Experience Points Rewards System

[KDLadage]

I am toying with an XP rewards system to achieve a couple of goals:

• To keep the early level advancement about the same as it is now -- relatively fast.
• To seriously slow down advancement in the upper levels -- some campaigns I have seen reached the 20th level mark in under a year.
• To make a single XP chart that does not need to be expanded to infinity to work, or need a two-to-three page description of how it works, a-la ELH.

And I think I have it. It works like this:

1. Do not calculate the average level of the characters involved in the encounter. Each character will have thier experience gained calculated individually based upon their current character level. We will call this the Character Level (CL).
2. Calculate the Challenge Rating of the encounter. We will call this the Encounter Level (EL).
3. Subtract the Character Level from the Encounter Level. We will call this the Experience Level (XL).
4. Check the chart below for the Experience to be given out.
5. Take this amount and divide it by the total number of characters involved in the encounter.

XL...............XP Awarded
-5 (or lower) ........... 0
-4 ..................... 50
-3 .................... 100
-2 .................... 150
-1 .................... 225
+0 .................... 300
+1 .................... 450
+2 .................... 600
+3 .................... 900
+4 .................. 1,250
+5 .................. 1,875
+6 .................. 2,500
+7 .................. 3,750
+8 .................. 5,000
+9 .................. 7,500
+10 ................ 10,000


XL ratings above +10 are at the GMs discression... after all, an encounter this high a level should not be used lightly.

So... what do you think?

(edit: altered the table to make for a more even XP distribution as it scales upward; changed the "party level" system to an individual "character level" system.)

 

[Gothmog]

Hmm, I think I like this. Just this last weekend we were noticing that advancement seemed too fast (2 adventures for 13th level characters), and a buddy and I started working on a system, but yours is much cleaner and simpler. Consider it borrowed!

Just one minor question though- on this table, what do you do for low level encounters with CR 1/2 or 1/4 creatures if they are encountered alone? My guess would be to round downwards (towards the more negative numbers). Also, does this table assume the standard 4 character party? And how would you recommend handling XP for solo adventures or for groups with fewer than 4 characters?

 

[KDLadage]

Hmm, I think I like this. Just this last weekend we were noticing that advancement seemed too fast (2 adventures for 13th level characters), and a buddy and I started working on a system, but yours is much cleaner and simpler. Consider it borrowed!

Glad you like it. One of my motivating factors was the fact that they developed this whole CR system to dish out XP, and then created the table from hell to use it...

Just one minor question though- on this table, what do you do for low level encounters with CR 1/2 or 1/4 creatures if they are encountered alone? My guess would be to round downwards (towards the more negative numbers).

Your guess would be correct.

Also, does this table assume the standard 4 character party? And how would you recommend handling XP for solo adventures or for groups with fewer than 4 characters?

It makes all fo the same assumptions that the standard 3e XP charts make. Basically this: An encounter of Level X is a balanced encounter for a party of 4 typical adventurers of that same level, it should deplete approximately 25% of the available resources of that party to deal with the encounter.

Based upon this, if a single Level 3 character deals with a CR 3 encounter successfully, then he should gain experience as such. If he deals with an ancounter of CR1, he will get 100 XP (XL=-3) and go on. But even a single 5th level character should not gain XP for dealing with a CR "1/4" encounter.

 

[KDLadage]

I edited the table slightly to make the progression more eevn. Let me know if this works for you.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Are you happy with continuing the "squire effect", whereby a knight bringing round his much lower level squire reduces the PL and thus brings him more experience?

I'm presently using the forgotten realms variant to get around this, but I'm still finding characters levelling too much for the campaign. I'm considering using the Call of Cthulhu style story awards at present.

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

Incidentally, your system is much easier to calculate than the standard DMG one, which basically looks like this:


PL*300 * sqrt(2)^(Cr-PL)

approx 1.414 raised to the power of (CR-PL), multiplied by 300, multiplied by party level.

Incidentally this is why the DMG table is fudged for 1st-3rd level characters getting the same line!!

I know it was their third attempt, but sheesh, couldn't they have come up with something simpler like yours?

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

Sorry, a further addendum:

I know you want to slow down the rate of level gain - have you noticed that since this always gives 300xp for overcoming a challenge equal to your level, rather than 300*PL for overcoming that challenge, your characters advancement will be slowed approximately by a factor equal to their current level? I'm just wondering what that would look like in game terms - e.g. to get from 15th to 16th would require 15,000 xps, which is overcoming 50 evil clerics of 13th level rather than 13.3. How many encounters would it take for a career?

(incidentally, while working out the calculation for the DMG exp charts I realised that they could have stuck with a flat 1000 exp per level and missed out the multiplier by PL in their charts... but I guess they felt people would want ever higher exp numbers!

Cheers

 

[KDLadage]

incidentally, while working out the calculation for the DMG exp charts I realised that they could have stuck with a flat 1000 exp per level and missed out the multiplier by PL in their charts... but I guess they felt people would want ever higher exp numbers!

Actually, I think the expanded XP numbers were used to make XP costs proportionate to the level of the character spending the XP. Spending 500 XP might be a huge deal to a 1st level character, but to a 20th it is a smaller proportion of what they need for the next level.

 

[KDLadage]

Are you happy with continuing the "squire effect", whereby a knight bringing round his much lower level squire reduces the PL and thus brings him more experience?

No I am not, really. The FR varient is good. One could apply the rule that the PL of the party is always equal to the level of the highest level member, I suppose...

 

[KDLadage]

The more I think about this...

...I think the simplest solution to the squire effect is to eliminate teh "average level" portion of the calculation. Have each character calculate experience individually, and then divide this by the total number of people involved.

For example, suppose we have a party of 4 characters. They are levels 3, 4, 5 and 6. Let us then suppose, using the system outlined above, we have them complete an encounter of challenge level 3. The Experience gained would then be:

• Level 3 Char
  -- XL = (3-3) 0
  -- XP gained = (300/4) 75
  
• Level 4 Char
  -- XL = (3-4) -1
  -- XP gained = (225/4) 56
  
• Level 5 Char
  -- XL = (3-5) -2
  -- XP gained = (150/4) 37
  
• Level 6 Char
  -- XL = (3-6) -3
  -- XP gained = (100/4) 25

This way, there are no "cheese" methods of circumventing the purpose of the CR and XP system. Thoughts?