D&D 5E The Illusion of Experience Points that Everyone Disbelieves

[Wulfgar76]

XP is illusory in my games. Normally I give out enough so everyone levels up after about 4 sessions or so. More if a major enemy is defeated or major quest is completed.

Now if they tie XP values to encounter building, I definitely see them being useful for DMs.

 

[Skyscraper]

Unfortunately, this is a generalisation so broad, and so regularly flouted, that it undermines pretty much all of the rest of your post. In particular, it was common with pre-3e games for the PC party to be composed of members of different, and sometimes widely different, levels.

Agreed, pre-3E had a lot of variability in PC levels in a same gaming group. Good point.

I think however that my post remains relevant towards D&D Next and based on 3E + experience.

 

[Skyscraper]

I find XP enjoyable and helpful. They give granularity to the progression system, allowing for small rewards that culminate in leveling. You could skip that and go right to levels, but then it is hard to give anything for defeating a single encounter. The thing is, if you do not like XP it is easy enough to ignore. If you do like it, and they take it out, then it is very hard to house rule back in. Better to have the system, and let those who dislike it ignore it.

This is an interesting and good point.

 

[Skyscraper]

You gain XP to level up is pretty much the norm, even if some adventure or DMs may skip this part to decide when leveling occur, the norm shouldn't necessarily be relegated to an optional rule IMO. I certainly think it'd be good to have advices on various advancement methods in the DMG, but i for one wouldn't want to see XP removed from the core.

I disagree that "it's the norm" should be taken as granted.

D&D 3E and 4E WOTC commercial adventures expect specific level advancement rates. Use of XPs in such a case probably only allows players to know how far they are from advancing to the next level, that they're going to reach at a determined adventure milestone anyway (give or take 1-2 encounters).

Also, a recent poll here on enworld shows at least half people ignore XPs altother in their game; and among the half that don't ignore them, half of those have all PCs evolve at a same, set XP advancement rate - which as mentioned above in many commercial games will occur at determined milestones. Which to me defies the main purpose of XPs (not to confuse with level advancement itself).

So they might well not be the norm if you look only at those who use them; and my impression is that many that do use them, use them by habit more than because of their actual function.

 

[Obryn]

My progression:

1. Tracking XP more or less by the book.
2. Giving 1/4 of the difference between old level and new per session attended.
3. Advancing everyone every 4 sessions with no xp and no difference between players.
4. Handwaving advancement based on what's happening in the game. Each "adventure" nets you one level.

So that's where I still am, unless I'm running 1e, in which case GP-for-XP is one of my favorite D&D mechanics of all time and I want to use it. Besides, for me that's part of the fun of 1e.

 

[Mistwell]

I calculate each experience point my players earn based on the challenges they overcome. I include in my adventures many challenges which are both below the average level of the PCs, and above. Sometimes well below, and sometimes well above. If they can overcome a challenge well above their level, they will get much more experience for that than they would for something of their level. There's no illusion about this methodology - same method I've always used, since 1e.

 

[Skyscraper]

I calculate each experience point my players earn based on the challenges they overcome. I include in my adventures many challenges which are both below the average level of the PCs, and above. Sometimes well below, and sometimes well above. If they can overcome a challenge well above their level, they will get much more experience for that than they would for something of their level. There's no illusion about this methodology - same method I've always used, since 1e.

Your system to calculate the difficulty of a challenge, appears to me to be level dependent, and not linked to how many XP they have. I.e. you mention that your challenges are calculated with respect to the PC's level. I do not argue that level-dependent challenges (be they same level, or above or below average level) should be removed.

You give XPs depending on the difficulty of the challenge. But then the next challenge you pit against the PCs, is again level-dependent anyway. And they gain XPs. And so on. Until they level up. When they do, you still have level-dependent challenges. So nothing has changed.

So you could have decided that they level up after, say, 10 encounters. Much simpler solution, no? And you could still have calculated level-dependent challenges in exactly the same way. However, you would have done away with the need to track and calculate XPs, and the same for your players.

