D&D 5E XP for gold 5th Edition campaign

Doug McCrae said:

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And your point is?

I'm not sure I like the idea of XP for gold. An ancient red dragon is worth 36,500 XP, but it's horde will average around 720,000+ gold(in coin, gems and art), plus magic items. That's waaaaaay too much XP to hand out, so you're going to end up with a bunch of piss poor dragons(and other monsters) if you want to have any kind of leveling balance. Finding the large horde is one of the major ways to have fun in D&D.

I'd disagree on that. I'd still be happy with 36,500 gp in a hoard as a player. More than that would be overkill.

I'm late to this thread, but heres my view on gp for xp:

Gp for xp is certainly not the only way to run a campaign, but it radically changes the dynamic from pursuing a story (milestones), or finding and defeating terrible monsters (xp for combat), to looting and spending.

Often overlooked with gp for xp is that players have to spend the gp. That itself starts creating player driven story if it's done well. If a fighter starts up a mercenary company then they may get the ire of competing businesses who feel their territory is being encroached upon. Or perhaps a local duke wants to curry favour and get them involved in a dispute they are in that is on the brink of war.

This problem only gets more pronounced when chaeavters start bringing back things in the 100,000s. Perhaps said pc can command a standing army of 300 mem and women and they possess 3 galley ships. Suddenly they may start looking like an invading force to to king at capital, or the people of freetown might beg for independence and will gladly support your cause, even though it might mean war.

All this is possible with other types of xp of course, but gp for xp rewards this kind of play. Its play has gp -> player spends gp -> player gets xp but creates consequences -> dm uses said consequences to present the player new choices, etc.

There's a lot of interesting possibility in that style, but you have to be prepared to put the work in for your world to respond to the pcs actions, and it IMO is not at all well suited to published adventure paths.

Maxperson said:

I'm not sure I like the idea of XP for gold. An ancient red dragon is worth 36,500 XP, but it's horde will average around 720,000+ gold(in coin, gems and art), plus magic items. That's waaaaaay too much XP to hand out, so you're going to end up with a bunch of piss poor dragons(and other monsters) if you want to have any kind of leveling balance. Finding the large horde is one of the major ways to have fun in D&D.

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But now you're assuming a 1:1 XP to GP ratio. You can change that, you know.

If you dislike the overall idea that's one thing (and nobody's forcing ya), but don't slam the whole concept over a detail (and a fairly extreme at that; tier IV dragon treasures isn't exactly an average data point...)

CubicsRube said:

I'm late to this thread, but heres my view on gp for xp:

Gp for xp is certainly not the only way to run a campaign, but it radically changes the dynamic from pursuing a story (milestones), or finding and defeating terrible monsters (xp for combat), to looting and spending.

Often overlooked with gp for xp is that players have to spend the gp. That itself starts creating player driven story if it's done well. If a fighter starts up a mercenary company then they may get the ire of competing businesses who feel their territory is being encroached upon. Or perhaps a local duke wants to curry favour and get them involved in a dispute they are in that is on the brink of war.

This problem only gets more pronounced when chaeavters start bringing back things in the 100,000s. Perhaps said pc can command a standing army of 300 mem and women and they possess 3 galley ships. Suddenly they may start looking like an invading force to to king at capital, or the people of freetown might beg for independence and will gladly support your cause, even though it might mean war.

All this is possible with other types of xp of course, but gp for xp rewards this kind of play. Its play has gp -> player spends gp -> player gets xp but creates consequences -> dm uses said consequences to present the player new choices, etc.

There's a lot of interesting possibility in that style, but you have to be prepared to put the work in for your world to respond to the pcs actions, and it IMO is not at all well suited to published adventure paths.

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Absolutely!

Just a heads-up: if you're interested in the Pathfinder 2 thread on this topic, I've linked to it in the first post.

jimbrooks said:

"Carousing" surely needs to be taken in its widest sense.

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It does, doesn't it?

wow some very good ideas, I think i'd only use gold for exp in Downtime situations.

Doug McCrae said:

Why does xp need to be important?

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So you can get more XP than the next guy, pull ahead of him, and 'win' the game?

CapnZapp said:

now it serves no purpose (other than to trick players into believing character advancement happens at an objective and scientifically controlled rate, I guess). You can remove XP and level up the party whenever you want with zero impact.

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That's not an entirely unfair characterization - I'd note that in 5e, XP does have an effect, in that the XP requirements to level relative to the XP value of a standard encounter budget, lead to faster leveling in Apprentice Tier, and after 11th level, and slower leveling through the putative 'sweet spot.' So arbitrarily leveling that lingered too long in Apprentice tier or skipped through the sweet spot too quickly could contribute to an overall less enjoyable campaign.

But what if I don't want to remove XP? What if I happen to dislike keeping xp around as a vestigial remainder of past editions?Why, I re-add back real purpose to XP, of course!

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...and, in your opinion, that real purpose is?

Tony Vargas said:

So you can get more XP than the next guy, pull ahead of him, and 'win' the game?

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Yes

But no

That's not an entirely unfair characterization - I'd note that in 5e, XP does have an effect, in that the XP requirements to level relative to the XP value of a standard encounter budget, lead to faster leveling in Apprentice Tier, and after 11th level, and slower leveling through the putative 'sweet spot.' So arbitrarily leveling that lingered too long in Apprentice tier or skipped through the sweet spot too quickly could contribute to an overall less enjoyable campaign.

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Of course, you don't need XP to do that. Just tell your players "level up quicker in tier I and slower in tier II" and done.

...and, in your opinion, that real purpose is?

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Isn't that clear?

Since you no longer need different XP amounts to level up as a Thief or a Magic User, that function has been rendered moot. Since you no longer need to spend XP to enchant items, that function has been rendered moot.

So here's a new function: to track your advancement and give you a new kind of character build option: should you fast-track level-ups (at the expense of not having many magic items), or should you take it a bit slower (and enjoy lots of magic item bonuses)?