Calculating XP drives me crazy

[carpedavid]

2) Instead of losing a level with a death & Raise Dead why not use a negative level model
-1 to attacks/saves/ability checks/skill checks
loss of one of the highest level spell slots
loss of one HD worth of hit points (Wiz/Sor -4, Rog/Brd -6, Clr/Drd -8, Ftr/Pal - 10, Brb -12)
Until a new level is gained, at which point one of these death/raise dead induced negative levels goes away

I like this idea with a small twist - make negative levels something that can only be removed through a special quest/ceremony/etc. Perhaps the character comes back under the effect of a quest/geas, and only through the completion of the quest is the negative level removed. If the character never completes the quest, the negative level never goes away.

 

[Pbartender]

The Most Evil Idea E.V.A.R.!

Group XP. That's right, group XP. Calculate how much XP the whole group needs (which is not that bad), and hand out 120% of that over the course of an adventure. When anyone needs to cast an XP spell, make an item, or lose XP for whatever reason, take it form the pool.

Make your players deal with each other's decisions.

-- N

Funny thing... That's exactly what I was thinking of doing for my next Iron Heroes game.

 

[Piratecat]

So folks know, I suggested the "AP + convertible pool" instead of all APs because I didn't want to effectively increase the XP pool for items and spells by an extra 5000 xp. At low levels, that would be problematic.

(To explain, remember that it's 5 AP + an XP pool. If you just give out AP that are convertible into an XP pool, that gives 1st level characters an extra 5000 xp to make items with. )

You know, I'm really liking the negative level penalty mitigated by a quest. It balances death, it is dramatic, and it provides plot hooks. The only problem comes when an ongoing plot makes it tough to take time out for side adventures. It's simple, too, and my goal is to come up with a rule that is so easy to remember that I'll never have to look it up.

Why not just take a page from Star Wars D20 and assign a set amount of XP per session?

Because I'd like everyone to go up levels at the same time. Assigning set experience solves the "it's a pain to calculate" problem, but still has people levelling unevenly.

I also like action points in the sense that if someone does something absolutely brilliant or heroic, you can award them one. It's a tradeoff for awarding bonus xp, one with an immediate mechanical benefit.

 

[wmasters]

I've got a similar dislike for XP calculations, I've always overlooked it and used ballpark adventure XP awards anyway. That said, since often I run RP/intruige with a splash of combat rather than the other way around, the XP system doesn't work well for me anyway.

I like the AP system outlined as an idea, at least for high fantasy heroics etc, where I think APs work well.

My solution was to abandon XP penalties altogether. I've never DM'd a group where PCs can cast wish etc (I think the highest level I've DM'd was 14th) so that's never been a problem. It's rare that my PCs actually take the magic item creation feats as well, but it's happened. In that case, the player made his item and acknowledged that he was going to be a bit behind the party. But he had a snazzy item, and wasn't far behind.

Raise Dead I've always made difficult anyway. I bring back PCs at full level, with something looming such as a quest, or curse or somesuch depending on how they were brought back. But I tend to work with dead is dead. I kill PCs rarely, but if I do then normally it's permanent.

 

[Davek]

How about instead of XP penalties and costs, developing a 'Value' based costing system appropriate to your world. I.e. casting a spell might consume X GP in materials, PLUS you must sacrifice Y GP's worth of items( any items or specific items). The GP costs listed would be you prep costs, and the XP costs/penalties would be what is consumed by the magic. If 5000 XP is equivalent to lets say 1/3 of a level's XP ( or whatever) then the GP cost would be similar to 1/3 the GP allotment for that same level. Obviously there would have to be adjustments to account for level changes but a simple matrix should be easy to develop.

Example: Mage casts wish, but will need to sacrifice a +3 weapon (or equivalent) to power the spell.

This also helps to control treasure Smaller items you just adjust the GP costs to create.

 

[carpedavid]

You know, I'm really liking the negative level penalty mitigated by a quest. It balances death, it is dramatic, and it provides plot hooks. The only problem comes when an ongoing plot makes it tough to take time out for side adventures. It's simple, too, and my goal is to come up with a rule that is so easy to remember that I'll never have to look it up.

In thinking a bit more about this, the negative level penalty would have interesting in-game effects.

Because any creature with negative levels equal to its positive levels is instantly slain, this would mean that 1st level creatures would never be able to be raised. 1 level + 1 negative level = dead. This could explain (beyond the cost of casting it), why 1st level commoners, aristocrats, and such can't just raise everyone they feel like: The prince's son was slain by assassins? Oh well, guess he'll just have the high priest raise him.

It could also be played up in game, for those that do get raised. Say the prince's wife (a 4th level aristocrat) does get killed and then raised. Now she's plagued by nightmares of the nether realms, is pale and withdrawn, and is constantly ill, reflecting the penalties that the negative level imposes. Or something like that. For characters, it could be much the same - they feel "haunted" by the touch of the spirit world until they "cleanse" themselves of the negative level.

At a metagame level, this would allow DMs to determine how much of a penalty the neagative level really plays. For those that don't mind constantly ressurected characters, the quest might involve donating 5 gp to the local temple. For those that like their death more permanent, the quest might involve, say, establishing world peace. I suspect that most DMs would fall somewhere between the two.

 

[The_Warlock]

I definitely like this whole AP and XP pool concept. Long before any of the D20 stuff added Action Points, I stole the Charisma based Last Resort points from Alternity for my D&D game.

