D&D 5E Do you use XPs or Milestones?

[ART!]

The players level up when it feels right in the story. We slow it down around 4th level because no one in our group is a fan of flying up too quickly.

That's basically what i do. I tend to throw in a deadly encounter or the like before giving them that next level, though, or if an encounter winds up unexpectedly being incredibly difficult or deadly, I might have them level up before the next session.

 

[atanakar]

What I see in my games is that they go after the XP and are also interested in what's going on in the setting. These things don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Yes of course. But sadly some of my past groups were not always ideal. I'm glad to say that my current group is excellent. The best since 1981. And I tell them. Probably because they are in their mid-30s and as persons they are looking for more than hack & slash - not to say that younger people are also capable of that too.

 

[Charlaquin]

I use experience. What I award experience for varies from one campaign to the next. Generally, I give it for overcoming encounters (whether by combat or other means) and for accomplishing goals (both personal and story). I will also give it for other things depending on the campaign; for example, in an exploration-based campaign, I might award experience for discovering hidden locations. In a mystery campaign, I might award experience for discovering clues. In a treasure hunting campaign I might award experience for treasure. Etc, etc. I don’t really see much benefit for the players in doing story-based or session-based advancement. The primary benefit I see is in lightening my prep load, and I’m happy to do that work if it benefits my players’ experience.

 

[ART!]

Story-based advancement has worked for our weekly group for 2+ years now.

 

[Salthorae]

I used to use XP, but since my players don't show up consistently it leads to way too much disparity between PC's, so we use story based advancement now

 

[oriaxx77]

We tie level up to certain number of sessions. Higher levels require more sessions.

 

[Charlaquin]

Story-based advancement has worked for our weekly group for 2+ years now.

I don’t think it’s a question of if story-based advancement works or not. Clearly it works, but is it the best system to use given your goals? And the answer may well be yes for you and your group. For me it’s no.

 

[aco175]

I used XP up to sometime last year when I made a summer campaign to include my son from school. I used milestones for this game and leveled more quickly than they would have in the regular game, but I wanted to get them to level 5 before the end of summer. I kind of switched over and now use milestones with the regular game, but at less of a pace.

I'm not sure if it is easier and I'm just lazy to not want to track each encounter and have a story bonus. Then need to see where the group in when planning the next adventure. Now I at least know that they are 7th level and can plan for that, instead of them all turning 7th and I made a 6th level adventure. I can scale it rather easily, but I would rather be planning something else.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Milestones!
I'm in love with the system, because it saves a lot of energy on the DM's part.
Moreover, no more "too early", "too slow" or "untimely" advancement; you only advance at the right time, usually after a climatic moment.

 

[Oofta]

I haven't used XP for advancement for years now, especially after I went to more of a story based approach. While I have some encounters planned out before the game starts, a lot of what happens is fluid and in response to what the PCs do.

So let's say that the PCs bribe a guard to sneak into the castle. I had thought they'd probably go in through the sewers and face the oytugh or whatever other obstacle(s) I had in mind. They found a shortcut, and a good one. It saved them a lot of hassle and they get to their goal more quickly than I had anticipated. Should I hold back XP because they didn't take the more difficult path? Award the same amount because they still hit the goal? It goes both ways too. Let's say I thought it would be simple to get from A to B but because of poor planning or just plain bad luck they had to go from A to C to D go finally get to B.

So I'd rather say that at this point in the story when it feels like they should be confronting X I think they should be level Y. I never want to feel like I'm rewarding people simply for conforming to my plan of attack or that they have to be murder hobos to advance their PCs. Of course there's a balancing act with all of that as well. I don't want people to feel like they're stuck fighting goblins forever, but I don't want to rush things either.