Do you use D&D XP system as written?

[Whisper72]

I kinda wing XP. I have a 'general idea' of how long I want players to enjoy playing a certain level and when they are ready for gaining a level and adjust XP for that. This means that in some cases PC's may gain a level in one session (if a lot happens), at other times, several entire adventures may be needed.

 

[shilsen]

Sounds like a party of fighters and rogues...cause I can't imagine any game where a 9th level caster didn't use gate.

Whereas I can't imagine a game where 9th lvl casters cast Gate. A 19th lvl wizard, on the other hand ...

 

[megamania]

NO

I look up what the book says then add or subtract according to what I think they deserved. Some CR 13s are not the same as other CR 13s. Especially since my group are more Smash it down and quick type of style.

 

[EricNoah]

No XP. I tell the players when to level up.

 

[Richards]

Ugh, I would absolutely die in a setup like this...I play D&D to have fun, and to me, having fun involves leveling up frequently. Everyone in our group has a lot of real world time constraints, and it's nice to not have to worry about missing a game now and then. The advancement even as written is just too slow for my taste. I found myself saying "that's it?" every single time I calculated the party's XP based on the CR table. I found myself doubling and even tripling those awards. I want to actually play high level D&D without starting at level 18.

Well, different strokes for different folks, of course, and there's no "wrong" way to do it as long as everyone's having fun. I've got some relatively inexperienced players, however, and it helps them to "settle in" to their abilities at every level without having to learn new spells/abilities/whatnot before they're used to the last batch they got from the previous level.

By the way, I love your screen name.

Johnathan

 

[hagor]

Wing it. I haven't even read the rules about CR-XP.

Like others have said before, I award XP in such a way to keep PCs advancing at a rate suitable for me and the story. I also give some bonus points for clever thinking, fine roleplaying, etc.

In my last campaign I gave XP when a sub-adventure was finished, but in the next, I'll award XP per session.

Hagor

 

[wedgeski]

As written, pretty much. In a party of five PC's it's pretty easy to calculate XP per CR, and since we play for complete weekends once every one or two months, I calculate all XP awards after the session is complete.

Since I'm DM'ing a published adventure at the moment, I'm sticking to the book, but in my next home-brew campaign which will hopefully be more frequent than this one, I'll be slicing XP in half across the board. Advancement is way too fast otherwise.

I just can't get my head around hand-waved "Okay guys, you level up today" systems.

 

[diaglo]

i don't use a PHB.

 

[Piratecat]

Ugh, I would absolutely die in a setup like this. My weekly group tends to go for quality over quantity and we fight 1 or 2 knock-down drag-out battles per session. If that group played this way we'd level up once every four months...and say goodbye to item creation!

Heh! You'd officially hate my game. We level about once every 10-12 (3 hour) sessions, or about twice a year in real time; in a 15 year long campaign, the highest level PC just hit 23rd lvl. Everyone really likes it that way, but I can see how many players wouldn't.

One of the great things about D&D is that it's so flexible. It's nice that the same game makes us both happy.

 

[Nebulous]

One of the great things about D&D is that it's so flexible. It's nice that the same game makes us both happy.

That really is one of the coolest things about d20 in general i think. It is infinitely customizable. Now if they could just fix grappling we'd all be happy