As far as death penalty, I'm with the folks with the various negative level rules. I modified the raise/res spells after reading the material from The Game Mechanics.

Here's what I do:

Raise dead imposes a number of Negative levels on the character so raised equal to his Current level less one (ie, a 10th level character suffers 9 negative levels). These negative levels come back at a rate of 1 per day of complete bed rest. I allow restoration, wish, et al spells to remove no more than half of those negative levels, any remainder MUST be done via resting. Players can also spend their AP/Last resort points on a 1 for 1 basis to eliminate such neg levels (no limitation).

Res is the same, but only applies Half the character's current level in neg levels.

True Res applies only a single negative level, but it cannot be removed by any means but rest.

Reincarnation applies the Character level less 1 amount of neg levels, but the last neg level fades only after the character has been active in their new body for a full week.

And here's the killer - if a character dies, is brought back, and then dies again before
the previous neg levels have vanished, they are still present for the next attempt - thus a character brought back by raise dead cannot be brought back after a second quick death, since they would have more negative levels than actual levels. If they had reduced the negative levels by more than half their normal character level, they could be resurrected or true res'd, thus requiring a more potent spellcaster - and thus more XP or material components on the party's part, or a favor to a more powerful spellcaster.

EDIT: And like carpedavid mentioned, which I just saw after posting - the caveat in my rewrites is that 1st level characters can't be raised.

Thanks for posting this. I actually use the CR and XP system fairly extensively (and use Arcady's auto-calc html page to figure the numbers out) - but I like the methods you've described. Very intriguing.

 

[Spatzimaus]

My initial thought is that people will tend to hoard the things if they don't disappear, and hording is inherently less fun than using them.

The flip side, though, is if you feel you're getting close to a level, you'd go on a spending spree under a "use it or lose it" system. Make a ton of magic items, use Limited Wish a dozen or so times, reroll every single bad roll in an important fight, that sort of thing. It's bad enough that some players seem to do ridiculous things when their character's a few XP short of a level. One way you could get around this would be to allow them to store APs and XPs, but cap it at two level's worth (10 APs and 1000*level XP); since they'd be hitting the cap fairly quickly they won't just keep storing it, and there's less incentive to spend a ton on short notice.

Really, I think what you want is a system that encourages them to slowly spend the points as they go, and I think a big part of the imbalance is the fact that they're getting a BIG lump sum of points every time they level.

I know, it's a bit heretical, but how about this?
> Break each adventure into "episodes" of a few sessions each. Each episode usually ends with some significant event, like a boss fight.
> At the end of each episode, each player chooses N rewards, where you set N based on their levels and the amount of stuff that's happened during that episode.
> Each reward is one of the following:
1 AP which MUST be used during the next episode and can't be stored beyond that, OR
500 XP for crafting/spells/death, which can be stored indefinitely, up to a maximum of 500 XP per level, and can be transferred to other players on a 2:1 basis.
> So, if N=3, you could choose 3 AP, 2 AP and 500 XP, 1 AP and 1000 XP, or 1500 XP. Most people would gravitate towards the middle options, IMO; since you can't store the AP for long people would shy away from the 3 AP extreme, while the only people going for pure XP would be heavy crafters (who are generally crafting for the good of the party) and those paying off a death (below).
> The death penalty can be gradually reduced by spending your stored XP; you can't buy it all off in one shot, but by spending a bit at a time you slowly get your abilities back as you go. For instance, let's say a death at level 12 gave you a "debt" of 12000 XP (yes, I played CoH). Each lost level is broken into four pieces, costing 3000 XP (i.e., 250*level) each:
BAB and saves
HP and spell slots
Skill points and Feats
Class abilities (turning, sneak attack, familiar/mount abilities, you name it)
So, once you've stored up (250*level) XP in your XP pool you could buy back some of the lost abilities, one bit at a time. Obviously some classes depend more on one category than another, so you can get your most critical stuff back almost immediately if you've been storing some XP. If you've lost multiple levels, you can't start buying back the second one until you've completely paid off the first one. In a more flexible game system you'd have an individual price tag for each ability, I suppose, but this should work well enough.

 

[Abraxas]

Posted by Piratecat
So folks know, I suggested the "AP + convertible pool" instead of all APs because I didn't want to effectively increase the XP pool for items and spells by an extra 5000 xp. At low levels, that would be problematic.

You could always set a limit on the number of APs converted to XP during a given level for a character, maybe Character Level - 4, so that up until 5th level they couldn't spend any on XP.

 

[Lorehead]

Well, here's my attempt at an alternative XP system. It doesn't sound as if it meets all your requirements, but it would at least eliminate the need for a spreadsheet.

If your two major goals are to keep the PCs at the same level and to keep the system simple, I suggest abolishing XP entirely. You could simply choose appropriate moments for the entire party to level up. Also consider eliminating any kind of mechanical penalty for revived or new characters. Your PCs have access to true resurrection anyway. Alternatively, or in addition, you could throw in a subplot a chapter or two down the road to enables a character who falls behind to catch up again. This duplicates the catch-up effect of the existing rules.

The XP pool is a good idea, I think, but you may want to allow other party members to contribute XP to spellcasters without restriction, particularly if they're the ones to benefit from the wish or the item. Perhaps the item attunes to the bearer in some way if the bearer's life force spurred its creation. Consider adding a fixed number of XP points for spellcasting and item creation with each new level, instead of resetting the value. Alternatively: group XP pool, which grows at a fixed rate as the party gains level.

I have no experience with action points, so I can't suggest any useful house rules for them.