No XP campaign

[Trellian]

I DM a no-xp campaign. I never felt comfortable with the CR system and the fact that characters were 15th level by the age of 22 and after 15-20 sessions. So in this campaign I've started now all characters gains a new level whenever I say so.. about every third session or so. This works perfectly great for everyone. Even if someone misses a session, they gain a level when the others do. But nevertheless, some practical problems do arise, and I am sure that more than me have played in this kind of system.

1: Level loss. What if someone loses a level due to level draining? Do they stay a level behind the others? Maybe they gain levels 1-2 sessions after the rest? I am kind of worried of doing it this way, because it can quickly lead to players wanting new characters.

2: XP usage on spells and magic items. I charge the cleric in my group an extra sum when creating items. (The xp cost x 3). this works fine, but maybe i should increase the costs?

3: I cannot think of other problems concering a no-xp system right now, but if there are, maybe somebody know of them?

 

[Trellian]

Umm.. this might suit better in the General Discussion message board, so feel free to move this thread

 

[Pax]

Funny, every FOURTH session is how often we were levelling ... using the CR rules ... though I admit, we were being <b>shortchanged</b> by a GM too stuck on 2E-powercurve-control issues.

 

[shilsen]

One way to deal with the problem is to use XP, but give it out based on your own opinions about acceptable advancement, not CR. So if you have a 5th lvl party (10,000 XP each) and you want them to take three sessions to level up to 6th, give them 1,500 XP each at the end of the first two sessions, and 2,000 at the end of the third.

Doing the above frees you up from having to worry about CR, but also gives you access to an XP total for each character, for when XP matters - level loss, magic item creation, XP-costing spells.

I'm doing this in my campaign, and it works very well for me.

 

[Trellian]

well, i tried to tone it down when we used the CR system, but if you check almost EVERY adventure in Dungeon Magazine, it says that "by the end of the adventure the characters should achieve a level". I feel it should take many sessions and several years to achieve even 10th level, let alone epic.

 

[Fenes 2]

I DM 2 no-exp campaigns, and we level every few months or so when we feel like it... slowing down in one campaign at level 14 now, close to level 12 in another.

As far as level draining goes, I don't use it. Don't like it, does not add anything to my campaign a few ability drains could not do as well, and just adds unneccessary complications.

XP costs for spells are no problem either - most of the spells that cost xp are spells I either ban or approve on a case by case base.

XP costs for items I would - if anyone ever took an item creation feat - replace by power components and extra-items for the PCs who do not have an item made for themselves.

XP penalties for multiclassing is another thing I don't have. Most extreme combinations I would just ban anyway, and so far no one has really multiclassed in a way that would result in penalties in a standard game.

 

[Victim]

Just make up whatever numbers fit your desired level gain rate.

 

[Uller]

well, i tried to tone it down when we used the CR system, but if you check almost EVERY adventure in Dungeon Magazine, it says that "by the end of the adventure the characters should achieve a level". I feel it should take many sessions and several years to achieve even 10th level, let alone epic.

Well...at one level per 3 sessions, it will be 27 sessions to reach 10th level...If you're having trouble with the CR system, 'tis best to just give an ad hoc award at the end of each session that keeps advancement at the desired rate. Then you don't have to muck with the other XP related rules.

A couple of points though....

Someone mentioned DMs with a 2e (or 1e) mindset when it comes to advancement...maybe you're one of these, maybe not. Just keep in minde that 3e seems to be designed such that character levels are higher in 3e. So a 3rd level character in 1e/2e seems to be equivalent to a 5th level character in 3e. So where a 1e campaign world was populated with 99% "0th level" humans, the 3e world is populated with 99% 1st - 3rd level commoners and experts. If you look at it that way, things might make a little more sense...maybe.

Also, part of controlling the powerlevel of your campaign is controlling the availibilty of adventures. What do I mean by that? Well...let's assume that all XP comes from combat...(not that it has to). For a party to get from 1st to 11th level, they have to fight 140 battles against opponents of an appropriate challenge. 140! Realistically, how many battles can a person expect to fight in their life in your world?

