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General Tabletop Discussion
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Leveling Up in 2E
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<blockquote data-quote="Galadrin" data-source="post: 6898814" data-attributes="member: 69113"><p>Uh, are you sure you were playing AD&D 2e? This sounds an awful lot like 1e to me...</p><p></p><p>The by the book way to give out more XP is with story awards. The DMG recommends that this should no more than double the XP earned from monsters in the adventure (including monsters the players may not have encountered, presumably) and should not be more than 1/10th the experience needed to get to the next level. If you want, you can throw out these rules and give major story awards (like 1,500 xp for each character in a 1st level party), but I wouldn't give them more than one new level per experience point gain (another DMG recommendation that is much more lenient than the 1/10th rule).</p><p></p><p>My personal practice? I don't divide combat XP among players (if they kill an ogre, they all gain 420 XP individually) and I give major story and minor roleplaying awards. The story awards are only given out at major milestones in the adventure storyline. Roleplay awards are given out at the end of every session. I don't give XP for anything else. Characters level up about once per adventure, in practice (about every 5 to 8 sessions).</p><p></p><p>In my experience, the rate of advancement is FAR more dependent on your campaign structure than it is on XP award strategies. XP is always, always dependent on what your players can <em>actually get done</em> in a four-hour sit down at your house (who am I kidding? In mom's basement). If you have them stuck in some dungeon week after week fighting little mook battles, then you have a serious problem. When I set up a dungeon, I make sure it has no more than seven or eight rooms (sometimes far fewer). There are a couple of mook battles for flavour, and then the boss fight and they're out in time for tea. Let them finish quests and you will find the story awards come rolling in. If they are low level, you can more than challenge them and push their resources with a small handful of tough fights.</p><p></p><p>If I had to put numbers to it, I'd say dungeons of 3-10 rooms with most of the session spent outside dungeons, 2-3 mook fights for each sub-boss fight, 2-3 sub-boss fights for each big boss fight (if the story warrants it), and a small adventure done in three or so sessions (medium adventure in five to eight sessions, long adventures ongoing as long as is necessary). Don't drag feet with throwaway battles... Let the players gather the clues for how to solve the adventure and then let them solve it (with fewer, tougher battles). The story awards will come in regularly this way.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Galadrin, post: 6898814, member: 69113"] Uh, are you sure you were playing AD&D 2e? This sounds an awful lot like 1e to me... The by the book way to give out more XP is with story awards. The DMG recommends that this should no more than double the XP earned from monsters in the adventure (including monsters the players may not have encountered, presumably) and should not be more than 1/10th the experience needed to get to the next level. If you want, you can throw out these rules and give major story awards (like 1,500 xp for each character in a 1st level party), but I wouldn't give them more than one new level per experience point gain (another DMG recommendation that is much more lenient than the 1/10th rule). My personal practice? I don't divide combat XP among players (if they kill an ogre, they all gain 420 XP individually) and I give major story and minor roleplaying awards. The story awards are only given out at major milestones in the adventure storyline. Roleplay awards are given out at the end of every session. I don't give XP for anything else. Characters level up about once per adventure, in practice (about every 5 to 8 sessions). In my experience, the rate of advancement is FAR more dependent on your campaign structure than it is on XP award strategies. XP is always, always dependent on what your players can [i]actually get done[/i] in a four-hour sit down at your house (who am I kidding? In mom's basement). If you have them stuck in some dungeon week after week fighting little mook battles, then you have a serious problem. When I set up a dungeon, I make sure it has no more than seven or eight rooms (sometimes far fewer). There are a couple of mook battles for flavour, and then the boss fight and they're out in time for tea. Let them finish quests and you will find the story awards come rolling in. If they are low level, you can more than challenge them and push their resources with a small handful of tough fights. If I had to put numbers to it, I'd say dungeons of 3-10 rooms with most of the session spent outside dungeons, 2-3 mook fights for each sub-boss fight, 2-3 sub-boss fights for each big boss fight (if the story warrants it), and a small adventure done in three or so sessions (medium adventure in five to eight sessions, long adventures ongoing as long as is necessary). Don't drag feet with throwaway battles... Let the players gather the clues for how to solve the adventure and then let them solve it (with fewer, tougher battles). The story awards will come in regularly this way. [/QUOTE]
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