Promoting the entire party's experience level at the same time

[Driddle]

Anyone here play in a group where the entire adventuring party is promoted in experience levels at the same time? So instead of micro-managing each character's individual tally, the DM (via estimation or elaborate math equations) just keeps track of one experience point pool and everyone goes from 5th to 6th level at the same time, for example.

Good idea for you, or would you prefer to keep your experience gains -- or lack thereof -- entirely to yourself?

 

[Stormborn]

Almost everyone I know gives out XP to the entire party all at the same time and, barring Item creation, that means that everyone goes up at the same time. Even those who make a lot of magic items rarely are so far off that they wouldnt go up at about the same time.

 

[WayneLigon]

Almost everyone I know gives out XP to the entire party all at the same time and, barring Item creation, that means that everyone goes up at the same time. Even those who make a lot of magic items rarely are so far off that they wouldnt go up at about the same time.

My experience exactly. Since we run people's characters if they are not there, the PC still gets the same amount of XP everyone else does, so everyone levels at the same time anyway.

 

[sniffles]

Same here, at least in one group I belong to. It saves on bookkeeping for the GM, and doesn't slight anyone whose attendance or participation might be limited for reasons beyond their control.

I like it. I don't care about tracking my experience myself. I prefer it if the GM just tells me when it's time to level my character. And it worked out really well for me a couple of years ago when I was very ill and missed a lot of sessions. Otherwise I might have fallen a level or even two behind the rest of the group - which is what happened to me in another group where the GM doesn't award group experience.

 

[freyar]

I'm with everyone else here...

 

[delericho]

And me.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Our system is you level every two sessions. We normally play long sessions, about eight hours, but they've been a bit shorter recently so thinking of changing to every three sessions.

 

[Whimsical]

I run the Shackled City adventure path. I don't do anything with XP. I just level the party at the appropriate points in the adventure path.

 

[lobsterGun]

Anyone here play in a group where the entire adventuring party is promoted in experience levels at the same time? So instead of micro-managing each character's individual tally, the DM (via estimation or elaborate math equations) just keeps track of one experience point pool and everyone goes from 5th to 6th level at the same time, for example.

Good idea for you, or would you prefer to keep your experience gains -- or lack thereof -- entirely to yourself?

Our last GM started his game by handing out XP after every adventure, but gave up after about 6th level. In the year or so that he handed out XP there was only a single occasion where we didn't all level at the same time. After that realization, he just leveled us when it was appropriate for the adventure (Shackled City).

We started a new campaign a few weeks ago with a different GM. This one is going to try to run by-the-book XP.

Personally, I like the way the old Chaosium system worked. When you used an ability successfully you put a check mark next to it. At the end of the adventure, you made a skill advancement roll for every skill that you had checked. The advancement roll was a skill that you wanted to fail. If you failed the roll, the skill got better by d6 points (it was a d100 system). The effect was that as a skill got closer to 100 it was harder to fail the advancement roll and, thus, harder to increase the skill.

 

[EricNoah]

I'll never micromanage XP again. Not enough benefit for the cost.