D&D 5E Do the official WotC adventures cheat with xp?

[Helldritch]

For the Princes of the Apocalypse campaign I am about to start I consider using the following house rule: Every combat encounter that isn't the first after a long rest gives double xp. That way my group should be able to keep up with the level requirements of the adventure. And they are discouraged from the "5-minute workday" approach of resting after every fight.

What do you think?

It will work. As I said earlier, I do something similar. Each encounter after a short or long rest gives half of the previous encounter exp. This eliminates the 5mwd and it makes it consistent with the mile stones in the published adventures (more or less but usualy on track or close to it).

 

[LordEntrails]

In Princes of the Apocalypse as written you end up with, to use sub-theme of this thread, a "Fake Sandbox". The adventure suggests you can go where you want, but in the end you have to fight a CR 18 to 20 prince of elemental evil. Which means that if you skipped too many of the dungeons, you get your ass handed to you. ....

This doesn't make it a "fake sandbox", this makes it a "real sandbox" if you can face an opponent that is too tough for the party.

So, I get it, people want things simple. And they want a purchased adventure to "just work" without them doing anything. But the only way to do with an adventure that covers 10 to 15 levels is to make the adventure a railroad.

Personally, I think single products that try to cover an entire campaign are extremely difficult to make/design. Heck, trying to publish a path in any many to cover an entire campaign is tough. DM's have to realize that no published product is going to be able to run any group through an entire campaign without the DM making adjustments. (Unless it's a flat out railroad).

Using milestone leveling is the least "evil/bad/artificial/what-ever-you-want-to-call-it" means of creating a published campaign.

If you don't like milestone leveling (I don't use it), then accept the fact that you are going to have to modify the published adventure based upon what your party does (I do this).

 

[Guest 6801328]

So, I get it, people want things simple. And they want a purchased adventure to "just work" without them doing anything. But the only way to do with an adventure that covers 10 to 15 levels is to make the adventure a railroad.

That's just disrespectful.

 

[LordEntrails]

That's just disrespectful.

Huh? PM me if you want to explain this. Let's not derail the thread.

 

[77IM]

So, has anyone actually gone through one of the adventures like PotA, calculated the XP of the set encounters AND THE random encounters (and how many of these) and divide by 4? So how much is it off?

Yes. This was the result: http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1255

From the doc:

The truth is, for most quests I worked backwards from the guidelines in the “character advancement” sidebar. Knowing that a particular dungeon was supposed to advance the characters a level, I made sure that dungeon contained enough quest XP to actually do that.

Dungeons in the early part of the campaign (chapter 3) tend to come up short. In part this is because those dungeons actually don’t contain enough challenges to meet the pacing specified in the sidebar. It’s also because side-trek XP can make up the difference, and because in the early exploratory phase, I think it’s more likely the PCs will actually attempt to clear out all four haunted keeps and earn all the XP.

In later dungeons (chapter 5) the XP values tend to exceed what the players need to advance. Side-trek XP is sparse, and once the PCs reach the Fane of the Eye I think it’s a little bit easier for them to do dungeons out-of-order and cherry-pick their encounters, so the XP value of those encounters is increased to meet the pacing. Plus, these dungeons are just hard.​

 

[LordEntrails]

Yes. This was the result: ...

Thank you. So it's fair to say that, in general, all the needed XP is there IF the DM uses all the content in the adventure and the PCs don't just follow on only the plot "required" activities.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'd rather quote than repeat myself, so I'll just leave this here and you can go read the thread that came out of that Quest XP document...:

I've run almost all of it by now (my players' characters are level 14), and I can say using it as written has worked well. That is, they level up approximately once per chapter.

The chapters "don't contain nearly enough challenges" isn't a problem, since its not even an issue. I don't track any of this, and I don't have to.

You might be wondering how does it work, more precisely, and you'd be right to ask. The secret is: I'm not really handing out levels per chapters, or per monster/challenge/encounter/quest at all. I'm handing out a level after two, three or four play sessions (we play Sundays, so ours are probably longer than most. OTOH we probably play more meticulously and slowly than most)

As a DM, the only thing I need from the adventure is what OotA gives me. For instance, the adventurers should be level 8 when they escape the Underdark. Fine, I'll adapt the rate of levelling to match that.

Somewhat. Obviously they could make choices leading to an early departure, or a late departure. But if they stick around until they're level 9 that's not a big deal; it's just a matter of slowing down the level rate slightly. Perhaps have a level of four sessions (which otherwise is fairly uncommon).

