D&D 5E My D&D Next Wishlist: Bring back XP for GP!

[tlantl]

How many people actually followed that rule? It's just anecdotal but I can't remember anyone doing so. Plus the G123 modules specifically state PCs can level up when the rest outside the dungeon.

The bit about getting out of the dungeon with your xp/gp was generally enforced.

My group and many others I know about did. Although the game tells you to make changes as you see fit most people follow the rules to the letter unless there's a real problem. Using the training rules was an excellent way to keep the players hungry for adventure, they were always broke. It also gave them an opportunity to use one of their henchmen as their main character until the training period was over. This was especially true since different classes gained xp at different rates and leveled at different times. Sometimes the adventure could wait, other times, not so much.

Just because you and your friends decided that these rules didn't make sense doesn't mean everyone played the way you did.

I would be tickled pink if those rules were revived since I think it adds to the game. When I played AD&D the gaining of levels wasn't the express reason for playing a character. Playing the game was.

 

[erleni]

I've gone the opposite way and don't really use xp, except as a ready-reckoner for balancing encounters, and in a "roughly ten encounters equals a level" way. Or simply, "You've completed the adventure - your game reward is levelling up".

We do the same.

 

[Danzauker]

I think XP for GP to be perhaps the only thing stupider than negative AC in D&D...

 

[Umbran]

XP-for-GP rewards you very directly for a smart, cautious playstyle.

Yes, it does.

Which means that if you want to run more epic, pulpy, adventurous, or personality-driven or drama-driven games, it is a poor choice, as it rewards undesirable behavior. For example, if the players want to play "white hats", who act because it is the "right thing to do", the XP-for-material-wealth is sub-optimal, to say the least.

So, XP-for-GP as an option, but not a core assumption in the advancement system, please.

 

[Hussar]

One of the big things people seem to overlook in their criticisms of earlier editions, is that once you start ignoring certain rules it has a cumulative effect that can quickly throw the entire game out of balance.

People complain about casters being over powered for instance, yet very few track spell costs or components, and making full use of spell component requirements is a great way to curtail casters.

In regards to the gold for xp...if the system allows for gp to be spent for xp, then the dm has a great way to limit magic item purchases and inhibit player power growth. Not that 5e is going to have purchasable magic items from what I've read, but if it doesn't...who cares about gold?

Plus, actually having players use their treasure to pay for training, making them seek out higher level mentors creates great opportunity for adventure hooks. Allows for NPCs that can really matter to the characters, not just for rp value, but as a pseudo-mechanical advantage.

Only problem is, you're not actually using AD&D rules here to prove your point.

Training was 1500 gp X Level X Weeks (usually 1-4 depending on how well you played). And you most certainly DID get full xp for all the gold before you spent it on training. And magic items had either a straight xp value if you kept it, or you got the GP value in XP if you sold it. Pick up an extra +1 sword and you could keep it or flog it for a couple of thousand GP and XP.

 

[Hussar]

My problem with XP for GP is it means that groups start Greyhawking every adventure. Every GP you leave behind is an XP lost. So, you kill every last thing in the dungeon and pry up anything that isn't actually physically part of the foundations to milk that adventure for everything it was worth.

And, outside of Save or Die, AD&D combat is very forgiving to this style of play. You have lots of cash, so, you have the best AC, which means that the monsters don't hit you very often, which means you can kill more monsters. On and on. And of course, extra cash means extra hirelings, and better equipped hirelings, which makes strip mining that adventure just that much easier.

I prefer a bit more pulpy action thanks.

 

[dagger]

I prefer a bit more pulpy action thanks.

I have never seen a game played like that but so I will have to disagree about the "greyhawking" part.

 

[tlantl]

I have never seen a game played like that but so I will have to disagree about the "greyhawking" part.

It was actually part of the tenser's floating disc description. The guy was so greedy that he invented the spell so he could bring back every copper from a dungeon. I guess he never found a bag of holding or a portable hole.

My games never seemed to be dungeon strip mining forays but they did clean out most of the easily transported goods.

I also never experienced players trying to find ways of avoiding danger while trying to glean as much money as possible, but the only players who had any reason to rush to high level were the spell casters and I made their lives very difficult. No one in fifteen years of AD&D in any game I've run or heard about has ever been able to cast a ninth level spell unless it came from a scroll. I did have one player get real close though. The numbers were so astronomical that it would literally take a decade of regular play to get the three million or so experience points needed for those lofty levels.

 

[F700]

Only problem is, you're not actually using AD&D rules here to prove your point.

Training was 1500 gp X Level X Weeks (usually 1-4 depending on how well you played). And you most certainly DID get full xp for all the gold before you spent it on training. And magic items had either a straight xp value if you kept it, or you got the GP value in XP if you sold it. Pick up an extra +1 sword and you could keep it or flog it for a couple of thousand GP and XP.

Right. Like I said, gold taken as xp was no longer gold which could be spent. It was gold ear marked for training.

Either way, you're either using treasure as xp or as cash.

If Next isn't allowing for the purchase of magic items, gold has a pretty limited value. Allowing treasure to count as xp returns PCs to their treasure hunter roots, and by including the find a mentor for training mentor there are plenty of rp opportunities that grow out of that. If next includes magic item buying, then it allows players another set of choices to make as far as treasure goes, and more choices are always a good thing.

 

[F700]

It was actually part of the tenser's floating disc description. The guy was so greedy that he invented the spell so he could bring back every copper from a dungeon. I guess he never found a bag of holding or a portable hole.

My games never seemed to be dungeon strip mining forays but they did clean out most of the easily transported goods.

I've been in groups where after a good long hard crawl an entire session could be spent working out the logistics of getting some valuable piece of not easily transportable treasure out of the dungeon. While I can see why some groups would decide to let the post bbeg portion play out off camera, there's fun to be had in having the heroes make their way out of a defeated dungeon with their loot - jury rigging litters, running into surviving dungeon inhabitants and either rping themselves as conquerors or having combats where they are now the defenders of their loot as opposed to raiders.

It depends how much time you care to spend on what might be considered by some to be minutia.