How do you award XP?

[Haltherrion]

Curious as to how people award XP in their campaigns.



Not knocking other ways of doing it but my group and I have done session-based XP awards for some time because:

• It doesn't encourage folks to seek out battles for XP and makes it clear all actions, including RP, are valued for XP.
• Makes it easier to track to a planned number of sessions per level target.
• It seems pretty time efficient- XP is awarded at the end of the session as we are wrapping up. Any XP discussion occurs when the session is over; avoiding in-game distractions.
• It seems at least as accurate as tallying by encounter. 4E is somewhat better on XP tallies but in the end, measuring XP is like measuring a bunch of piles of jello: you can take the micrometer out and try to measure the volume of each little pile or you can mash it all into one bigger pile and measure it in a single measuring cup.

Curious to hear thoughts of others.

 

[S'mon]

By session, I'll occasionally give a mid-session award if someone is looking to level, has their new PC sheet done up, and it seems appropriate.

 

[malraux]

As both a player and a DM, I prefer the level up when its about right method.

 

[Edgewood]

I do mine by session via e-mail to all of the players. It seems a natural way to do it.

 

[Crothian]

We do too much out of combat the the rules don't adequatley cover for XP. So, every 4 weeks or so they gain a level (looking at how many weeks we've been playing and their level and it is exactly one level per 4 weeks). But there is a house rule that all members of the group have to be in attendance for characters to gain a level. So when we have a 6 week stretch with different people missing different weeks they won't gain a level. It rarely comes up but with one of the players moving to San Diego I keep telling the group that once this happenes they won't gain another level till he comes back to visit and games with us.

 

[Krensky]

Other:

By adventure, pretty closely following the rules for my system of choice (Fantasy Craft and Spycraft 2.0).

Most XP comes from meeting objectives, with some coming from overcoming (not necessarily defeating) adversaries. Only one chunk of XP per adversary type though. ie, one goblin and one hundred goblins give you the same amount of XP.

 

[FireLance]

My gaming group's convention is to level up after every adventure, but we plan each adventure to last one session, so it's usually pretty much level up once per session, too.

 

[Gilladian]

In theory I stick by the rules of giving XP (3.5) and divvying it out every combat. In reality, I kinda wait until the end of the session and give it out in a loose "this feels about right" lump. Sometimes I forget and wait to give it out after a couple sessions.

 

[Wicht]

During a session I keep notes of CRs defeated or overcome in each encounter and then at the end of the session I calculate the total according to the rules. Is that by session or by encounter?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Other: "I use the little 'balance' icon in the lower-left of the post."