One other thing: chapter 8 (or is it Ch 9?) is a "non combat chapter". Or, to be honest, it's an info dump At first I went "okay so no level from chapter 8", but in the end it didn't matter. Since there was no combat and little conflict it didn't take so much time. So the problem resolved itself - I just made sure that level wasn't a two-session level, and voila: the "no xp in this chapter" was accomplished with no special treatment. The players won't have noticed.

---

Without checking my calendar, let's see... we've been playing for more than a year. Could that be 40 sessions if we play slightly more often than every other week on average? Looking it from the other side, I'm fairly sure we have spent no more than three sessions per level on average, and that's 42.

So, to put a number on it, I'm guessing 38 sessions to reach level 14

---

While I can certainly see the old-school appeal of handing out actual XP, the illusion of objectivity is so thoroughly shattered for all of us, that's not enough of a reason to justify the added book-keeping.

(I can still remember how excited I was when I first got XP. Sigh, the joys of youth... It's just that now I'm so painfully aware its just a number. It doesn't mean anything, unless I reach the next level.)

I am continously toying with the idea of running an honest-to-gawd XP-for-Gold mini campaign, where you only get xp when you spend your illbegotten gains back in town (on carousing, building temples or whatever). (Saying this to show you guys I do see how XP can feel precious. It's just that I need an extra step you might not need. The way WFRP gives you an advance every 100 xp, would be another example)

"I think if I were running OotA I would make a more free-form XP system where every chapter contains 4-6 discoveries or accomplishments. Each time the players discover or accomplish 5 things, they gain a level."

To me this is just another example where you feel a need to distance yourself from the xp. "It's not me handing out xp, it's the book/monsters/table of accomplishments".

But one thing is for certain: Out of the Abyss is a singularly bad campaign to use if you absolutely must have xp. It's crystal clear the writers are using milestone levelling if even that. They're simply not interested at all in making sure challenges make up levels. I can't even imagine "they expect you to make up the difference in random encounters". My impression is that XP is simply an utter non-issue, and that they haven't even thought about it.

So for OotA: own up the fact that you the DM are the sole and arbitrary source of levels. Anything else and you'd be swimming against the current.

So, in a way, it's the ideal campaign for my way of awarding levels. They don't bother with bookkeeping - I don't bother with bookkeeping. A win-win. If you can stomach leaving xp out of it for a change


Zapp

PS. Then, it's a fact OotA lets you down somewhat in the latter half. Things get lots more sketchy, as if the writers are running out of steam, time, or both. Encounters fail miserably to keep up - except for Demon Lord encounters, you could probably stop leveling completely at level 11 and still breeze through all remaining monsters.

So to make ends meet, I've had to inject a couple of encounters of my own devising. Not that you don't do that as DMs yourselves. And this doesn't mean one way of handling (or not handling) XP works better or worse than the other. Just full disclosure: to carry the PCs through levels twelve and thirteen, I've used my own material.

 

[CapnZapp]

Thank you. So it's fair to say that, in general, all the needed XP is there IF the DM uses all the content in the adventure and the PCs don't just follow on only the plot "required" activities.

Just to be clear: you are aware this document is a homemade effort to specify xp for the adventure in amounts that lets you level up just like if you used milestone/chapter levelling?

It isn't rebutting the OPs complaint "not enough xp". It is fixing it.

But not by adding more content - which I guess is the OPs' real beef here.

Cheers

 

[LordEntrails]

Just to be clear: you are aware this document is a homemade effort to specify xp for the adventure in amounts that lets you level up just like if you used milestone/chapter levelling?

It isn't rebutting the OPs complaint "not enough xp". It is fixing it.

But not by adding more content - which I guess is the OPs' real beef here.

Cheers

No I was not. Thank you for clarifying. So the problems exists. Fair enough.

 

[77IM]

Thank you. So it's fair to say that, in general, all the needed XP is there IF the DM uses all the content in the adventure and the PCs don't just follow on only the plot "required" activities.

Well, no -- I'm saying that I had to backfill XP because it's not all there.

It's close, though. It's very hard to estimate because of things like random encounters and travel time. (The random encounters are worth a LOT more, relative to dungeons, in the early parts of the adventure.) I'd say Princes of the Apocalypse comes pretty close to keeping the PCs at the appropriate level; you'll only be 1 level shy during the early dungeons, and should catch up by the later dungeons, even if you just earn the XP face-value of the monsters. Out of the Abyss is the worst offender -- there's absolutely no way to level at the rate that adventure expects without heavily grinding random encounters.