How do you award xp ?

[Walter_J]

Care to share your impressions and what you're inclined to change next time ?



Chacal

In that campaign I used more traps than usual, and more magical then mundane traps. The majority of the traps did not cause damage and were more in the vein of "darkness," "animate object," ect... I also had more magical puzzles (for lack of a better term) and things that could be experimented with/reasoned out to achieve a desired goal. Anyway, I was aware of the XP value of the traps, the entertainment value ended up being much more than expected, although the crew wracked up levels MUCH faster then expected because they were hitting the "nifty" areas much more often then straight combat areas and, because I wasn't using too many damage traps, were able to keep on trucking. The campaign was a blast, but I honestly think the rate at which the characters gained levels surpassed some of the players ability to play characters of that level.

Point being, and a simple solution, next time I might lower the CR of certain types of traps by a step and increase the CR of others.

 

[HellHound]

My two most recent campaigns (Star Wars Revised d20 and an urban rogue game in Arcanis) have run on a flat system of 50 xp / character level / hour of play, with bonuses for good stuff.

Although the Star Wars one we doubled the reward for faster advancement since we only play it once a month tops.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

I pretty much follow the guidelines in teh DMG about CRs and ELs. Story awards pop up every once and a while, and I give xps for really really good roleplaying (that doesn't happen ALL that often at my table though) I eyeball a lot of stuff though since my party has 8 members and CRs aren't really designed with them in mind.

I'm not sure... I do lots of different things... lol.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Ummm... I would never DM a game where I could not veto an item, so whatever rules we use the facility to create items would still lie in my hands as a DM. As a matter of fact, if I found something unbalancing in my game, no matter if it was a feat, skill combo, item, spell or (Prestige)Class, I alter or ban it.

As far as the second point is considered, the acquisition of exotic components will result in an adventure itself, which the whole group can participate in, so I fail to see how that is a disincentive to craft magic items for others. The time needed may be adjusted.

Absolutely! My own changes to Magic Item Creation are quite intensive (item must be hand-crafted by the spellcaster, listed "Market" price changed to be creation price, exotic components, lengthy True Ritual required to enhance the item once completed, once completed an item can't be "upgraded", etc.).

The overall effect makes the creation of the more potent items something of a goal for the characters as opposed to simply just another "function".

 

[Fenes 2]

Absolutely! My own changes to Magic Item Creation are quite intensive (item must be hand-crafted by the spellcaster, listed "Market" price changed to be creation price, exotic components, lengthy True Ritual required to enhance the item once completed, once completed an item can't be "upgraded", etc.).

The overall effect makes the creation of the more potent items something of a goal for the characters as opposed to simply just another "function".

I personally truly like upgrading items, even though imc it happened so far more through divine intervention, or through reassembling the parts of a powerful item (like, finding the missing jewel and setting it in the pommel of the magic sword will make the sword more powerful) - I dislike the "get new magic weapon, discard old magic weapon"-mentality.

 

[Corinth]

I use the rules as written (allowing for errata, of course), with the aid of insights as given by the designers (such as Monte Cook's bit about the wiggle room for the CR system that he put up at his site recently), and leave the hard work to designing encounters for adventures.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

I personally truly like upgrading items, even though imc it happened so far more through divine intervention, or through reassembling the parts of a powerful item (like, finding the missing jewel and setting it in the pommel of the magic sword will make the sword more powerful) - I dislike the "get new magic weapon, discard old magic weapon"-mentality.

Actually, I like what you have here. I just dislike the "here's my magic Greatsword version 3.2, now with Flame quality!" flavor that allowing upgrades generates. I guess I'm aiming for a "wait until you can make it just the way you want it" attitude. Works well thus far.

 

[Deadguy]

Trying to incorporate answers here to Bendris Noulg and Fenes 2:

I think the big thing that you have by requiring an item crafter to jump through hoops to get an item they want is that it puts item craetion firmly back into your hands as the DM. Now, I know and understand that to a degree that's necessarily true in all games. As you say, Fenes, without it we can have stupid monstrosities produced, a real raping of the intent of the rules.

But one of the features of 3e is the way that it has put item creation into the hands of players. Rather than the decisions about items being solely the preserve of the DM, it has allowed the player (as the PC) some input into the equation. Rather than relying on the chance finding of items, or on the idea of 'magic marts', it allows them to make a rational choice about where to invest resources. I, and a fair few others, really like the feel that this gives. provided that the items are costed correctly (and that's the tricky part, where the DM's input is essential), it matters not how they invest their gold. It's up to them to decide what they want and need most. Indeed, because of the power to choose I have seen players choose to make 'flavour' items rather than the more powerful choices.

I am not being critical of your campaign choices, btw. I don't know enough of your settings to see how these ideas fit in with the whole of the game, and I can see that certain flavours of campaign will need greater limits in place. I guess it's just that you two happen to have responded on this thread, so I have used you as an example. Too often I have seen people, here and elsewhere, state that self-evidently the 3e item creation rules are unbalanced and need reining in. I often think that they've failed to shift paradigm in the transition of 2e to 3e. The game allows many more choices now to the players, and one of those is magical item creation (something which whilst theoretically possible in 2e was so ludicrously hedged about with limits that no sensible PC would ever bother jumping through the hoops it required for anything other than perhaps a potion or scroll!).

 

[Fenes 2]

As far as I am concerned, the player is as free to build an item as he is to choose a feat - anything I consider unbalanced or inappropriate will be banned anyway. I just want item creation to be more than a "crunch the numbers, spend the money, pass the time" method done in "downtime" between game sessions. I want it to be a process which is in itself memorable. IMHO, a magic item should have a history, and adding exotic materials gives even a new item a bit of history.

The everbrigt mithril full plate for example our paladin wears was built as a masterwork full plate with mithril a dwarven smith recovered with the party from the drider-infested ruins of his old clan's outpost after hey had helped him getting over his decade-long, alcoolism-inducing shame at surviving the massacre that killed his clan. It became everbrigt due to divine intervention in a pitched battle with a demon in an evil temple when the dying blow of the demon covered both the paladin and her fiancée with deadly acid, and the paladin, who did save her fiancée, and did not care about her own death, was saved by the acid resistance 5 it brought.

If the paladin just had saved up some money and commissioned the armor it would much less "magical" and impressive, imho. A Magic Staff a wizard had to get the heart of an elder fire elemental for (which is in itself very difficult because fire elementals have no hearts as a rule...) is more stylish and has more flavour than a magic staff a wizard built by spending X gold and y days in his lab.

It is not about preventing or discouraging players from making items (no more than normal, at least, since I am not a fan of campaigns whith many magic items) as it is about enriching the processof making items and adding flavour to the items (and giving plot hooks - that magic staff may turn out to be instrumental in a plot in the city of brass later in the campaign due to its connection to the elder fire elemental mentioned...).

 

[Ferret]

I award it for battles but I'm afraid they'd get unbalanced if I gave story XP. It's given at the end of each encounter, and level up happens at the end