D&D General Experience Points & Leveling: A Brief Primer on XP in the 1e DMG, and Why It Still Matters

[Sacrosanct]

Just out of interest which isn’t?

Pretty much every WoTC version. Not to pick on 4e (because it's true of 3e and 5e as well, but 4e is the most glaring):

Human fighter in AD&D? Not much better than a normal person. 2x HP as a commoner (pilgrim for example) and that's about it. Put the same weapons and armor on a commoner at 1st level and the differences outside of HP isn't much.

Human fighter in 4e? Extra at will power. Extra feat. +2 bonus to an ability score. That's just for being a human. Then you've got all the bonuses and powers for being a fighter that no commoner remotely has anything like it.

 

[Lanefan]

I am very much a fan of xp for treasure over monsters, because it fosters a more creative style of play. if most of your xp comes from monsters, then every encounter will be treated like you have to fight it. That gets boring and repetitive. By contrast, if you get most xp for treasure and mission accomplishment, and encounters have a high risk (which they did in 1e compared to later editions), it encouraged more creative ways to get past the monsters other than fighting them.

And in theory you should still get the same xp for the monsters either way, whether you outright defeat or kill them or find a way around them.

 

[jasper]

Hiya!

We tried the "training for your level" thing for a while. It bugged us. Not the cost or time, just the idea that an adventurer would need to stop adventuring and "attend school" in order to get better just made no sense to us. It's like someone being in the military, going into a war zone, fighting off the enemy, saving dozens of lives, gathering vital intel and then having to fly back home to take a 6 page test that includes a written essay in order to get promoted. LOL!

...

Paul L. Ming

Remembering the extra classes I had to mail in or turn in to training NCO. Remembering Spec4 disappearing for up to six weeks and coming back SGTs. E-5. Yes training does make sense.

 

[Lanefan]

If you can arbitrarily balance classes with XP that means you’ve ascribed them a value. Use this value to instead balance the classes without it.

Huh? Can you explain what you mean here?

Should say different ‘players’. Ie. player A does more so gets more XP.

Player, or character.

If a character does more then damn right it should get more xp. Pretty much non-negotiable, that.

What a player does shouldn't enter into the xp equation at all. Bring beer? That's nice, but it won't get you any more xp.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

This is a major reason people probably ditched the whole training rule.

Righto. And you'll be happy to know that Gary never used it either! No one in our game groups did. If that starts an inter-topic response, let it be known that I'm heading to bed here in France to avoid that fusillade.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My usual guideline is 1000 g.p. per level being trained into (thus, training for 7th would run about 7000); but I'm also not running those stingy Scrooge-like 5e modules that you are.

Who says I play 5e?

As I said though, the problem then is still the HUGE amount more gold you need than what you get. A 5th level monster would net a 5th level PC a few 100 gold, by the treasure tables. By the time you have the XP needed for 6th level (maybe 30,000) you would have, lets say, 25,000 GP (because most XP comes from GP). So, what does it cost to advance? 7,000 GP for training. So that isn't so bad. It might work. By 1e rules it takes (average) 2.5 x 1,500 x 6 = 22,500 GP for the training. If you had no other expenses or desire for any other things that gold might do, it might barely work. If your GM isn't nice to you and rates your RP a 4 at some point, you will be completely broke and spending a really long time scrounging gold without XP at all. For some classes and level ranges things don't really work at all.

That alone makes me think that the whole different XP charts thing was pretty much a boondoggle. Since the provision of XP and costs of training don't vary, the XP progression really should not either. In fact the idea that the XP charts 'balance' the classes doesn't hold water either, since the more powerful classes often get to progress FASTER. This is particularly true at higher levels, but basically there seems no rhyme or reason to it. Progression is whatever the guy who originally wrote the class thought it should be, and they are all over the place.

 

[Maxperson]

Games that start above 1st level. Also 4e was less zero to hero and more hero to demigod.

Yep. I start my players at 3rd level for just that reason. I don't think PCs should start out as putzes. They don't have to be heroes, but they should at least be competent enough to go out and adventure.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Yep. I start my players at 3rd level for just that reason. I don't think PCs should start out as putzes. They don't have to be heroes, but they should at least be competent enough to go out and adventure.

Jim Ward started his players at 6th level bitd. You can guess what sort of chomper campaign he ran, high stakes all the way.

 

[Maxperson]

Righto. And you'll be happy to know that Gary never used it either! No one in our game groups did. If that starts an inter-topic response, let it be known that I'm heading to bed here in France to avoid that fusillade.

I for one would be very interested in knowing which rules were changed or ignored by Gary and the rest of you.

 

[Maxperson]

Jim Ward started his players at 6th level bitd. You can guess what sort of chomper campaign he ran, high stakes all the way.

I'd have loved that. In 1e my DM only started at 1st level and the death rate was monstrous with low hit points. Once you added in poison, which were almost entirely save or die, and started at level one, and energy drains which started around level 4, we never got higher than 7th level and rarely past 5th. It would have been fun to play a higher level, higher stakes game.