D&D 5E Level Up! DING, fries are done!

[halfling rogue]

I almost completely ignore XP, probably because in a past group we functionally ignored XP. We tried to individualized XP per player early on, but we would normally forget as the game went on, then we'd stop and recall who did what. It was a drag. We wound up just spreading XP across the board, "Those monsters were worth 500xp, divide it among the party", and in turn that wound up just being, "Um...you all earn enough XP to level up" at the end of a session. And that sort of shaped me as a DM to just ignore XP and pass out levels instead. Milestone based is probably pretty accurate, though it works mostly on feel. "Yeah, it feels like you guys are ready to level up now."

 

[ExploderWizard]

I believe the rules state that HD are gained immediately and other abilities become available after the next long rest.

I just use that unless the character wants to take a level in a class they don't already have 1 or more levels in. The first level in a new class takes a trainer, 240 gp and 240 days just like learning a new tool or language. Half of that time must be spent with the trainer. the other half may be spent in self practice. Multi-classing takes dedication and time.

 

[Riley37]

This thread reminds me of the final fight scene from The Last Dragon. If there was ever an example of "leveling up" in the middle of combat, that was it.

I haven't seen the movie. Was it something like this: "Heroes try new things and fail, repeatedly, as they identify and mobilize against a threat, and as they come together as allies. In the Big Final Fight Scene, the heroes are on the ropes; it's time for the adversaries to smugly sneer and finish off the heroes. Then the heroes suddenly rally and successfully apply the lessons they've been learning all along, surprising and toppling their adversaries."

If I just now accurately described a movie which I haven't seen, then there's probably a name for this pattern on some website about tropes in TV storytelling. As a DM, I want an option to impose mid-fight-scene levelling on PCs, to set up a scene like that at my D&D table. The 5E RAW provides this option, by means of Rule Zero if not elsewhere.

Obviously any strict method of XP awarding and leveling is going to leave something to be desired on the logical-functional-fun matrix.

(tongue in cheek): I demand, for 5E, simulationist level gain mechanics, based on careful observation of how athletes and soldiers level up. Has a triathlete ever levelled up between one section of a race, and the next section? Consider the SAS agents who responded to the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege; did any of them level up during the operation? Or during the long rest immediately following that operation?
(end tongue in cheek)

Yeah, that's why I don't expect ever to see mechanics for the process of level gain which make sense to me, because level gain itself doesn't make sense to me. Most of my TRPG over the last 20 years used systems with more incremental, fine-grain resolution of characters gaining new abilities one at a time, starting with character generation. Those systems don't use levels or classes. My return to D&D is mostly fun, I enjoy 5E much more than 4E, but levels and classes feel like a big step backwards compared to HERO System, GURPs, White Wolf, etc.

The 80 gp could be spent preparing for a 40 day journey to the ancient oak grove, preparing a special gift for its unicorn guardian, and preparing special robes and a golden sickle needed to learn the final magic of unlimited shifting.

Okay, that works for me, thanks for a nice fill-in. I still intend to use the time and GP costs as a rough ballpark average, to be modified according to specifics; which, fortunately, RAW allows, by application of Rule Zero (to a 5E DMG rule presented as optional anyways).

I also figure this: most training is easiest and fastest if you have a trainer who already has mastery of the skillset you're learning. But if there's no trainer - perhaps if you're the first person to EVER develop the skillset in question, or the first in several generations - then there are ways for you to train yourself. Those methods might be tedious and time-consuming, they might involve more failures along the way, they might involve the assistance of a deity (or a paladin oath, a warlock patron, a Mary Sue NPC, etc.), they might require using up a lot of raw materials, they might require collaboration between PCs. But if you keep at it, then you'll break through, sooner or later.

 

[redrick]

I also figure this: most training is easiest and fastest if you have a trainer who already has mastery of the skillset you're learning. But if there's no trainer - perhaps if you're the first person to EVER develop the skillset in question, or the first in several generations - then there are ways for you to train yourself. Those methods might be tedious and time-consuming, they might involve more failures along the way, they might involve the assistance of a deity (or a paladin oath, a warlock patron, a Mary Sue NPC, etc.), they might require using up a lot of raw materials, they might require collaboration between PCs. But if you keep at it, then you'll break through, sooner or later.

I've been thinking of a rule where characters need to find a mentor (or relevant alternative) for low-level training, but, after a certain level, the characters need to take on their own students, pupils or disciples in order to advance in level. This fits the apprentice -> journey-man -> master mold, where attaining mastership is tied to taking on apprentices. A wizard could take on an apprentice. A fiend-pact warlock could go out and win another soul for his fiend. Etc. Obviously, anti-social character concepts would need some sort of anti-social equivalent to taking on pupils, but I'm sure an alternative could be found where necessary.

 

[Riley37]

On a tangent: my 5E table is about to have their first level-up since I became DM. It's milestone; three sessions ago, after a Big Fight Scene, I told them that they all felt *ready* to level up, but that levelling up was an in-game event, and since they ended the Big Fight Scene on a gods-forsaken isolated island, which they needed to leave in a hurry, the PCs would have to find an appropriate in-game time and place. They made it off the island (just before a turtle dragon of Tiamat arrived at the island, demanding sentient sacrifices). They were, however, transporting a prisoner captured on the island (who might be a spellcaster), and a highly dangerous Magic Item of Plot Relevance. The route from the island to the Campaign Home City is dangerous, with two different bandit gangs attacking so many travelers that caravan trade has almost ceased. In other words - no Downtime Days for you, not until you return to Phlan! (Not that Phlan is the safest place in all of Faerun, for these particular PCs. They've made a few enemies.)

