More "realistic" advancement in D&D?

[Lanefan]

Could this not lead to the situation where characters try to out-do each other in the risk-taking department, chasing individual rewards, rather than working as a team?

Absolutely, until after a series of quick deaths some wisdom sets in whereupon it tends to settle down into shared risk-taking and teamwork. But the element of "do it" remains foremost, instead of the horrible alternative "let someone else do it" which all-inclusive ExP awards can sometimes encourage.

Lanefan

 

[Sadrik]

Start with removing the +1/2 level bonus to players and monsters.

 

[Starfox]

And yes, I want to differentiate rewards.

Ok, here is a differentiated reward system on the same model (first level one session, second level two sessions, etc). Since xp required in 3E is linear, with each level requiring 1000 new xp times your character level, the easy way to make it progressively slower is to divide all rewards by character level.

* Use the 3.5 xp tables

* Assign xp exactly as normal, but multiply it by four, then divide the reward by character level.

Or

* Assign each session a reward of 1000 xp. Divide this reward between the challenges encountered in this session, giving 100% to the guy who fought all of them, 50% to he who confronts half of them, and so on.

And yes, I want to differentiate rewards. I've both played with and DMed players who, if the ExP were divided on a pure encounter-completion basis regardless of actual participation, would have their characters run and hide *every single time*, leaving others to take the risk. The last thing I want to do is reward this selfish me-first style of play.

I don't know why, but I had figured you for an old-school DM, and what you condemn here is pretty much the old-school approach; players are presented with a problem, and any approach that solves the problem merits a reward. Seems I was wrong. My players are pretty much the opposite of yours - they compete to be the most heroic, hence different experiences and rules.

 

[mmadsen]

Start with removing the +1/2 level bonus to players and monsters.

You find the +1/2 level bonus to be the most implausible element of 4E's progression?

 

[Gentlegamer]

@mmadsen
I started typing a reply to your last reply to me, but then I saw post 42 and I can say we are pretty much on the same page re: how ac and hit points work and are "supposed" to work.

 

[Mallus]

The trick to more 'realistic' advancement isn't tinkering with the XP system, it's limiting the number of opportunities PC's have to acquire XP per game-calender year. Call it campaign clock control. Only run a few adventures per game year, if that.

End adventures with "Two years pass before the Northern Orcs return to plague the lands".

If the campaign is more PC-driven, begin adventures with "After six months of tedious research, you finally discover the location of the Crypt of Buried Bling".

No matter what variant XP system you use, if you allow PC's to gain experience --virtually-- every day of the year, it's unavoidable that they'll go from brash young farm hand to ass-kicking demigod in less time than it would take them to earn an associates degree.

The problem seems to be the way real time maps to in-game time. Changing the real-time advancement rate by lowering XP awards attacks the wrong end of the problem. The more elegant solution is the change (well, more like 'break') the relationship between real-world time and game time. If PC's are gaining levels too quickly between adventures, increase the amount of in-game time between adventures.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Advancement and the speed of it, are very mutable in any system. Umbran had a great point-just slow progression to taste.

Older D&D systems didn't feature as large a gap in effectiveness between levels. Power scaling wasn't as absolute so as to make a contest between two entities separated by 5 levels a foregone conclusion. Module D1 was intended for 9th level and higher adventurers but the caves featured a tribe of bugbears which was a credible threat. Bonus bloat can create gaps in effectiveness that a d20 roll cannot cover.

As far as NPC's are concerned, they may have adventuring levels but consider the 1E DMG assumption stating that PC's will usually be "the most aggresive types in the area". This means that while Joe Bob the town sheriff has been a fighting man for 15 years, he is only 3rd level because the risks of the adventuring life are not worth the rewards to him. A comfortable job seeing to town law enforcement suits him just fine. The odds are that if he had sought out fortune and glory then he would have been melted by green slime or become orc food long before level 3.

I have no problem with systems that use similar rules to mechanically represent PC's and NPC's. PC's are special and rise above the normal folks by virtue of what the chose to do rather than by a mechanical representation of unique abilities.

 

[aboyd]

As has been mentioned, E6 pretty much does this. Yes, it's 3.5 edition, but there is little need to port it to 4th as it's merely a concept that can be used for any edition. It's simple. Freeze level progression at a point you like. However much XP it took to hit that last level is how much it'll take to get an extra feat. So in 3.5 it may have required 5000 XP to go from level 5 to level 6, at which point the character is maxed out for levels. So after that point, another 5000 XP would gain a new feat, and another 5000 XP after that would gain another feat, and so on. In E6, you can gain pretty much every feat in the game if you play long enough. In my game, I cap it at 20 extra feats. I also run it up to level 14 before imposing the "no more levels" rule.

You can add some extras if needed -- for example, e6 relies upon the idea that there are feats in the game that will extend a class in appropriate ways. A wizard will take a feat to gain an extra spell. A fighter will raise his BAB or HP. 4th edition might need some logical extra feats if the splatbooks haven't extended the feat selection enough yet.

Also, again for 3rd edition but easily extended to 4th, there are many optional rules about stuff taking time. From the DMG there is a training rule that leveling up requires a number of weeks of practice with someone of your class and of a higher level. From the PHB 2 there is a rule that retraining and rebuilding options for a character can take a number of weeks as well. Finally from one of the complete books, there are teamwork bonuses that can reqire weeks to gain (but are otherwise free of cost). I impose many of these restrictions in my game. They aren't boring, as the players can fast-forward through the time -- "Hey DM, we all train for 3 weeks in town, OK? Thanks." However the net effect is that years go by before they hit level 20. Keep your towns spaced out and require travel for quests (as in LotR) with only a few wandering monster encounters per journey, and you will indeed have the "seasoned veterans who saw many battles over many years." You don't even have to endure a lot of complicated math and rules changes. What I've described is fairly easy.

 

[Stalker0]

The trick to more 'realistic' advancement isn't tinkering with the XP system, it's limiting the number of opportunities PC's have to acquire XP per game-calender year. Call it campaign clock control. Only run a few adventures per game year, if that.

End adventures with "Two years pass before the Northern Orcs return to plague the lands".

I'll echo this statement.

The simplest way is to leave the system alone and simply change the campaign expectations.

One thing you can say is that while healing surges "come back" during an adventure, where the stakes are high and the adrenaline is going....once the adventure is over the pcs are spent. They have sprained ankles to nurse, concussions to let sit, and just getting over the incredible battle fatigue that would arise from such intense adventuring.

 

[Oni]

You find the +1/2 level bonus to be the most implausible element of 4E's progression?

I don't know about Sadrik, but it's certainly something annoys me a great deal, it's bigger numbers just for the sake of having bigger numbers and removing it actually makes the system more flexible IMHO. It inflates the power curve just to stimulate the lust for advancement. In my eyes it actually is one of the worst offenders.