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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GM Dave" data-source="post: 5860169" data-attributes="member: 6687992">1>  With the campaign that I started in Jan (played 9 sessions) I dropped XP completely.  I put the advancement in the hands of the players.  If they want a level then I let them have a vote.  IF one third vote No then they stay at their current level and if 2/3 vote to advance then they go up a level.  I leave it up to the players to advance as fast or as slow as they want.  If they find a sweet spot they are enjoying playing at then they might not advance at all.2>  If you do go in for some sort of XP calculation then the idea of a 'balanced' party is going to lead you into trouble.  I know that I game with 9 people and some days I have all 9 and some days I have four or five.  My encounters need to adjust on the fly since I never know till I get to the game night (and sometimes an hour into the night) how many players I have for a particular encounter (even then players are like cats and run off on other things meaning not the whole group is always present for a battle).3>  I gauge toughness of an encounter in two ways.The first way is how much resources the players expended to win the encounter.  This is often related to the amount of damage or long term effects that the monsters did to the players. (This is the danger value)For example if an encounter lasted five rounds an all the monsters did was put a single player to sleep each round then the encounter cost the players very little in resources (no healing, no money, no limited supplies ~ dispels, remove curses, cure poisons, remove diseases).For another example if an encounter ends with each player contracting Mummies Rot then this a tough encounter as the players will need to spend considerable resources getting each person cleared of the curse (which could take days or weeks).The second way is how long it takes the players to overcome the obstacle.  (This is the slog value).A battle or obstacle that is cleared in a single round is an easier challenge because their are many opportunities to access resources outside of the encounter which are more difficult to do inside of an encounter (getting the remove curse scroll from the backpack which is likely buried towards the bottom or the rarely needed folding boat).  A battle or obstacle that lasts five or ten rounds encourages players to dig through their supplies of easily replaceable things into their more limited resources (in PF a level 3 Wizard has only so many spells per day and if they cast a spell on every round of a combat then they will quickly go dry on a long slog.  The same goes for the archer who is firing two or more arrows around unless the DM gives them an infinite quiver of arrows).  Small amounts of damage if occuring every round will quickly add up in a slog fight (fighting inside a forest fire or house fire will wear down even paragon fighters).4>  XP considerations need to consider the comparable value and learning of actions without combat.  That is unless you just want to play dungeon hack.</blockquote>

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