Two sessions later, they still haven't had a Long Rest. They will have one at the beginning of the next session. They will each be woken up by ominous dreams, or by the triggering of the Alarm spell around their tent, or both. They will wake up having transitioned from Level 4 to Level 5 overnight. The warlock will wake up out of dreams in which his Great Old One patron transmits a new Invocation directly into his mind. I don't run his GOO patron as *evil*; I run his GOO Patron as bizarre and kinda creepy from a merely mortal perspective, because 17-dimensional intelligences have different assumptions about personal boundaries.

Meanwhile, their prisoner has ALSO leveled up during the same Long Rest, and Tiamat has taught the prisoner a new Warlock Invocation, which the prisoner will immediately use as part of the prisoner's plan to escape, grab the Magical Treasure of Plot Significance, and transport that item to the nearby draconic bandit gang associated with the Cult of Tiamat. I like feeding one storyline directly and thematically into the next one. (If you have run or played DDEX, you may recognize the ones I'm using.)

"It's a brand new day, and the sun is high. All the birds are singing... that you're gonna die..."

Nah, the PCs won't die. But they'll be excited and eager to use their new class abilities, within minutes of waking up to the first day of life at level 5. I'm looking forwards to it.

 

[Riley37]

I've been thinking of a rule where characters need to find a mentor (or relevant alternative) for low-level training, but, after a certain level, the characters need to take on their own students, pupils or disciples in order to advance in level.

There is an organization or two in the real world, which generally encourages its participants to become trainers to new members as soon as they are competent to take on that responsibility. They have a theory that one learns mastery most thoroughly when one is training newbies. The process of encouraging the rookie, reminds the trainer of the fundamentals; the process of fielding rookie questions, forces the trainer to learn broadly, rather than get by on "just enough" mastery; and the trainer can sometimes even learn from the newbie's mistakes, as well as from their own mistakes.

Yes, this should also benefit the rookie, of course. But even the most selfish journeyman benefits when their practice includes training a rookie. (Arguably, the most selfish journeyman is actually the one who MOST stands to benefit from their service as a trainer, because growing out of narrow-mindedness will help their overall progress)

 

[Kikuras]

Meanwhile, their prisoner has ALSO leveled up during the same Long Rest, and Tiamat has taught the prisoner a new Warlock Invocation, which the prisoner will immediately use as part of the prisoner's plan to escape, grab the Magical Treasure of Plot Significance, and transport that item to the nearby draconic bandit gang associated with the Cult of Tiamat. I like feeding one storyline directly and thematically into the next one. (If you have run or played DDEX, you may recognize the ones I'm using.)

This sort of thing is the reason I advocate the execution of all prisoners, especially those that are more than 3 hours walk away from the authorities. Of course my assumption as a player is that they'll just escape the bumbling guards, so again, advocate for execution. Of course there's always a divide at the table, the paladin or the monk protest... which then forces me to advocate murdering the paladin and/or the monk...

Which makes me think of Batman and the hundreds of people who have been murdered by his enemies because he has a silly rule against killing. He's not a crime-fighter, he's an enabler! Of course that's all part of his god-complex psychosis.

 

[Tormyr]

I haven't seen the movie. Was it something like this: "Heroes try new things and fail, repeatedly, as they identify and mobilize against a threat, and as they come together as allies. In the Big Final Fight Scene, the heroes are on the ropes; it's time for the adversaries to smugly sneer and finish off the heroes. Then the heroes suddenly rally and successfully apply the lessons they've been learning all along, surprising and toppling their adversaries."

If I just now accurately described a movie which I haven't seen, then there's probably a name for this pattern on some website about tropes in TV storytelling. As a DM, I want an option to impose mid-fight-scene levelling on PCs, to set up a scene like that at my D&D table. The 5E RAW provides this option, by means of Rule Zero if not elsewhere.

It was more like unlocking a power that was entirely untapped until the hero had been pummeled to near unconsciousness. Think Super Metroid where the Mother Brain obliterates Samus down to 1 hp and the metroid comes in, fills her to full hp and gives her the hyper beam or How to Train Your Dragon 2 where Toothless goes nova to free him and Hiccup from the ice prison, glows purple, and has a more devastating breath weapon.

So it was more about a surprising new power than any training or working together. Which is where the level up metaphor came into play. Sort of like the, "Hey I'm level 5! I can shoot fireballs now!"

 

[Sunseeker]

I just use that unless the character wants to take a level in a class they don't already have 1 or more levels in. The first level in a new class takes a trainer, 240 gp and 240 days just like learning a new tool or language. Half of that time must be spent with the trainer. the other half may be spent in self practice. Multi-classing takes dedication and time.

How do you enforce 120 days (4 months) of essentially doing nothing, in game? Does your game just have big "gaps"? Does the character "retire" until they have finished training?

 

[Tormyr]

How do you enforce 120 days (4 months) of essentially doing nothing, in game? Does your game just have big "gaps"? Does the character "retire" until they have finished training?

The encounters season March of the Phantom Brigade put these several month breaks right into the middle of the story. The characters wrapped up what they were doing and then had 3 months+ of downtime.