"But I'm THIS close to a new level..."

[Piratecat]

This is why I have my "Peeps for Eeps" program. Eat a stale Peep, earn an undisclosed amount of xp. the older and staler the Peep, the more XP!

 

[isoChron]

(Btw, if a character dies we houserule they lose a full level based on the % of where they were. This eliminates the 'extra fear' of dying as you approach the next level.)

We do, too. This little math operation isn't that hard or often to do. So why punish someone for dying at the wrong time ? He is punished enough in losing a level.

 

[Darmanicus]

My group has the Standing Beer Rule, where who ever brings the DM the most Beer from the fridge that night gets extra XP. You should see some of the fights that have broken out when the DM takes that last swig from his Killians, its like everyone's eyes get as big as saucers and people start jumping over the couch and shoving each other out of the way. And I just sit back and think, "Man its good to be the DM."

I like this considering I'm the ONLY person who ever brings beer to the session.

Morrus, please take note.

 

[Psion]

I sometimes massage around some numbers behind the screen if I realize a PC is close. Frex, at the end of last session, I knew it was going to be 3 weeks before we play again, and that would give the players a long time to consider their changes for the next level, do the leveling up OUT OF GAME TIME for once, etc., and we had one PC that was close to getting a level that she would enter a prestige class that is pretty pivotal to the game (a Druid taking up Tender of Worlds PrC in my River of Worlds game.)

First pass at the XP awards, and factoring in that we didn't play as long nor do as much as we did the session before, it wasn't looking like she was going to make level. So I did a sort of "recount" in which I noticed that I was factoring in a non-active pc in the party average level (which I use as the basis for my XP calculation); removing the inactive PC was enough to put her over the top.

But usually, once I actually TELL the player the xp total, the numbers have been massaged around already and it's too late.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Nowadays I don't use XP anymore anyway. I just say "you have all experienced enough to gain a level".

No one has XP expenditure feats though ... so I've got to come up with a replacement for that situation, however for now its been working marvelously.

If you give out action/hero points, you can substiute some measure of those for XP (e.g. 1 point = 100 xp). For item creation, the action point(s) can be donated by the recipient of the item, it does not have to come from the creator of the item.

If you don't use them, then I would say upping the GP cost by about 20% would work. For spells with XP costs without expensive material components (I think there are a couple, aren't there?), just create an expensive material component as a substitute.

 

[Pasus Nauran]

And this is why I stopped giving out numerical XP at any point during a campaign. I keep rough track of it in my notes and then tell PCs when they level. Unless they're burning XP to make items etc I really don't stay strictly to the numbers for each and every fiendish dire goblin they kill

This is what my DM has done for our current campaign, and (I find I works really well. In our previous campaigns, we would all be itching because we were close to levelling. If we were a bit behind, the DM would allow us to paint our minis, write a background on our characters (or another), or other small things like that.

Under our curent campaign, the DM keeps track of our XP, only giving us rough clues as to how close we are to levelling (such as: "About half-way there"). He tells us when we've levelled, but only when we actually have the down time (roughly 1 week of in-game time) to level.

In addition, we have a rewards system, where at the beginning of each session each player is given 3 poker chips. At any point during the session you can give chips to someone - usually for doing something you find worthy of a reward. At the end of the session, your chip count is tallied, and a small amount of reward XP is given to players with more than their default 3 chips (as a player, I'm not sure of the specifics of how this XP reward system works). It's great for me though, as being the party crafter, I have players give me reward chips if I craft them items, to make up for the XP cost.

 

[Thanee]

in the old edition when you needed like 25,001 for the next level we had lots of times when npeople were 1xsp short of that level. I had a rule, if they were withing 100xp of a level after 5th level they could gain the level but they didn't gain any XP. So, it was a level one session early. Without that rule, I'd have people climing walls for a level or killing ants for a level....

And what if someone is 1 XP short of being 100 XP short of the next level?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I haven't done this in a long time, but if a PC was that close to leveling up, we would run a short role-playing only session. Something simple like going to a bar, market, or a family gathering. I found that it encouraged character-development, and generally didn't take a lot of planning.

 

[Hand of Evil]

To me this is one of those things a DM needs to keep hidden from his players, XP is kept from them until they gain a new level, the DM uses it as a gauge and the players do not use it as a goal.

 

[ARandomGod]

If characters are close to leveling at the end of a session, I just tell them to go ahead and level... I don't give them any Xp however. They'll still need to "earn" that xtra 100 or 50 or whatever XP, they're just doing better (leveled) a very tiny bit faster than 'normal'.