D&D 5E Gaining Experience

[77IM]

In 4th Edition, encounters could take a long time, but in 5th Edition, encounters should be fast enough so you can have 20 or more good fights in a single session.

Wow. This has not been my experience at all.

Combat is way faster than 4th edition but how long are your sessions that you expect to go through 20 good fights? My group averages more-or-less 1 fight per hour; slightly more if the fights are all lined up ready to go, slightly less if they spend a lot of time exploring or talking or deciding which way to go next.

Slowing the XP rate or introducing level-grinding (which sounds phenomenally boring to me) may backfire if fights start taking longer than you expect.

 

[Aribar]

Experience grinding all on its own, which almost seems to be what the OP's suggesting, is kind of outdated and not fun for most people; it's largely removed from modern (video game) RPG design. If players are saying "I want to grind some random encounters", something is likely wrong. If I'm the DM, are my quests so boring that they don't want to take them? Maybe I'm not giving them the kind of game they want. If they're just a couple XP away from a level, why should I punish them for miscalculating the math and not just give them the level? Why not start the game at a higher level to avoid the "low level PCs are squishy and have few/no options" problem?

Personally, our group doesn't reward XP. Every session or two, when appropriate by the story, the party levels up. Keeping track of those numbers isn't fun. Additionally, after we're familiar with a (D&D-based system at least) system, we start at level 5+ so we don't encounter the problems of low-level play.

 

[wedgeski]

Experience is one of those things that really separates one D&D group culture from another. For myself (and myself only), I simply don't think of a PC as legitimate unless he's earned his XP, point by point, quest by quest, to get where he is in the world. We very rarely start PC's at anything other than 1st, as well. Just one of those things that's entrenched in the way we play.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, once you realize you level at the rate the DM wants you to and that any measure of objectiveness is merely a smokescreen or illusion... there's no longer any reason to actually bean count those xp, and it's way easier to just level when the DM allows you to.

 

[SirAntoine]

Yeah, once you realize you level at the rate the DM wants you to and that any measure of objectiveness is merely a smokescreen or illusion... there's no longer any reason to actually bean count those xp, and it's way easier to just level when the DM allows you to.

If I read you correctly, you're saying the DM chooses the level you're at. Is that how you play?

We all have our experience and our preferences, but awarding experience is one of those fundamental parts of the game that I consider part of D&D. I referee the earning of experience points, and the players earn them. They are one of the rewards for success. I have never advanced the players when I wanted to without their permission. I have on occassion, skipped ahead, and awarded them some experience in a summary fashion given expectations, but they are playing the game and earning experience is a part of that. IME, at least.

The DM may have the authority to re-establish the PC's level in any way, but that would be a huge departure from what I expect. I am old-school, where we not only really earned our levels, but undead could drain those levels with a single touch against which there was no saving throw. The level of a character isn't parted with lightly, and if it was just given, I don't think it would ever really feel earned in the same way again.

 

[SirAntoine]

Experience grinding all on its own, which almost seems to be what the OP's suggesting, is kind of outdated and not fun for most people; it's largely removed from modern (video game) RPG design. If players are saying "I want to grind some random encounters", something is likely wrong. If I'm the DM, are my quests so boring that they don't want to take them? Maybe I'm not giving them the kind of game they want. If they're just a couple XP away from a level, why should I punish them for miscalculating the math and not just give them the level? Why not start the game at a higher level to avoid the "low level PCs are squishy and have few/no options" problem?

Personally, our group doesn't reward XP. Every session or two, when appropriate by the story, the party levels up. Keeping track of those numbers isn't fun. Additionally, after we're familiar with a (D&D-based system at least) system, we start at level 5+ so we don't encounter the problems of low-level play.

I think you made your point. Others have found it a lot of fun, and I don't want to suppress any opinions.

 

[Ricochet]

Tons and tons of videogames encourage getting XP for grinding monsters (I just played through Divinity: Original Sin, and cleared the maps fully to get more XP for example). That said, I prefer games without as well, as that takes away most murder-hobo tendencies.

 

[SirAntoine]

Wow. This has not been my experience at all.

Combat is way faster than 4th edition but how long are your sessions that you expect to go through 20 good fights? My group averages more-or-less 1 fight per hour; slightly more if the fights are all lined up ready to go, slightly less if they spend a lot of time exploring or talking or deciding which way to go next.

Slowing the XP rate or introducing level-grinding (which sounds phenomenally boring to me) may backfire if fights start taking longer than you expect.

I don't mean big combats. By a good fight, I mean a) it gave the party a workout, and/or b) it was a good source of experience. Sometimes the PC's will be so powerful they can take down common groups of monsters without much of a workout, but so long as they're a good source of experience that would be a good fight. It depends how much mileage they get out of spells more than anything else. One fireball could take out all the monsters at once back in the old days, but you wouldn't always use that in dungeons because it would rebound back at you because the fireball expanded into any space it could rather than just stay within a 20' radius.

I would expect to complete a combat that gives the PC's workout in 10 minutes. I'd characterize the average session at 4 hours long.

 

[Ricochet]

My group averages more-or-less 1 fight per hour; slightly more if the fights are all lined up ready to go, slightly less if they spend a lot of time exploring or talking or deciding which way to go next.

We use theatre of the mind, and we rarely - if ever - spend more than 10-20 minutes on a given fight in 5e. Then again, I have only played till about level 5, and I would assume the fights go a little longer at higher levels with more options coming into play.

Do you use miniatures by any chance? It slowed a Pathfinder game I was in to a crawl (often due to analysis for optimization from some players), but then again 5e is less tactical in regards to positioning etc.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Despite the early Final Fantasy games (I and VI in particular) being my favorite video games, XP grinding is just no fun at all, at least for me. In my early days of DMing Basic D&D, I just handed out more treasure to make up the XP difference so we could get to the story. With 5E, I barely bother with XP at all. The PCs level when it fits the story.

The numbers, all of the numbers, have always been secondary to telling a cooperative story with the players for me. If the numbers get in the way of that, they get tossed out the window. XP are eXPendable.