-treasure, or goal XP, really well. Now you have a way to measure how long it should take for a PC to accomplish their goals ("make peace with the orc tribe" is worth n XP), and a way to measure the actual dice rolling that should take place for them to do so, and to measure one goal against another (Oh, that "make peace with the orc tribe" XP equals 10 goblins, but if I kill them, I get only 5 goblins!). In an XP-for-treasure model, this works as a rough measure of what an "adequate challenge" to get the treasure is.

 

[ExploderWizard]

If XP is going to be measured by the goblin or by encountardization in general then this edition is staying on the shelf.

 

[delericho]

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."

Yep. Although the DMG also included a dire warning that if you used this option, it would surely break your game! Sometimes, it seemed that 2nd Ed really didn't like PCs getting even a hint of power.

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

I do believe you're mistaken. If only for the sake of new DMs, the game will have to have some method of generating encounters, some means of rewarding PCs for defeating those encounters, and some number of XP required to level up. It's really hard to see how they can manage without any of those things, and between them they do amount to a baseline.

(I of course stand ready to be proven wrong if WotC should find some way to manage without... but I really don't expect to be on this one. )

 

[billd91]

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.

And you should, but does a system built on this then crowd out serendipity? Should characters not be able to learn from tangential side adventures or encounters? Ideally, I think there's value in PCs gaining XPs from a variety of sources - goal based ones and event-based ones that may not be related to goals.

 

[Storminator]

Once upon a time I would have dived right into the different XP distribution methods. But I've realized that I don't like awarding XP at all.

IMC it's time to level when the players decide they need new toys to play with. Getting new spells before you've really master (or even used!) your current spells is too fast. Breaking out the same old spells again is too slow. As it turns out it's about once every 3 sessions, but I think it's a 1) yay! new abilities! 2) Perfect time for my new abilities! 3) yup, using these abilities 4) yay! new abilities . . . rather than any well defined system.

I'm leery that non-4e games are going to work as well as my current system because in 4e everyone gets new abilities at the same time, so leveling is equally important to everyone.

PS

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

And you should, but does a system built on this then crowd out serendipity? Should characters not be able to learn from tangential side adventures or encounters? Ideally, I think there's value in PCs gaining XPs from a variety of sources - goal based ones and event-based ones that may not be related to goals.

Side adventures evolve from side goals, IMO, so they would fit. Singular events could generate immediate goals (survival!). I'm speaking more towards rewarding players on a meta-game level for achieving something in-game. It is my personal preference, I wouldn't knock them for presenting other views.