Level Advancement and In-Campaign Time

[Umbran]

Well I wasn't asking to play in your game now was I Captain Snippy-Pants?

Back up and sit your ass down.

Folks, listen up. This is not acceptable behavior. If you cannot keep things polite an civil, we strongly suggest you disengage. If you don't, disengagement will be provided for you.

Neither of these two are blame-free. One of them has earned a ban from this thread. The next person who cannot remain cordial can expect a vacation from the boards.

I hope this is clear - treat each other with respect, or walk away. Thanks.

 

[Lanefan]

One year of weekly, 7-hour play, should get PC's to 9th. After that, 2 levels per year. That has worked for me for decades and seems to be the "sweet spot".

That's real-world time you're talking about.

However, the rest of the discussion has been about game-world time; how to fix that in the game world a character can easily get from 1st to 20th within well under a year...which is kinda ludicrous.

All these alternative "milestone" or "chapter based" level advancement just sucks the "D&D'ism" out of D&D, imnsho. Gaining XP and levels is a large feel of the whole class-based system. Taking it out is, to me, the equivilent of removing both Dragons as opponents and Dungeons as locations.

Just hand out less XP and STOP USING AP'S. I've come to believe that the whole "Adventure Path" style adventures presented by Paizo when they were doing Dungeon mag was one of the WORST things to hit "D&D". It, with the help of 3e (you're not getting out of this one, 3.x!), has raised/trained/resulted in this mentality that if you aren't gaining levels ever few sessions then you are not having fun. "It's been 6 sessions and we haven't gained a level! This isn't fun! Our DM is a stinky-meany-poo-poo head!".

A lot of Players now feel they deserve to get to level 20 in short order. How can they not? I don't blame them, really...I blame AP's. This is a problem for any DM who wants to present a reasonably believable campaign world. The easiest was is, as I said, hand out one quarter to one half of the XP listed for monsters and full for GP. You may have to fiddle with the GP thing if you run "3.x/5e" adventures, however, as they likely hand out too much (?). You can get large hauls from 1e/earlier adventure modules, to be sure, but 1e was much more deadly.

With the rest of this, however, I agree.

Now, IF I was to try and use a non-xp means of level advancement... I'd have it be based on hours of play ...

Where I would instead try to tie it to significant things the PCs accomplish within the game world - completed story arcs, major foes defeated, etc., as well as (to a small extent) simple passage if game-world time - and not worry about real-world time at all.

If it takes them 8 hours of play to accomplish some goal you'd thought would take 23, give 'em the level. By the same token, if you think it's going to take 'em 23 hours to accomplish whatever and it ends up taking them 51 then they'll wait longer than you expected for that level to hit.

Lanefan

 

[pming]

Hiya!
[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] ahhh...got it. I didn't read the whole thread, obviously. (dusts off "Dunce" hat and places it on head for the rest of the day)

In game-time, if I was so inclined, perhaps bringing in the 'training rules' for when a PC has enough XP to gain a level could be used? I'm thinking of the 1e/Hackmaster4 method wherein once a PC has enough XP to gain a level they stop gaining XP until they "go train and contemplate" what they have learned...by spending GP's and time. I never really used them because, well, my Players PC's don't gain levels very quickly and it's never bothered us. But in the 1e/HM4 rules, the DM assigns an overall rating (1 to 4; 1 as Excellent, 6 as Poor), taking into account pretty much everything the Player has done at the table. Roleplaying, problem solving, tactics, pretty much everything. That number, times the characters new level, is the number of weeks it takes to 'level up'. It also costs, iirc, some ridiculous amount of GP's to pay for everything during that time; like, 1k gp x Rating x Level or something. I never used it...too much of a "downer" for the excitement a player gets for leveling up his PC. Kinda like graduating high school. ("Yay! No more school! Finally!...crap... now I gotta get a job and pay my own bills..." ).

Here's an idea that just popped into my head...

"Delayed XP Gaining"
The idea is that a PC is constantly doing stuff (gaining XP) but needs to rest, relax and reflect (call it the Three R's of Adventuring). Pick some number that suits your 'advancement rate'; I'm starting with 100xp/day.

Now that we have the Rate of XP gaining for the Campaign Setting (100xp/day), that's how many days of "non-otherstuff downtime" is needed to actually get the XP's earned while adventuring. How it would work is that DM calculates XP as is normal for his game. He then divides that by 100 to get the number of 3R's worth of days the character needs to spend, well, doing the 3R's. He can't spend this time doing other "downtime" activities (as per DMG).

EXAMPLE: Bill the Barbarian is 3rd level. He has been adventuring for a couple days, clearing out an infestation of nasty goblins that have been doing far to much goblinry far to close to town for far too long. The last big push by his group and him netted them each 800 XP. This puts Bill up to level 4 now. Taking 800, dividing by 100, gives Bill 8 full days of 3R activity to perform before he actually gains his new 4th level perks.

