Erik Mona's Lo-Fi Experience System

[Nightfall]

*still like to know how in a world without alignments, how spells, item effects and especially outsiders would work in such ways.* But that's just me.

 

[Darrell]

I scrapped the core XP system, too. I read somewhere once that the D&D XP system was set up so that a new level would be reached after an average of 13 or so encounters; so I decided to sort of take that approach and run with it.

I simply started having my players level up after 15 successful encounters. Item creation is handled by simply withholding a few encounters from that character.

In truth, though, none of my characters ever really created items under either system, so now I've adopted Greywulf's XP system from Microlite20.

Simply add up the EL of every encounter in which your character participates. When the total is equal to your level x10, you advance. After advancing, the total is reset to 0 .

I'll handle Item Creation if any of my players ever decides to create one.

Regards,
Darrell

 

[Nightfall]

So what you make them give you their first born just for a +1 sword?

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

My problem with the existing XP system is that, all too often, it just doesn't seem to reflect the actual challenges faced by the PCs. Sometimes a really tough battle will score a ridiculously small amount of XP. Other times, a ridiculously high amount. It makes me question how worthwhile the whole calculation endeavour really is.

I'm thinking of implementing Plot Objectives (POs) in place of tracking XP. A PO is a major campaign event that the PCs are seeking to accomplish. There should be roughly one per level. So instead of tracking all that XP, you know that if the PCs kill the BBEG (or rescue the princess, find the treasure, etc.) that's behind the adventure they've signed up for, they'll level up. Then everyone levels up at the same time and you don't have to worry about calculations.

The hard part is magic item creation and spells that require XP costs, but maybe I'll just track how much is used and compare to how much XP separates the PC in question from their current level to the lower level; if that amount is ever exceeded, the PC falls behind a level.

If WotC wants to continue using a complicated XP calculation formula, they really should create an online calculator.

 

[Nightfall]

Like I said before, math is for suckers!

 

[Schmoe]

I guess maybe I'm a nerd (or sucker!), but I like the core system of XP just fine. It takes maybe 5-10 minutes later that evening or during the week to figure out, and I can e-mail XP results to the group. I also don't see how the number of players should make any difference. Who cares if you divide by 5 or divide by 8? I always reward group experience only, and apparently most other people here do so as well (or group levels, same thing).

The biggest drawback of any codified XP system is that rewards won't always be commensurate with the challenge. With the core system, this happens with under-CRed creatures or a non-standard party makeup. Erik's system has the same problems. How do you determine what is an epic encounter and what is a standard encounter? Crossing that narrow bridge over lava might be an epic encounter for a group of 3 platemail-clad fighters, but a standard encounter for a group of 3 wizards. Any XP system should have some subjective discretion to it. Since the core system has the benefit of a lot of playtest, market research, and ties to the rest of the game, I find it's a good place to start and requires the least amount of work by me.

 

[Festivus]

Ya know, I was just thinking on this more, and calculating exp is the least of the annoyaces for tracking stuff. Magic Items and if they have been identified or not, and tracking anything but gold pieces are the bigger PITA for me personally.

I have taken to writing magic items on index cards for tracking who has what, but I have dumped the whole identify thing in favor of a spellcraft chance to ID it right away, or deduct 100gp from the total of the adventure for identify purposes.

As for coppers, silver, electrum, etc, all of those are converted to GP. Anything less than 1gp in value is dropped (or if it's low level, its 1gp total).

But EXP has become easy now that I use that spreadsheet to calculate.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I use the arbitrary 'You level!' system (usually level-per-session) because, with the extremely low granularity of D&D levels, I like to keep the whole party the same level. Also, because the last few d20 games I ran were for 8-16 players.

If I wanted to use an XP system, however, this looks like a much more convenient one. I would change the development XP cap from once/level to once/session.

 

[Kestrel]

I dropped xp entirely, simply leveling the pcs when it is story-appropriate. If the players feel that I've waiting too long, they let me know.

Alignment has been dropped altogether. Since the current game is set in Eberron, it works really well.

I use Action Points from Eberron, but hand them out differently. I do them similar to True20's Conviction points. I had the players choose three different Virtues/Vices. At the end of a session, if they expressed them in a way that advanced the story or added to the game experience, they get a AP per V/V used. (1 max per V/V). I really like AP, because it allows me to take the kidgloves off in encounters.

We don't bother with Crafting Magic Items. Most of my group doesn't like the feats and prefer all magic items come from the game. They don't even like purchasing magic items.

 

[FireLance]

I presented your idea to my players to gauge their interest. One of them pointed out potential abuse of expendable magic items. Normally you might be cautious when using wand charges and potions and the current wealth by level guidelines probably factor that into the assumptions. It seems with your system the players could potential burn through their expendables knowing that they will be able to refresh them when they level.

Have you had any issues with this? If so, have you put any restrictions in place to curb this?

The market price of scrolls and potions seem alright to us for one-time effects. Since we don't allow partially charged items, buying a wand is quite a high sunk cost, and in most cases, there are insufficient opportunities to use one fully in the course of an adventure. Simply looking at combat as a rough approximation of how useful an item is, if you have six combat encounters that last four rounds each, a character with a wand that spends his actions using nothing else would use only half the charges.

We only really had issues when one of the PCs was an artificer who was able to add metamagic effects to spells cast from wands by burning extra charges.

The fact that it generally requires an action to use a charged magic item also tends to limit their use since most spellcasters' spells are better than what they can get out of a wand in the first place. What we see most often are wands of cure light wounds which can be used out of combat, and since we favor a back-to-the-action style of gaming, this suits us fine.

Still, if expendable magic items seem like they might be a problem in your group, you might consider replacing wands and scrolls with eternal wands (from the Eberron Campaign Setting) and schemas (from Magic of Eberron), or limiting expendable magic items to no more than 10% or 20% of the character's wealth.