D&D 5E What Single Thing Would You Eliminate

[Reynard]

Lots of things, many of which have been mentioned in the thread. But if I'm choosing only one:

I would break the link between the "XP budget" used to build encounters and the XP award given for completing those encounters. Once you have more experienced players (note: players, not characters), it's likely that you'll want to use tougher encounters to challenge them. But, as written, that has the net effect of boosting XP awards and speeding the rate at which the game progresses.

It is probably too much work and book keeping but some system that awarded XP based on how tough or resource intensive the encounter actually turned out might be interesting. "You took 25 damage during that fight and used 3 spells, so that's 150XP" or the like.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is probably too much work and book keeping but some system that awarded XP based on how tough or resource intensive the encounter actually turned out might be interesting. "You took 25 damage during that fight and used 3 spells, so that's 150XP" or the like.

That would create a perverse incentive to take as much damage as possible during a fight without actually losing.

 

[billd91]

They could always have gone back to old-school M:tG terminology and called it "interrupt"...

Those would be Reactions in 5e parlance...

 

[billd91]

It is probably too much work and book keeping but some system that awarded XP based on how tough or resource intensive the encounter actually turned out might be interesting. "You took 25 damage during that fight and used 3 spells, so that's 150XP" or the like.

Paizo introduced a few ideas along those lines back in their 4th AP - but achievements like that are a PitA to keep track of. That's why they only work really well for video games where the relevant data can be tracked with the kind of precision and monotony a computer excels at.

 

[Reynard]

Paizo introduced a few ideas along those lines back in their 4th AP - but achievements like that are a PitA to keep track of. That's why they only work really well for video games where the relevant data can be tracked with the kind of precision and monotony a computer excels at.

I vaguely recall MERP or Rolemaster giving out XP for damage taken.

 

[nevin]

Darkvision for any pc race. Just make it a monster ability

 

[Charlaquin]

Dungeon World’s XP system is pretty cool. You get 1 XP every time you roll a failure (6 or under), and at the end of the session you get 1XP if the party learned something new and important about the world, 1XP if they defeated a notable monster or enemy, 1XP if they looted a notable treasure, 1XP if you fulfilled your alignment move, and 1 XP if you resolved a bond and created a new one.

 

[ART!]

Ideas, bonds, flaws never seen this used. Just takes extra space on the character sheet.

I find these very useful for thinking about my character as I'm making them, but after chargen I rarely look at them.

Just out out of curiosity: how do you incorporate player agency into milestone leveling? I ask because usually "milestone leveling" is either number os sessions, or some story gate, and neither of those things really says "agency."

If you're not railroading the story, then your players have agency. Maybe you think milestone leveling is inherently railroad-y?

Like so many things in D&D, milestone leveling is an abstraction I'm prepared to accept in the interest of not getting lost in the weeds.

That doesn't address the issue of milestone leveling at all.

There is no "issue" of milestone leveling - either it works for you or it doesn't.

My group's been playing 5E weekly for over 4 years, we've used milestone leveling only, and are having a blast.

I would eliminate Agency as a virtue in and of itself.

Speaking from fairly recent personal experience in a game where the players and characters had very little agency (the DM had a story he wanted to basically just walk us through, and didn't tell us this ahead of time), agency is everything. It got to the point where we would have our characters try to do fairly basic things and the DM would just ignore us or say "No." That's a lack of agency.

I asked about player agency specifically in the context of milestones and how milestones often boil down to "GM fiat."

Lots of things in D&D are left to DM fiat. Milestone leveling frees the DM up from tracking XP, and tracking XP is a deal-breaker for some DMs.

I've played in individual-xp games where certain players/PCs still hung back and let others take the risk, leading to both in-character and at-the-table resentment; had it been a milestone or group-xp system it would have been even worse.

IME it's a mix. Some - like me - usually want to stick their noses in it. Others don't; and as long as the reward matches the risk I'm more or less cool with this. It's when those who don't take the risks end up getting the rewards anyway (we see this most often in treasury division) that tees me off.

One of the advantages of milestone leveling is that it levels the playing field between players who are very social and proactive/aggressive and players who are less so.

That would create a perverse incentive to take as much damage as possible during a fight without actually losing.

So, like Indiana Jones and practically every pop-culture action hero ever?

 

[Reynard]

If you're not railroading the story, then your players have agency. Maybe you think milestone leveling is inherently railroad-y?

Like so many things in D&D, milestone leveling is an abstraction I'm prepared to accept in the interest of not getting lost in the weeds.

The way I see it it is this: The first level PCs arrive in the town at the edge of the wilds. There's an old mill infested with rats down by the river, a purportedly haunted mansion on top of the hill said to still hold the family's secret treasure vault, and an ancient border keep a few miles away where hobgoblins have made a forward base, probably with nefarious goals.

What tracking XP does that I don't think milestone leveling can do is allow the players to decide amongst themselves which of those things they want to take on, weighing for themselves the risk versus reward involved (with a significant chunk of that reward being XP). Tracking XP in a granular way also lets PCs probe any of these and only push it as far as they want to before pulling back. They are rewarded for what they actually choose to do (if they survive), not based on how many sessions they play or other arbitrary goals.

 

[billd91]

The way I see it it is this: The first level PCs arrive in the town at the edge of the wilds. There's an old mill infested with rats down by the river, a purportedly haunted mansion on top of the hill said to still hold the family's secret treasure vault, and an ancient border keep a few miles away where hobgoblins have made a forward base, probably with nefarious goals.

What tracking XP does that I don't think milestone leveling can do is allow the players to decide amongst themselves which of those things they want to take on, weighing for themselves the risk versus reward involved (with a significant chunk of that reward being XP). Tracking XP in a granular way also lets PCs probe any of these and only push it as far as they want to before pulling back. They are rewarded for what they actually choose to do (if they survive), not based on how many sessions they play or other arbitrary goals.

That's not really a difference in agency if each group is free to choose how far they interact with a particular location or break off. It's just explicitly interacting with a particular reward mechanism as implemented by the group.