Calculating XP drives me crazy

[RangerWickett]

Oh, please! There's lots to criticize about my gaming style. Luckily, that's a different thread.

As a quick aside regarding gaming style, Pkitty, if your PCs were driving in a car, and you had the military attack them with an F-16, what would the result be? My players keep giving me a hard time about not blowing them up with missiles from a mile away. Silly GM decided to give them 'Spot checks' and 'Reflex saves.'

I look forward to seeing how the system works. Hopefully you can get some 'data points,' as you call them, before I set about on my next campaign.

 

[Enkhidu]

Looks like I came a little late to the party, but here's an idea anyway:

Right now AP and XP in your new system are a function of level - and that works for games where training for level is the norm. But have you thought about reversing that? In core, level is already a function of XP, but what if instead level was a function of gained/spent AP?

For example: a starting PC would begin with 5 AP usable in all the ways you've outlined in your document. At the end of each session, you would award every PC (who's player showed up, to encourage attendance) 1 extra AP to add to their pool, as well as 1 or 2 extra APs for major victories, successfuly completing missions, etc.

Then, at the end of any session in which a PC had 10 (or maybe 10 +1/2 current level?) AP or more collected, they could spend that amount of AP to "purchase" a new level.

Now that I've written it, I'm not sure I like it - I think it would overly encourage hoarding. But if you included the addendum that PCs also needed to track AP spent over the past level, and that amount had to at least match(?) the amount of AP collected for level up, it might work.

 

[Destil]

One thing I might suggest is to add a bonus XP to the XP pool based on each item creation feat a charachter knows. That way it's less of a penelity (you use a feat slot and still need to burn XP to make the item)...

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

As a quick aside regarding gaming style, ...'

Quick aside back.. from my perspective..
Remember, I run CP2020...

I treat missiles kinda like a full round spell attack. The PC's would have to notice it {Spot check} and could react to it {Dive for cover} and hope they survive {Fort Save}
Just remember that in CP2020, your 'standard' anti-tank missile would deal somewhere around 5D10 damage to 'collateral' targets in the burst radius..and PC's have essentially 20 hit points before facing death... the only real hope to survive is either very good cover or ditching from the fast moving target in the hopes you are left outside of the blast radius.

 

[RangerWickett]

Quick aside back.. from my perspective..
Remember, I run CP2020...

I treat missiles kinda like a full round spell attack. The PC's would have to notice it {Spot check} and could react to it {Dive for cover} and hope they survive {Fort Save}
Just remember that in CP2020, your 'standard' anti-tank missile would deal somewhere around 5D10 damage to 'collateral' targets in the burst radius..and PC's have essentially 20 hit points before facing death... the only real hope to survive is either very good cover or ditching from the fast moving target in the hopes you are left outside of the blast radius.

One PC did jump out of the car. The other PC was a Hispanic mage named Jesus. What can I say? Jesus saves.

 

[Piratecat]

A good pun is its own reword.

I think I would have had the missile strike the road just in front of the car, causing the car to drive into the crater and horribly crash. With all the dust in the air, the heroes probably wouldn't have been seen if they jumped out of the car before it exploded. It's a tough situation to put yourself in, though, because either you slaughter the PCs or you strain credibility. The other good solution is to have another car of the same make and model tear past the PCs at high speeds, drunk kids tossing beer bottles out the window -- and the military mistakes that car for the PCs'.

Back on subject, Enkhidu, I think you've already caught the tricky part of your suggestion. What you propose would ensure that no PC would EVER spend an action point. It would also make sure that they wouldn't level simultaneously, which is one of my goals.

Destil, your suggestion is interesting, but for my purposes I'm not sure it's necessary. The benefit of multiple item creation feats is that you can create different kinds of cool stuff. I'm not convinced that giving folks an xp bonus based on how many item creation feats they have is a good idea, because they'd be using those feats anyways - and the feats themselves provide a huge benefit. Now item creation doesn't impact levelling up, and I expect to see slightly more item creation with this system. I'd only consider adding an xp bonus if the tradeoffs weren't good enough for anyone to make stuff.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Actually, more than the XP system, I'll be interested to see how you feel about action points after you've played with them for a while.

I ran an eberron game for about a year, and in the end I decided I didn't really like action points all that much. It creates a pretty big shift in the effectiveness of magic and special abilities on the PCs -- that bonus of +1d6 or so to their saving throws makes it a lot more likely that they're going to make their saves, especially when they really need it (which tends to be the point at which a failed save would be the most interesting). It puts the DM in the position of needing to use a bit more brute force to put PCs out on the razor's edge.

Your experience may vary -- you level your players far less frequently than a standard campaign, and that means that the PCs will need to save their APs for special occassions, but still. It'll be interesting to see what you think.

-rg

 

[coyote6]

P-cat, the PHB II web enhancement is about non-casters/crafters transfering XP for item creation.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I would appreciate some input on this idea for XP: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=163775

 

[Piratecat]

P-cat, the PHB II web enhancement is about non-casters/crafters transfering XP for item creation.

Reeeeeally? Thanks!

It looks like they're happy with a 1:1 ratio, which probably won't work with my action point system. I'll be really interested to see how things play out the next time my group creates items.