How do you award XP?
- Thread starter JoeGKushner
- Start date
doggreen1944
Explorer
I use a modified version of the DMG variant of 75xp/character level per encounter. I ask the players to vote along with myself on the difficulty of the encounter. I use a scale of 1 - 10. Each player including my self votes and I compare the average to the following chart:
1 - 20%
2 - 40%
3 - 60%
4 - 80%
5 - 100%
6 - 120%
7 - 140%
8 - 160%
9 - 180%
10 - 200%
This has worked out great so far. It allows for situational difficulties for both the NPC and the PCs to be taken into effect. I have a honest and straight forward gaming group and they have really taken a liking to the variant.
1 - 20%
2 - 40%
3 - 60%
4 - 80%
5 - 100%
6 - 120%
7 - 140%
8 - 160%
9 - 180%
10 - 200%
This has worked out great so far. It allows for situational difficulties for both the NPC and the PCs to be taken into effect. I have a honest and straight forward gaming group and they have really taken a liking to the variant.
Rel
Liquid Awesome
wingsandsword said:
I feel your pain.
My system took me about 15 seconds to calculate that because Excel is loading a bit slow with all the other crap I've got open on my computer. If I'd had the printed sheet in front of me then that encounter would take as long to figure out as it took to look at the sheet of paper.
The system I use is based on "scenes". I divide each part of the session into scenes and make note of whether that scene was a "minor scene", "average scene" or "major scene". Then, at the end of the session, I tally them up and index them with the chart below based on average party level.
Frex: The 3rd level party starts the night on the way to a ruin in the wilderness. They get ambushed by bandits (opponents of close to their CR) and vanquish them. Then they run into a pack of wolves who attack before running away (opponents of less than the party's CR). Then they come across a tribe of elves who invite the party to participate in one of their rituals, during which the group makes friends and learns valuable knowledge about the area. Finally they make it to the ruin where they do battle with an Ogress Druid and her animal thralls (opponents of higher than the party CR).
So that's an Average Scene, a Minor Scene, another Average Scene and a Major Scene. So looking at the row for 3rd level you get 180+100+180+260=720XP each for the session. For the record, the XP in this chart is designed to give a slower progression than the default for 3.5.
It's quick. It's easy. It rewards more than combat. It's easy. And it's quick. I like it.
Kid Charlemagne
I am the Very Model of a Modern Moderator
eris404 said:
Oh, yeah, BTW, have we gotten any XP yet?
(I play in eris404's campaign).
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
Nifty calculators to run XP automatically.
Heck, since I use DMGenie, it does it for me ... from calculation to awarding. It works out wonderfully.
For my GT games, I have another calculator. d20Modern as well.
For our SWRPG game I found the advancement to be a little slow for the timespan we had, it was a fininte campaign so we pretty much leveled up once per two-three sessions or so, bringing them exactly from 3rd level padawans to 7th level knights at the end of the game. I gave out XP based on the charts, then went "Eeeeeeehhhhhhhhh ... another 1000xp to bring you to the next level? Sure."
Sometimes I'll do that with 3.5E. If we end a campaign arc or something and the characters are within 15% or so of their goal, I'll give them the XP to hit the next level, in roleplaying awards and the like.
--fje
Heck, since I use DMGenie, it does it for me ... from calculation to awarding. It works out wonderfully.
For my GT games, I have another calculator. d20Modern as well.
For our SWRPG game I found the advancement to be a little slow for the timespan we had, it was a fininte campaign so we pretty much leveled up once per two-three sessions or so, bringing them exactly from 3rd level padawans to 7th level knights at the end of the game. I gave out XP based on the charts, then went "Eeeeeeehhhhhhhhh ... another 1000xp to bring you to the next level? Sure."
Sometimes I'll do that with 3.5E. If we end a campaign arc or something and the characters are within 15% or so of their goal, I'll give them the XP to hit the next level, in roleplaying awards and the like.
--fje
Beckett
Explorer
I mostly go with 3.5's standard method. For some reason, I like using the chart and doing the math.
I will sometimes give story awards, usually if it will boost some of the characters to the next level.
The only other bonus I gave was last year, when I was having a major problem with tardiness from two players. I didn't want to start the game until they got there, as then I'd have to take time to work them in, but anyone who was present at the designated start time got bonus XPs.
I give out experience whenever I feel like it, allowing leveling up at that time. Before major fights and at the end of the session are the most common times; the first gives a chance that the PCs are a little stronger, the second means I don't have to keep track of the experience for a week.
Related to that, before some major fights, I've allowed characters who are within X number of XPs of next level (typically 500-1000) to level up their characters. Their experience stays the same, but in all others ways, they are treated as though they were the next level- including figuring out experience gained from the encounter. IIRC, everytime those eligible accepted that they'd earn fewer XPs but be better prepared for the fight.
My Star Wars games, the characters gain levels whenever I feel like it.
I will sometimes give story awards, usually if it will boost some of the characters to the next level.
The only other bonus I gave was last year, when I was having a major problem with tardiness from two players. I didn't want to start the game until they got there, as then I'd have to take time to work them in, but anyone who was present at the designated start time got bonus XPs.
I give out experience whenever I feel like it, allowing leveling up at that time. Before major fights and at the end of the session are the most common times; the first gives a chance that the PCs are a little stronger, the second means I don't have to keep track of the experience for a week.
