Homebrew Implementing Gold for XP [+]

[dbm]

When we played Conan d20 by Mongoose (still probably my favourite implementation of d20) we had a rule where you could convert gold into XP by carousing. It worked well and really evoked that Sword & Sorcery theme of protagonists who find great piles of gold but never hold on to it, thereby inducing them to keep adventuring rather than settling down somewhere on an estate.

We did keep XP from killing monsters, too, but gold became the major component of reward.

Carousing XP also solves the challenge of characters buying ever stronger gear, which again doesn’t really jam with a lot of S&S feel, where the characters kit is typically less important than their puissance.

 

[Theory of Games]

What system are you using? 5e?

I’m open to constructive criticism and clarifications of what I have but it’s not the sole purpose of this thread. I’d like to hear how you implement Gold for XP. What are your rules?

When I ran D&D, it was the classic RC rules.

What is the type of play that you want to get out of using it?

Standard 'Sword & Sorcery' genreplay.

For myself, I’d like the game to reflect the exploits of the adventurers Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, two roguish types who gain coin as easily as they lose it.

Your method combines classic D&D with Barbarians of Lemuria in ways. With BoL, characters advance by the players telling the story of how their PCs spent the loot they acquired. It's a very entertaining approach that captures the feel of S&S characters like Conan.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

A mid-range way to go is the one Shadowdark takes where you do get XP for gold, but it's also tied to a carousing table where you get additional benefits if you do some frivolous spending when you get back to town.

Which I think is kind of specifically to reward heroes who act just about like Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. They're always finding treasure, living large in the city for a few weeks or whatever, and then going to go find more work.

And then you can also reward them XP occasionally for doing other good Lankhmar protagonist things that don't net them gold, like climbing the tallest mountain in Nehwon just because it's there.

 

[TerraDave]

One of the oldest spend for XP rules was Dave Arneson’s Wine, Woman, and Song rule.

Or that’s how I always heard it. There may actually been other categories along with those. But in any case there is precedent.

 

[John Dallman]

I encountered a system for running dragons like characters where they got XP for money. As long as they kept the money. This explained their hoarding behaviour rather nicely.

 

[MNblockhead]

I run a multi year campaign using XP for GP. Generally advancement was slower with the occasional big haul acting like a milestone jump. One thing I really like is how it impacts play style. Players are much more willing to look for creative ways to get treasure other than killing everything. It makes less sense to fight everything you encounter if you don't get XP from it. Any it leads to some interesting encounters where the PCs will attempt to sneak past or steal from creatures and NPCs far more powerful then them. Overall, it leads to more interesting game sessions in my opinion.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I always liked the various ideas about gp only going to xp if it was spent 'frivolously' to match the Conan and Fafhrd&Grey Mouser stories. When experimenting with said rules, my group always defined that broadly -- anything that neither advanced your adventuring acumen (equipment) or keep/castle/army. So a massive donation to your temple or tribute to your lord would still count, even though it might have some downstream adventure benefit (through positive NPC reaction).

Another toggle we've tried switching back and forth was what counted as 'gp.' Was it any money you were able to acquire, just anything you were able to drag out of dungeons, or just outright "loot" (coins and gems and such)? The second excludes earning money as a landlord or merchant or get-rich-quick schemer from helping one level. The third makes fighting anthropomorphic opponents (that wear armor and fight with weapons) less of an advantage over those that just have treasure piles. This does mean you need to track loot GP separately.

 

[delericho]

2) Spending Adventure Loot.

There is one way to spend your cash to gain experience points: Frivolously.

I really like this, but...

You do then need to make sure there are meaningful non-frivolous options for spending that money, be that plentiful options for improved gear, buying or crafting magic items, or what have you. Otherwise that's an easy choice to make.

 

[not-so-newguy]

The system I am using is DCC* which is further modified by their Lankhmar supplements. I’ve never liked DCC’s rules for XP and leveling up because they seem vague to me, so that’s why I’m trying to replace them.