As the character gets higher and higher levels, it takes more and more time. So when a PC gains 34,200 XP from a massive adventure out in the Ethereal Plane, it's going to take him 342 days (!) to actually gain that new level. If that's too long, put in some other number for the 3R divider (maybe 1000/day is better; that would take 34,200xp down to 34 days). I'd just make sure to keep it consistent once a number is chosen. Consistency is key as a DM.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Lanefan]

In game-time, if I was so inclined, perhaps bringing in the 'training rules' for when a PC has enough XP to gain a level could be used? I'm thinking of the 1e/Hackmaster4 method wherein once a PC has enough XP to gain a level they stop gaining XP until they "go train and contemplate" what they have learned...by spending GP's and time. I never really used them because, well, my Players PC's don't gain levels very quickly and it's never bothered us.

Yeah, the idea of advancement stopping dead when you bump never appealed to us either; so what we did was put in a gradated penalty system such that the farther you got into the new level the slower your xp gain became, until you trained up.

It works in thirds: you advance normally until you get 1/3 of the way through the new level, after which you start losing 1/3 of any xp you earn. If you get 2/3 of the way through you start losing 2/3 of any xp earned. And if you somehow plow all the way through a level without training for it (rare, but it's happened a few times), on bumping to the next new level you're considered trained for the previous one and now start advancing at 1/2 rate overall. If you do this you're considered to be "self-training" and count as trained when you hit the 1/3 point - the reason for having this self-training mechanic is to support the narrative of someone being able to successfully advance in level, if slowly, where no trainer exists (e.g. a Ranger living all her life alone in the wilderness, or a wizard who is the only arcanist in an isolated area).

But in the 1e/HM4 rules, the DM assigns an overall rating (1 to 4; 1 as Excellent, 6 as Poor), taking into account pretty much everything the Player has done at the table. Roleplaying, problem solving, tactics, pretty much everything. That number, times the characters new level, is the number of weeks it takes to 'level up'. It also costs, iirc, some ridiculous amount of GP's to pay for everything during that time; like, 1k gp x Rating x Level or something.

Neither did I, having scrapped it pretty much the same moment I first saw it.

Here's an idea that just popped into my head...

"Delayed XP Gaining"
The idea is that a PC is constantly doing stuff (gaining XP) but needs to rest, relax and reflect (call it the Three R's of Adventuring). Pick some number that suits your 'advancement rate'; I'm starting with 100xp/day.

Now that we have the Rate of XP gaining for the Campaign Setting (100xp/day), that's how many days of "non-otherstuff downtime" is needed to actually get the XP's earned while adventuring. How it would work is that DM calculates XP as is normal for his game. He then divides that by 100 to get the number of 3R's worth of days the character needs to spend, well, doing the 3R's. He can't spend this time doing other "downtime" activities (as per DMG).

EXAMPLE: Bill the Barbarian is 3rd level. He has been adventuring for a couple days, clearing out an infestation of nasty goblins that have been doing far to much goblinry far to close to town for far too long. The last big push by his group and him netted them each 800 XP. This puts Bill up to level 4 now. Taking 800, dividing by 100, gives Bill 8 full days of 3R activity to perform before he actually gains his new 4th level perks.

As the character gets higher and higher levels, it takes more and more time. So when a PC gains 34,200 XP from a massive adventure out in the Ethereal Plane, it's going to take him 342 days (!) to actually gain that new level. If that's too long, put in some other number for the 3R divider (maybe 1000/day is better; that would take 34,200xp down to 34 days). I'd just make sure to keep it consistent once a number is chosen. Consistency is key as a DM.

Interesting idea...

Maybe make the daily xp amount 100 x the PC's current level, to reflect the j-curve a bit. So, a 1st-level character would be at 100/day while a 9th would be at 900/day. And if you bump partway through your amount per day goes up in tandem: say you're 1000 xp away from 5th and you've got a block of 3000 xp coming to you. The first 3 days would get you 1200 (3 x 400) which gets you into 5th, so each day after that would get you 500 until the total block of 3000 was exhausted (obviously on the last day you'd just get whatever was left in the original batch).

That said, I'm not sure I'd use this; particularly given the rather horrific bookkeeping that would arise once someone lost a level or two to a wraith or vampire and then somewhen during their downtime got a restoration...

Lanefan

 

[iserith]

If it was just level imbalance it wouldn't be as big a thing, as you say. But it's also wealth imbalance: a character who's been in 12 adventures (and thus got a share of 12 treasuries) is going to be much wealthier than each of another player's three characters cycled through those same 12 adventures (so, 4 each).

Pile this on to the level imbalance and yeah, it's a headache.

I also don't see this as a concern. It's not like they can usually buy magic items to increase their power, so generally the money just sort of piles up. If anything, it's better to be poor so you don't have to worry about it! Also, the players in my group tend to either pool all the characters' money or, failing that, make sure that whoever has less wealth still gets upgrades to armor or the like as that benefits the whole team.

