Different XP progressions as a means of class balance?

[Ahnehnois]

I thought creating your character meant choosing what you want to do with that character. How does choosing your class at creation cause you to loose control of your character?

Because if you (before you have ever played your character) say that you are a fighter, it means that you can never learn spells, develop an effective sneak attack, or even fly into a barbarian rage. Both fictional characters and real people develop and change over time, and often end up being unrecognizable from what they were when they started.

I guess I look at characters differently because the idea of class for me is choosing my method of adventuring.

I don't look at D&D as a a means toward a class build.

Um, neither do I. That one's a nonsequitur to me.

I hated having to wait until I gained a level before being able to add a class. I hated having to give up class related abilities because I chose a second class.

I see where that would be a problem. The "apprentice level" rules in the 3.0 DMG kind of addressed that.

I hated having to plot out every detail of my character so I could qualify for a less than ideal prestige class to avoid experience penalties or the loss of spell levels or the multitude of other annoying factors that system foisted on me as a player.

You realize you don't have to do any of those things, right? I'm more concerned with what the rules tell me I can't do than with the doffculty of managing the things they tell me I can.

If I want to play a fighter/thief I certainly don't want to be a crappy fighter and a useless thief. I want to be good at both. I'll take an experience point hit or slower leveling, especially if there are only 20 levels to gain before there's no reason to keep playing my character.

Hey, I'm on board with you there. Not all multiclass combinations worked in 3e. There's definitely room for improvement there.

I hated the unnecessary complications the 3e multiclassing system caused me as a DM.

Guess I don't see that one. I never found it complicated.

as for the not using experience points, well go to it and have fun. It just ain't D&D to me. But I come from a time when you needed to track them or you didn't level up. There was a time when you got xp for a lot of things. You got bonuses for high ability scores. you lost experience under certain conditions. In other systems it eas used to pay for item creation. I guess in the latest iteration of the game you didn't really need them but from what I could see you don't need a DM either. Just a consensus of the rules and a grid to fight on.

Let's see, the last statement I pretty much agree with. The first part I just don't see. Regardless of the implementation, XP is conceptually a metagame rule. It's simply a scoring system, a mechanism for determining the rate at which you advance. It is thus a very labile concept. I can't see why someone would take a hardline approach on it. I can't imagine that a majority of groups *ever* used the XP system as written.

 

[Grazzt]

Is this still a viable means to help "balance" the classes?

Yep. IMHO it is.

 

[Tallifer]

I still can't believe there are DM's who don't use the experience point system in their games. Perhaps including more xp related rules might curb this too.

I never calculate experience points as a dungeon master, and I just arbitrarily award them to the players who ask for them. Levels and treasure come from the coöperative story. As a player I never want them: I usually just ask for a level (or a half-level like in Rolemaster) or a chance to improve skills when the story makes a natural break or a great event has ended.

 

[Tallifer]

I reject the old method of different experience point progressions partly because I do not want to keep track.

As for the side issue of calculating experience for multi-classes and what-not, I sincerely hope that the Fifth Edition includes as many different methods of multi-classing as possible. With the caveat of "as possible."

1. Fourth Edition feats and power swaps.
2. Fourth Edition hybrid classes (similar to AD&D level 1 multi-class).
3. Pathfinder multi-classes (not sure how to balance that with #1).
4. Pathfinder Prestige classes.
5. Fourth Edition Themes.
6. Fourth Edition Paragon Paths.
7. Third Edition racial paragon classes.
8. Second Edition kits.

Let the designers figure out how to balance these, but it would be nice to see them.

 

[Lanefan]

Every game I've been in when people are different levels for any reason, a problem of some sort arises.

People beg for XP.
The higher levels are asked to do more.
The lower level PC controllers get gloomy

Hell, I beg for XP even if I'm the highest-level character in the group!

More seriously, those sound like red flags indicating problem players; particularly the last one.

As for the side issue of calculating experience for multi-classes and what-not, I sincerely hope that the Fifth Edition includes as many different methods of multi-classing as possible. With the caveat of "as possible."

Where I would not shed any tears at all if multi-classing went away completely.

If it has to stay, the simplest solution is to do the following:

1. Put a hard-and-fast rule down that states a character cannot have more than (two? three?) classes, period.
2. Use XP tables - they can be all the same or different between classes, doesn't matter for this purpose.
3. The player decides where XP earned are going to go, as a ratio, and can change this ratio between each adventure if so desired. Thus, you could go 75% Fighter/25% Thief, 50-50, or whatever; with each class always having to get a minimum of 10%.
4. The classes advance independently of each other.
4a. If you want to set it up that both classes always bump at the same time, just add the tables together. So, if Fighter bumps to 2nd at 2000 and Thief at 1400, you'd just note 3400 as your bump point and become 2-2 when you got that many.