@Tigris

• Is separate XP and gold necessary? I think one nice thing of gold for xp is that you can combine them. What I mean here would be that your encounters dont give XP but instead drop (items worth) gold as well. (Maybe 5% not 2.5% of next level because you expect half of it to be used for other things).
• If you do the above you dont need any formula for xp conversion or xp values for levelup etc. But just gold for levelup. Making things simpler and even more elegant

If I ran this game with a different system, such as Old School Essentials (OSE), I think using gold (and loot drops) as the only way to gain XP would work but I don’t think it would work well with the system I’m using. In DCC it is possible to have the random adventure force the PC to take up the quest with nothing to gain. Here’s an example from the carousing table:

You’ve offended the Dog God in the course of your carousing and you now possess the head of a canine. You cannot produce any sound other than those of a dog (making spellcasting impossible), but can hear and smell better than a human (+1d bonus to ability checks related to those senses). To regain your normal appearance, you must either undergo a quest to appease Rokh or find a spellcaster capable of casting remove curse with a spell check of at least 24 (allowing you a Will save vs. DC 25). A spell check of 27+ removes the curse automatically. They will undoubtedly require a large payment for daring to intervene in the ways of the divine.​

Assuming that the PC doesn’t want a dog head, the group is going to need to take action to fix the situation whether it’s a quest to appease Rokh or find a powerful spellcaster. There’s not much to materially gain here but I think the players should be rewarded xp for it. I created the encounter/achievement for xp rules with this sort of thing in mind.

• Why is level 2 to 3 an increaae of xp/gold needed by factor 4 and not factor 2 like all the others? That one stands out.
• I mention this especially since I really like simplified xp tables (for encounter building) where you only need level difference of you and enemies like in pf2. This way you only need 1 small xp table and not 2 long (1 for encounter building and 1 for xp enemies grant). So what I mean is that a normal encounter is 8 xp. And a same level enemy gives 8 xp. And a 1 level lower 4 xp. And a 2 level lower 2 xp and a 3 level lower 1 xp etc. And you need (always) 320 xp to levelup. (Or go up to 10 xp for same level and 400 for levelup.)
• Why not start with lower numbers? Why 4000 xp? Has this to do with the game? With my example above you could go down to 1 coin/xp per level 1 enemy. And 40 to levelup first time.

I agree the xp table needs to be lowered. Thanks for pointing out the discrepancy at 3rd level.

I created the table very loosely based off the OSE xp table for Fighters. I increased the xp threshold for gaining levels because a DCC character is more powerful than their OSE counterpart of the same level. I knew while creating it that I would need to change the numbers. I just wanted to get something written down.

I’ll share my new and improved tables in another post.

• Also another way you could "simplify" is if you go up in coins. Lets say 8 bronze coins is a silver coin. And 8 silver coins is a gold coin then you would need for level 2: 40 bronze, 3: 80 bronze, 4: 160 bronze, 5: 40 silver, 6: 80 silver, 7: 160 silver, 8: 40 gold, 9: 80 gold, 10: 160 gold. This naturally gives 3 tiers of play and makes numbers simpler.

I don’t see how this simplifies things. It looks like coin for xp with extra math. I might be missing something.

• If you want to do all xp comes as gold, then you should make weapons/items "upgradable" like DnD 4e. Like you can deduct the cost for a +1 magic sword from a +2 magic sword if you buy it/let it be crafted id you have a +1 magic sword already. This way money spenr on equipment on eaely levels do not feel wasted.

The Nehwon setting is low magic, so a magical weapon would be extremely rare and unique. Skimming through the book, monster do not have invulnerability to normal weapons with the exception of the Ghost Hound when they’re in incorporeal form. When in this form, they’re invulnerable to everything including magic.

This is my longwinded way of saying that magical weapons, or upgrading them, aren’t necessary in this setting.

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@overgeeked

Frivolous is a good word here.

I stole it from a D&D clone that comes in 5 booklets (or pdf). It’s specifically from “Into the Unknown: Book 2 Playing the Game.”

In my games it's been a lot of carousing, bribing officials, paying taxes, tithing to churches, building shrines, training, buying a boat, building a keep, etc.

For bigger purchases and long-term projects, just treat it like an installment plan. It's a big clock. You can pay to progress the clock and once it's done, you get the thing. In the fiction it's trivial to break up big purchases. Paying scouts to find good land for your keep. Paying an architect to draw up plans for your keep. Paying workers to clear the site. Etc.

I love this setup because it does three great things that most other versions don't.

One, is solves the problem of even relatively low-level PCs having mountains of gold and almost nothing to spend it on. Now they do. This creates a money sink. Problem solved.

