D&D 5E Possibly a bad idea, but what do you all think?

[Lanliss]

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Earn XP equal to the damage you take, or a good amount of XP for avoiding combat altogether. Would make leveling way way WAY slower unless you shift the XP levels. Thoughts?

 

[Draegn]

I award experience for solving problems without or with minimal violence. If your players are meant to break up an alliance of orcish tribes and they do so by removing the figure holding the tribes together rather than killing every orc they find, shouldn't they have the same experience earned?

 

[Lanliss]

I award experience for solving problems without or with minimal violence. If your players are meant to break up an alliance of orcish tribes and they do so by removing the figure holding the tribes together rather than killing every orc they find, shouldn't they have the same experience earned?

I know that, I am just thinking of interesting ways to award experience, and this is one of the ideas that stuck in my mind. It would also cover a few issues I have seen that people had, like the untouchable tank with an otherwise weak party. Tank takes no damage, and gains less experience than the others. This allows them to get strong enough to take on the big leagues that are capable of hitting that tank. By that time, the tank will be taking damage and start leveling as well. Of course, this is all for combat purposes, I also award experience for non-combat solutions, or getting around traps and the like.

 

[Oofta]

It's going to reward front line fighters and barbarians while "penalizing" ranged characters and spell casters.

I don't see how that would work.

Personally I base leveling on story, not XP.

 

[Sunseeker]

It might be easier to track hits and misses, since tracking the damage you don't take would mean you (the DM) would have to roll damage even on a miss.

Your idea certainly rewards a very front-line way of combat. But how do people who prefer to stay back from the front and provide support or cover fire gain XP?

 

[tglassy]

So...their Super Saiyans?

 

[pemerton]

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Earn XP equal to the damage you take

Classic Rolemaster awards XP for a range of things, including fighting, skill use and spell casting.

One XP award is for hits taken. Another is for dying and then coming back to life.

 

[SkidAce]

(in the theme of Monty Python)


"hit me"

"No no , hit me!"

"I'm the one you want to hit"

 

[SwivSnapshot]

Never mind, I mis-read the original post...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Earn XP equal to the damage you take, or a good amount of XP for avoiding combat altogether. Would make leveling way way WAY slower unless you shift the XP levels. Thoughts?

You should never, ever incentivize the player to act counter to how their character would act. The character doesn't want to take damage, so the player should also want to not take damage. If the character doesn't want to take damage, but the player wants the character to take damage, then that's a disconnect that's going to make it harder to role-play.