So here is what I do. I limit the adventure opportunities available to the party. It is assumed that between those adventures their leading more or less "normal" lives and growing into their new power levels. This part of their lives is too dull to bother "gaming" with...this is where the characters are building their homes, establishing their famillies, doing their normal jobs, etc.

Think about it...a typical large town in my campaign world has about 10,000 people in it...maybe double that lives in outlying villages and farmlands...so 30,000 people. Most of those people ought to be going about their uninteresting lives as bakers, blacksmiths and ditch diggers. How many "monsters" can such a population support. Not many. If you're trying to keep power levels down to a minimum it should be rare that a marauding troll starts raiding livestock or evil wizard attempts to enslave the residents of a nearby village. If you want a more dangerous world where giants and maniacal clerics who summon demons to terrorize the country side are common then obviously power levels will naturally be higher. Right?

So I run my campaign as a series of mini-campaigns. The last one I ran started out with four or five sessions spent defeating a group of goblins who were raiding a trade route. The characters went from 1st to 4th level. They had made a name for themselves in the local area (and even made a few enemies). Then FOUR YEARS went by. During that time, the fighter became a soldier for a local lord, the Ranger made a living as a hunter, the Cleric worked as a healer at a local temple. Then a great wolf and a dark rider appeared and trouble started again...the heroes reunited to track down this new threat to their homes.

Anyway...that's how I do it...sure, it should take years to become 10th level...because most people aren't out adventuring every moment of their lives. If they are adventuring constantly and they manage to survive, then it should be no wonder that they quickly gain levels. That's my take on it anyway.

 

[Petrosian]

[/B][/QUOTE]

I DM a no-xp campaign. I never felt comfortable with the CR system and the fact that characters were 15th level by the age of 22 and after 15-20 sessions.

Ok, unless your sessions are really long, then something was amiss. The basic underpinning of the 3e system for Xp is that about 13-14 "challenging" encounters will earn enough xp to level up. That should take 3-4 sessions in their estimation.

So in this campaign I've started now all characters gains a new level whenever I say so.. about every third session or so. This works perfectly great for everyone. Even if someone misses a session, they gain a level when the others do.

I too run a Xp-less system. The way I looked at it... the Xp given per encounter is based off the CR and EL and the charts, which had there numbers set to make it so that after 13-14 challenges of proper level you advanced.

My thought, why go thru the math to convert "encounters" to Xp and XP to levels when the whole thing was determined by "encounters needed to level up" in the first place.

Cut out the middle man.

My guys level up about every six sessions. We play three sessions a month and so after two years they have advanced from 2nd to just under 13th.

1: Level loss.

Since i despise level loss i replaced all level losses with things like diseases, characteristic drains, paralysis, fear, and their ilk. This turned undead into more "horrific" and less "game mechanic" by nature.

2: XP usage on spells and magic items. I charge the cleric in my group an extra sum when creating items. (The xp cost x 3). this works fine, but maybe i should increase the costs?

Remember.. Xp = encounters or in my case, sessions. A character who spends Xp will not "level up" the next time everyone else does. He must wait at least a session (typically one session) longer. If its a relatively small Xp expenditure like say under 100, i just do this for the one session. if its larger Xp, i will cause him to delay one session over more than one level... like say one session back this time AND 1 session back the next time too.

Unless the expenditures are large or frequent, they will still "make it up" within a few levels.

Believe me, the "you dont level up" and having to play that for a session is a serious nudge.

3: I cannot think of other problems concering a no-xp system right now, but if there are, maybe somebody know of them?

There are a lot of "lose xp" stuff sneaking around... like druids improving their animals and the like.

In general tho, if you keep Xp = encounters in mind, most problems work themselves out.

The benefit i have found is that the players are not interested in experience. They are not tracking numbers and talking about how many more varmints they are close to raising and that stuff.