Two, it encourages roleplaying and worldbuilding from the players. They spend gold to create things in the world, foster relationships with NPCs, get a reputation as a partier, etc. Players insular and don't engage with the world or NPCs beyond what's absolutely necessary? This creates a reason for them to engage more. Problem solved.

Three, it emulates the old sword & sorcery fiction that I love. The characters in most of those old stories would strike it rich, spend it like mad, then be forced to go out on a job because they were broke. That cycle doesn't exist, really, without this kind of setup. And I absolutely love that style of fiction. Problem solved.

You make good points here and can see how this would get players more involved. What's the upside of having a reputation as a partier? As a player, I would avoid carousing and invest it on more constructive things.




*I know posters here have problems with Jospeh Goodman in regard to the Invincible Overlord book. If you’re curious about the controversy, then here’s the enworld thread for that:

Thread 'Goodman Games: Our Efforts Have Been Mischaracterized'

Jun 3, 2025

Goodman Games' CEO Joseph Goodman made a statement via YouTube over the weekend*. The video itself focused on the content of the controversial upcoming City State of the Invincible Overlord crowdfunding product, but was prefaced by a short introduction by Joseph Goodman, in which he reiterates his company's commitment to inclusivity and diversity and its opposition to bigotry, something which they say they "don't want to be associated with".

Goodman goes on to say that the company's efforts have been "mischaracterized by some folks" but does not go so far as to identify...

• Morrus
• Replies: 941
• Forum: *Tabletop General

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I bought the core rules and Lankhmar boxed set before this stuff became known.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

This is for Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder 2e (which we mix)

Leveling Up
Leveling in Secrets of Old Pandora involves spending treasure, the amounts you must spend at each level to go to the next are listed on the table below and utilize the Wealth by Level values from the core game. What your character spends the gold on isn’t important, so long as it doesn’t provide them any mechanical benefit beyond leveling. Players might pay for the very best tutors to sharpen their skills, might waste it on booze, sex work, and other forms of carousel, might spend it building lavish temples to their god or supporting orphanages, fund a better life for impoverished villages, or any other activity that isn’t expected to yield another benefit. Once they have elected to do so, the gold vanishes into the fiction of the game world and the Player Character levels up. Such things can appear in Voyages and in roleplaying, but shouldn’t provide any kind of material benefit.
This system is meant to place the acquisition of treasure as the core of the game, and to offer players interesting choices in setting the pace of their own progress-- decisions will have to be made regarding how many magic items to buy, whether to equip oneself with useful commodities like ships and hirelings, whether one wants to buy or sell their services and equipment, or even if one wants to invest in their fellow players by giving them gold to level up faster than they might otherwise, players are to be considered free to make these decisions!

Current Level and Cost to Achieve Next Level Table.

1	44 gp
2	75 gp
3	125 gp
4	215 gp
5	338 gp
6	500 gp
7	725 gp
8	1,000 gp
9	1,425 gp
10	2,000 gp
11	2,875 gp
12	4,125 gp
13	6,250 gp
14	9,125 gp
15	13,625 gp
16	20,625 gp
17	32,000 gp
18	52,000 gp
19	88,750 gp
20

Relatedly, we took the normal per encounter treasure rules that the game has, and we tripled them. So the normal alotment of treasure you get is what it costs to level and represents about a third of your cash, a third is to make sure you can get at least the normal amount of magic items and such.

The remaining third is half derived from the system's advice that sandboxing means some treasure is off the critical path, and that this means you should increase the original amount by half again, and half again because we were expecting people to possibly spend a lot of money on ships, or on other junk, and to give them more flexibility for leveling speed, items, etc.

This has generally worked beautifully, the game is a player scheduled west marches, and we sometimes have issues with someone deciding to actually go do something, but so long as people choose to schedule the gold leveling works great. In addition to encouraging players to look hard for secret rooms with extra items and treasure, or negotiate better rewards with NPCs, encourage actual piracy; people can speed up their leveling by spending a higher proportion of gold on it and going lean on items to catch up or sandbag to wait for friends who play less by 'twinking themselves out' (in the MMORPG sense) with extra magic items, or even just hand someone gold to get a valuable party role ready for a voyage they want to bring them on.

The fact that gold gains increase exponentially with level in the system means that players are never too incentivized to level too fast at the higher end because doing so means eventually taking on challenges with substandard items, but makes it fairly easy to have 'alts' for lower level voyages which some of my players love, since it dovetails so nicely with pf2e's crazy number of character options.