D&D 5E EXP Complaint leads me to this idea.

[GameOgre]

My players think 5E's exp advancement is way too fast.

They don't want to have a stable of characters or create a new character with every adventure path( or even do adventure paths for that matter). They want to play their characters for years and years through many story arcs and adventure lines.

I have experimented with exp advancement in our games(mostly be milestones and just having them leveling slower without tracking the exp) but it's hard because they really feel that the exp portion of the game is fun and like the constant accumulation of exp's.

So I came up with this idea.

Whenever a pc levels his exp total resets to 0. So from 1st to 2nd level is still just 300 exp but to make 3rd level once you make 2nd level you will need to make 900 more exp.

Basically this is around 6 X EXP of the book. Now it wouldn be 6 X slower because I would award exp also for story awards and social encounters and exploration as well as for treasure spent or whatever else i wanted to make more of a focus on our games.

Killing monsters would account for a much smaller portion of the exp's total than before.

So I think the advancement would be in the nature of 3X slower. Letting them have a much longer adventuring life while also giving them more of a portion of the games mechanics they seem to like.

To be honest though, I'm unsure of just how this would work out. It's one thing in theory to say"I wish my character would adventure for a lot longer" it's another to play the game and be fine with"I'm leveling so slowly".

I think eventually I might try it in some form. I do remember back in AD&D playing one character for years and it was fun, I'm just not sure it was MORE fun than playing in 5E style.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Sure, that could work. It really depends on the players, though.

 

[Cyrinishad]

Yeah, I tend to see this as a players nostalgia coloring their perspective... However, that being said, your concept is not without merit. The main side-effect I would expect out of making this change to leveling is that the players accumulation of magic items and/or material wealth would likely out-pace their character's level... No judgement as to whether that's a good or a bad thing.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I played in a game where PCs started at level 5 and took the usual time to level up to 6 but the DM gave away magic loot like sweets. I mean it was fun but I felt a little weird being SO powerful.


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[Lanefan]

My players think 5E's exp advancement is way too fast.

They don't want to have a stable of characters or create a new character with every adventure path( or even do adventure paths for that matter). They want to play their characters for years and years through many story arcs and adventure lines.

Good for them!

So I came up with this idea.

Whenever a pc levels his exp total resets to 0. So from 1st to 2nd level is still just 300 exp but to make 3rd level once you make 2nd level you will need to make 900 more exp.

Mind if I chuck in a suggestion here:

Re-do the advancement table instead, from top to bottom.

Why do I say this?

Because your method above, while good in intention, doesn't hit the easiest and most obvious place to slow down the advancement: 1st and 2nd levels. As written they go by in a flash; if you can spin them out longer then right there you're setting yourself up for a longer campaign overall.

The other thing re-doing the whole table achieves is to give you some control on how each level relates to the next in terms of speed. Maybe you want to slow things down until 10th, for example, but don't mind going through 11th-15th a bit faster (relatively) then slowing down again for the real high-end stuff.

So I think the advancement would be in the nature of 3X slower. Letting them have a much longer adventuring life while also giving them more of a portion of the games mechanics they seem to like.

To be honest though, I'm unsure of just how this would work out. It's one thing in theory to say"I wish my character would adventure for a lot longer" it's another to play the game and be fine with"I'm leveling so slowly".

I think eventually I might try it in some form. I do remember back in AD&D playing one character for years and it was fun, I'm just not sure it was MORE fun than playing in 5E style.

Another suggestion: put it to your players - nicely, if you can - that levelling-up is to be seen as a side effect of ongoing play rather than its goal. Believe me, as someone who's been running long campaigns for ages I can say that as soon as you start looking at it from this perspective things get a lot easier.

The main side-effect I would expect out of making this change to leveling is that the players accumulation of magic items and/or material wealth would likely out-pace their character's level... No judgement as to whether that's a good or a bad thing.

Yes this is certainly a side effect, and again I speak from experience. That said, 5e is considerably more stingy in its treasure output than any previous edition; if you increase some costs and-or implement training requirements to level up you'll probably be fine for the short-to-mid term.

One major caution, however. The long-term problem in our games is not so much the overall wealth accumulation (well, it is, but it's dealable withable) but wealth imbalance between characters. Sometimes this is due to luck (one character keeps losing items to failed saves while others do not), other times it's due to management (one character puts her wealth into a profit-making venture while another fritters it away on high living), and other times still it can be due to players and-or characters being greedy (an uneven method of treasury division, or a character skimming off the top in the field). But when you end up with one character having a net worth of 20K g.p. and another with a net worth of 4K g.p., that's where problems can arise.