Related to that, before some major fights, I've allowed characters who are within X number of XPs of next level (typically 500-1000) to level up their characters. Their experience stays the same, but in all others ways, they are treated as though they were the next level- including figuring out experience gained from the encounter. IIRC, everytime those eligible accepted that they'd earn fewer XPs but be better prepared for the fight.
My Star Wars games, the characters gain levels whenever I feel like it.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
+10 percent XP for the best kisser at the table
+15 percent XP for the person at the table who holds his hand over a lit flame the longest
+20 percent XP for the person who goes an entire session without making any pop culture quotes or overt nudge-nudge references
+25 percent XP for the person who brings the pizza, unless it's bad pizza, or beer, unless it's Budweiser or the like
+15 percent XP for the person at the table who holds his hand over a lit flame the longest
+20 percent XP for the person who goes an entire session without making any pop culture quotes or overt nudge-nudge references
+25 percent XP for the person who brings the pizza, unless it's bad pizza, or beer, unless it's Budweiser or the like
wingsandsword
Legend
Oh, I know there are a lot of XP calculator programs, I used one when I still used RAW experience (the only thing that kept it all at least marginally sane). I just hated the raw number-crunching of it and how CR's and EL's are so imprecise, and I hate having to actually use my laptop to calculate the experience for my game. Moving over to a more story-based system also fosters (IMO) a more roleplaying based game, as it moves the game away from yet more calculations and number crunching.
As for Star Wars, that's actually part of my inspiration to seriously tone down experience. In Star Wars, characters level up very slowly compared to D&D, there are no epic level characters, and across an entire Galaxy characters even in the high teens are rare (with most heroic types being probably under 10th level).
If you used "by the book" experience from the SWRPG for the canonical adventures of the main characters, they all would have gone Epic pretty early on. If you want to become a Jedi Knight, you're not going to get 7 class levels in a year or two, even the ultimate prodigy took 4 years, (Obi-Wan took 12 years in peacetime, for example)
Examples:
Luke Skywalker gets 7 levels over the 4 years of the original trilogy (from Fringer 2 when he first met Ben Kenobi, to Fringer 2/Jedi Guardian 7 at the Battle of Endor, 4 years later). He becomes a Jedi Master (Fringer 2/Jedi Guardian 13/Jedi Master 1) 7 years (and 7 levels) later, this from a "star" character who is getting into huge adventures all the time. Even by the beginning of New Jedi Order, after a quarter century of active adventuring in the middle of the greatest conflict the Galaxy has seen in 25 millennia, he's 18th level. After 900 years, Yoda is 20th level (of course, 20th level characters are so rare that they never bothered with Epic level rules, since only Yoda and Palpatine have ever been officially 20th level, they've never detailed it, but Luke by the end of NJO or the Legacy Era might be 20th Level).
Anakin takes a decade to go from Fringer 1 (Episode I) to Fringer 1/Jedi Guardian 5 (Episode II), and that's with him and Obi-Wan running around the Galaxy having adventures.
Supporting characters like Chewbacca and Lando gain levels even more slowly, but way too slowly to ever be practical for PC's. (Chewbacca levels at a rate of about once a decade).
Thus, I try and time it such that PC's get about 1 level per calendar year, which is very fast compared to all but the main characters of the entire setting, and I do this by using story based XP, and typically staging adventures months or seasons apart (with lots of presumed relatively minor adventures and downtime in between).
As for Star Wars, that's actually part of my inspiration to seriously tone down experience. In Star Wars, characters level up very slowly compared to D&D, there are no epic level characters, and across an entire Galaxy characters even in the high teens are rare (with most heroic types being probably under 10th level).
If you used "by the book" experience from the SWRPG for the canonical adventures of the main characters, they all would have gone Epic pretty early on. If you want to become a Jedi Knight, you're not going to get 7 class levels in a year or two, even the ultimate prodigy took 4 years, (Obi-Wan took 12 years in peacetime, for example)
Examples:
Luke Skywalker gets 7 levels over the 4 years of the original trilogy (from Fringer 2 when he first met Ben Kenobi, to Fringer 2/Jedi Guardian 7 at the Battle of Endor, 4 years later). He becomes a Jedi Master (Fringer 2/Jedi Guardian 13/Jedi Master 1) 7 years (and 7 levels) later, this from a "star" character who is getting into huge adventures all the time. Even by the beginning of New Jedi Order, after a quarter century of active adventuring in the middle of the greatest conflict the Galaxy has seen in 25 millennia, he's 18th level. After 900 years, Yoda is 20th level (of course, 20th level characters are so rare that they never bothered with Epic level rules, since only Yoda and Palpatine have ever been officially 20th level, they've never detailed it, but Luke by the end of NJO or the Legacy Era might be 20th Level).
Anakin takes a decade to go from Fringer 1 (Episode I) to Fringer 1/Jedi Guardian 5 (Episode II), and that's with him and Obi-Wan running around the Galaxy having adventures.
Supporting characters like Chewbacca and Lando gain levels even more slowly, but way too slowly to ever be practical for PC's. (Chewbacca levels at a rate of about once a decade).
Thus, I try and time it such that PC's get about 1 level per calendar year, which is very fast compared to all but the main characters of the entire setting, and I do this by using story based XP, and typically staging adventures months or seasons apart (with lots of presumed relatively minor adventures and downtime in between).
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