AD&D1 training rules

[Bullgrit]

we always thought it somewhat creepy that the DM would be grading the players.

If your players perform badly, do not allow their characters to increase in experience level. Be most judicious in how you handle awards to player characters. Allowing foolish and ignorant players to advance their characters to high levels reflects badly upon the game and even more so upon the Dungeon Master who allowed such a travesty to occur. In effect, it is the excellence of the DM which is judged when the caliber of play by any group is discussed. Keep yours high!

Bullgrit

 

[Ariosto]

You are thinking of the Basic D&D rules. The Advanced D&D rules say xp gain stops at the minimum for 2nd level. So the thief would stop at 1,251.

I am thinking of DMG p. 86:

Thus, a character who successfully adventures and gains experience points which not only equal a new level but are almost sufficient to gain yet a second level, cannot opt to forego the period of training and study necessary to go up a level in favor of gaining a few more points and training and studying for two levels at once.

(bold added) The next sentence, in all caps, refers to points EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN the number needed to gain a level.

It certainly is odd to need more g.p. than XP to gain a level. The cost is astounding. Cunning players may consider the advantages of becoming trainers, and inquire of the DM as to the possibility ... and the rate (if any) at which training fees translate to XP ...

 

[MerricB]

It certainly is odd to need more g.p. than XP to gain a level. The cost is astounding. Cunning players may consider the advantages of becoming trainers, and inquire of the DM as to the possibility ... and the rate (if any) at which training fees translate to XP ...

For training peasants, I'd say, not much.

Training an orc or giant horde? Yeah, that's worth the XP.

Sure, you might be helping train the monsters you later kill, but it's all in a day's work for the AD&D adventurer!

Cheers!

 

[Ariosto]

That's something to consider: fewer XP to waste if some of the awards are pro-rated for "easy" scores.

As to the average ratio of treasure to monsters:

If you play the averages, then your worries about training fees are probably over, because, on average, you're dead.

"All else being equal", a D&D player's goal is to make sure nothing is equal. That also fits the job description of thieves!

 

[Riley]

We used the training rules as written, but my longstanding AD&D game had an alternate houserule: no xp for treasure.

Advancement was really slow, but there was usually plenty of gold for training.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

The only time we used them, the group politely mutinied against the GM! We found them truely annoying and counter-intuitive. The rest of the time we ignored the XP for gold rule as well. (It was our contentention that we didn't need to train because we were getting, y'know, experience [points] as Adventurers by... adventuring!

Of course, we then ended up having tons of money we had no use for and leveling slowly, but it was all good.

 

[MerricB]

That's something to consider: fewer XP to waste if some of the awards are pro-rated for "easy" scores.

Ariosto, have you ever run or played in a game where XP is adjusted for treasure and monsters according to the difficulty of the encounter?

(The one time it is explicitly stated in a AD&D adventure that it isn't 1:1 is in Tomb of Horrors, as I recall - a 1 xp for every 2 gp taken from the dungeon).

Cheers!

 

[pawsplay]

Stricly from a simulation perspective, 150 gp x new level seems more in line with other NPC-related costs, but training seems to have been explicitly conceived to strip PCs of their cash. In my 3e campaign, I've watched dizzying advancement rates, which is actually quite nice for the campaign I'm running, but I think for a hypothetical future game, I'd like some kind of training rules in place to limit PCs to a few levels gained per game year.

 

[Lanefan]

We still use training rules, but we've houseruled the hell out of 'em...

1. No ExP for treasure, leading to
1a. Somewhat faster advancement tables after the first few levels (but still way slower than RAW in any edition)
2. You can gain ExP after bumping (we interpreted the original rule to mean you stopped completely at 1 point into the new level, hardly satisfactory) but if you go too far into the new level without training your ExP gain starts to slow down and eventually almost grind to a halt, based on a formula.
3. Training cost is roughly [1000 g.p. per level being trained into], with slight variance for class and a bit of a randomizer built in. Someone else has to train you, until about name level at which point you can mostly train yourself and the training system changes sharply.
4. Training usually takes between about 7-14 days, unless you are a Bard in which case it's about triple that. For some less-common classes at mid-high levels, a bigger time-sink can be the travel required to *find* a trainer.
5. If you cannot or will not pay for training you can advance at half speed and "self-train" (this, for example, explains how a Ranger who never sees anyone else can still gain levels over time). We've never really used the servitude option, mostly because nobody wants to retire their character for long enough to make it worthwhile and they've usually got lots of money anyway.
6. You roll your new level's h.p. as soon as you bump, and gain half of them right then. The rest, along with all other abilities given by the new level, have to wait until you train.

Lanefan

 

[Ariosto]

Ariosto, have you ever run or played in a game where XP is adjusted for treasure and monsters according to the difficulty of the encounter?

I have played in quite a few, but fairly early discarded it (at least as formulaic routine) in my -- mostly OD&D -- DMing.

I have not found it a necessary discouragement to players farting around on upper dungeon levels that offer little challenge (thereby leaving me an exorbitant amount of restocking to do for the next batch of less experienced explorers).

The small amount of treasure to be had in the first place, relative to needs that generally double from one level to the next, has so far seemed to suffice. One thing I do, though, is boost the hoards on the third level a bit. Second-level characters operating on the 1st dungeon level get a chance to stretch a little ... and learn not to over-extend themselves!

I may be a bit of a "softy" because I like to speed a little the process of getting up to 4th level. Experienced players typically start at 4th-5th (the latter for, e.g., thieves, given the XP "kicker") -- unless they prefer to do the "zero to hero" thing again.