Lan-"show me the money"-efan

 

[Croesus]

The long-term problem in our games is not so much the overall wealth accumulation (well, it is, but it's dealable withable) but wealth imbalance between characters.

Yep, I've seen this too (though I still believe the official 5E adventures are a bit too stingy with monetary treasure in the first place).

When we finished up Princes of the Apocalypse, the rogue had around 10,000 gp saved up (to build her hideout). The barbarian had several thousand gp, mainly because I don't enforce daily living expenses (he would have blown it all on ale and whores). The wizard? Flat broke. He spent every gold piece adding spells to his spellbook. Granted, the player has gone a bit overboard in adding spells, but by the time a wizard gets to double-digits in level, scribing spells can get expensive. That's a tax that other classes don't necessarily have.

 

[Lanefan]

Yep, I've seen this too (though I still believe the official 5E adventures are a bit too stingy with monetary treasure in the first place).

When we finished up Princes of the Apocalypse, the rogue had around 10,000 gp saved up (to build her hideout). The barbarian had several thousand gp, mainly because I don't enforce daily living expenses (he would have blown it all on ale and whores). The wizard? Flat broke. He spent every gold piece adding spells to his spellbook. Granted, the player has gone a bit overboard in adding spells, but by the time a wizard gets to double-digits in level, scribing spells can get expensive. That's a tax that other classes don't necessarily have.

That's not in itself a problem, the way you describe it: the wizard, while short on cash, is carrying his wealth around in the form of a book (which in theory could be monetized were he to think of charging other wizards for a chance to copy spells from it).

Now if he drops that book in the river and all the spells get washed away, then you've got a big wealth imbalance; and that's more what I'm referring to.

Lanefan

 

[Flamestrike]

My players think 5E's exp advancement is way too fast.

They don't want to have a stable of characters or create a new character with every adventure path( or even do adventure paths for that matter). They want to play their characters for years and years through many story arcs and adventure lines.

I have experimented with exp advancement in our games(mostly be milestones and just having them leveling slower without tracking the exp) but it's hard because they really feel that the exp portion of the game is fun and like the constant accumulation of exp's.

So I came up with this idea.

Whenever a pc levels his exp total resets to 0. So from 1st to 2nd level is still just 300 exp but to make 3rd level once you make 2nd level you will need to make 900 more exp.

Basically this is around 6 X EXP of the book. Now it wouldn be 6 X slower because I would award exp also for story awards and social encounters and exploration as well as for treasure spent or whatever else i wanted to make more of a focus on our games.

Killing monsters would account for a much smaller portion of the exp's total than before.

So I think the advancement would be in the nature of 3X slower. Letting them have a much longer adventuring life while also giving them more of a portion of the games mechanics they seem to like.

To be honest though, I'm unsure of just how this would work out. It's one thing in theory to say"I wish my character would adventure for a lot longer" it's another to play the game and be fine with"I'm leveling so slowly".

I think eventually I might try it in some form. I do remember back in AD&D playing one character for years and it was fun, I'm just not sure it was MORE fun than playing in 5E style.

If you want it set at 3 times more why not just multiply the XP needed by 3? Your method will have weird effects on the Encounter difficulty/ XP budget chats.

Better yet, set it at x4 the XP in the chart, and when the PCs hit the x2 mark (half levels) they get the HD and HP of their next level plus a proficiency bonus bump if applicable. Once they hit the x4 mark, they get the class features.

That way you'll have level 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5 etc.

1st to second level is now 1200xp. But at the 600xp mark you get your 2nd level HD and HP increase. At 1200xp you get the class features.

It has the advantage of really keeping the game going for ages, but wont drag on quite so much with the players getting a slight bump every 2 levels instead of every 4.

That way when designing encounters, you only have to multiply the encounter budget by 4 as well.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

My players think 5E's exp advancement is way too fast.

How fast are you going?

My games spend one session getting to level 2, a couple of sessions getting to level 3, five or six to level 4, then slowing down considerably.

A game I'm playing in (once a week for three and a half hours) has been going on for six or seven months, we are level 5, thousands of XP away from level 6.

A game I'm GMing has been going for over a year, we are level 8, and that is with a couple of level lifts thrown in. Then again, the players in this game don't actually do a lot…

I heard recently of a game that got to level 20 in two years. They played every week - sometimes once a week, sometimes twice a week, with a few weekend games throughout the year. I'm still amazed they got to 20 that fast.

 

[Satyrn]

It's a neat idea, but you could also just halve/quarter/decimate the XP award of every encounter.

Okay, decimating the XP won't actually change much since that's just removing one out of every ten. But yeah.