If I want to play a fighter/thief I certainly don't want to be a crappy fighter and a useless thief. I want to be good at both. I'll take an experience point hit or slower leveling, especially if there are only 20 levels to gain before there's no reason to keep playing my character.

Well, in this example one of two things has to happen: either you're not as good at either as a single-class F or T with the same amount of experience, or you are as good as each (meaning that in total you're as good as both of them put together, as that's exactly what you are) and there goes in-party power balance - which many people here seem to hold sacred, for some reason.

Also, you're stuck in 3e-4e mode if you're expecting to get through 20 levels that fast. Slow down the advancement rate and you can play it till you drop.

Oh, and by the way I don't mind variable advancement by class at all.

Lanefan

 

[tlantl]

Well, in this example one of two things has to happen: either you're not as good at either as a single-class F or T with the same amount of experience, or you are as good as each (meaning that in total you're as good as both of them put together, as that's exactly what you are) and there goes in-party power balance - which many people here seem to hold sacred, for some reason.

Also, you're stuck in 3e-4e mode if you're expecting to get through 20 levels that fast. Slow down the advancement rate and you can play it till you drop.

Oh, and by the way I don't mind variable advancement by class at all.

Lanefan

Yes but the thing is I'd have to suffer a 50% xp penalty and there would be no way I'd be on par with either the fighter or thief were there any in the party I was in. As it works out, and you'd know this if you ever played 1e or 2e, you wouldn't be so far behind that it really hurt, but either of the single classed character's would be that much better than you. My friends and I played using this style of multiclassing for nearly 20 years before some yo-yo decided he had a better way to do things. A system that was so broken that when they decided to trash the thing for a new version multiclassing became virtually nonexistent.

I'm no expert on 4e rules but I've read enough on these forums to know that, that method of multiclassing a character in no way resembles anything that came before.

As for in party power balance, I'm not sure it matters. It certainly doesn't for me, but I like to play eccentric builds that are more likely to be able to do a lot of things even if the character can't do them extremely well. I'm all good with being in a party where I can't compete in a fight with the fighter, find traps as well as the cleric or rogue, and have no problem leaving the wizard behind when he blows all of his spells on one or two encounters.

The sad part is it's hard to find anyone who wants to DM a game so I wind up having to play henchmen hirelings and monsters all of the time. The good thing about that is I never sit around being bored.

 

[Libramarian]

I like different XP progressions. I can't see how they could be confusing to people of normal intelligence.

But more importantly, holy crap a lot of people play D&D without XP.

I think of XP as quite an important component of the fun the game brings on its own, irrespective of the people around the table making stuff up to entertain each other.

Playing D&D without XP seems to me analogous to moving a car around with your own feet, like the cars on the Flintstones.

 

[Stormonu]

If you wanted to do 3E-style multiclassing with class-variable XP, it would look something like this (and yes, it's a mess).

XP Needed__Level
________0___1
____1,000___2
____2,000___3
____4,000___4
____8,000___5
___16,000___6
___32,000___7
___64,000___8
__128,000___9
__256,000__10
_+100,000__11+

Thief, add +250 x Level
Fighter, add +500 x Level
Cleric, add +750 x Level
Wizard, add +750 x Level

If, for example, you started as a 1st level fighter, you would need 1,500 XP for 2nd level (1,000 + 500 x 1).

If you then wanted to take a level of wizard, you would need 5,000 XP (1,500 XP previously + 2,000 xp for 3rd + 750 x 2).

 

[S'mon]

Regardless of the implementation, XP is conceptually a metagame rule. It's simply a scoring system, a mechanism for determining the rate at which you advance.

It often gets treated that way these days (3e & especially 4e D&D), but the original conception was both simulationist and gamist - pre-3e it was both a gamist scoring system AND a simulationist measure of an individual player character's in-world experience and personal power. It definitely was NOT purely metagame, and saying so doesn't make it so.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I don't see any problem with different XP tables by class.

The only real advantage I see is that it makes it easier for the game designer to balance classes. Rather then trying to get everyone equally powerful at each level in painful detail, the designer simply can design each classes level progression in whatever way is natural for the class. Then adjust the xp table to correct any imbalance.

Frex, suppose that a 7th level mage is about equal in power to a 9th level thief. Just adjust the xp table so that it takes as many xp to reach 7th level as it does the thief to reach 9th level. You throw out the idea that same level PCs are equally strong, but that's no great loss. You have equal xp PCs equally strong instead.