 

[jgsugden]

I try to have down time between adventures, but beyond that I do not worry about it too much.

I use milestone advancement for leveling, but consider XP / EL / CR / etc. when assembling what is to come between milestones. This gives me some degree of control to allow PCs to advance when it makes sense.

I ask the players to consider planned advancement and to foreshadow it with their role playing. If a player is planning to add levels of Hexblade, I want to know in advance so that we can lay the seeds of the relationship with the Shadowblade. If a player plans to add a level of rogue to his cleric for expertise, I want to have an idea of what that rogue level reflects to that PC before they advance. I have been known to give players access to an ability they are about to gain a bit early when they show that they're working towards it in story - for example, a rogue was able to attempt an uncanny dodge by making a dex saving throw one level before they gained the ability... once.

In the end, it works out well enough. When the PCs advance from level 1 to 20 in 2 years of game time, it just shows what special heroes they are and how the crucible they've undergone has forged them quickly into the heroes they could be.

 

[Lanefan]

I also don't see this as a concern. It's not like they can usually buy magic items to increase their power, so generally the money just sort of piles up.

How do you explain in-game the lack of a magic item economy of any kind? I ask as I've yet to hear an explanation that makes logical in-game sense.

Also, the players in my group tend to either pool all the characters' money or, failing that, make sure that whoever has less wealth still gets upgrades to armor or the like as that benefits the whole team.

Yeah,here it's each for him/herself for the most part, though characters will sometimes loan each other money or gear.

 

[iserith]

How do you explain in-game the lack of a magic item economy of any kind? I ask as I've yet to hear an explanation that makes logical in-game sense.

The DMG says that "unless you decide your campaign works otherwise, most magic items are so rare that they aren't available for purchase." So I guess they're effectively priceless. For my part, I don't address why as there's really no need to. You can either buy them (as I might permit in Planescape or Eberron) or you can't.

 

[jasper]

How do you explain in-game the lack of a magic item economy of any kind? I ask as I've yet to hear an explanation that makes logical in-game sense.
After the 3rd age, the fourth age fell upon the world. Magic items grew from trees, magic wal-marts grew in small towns and large cities, golf bags of unmeasured sizes were needed to haul magic items to kill certain monsters. Even the small combats between a taking an orc and its pie took almost an hour. The monsters, the peasants, the npcs cried out in rage and horror. The Gawds of Has brother decided to destroy the age and start over.
And the fifth age fell upon the realms, and mentioning logical magic item economy became forbidden to speak of. Unless the blue blood Elf Smith GAWD called Spoke um Spock would descent upon you to do the pon snu snu until death.

 

[the Jester]

So I have only skimmed through this thread, so without delving into the posts of others, I will address the issue of the passage of time and the "1st to 20th level in a month" problem.

First of all, I do see that as a problem. But that doesn't hold in every playstyle; in some, it's no big deal at all. And that's fine. Neither way is right or wrong; they're just right or wrong for certain groups.

Now, that said, there are a few things I do to help ensure that time passes, and they're largely centered around the downtime rules. One thing that isn't centered around DT is travel. Most adventures don't take place conveniently close to the party's home city/area, so it takes time to get there (and back). And the way my world is set up, travel itself is arduous and dangerous. So to use one concrete example, one of my groups went on a major adventure that required about 2 weeks' travel each way to reach the site. Now, there are exceptions- sometimes the adventure is in town or whatever, and there are lots of adventure sites within a few days of home- but that travel time absolutely adds up. (All that traveling also encourages pcs to spend money on e.g. mounts, a stage coach, pack animals, etc.)

Another factor that relates to this is a setting element. There are no other cities around; civilization has fallen, and the last city only stands because, at the time of the fall, a brave group of heroes (4e pcs) managed to save it. So if the party runs off to adventure 1,000 miles away, they have to come home to resupply. There's nowhere else to do so. Sure, they can burn spell slots to create food and drink and whatnot, but those are resources expended. Eventually, everyone goes home.

Then there's downtime. First of all, if a group tells me they want some, they can have it, as long as no ongoing thing interrupts it. Second, I almost always insert some days or weeks of downtime after a major adventure. Third, I run multiple groups, so I'll often throw downtime at one group to help keep time fairly synchronized between groups. Finally, winter is nasty. Most of the time, that's two to four months of downtime nearly forced on pcs. If pcs do go out adventuring in the winter and conditions are bad, they will find themselves taking lots of environmental damage and exhaustion, and possibly dying. It's enough of an issue that most groups happily pass the winter as downtime.

Now, I also use fairly liberal training rules. I'll let pcs spend 250 days of downtime to learn a skill, tool, language, armor, or weapon proficiency, and sometimes other things. There's a mad monk in the mountains who can train a monk in a special fighting technique. A pc spent 250 days of DT to learn to make an airship. Another spent the time to learn proficiency in the law. And so on. So there are incentives to using downtime. Also, I make heavy use of factions (all custom), and earning renown in your faction is another good DT option.