 

[Mistwell]

Your system to calculate the difficulty of a challenge, appears to me to be level dependent,

Sorry I misspoke. I don't calculate it based on the level of the party. The creature is worth a fixed amount of XP, no matter what level of creatures defeat it. It's just that the fixed amount might be more or less valuable to a particular PC depending on their level. So a level 1 10 XP kobold is a lot more valuable to a first level PC, than it is to a 5th level PC who needs a lot more XP to gain a level.

So you could have decided that they level up after, say, 10 encounters. Much simpler solution, no? And you could still have calculated level-dependent challenges in exactly the same way. However, you would have done away with the need to track and calculate XPs, and the same for your players.

No, I think this is all because I misspoke or some miscommunication. The PCs could level up after one encounter if they took something on that was much higher level than they were, for example. If my 4th level PCs manage to find and defeat a Beholder, which is worth 6,330 experience, it would likely level them up right away.

 

[Argyle King]

I broadly agree with the OP in so much that things like XP and "it just so happens these monsters were the perfect level" apply to D&D, and there tends to be some illusion that is constructed to help ignore them in play. I do not necessarily believe the same illusion exists in rpgs as a whole, and the D&D style level/XP/linear advancement model tends to be why in recent years I choose other rpgs as my primary games, but that's a conversation for a different thread. I only mention it because I wanted to point out that (I believe) the "illusion" is more of a D&D construct than it is something that is typical of rpgs as a whole.


For what it's worth, the 3.5 game I'm currently a player in does use XP, but the DM has said that gaining enough XP for a level doesn't automatically mean you level up. Instead, your character needs a week of downtime to complete the leveling up process when a new level is gained. So, say you're level 2 and gain enough XP for level 3, you now need to take a week of down time to get the benefits associated with gaining that level. If due to being busy or maybe you get lucky with a draw from the Deck of Many things, or whatever, you gain enough XP for multiple levels, you'd need multiple weeks to benefit from all of the newly gained levels.

For example, say that same level 2 character gained enough XP for level 3, but was busy fighting orcs and goblins, so couldn't level. The level 2 character finishes the campaign against the orcs and goblins with enough XP to be at level 4. It would take two weeks to completely level up.

The same DM also gives XP rewards for roleplay and various other things. He also requires many Prestige Classes to be qualified for in game. For example, if you were playing a Bard and wanted to become a Seeker of The Song, you would need to find another Seeker to teach you how to become one (as per the description of the PrC.) It's not assumed in his campaign that you can simply pick any option you want out of the book.

All things considered, I'm highly enjoying the game, and it's prompted me to look at 3rd in a new light. Some of the problems I've spoken of here on Enworld in different discussions still do exist simply because (I still believe) there are a few inherent flaws in the 3E design, but more than a fair share of the usual 3E problems have been (to varying extents) curbed by tightening the reigns a bit and making an effort to have in-game things matter more than the RAW built in metagame.

For what it's worth, not everyone in the current party is the same level either. I'm currently level 4 (nearing 5,) but a few of the other characters are level 6, and one of the other characters is level 3 (nearing 4.) I do see some problems with that due to how extreme the curve in 3E can occasionally be between certain levels, but, overall, it's going vastly better than I expected.

 

[GX.Sigma]

However, use of experience points is an illusion...whatever the level a group of PCs is, that group will only undertake adventures designed for that level. Not only that, but commercial D&D campaigns and adventuresd even calculate how many XPs the PCs are likely to earn during each adventure, and the level of each adventure is accordingly calibrated.

That only started when adventure designers decided D&D needed to be a railroad (sorry, "Adventure Path"). Obviously, if that's the game you're running, an XP system doesn't do the job. XP was designed for a sandbox game.

The problem is that (some of) the rules encourage a sandbox campaign, and (most of) the adventures encourage a linear campaign. The solution is to have advice to illustrate the different types of campaigns, and options to support whichever one you want to run.