Level Independent XP Awards

[Coredump]

Okay, I checked out both of these threads, plus the UK thread you linked, and (once again) downloaded his CR .pdf. (I had/read it before also.)

I want to be careful to only address to you that which you have control over. IOW, not asking you why UK did something. There are things you have made up, and things UK has made up,and things WoTC has made up. Let me know if I mix them up.

Okay, here is the main question, what are you trying to accomplish?
Yes, you have a system, but what was is the criteria for determining if the system does what you want?

For instance, I can say that you get experience based on the number of rounds you are in combat times your level times 50 (A*L*10) That is a very simple formula, and scales with level.

For instance, it seems that one of your criteria was the 13.3/level goal. Or, that at a given level, a party of 4 of level X needs 13.3 encounters of EL X to reach level X+1.

That is one criteria for success.

You 'made up' the fact that creature power is CR^2, but why?

How is your system different than UK's table? And how is that better?
How is your system different than WoTC's table? And how is that better?

Before I can see if what you did was okay, I need to know what you were trying to do.

Thanks

 

[Cheiromancer]

Coredump,

Where were you a year ago?

I am not sure I want to reconstruct the chain of logic from these threads. IIRC the key principals was that for a party of 4 characters an equal CR encounter was a moderate encounter, and 13.333 such encounters should be enough to level up. I don't remember the rest, though I think they are formulas that fit UK's tables.

 

[Coredump]

I am not sure I want to reconstruct the chain of logic from these threads. .

Perhaps we misunderstand. I don't want you to recreate the math, or even the process of how the math came about. I have, in essence, a simple question.

Why is your method better? What does it do better than UK's method, or WoTC's method?
I understand it fulfills the 13.3 'test', I could see that from the formula. But I can give you a dozen 'systems' that do that. (Including UK's and WoTC's). So why use yours? What is different about your system compared to the other two?

And if you can't answer that, how do you know it is better? If it is not better, why use it?


I ask, because I have read these threads, and you really never go into 'why' you are doing it, or why it is better. And I have yet to see you explore how this changes the XP progression.
You also 'find' things that were always there. (ie. the 'relationship' between XP and treasure per encounter) So I am trying to discover what I am missing.

Thanks.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Well, UK's system aims to be better suited for high level campaigning. Especially in estimating the difficulty of an encounter whose monsters are of varying CRs. A common observation is that at high levels +/-2 in the CR doesn't mean as much as the WotC charts would have you believe. The CHI/RHO system shares this virtue of the UK system.

UK's system still broke down when the disparity in CRs of the monsters making up an encounter was too great. The example he gives is that the encounter level of a red dragon will drop if you gave it skeleton minions. UK had an ad hoc patch, but it was kinda inelegant, imho. CHI, on the other hand, always increases as you add monsters, and is thus valid for a wider variety of encounters than UK's system.

The UK and WotC system used a lot of charts and tables. What I like about my method is that it is just a formula. This might be an aesthetic benefit rather than a practical benefit, since if someone lacks a spreadsheet or a calculator they would have to refer to a table anyway. But it is easy to calculate or program into a spreadsheet.

I think that the relationship between the difficulty of an encounter and the CRs of the participants is more transparent the way I calculate it. Especially with Wulf's suggested refinement to the formula that takes the 300 out of the definition of CHI. CHI takes the place of encounter level (EL) as being a representation of the power of an encoutner and is much more straightforward than UK's definition, which required several table lookups. I am fairly comfortable with mental arithmatic, and I like the way that I can estimate encounters based on the squares of the CRs. Four CR 7 monsters makes a CHI of about 200, and six CR 4 monsters would add another 100. Together they should make a reasonable (but not tough) encounter for 4 15th level characters. It's harder to do that kind of estimation when tables are involved. Especially if the tables turn out to involve logarithmic or exponential progressions.

As far as changing the xp progression- well, WotC gives more xp than CHI/RHO for encounters with critters of high CR (relative to the party); maybe more xp than is warranted. CHI/RHO gives more xp for encounters that are closer to the party's level. Complicating the fact is that UK's CRs (used by the CHI/RHO formula) are about 1.5 times the WotC CRs. Twice as high for dragons.

But most of the time the xp granted by one system is within a factor of two of that granted by the other system. For example, let's say a party of 4 16th level characters is fighting a CR 22 monster. It's the WotC CR, so the UK CR will be 33. It will have a CHI of 1089. RHO is 1024, so it should be a 50/50 battle for the party; you should have a lot of people in single hit points or status effects at the end of the battle, and the spellcasters best spells should be used up; the party will need to rest and heal immediately. The CHI/RHO method says they should get about 30% the xp needed to go up a level (since this is about 4 moderate encounters).

The WotC method would grant 9,600 xp to each character. That's 60% of a level, twice what the CHI/RHO method would grant, and maybe it is a fair premium if there is a significant chance of a TPK. Or maybe it is too much xp.

Suppose it is an equal CR encounter. A 10th level party of four vs a (WotC) CR 10 creature. Each gets 750 xp, 7.5% needed to advance. CHI is probably around 225, and RHO is 400, so the encounter will be rated as tough, and they'll get about 17% the xp needed to advance.

Upper Krust notes that the disparity of CR means a lot less as you get to higher levels. Conversely, it will mean more at lower levels.

Say that a party of 6th level characters encounters a CR 12 monster. If successful, each would get 3,600 xp, again 60% of what they need to go up a level. But UK would probably rate the monster as a CR 18, and so it would have a CHI of 324. The RHO of the party is only 216, so their chances of survival aren't very good at all.

So you have to ask yourself; does a +6 CR difference make more of a difference to a low level party than a high level party? I.e. is it much more likely to signal a TPK? If so, then the UK or CHI/RHO system should be seen as superior to the WotC system. The differences between the UK and CHI/RHO are mostly aesthetic and related to ease of calculation, but I think that CHI/RHO handles very diverse encounters (like the Red Dragon plus skeletons) better than UK's does.

Does this answer your question?

 

[Coredump]

Wow, excellent, awesome... thank you.

I will give it a more thorough reading and get back to you.