Rate Of Advancement Question, Or "Is the XP chart changing?"
- Thread starter Flynn
- Start date
SpiderMonkey
Explorer
I'd like for levels to be a little less gradated. For example, I'm not sure the difference between 1st and 2nd, or 8th and 9th should be as marked as it currently is. What we find in 3.x is a sort of "lurching" forward at certain levels.
If you still get "toys" at each level (which is a good thing) while slowing down the overall objective power level, it'll make advancement fun without challenging verisimilitude overmuch: "I'm better than I was yesterday, but not superhuman compared to yesterday." I think such a notion would really work in a system that has 30 levels. You know, the whole "thinner slices of the same loaf" approach. Of course, I hope that we _do_ see something new at the higher levels.
As far as rate of advancement goes, I don't have a problem with it being a little faster with the above caveats in place, and I suspect that this may be the case (though, like everyone else who is theorizing, I have little actual proof).
If you still get "toys" at each level (which is a good thing) while slowing down the overall objective power level, it'll make advancement fun without challenging verisimilitude overmuch: "I'm better than I was yesterday, but not superhuman compared to yesterday." I think such a notion would really work in a system that has 30 levels. You know, the whole "thinner slices of the same loaf" approach. Of course, I hope that we _do_ see something new at the higher levels.
As far as rate of advancement goes, I don't have a problem with it being a little faster with the above caveats in place, and I suspect that this may be the case (though, like everyone else who is theorizing, I have little actual proof).
The Souljourner
First Post
I went into this here: http://enworld.org/showthread.php?t=204717
Since XP for monsters is fixed, and we assume that killing a monster will help you level in relation to it's level compared to yours - the XP chart has to be some kind of quadratic. That way the 50xp you get for killing a goblin regardless of your level is a much bigger percentage of your XP to level at 1st than it is at 10th.
I posted a proposed XP chart in the link up there. I think the 4e chart will look something like that (there are a few assumptions that I made that could get changed, but for the most part, it has to be huge at the high ends).
Also, I stated in that thread that I think advancement will slow down. The "equal ECL fight" that WoTC planned to have be 13.33 encounters before you level was way too easy and most PCs fought fights which were higher ECL and therefore more XP and therefore levelled faster.
I think the change from party vs 1 creature to party vs N creatures is part of the slow down (and part of making lower levels more fun).
I would expect that if you run the same kind of adventures you ran in 3.x in 4, your PCs will level at about 1/3rd to 1/5th the rate. But of course, all of that is based on a lot of assumptions on my part.
-Nate
Since XP for monsters is fixed, and we assume that killing a monster will help you level in relation to it's level compared to yours - the XP chart has to be some kind of quadratic. That way the 50xp you get for killing a goblin regardless of your level is a much bigger percentage of your XP to level at 1st than it is at 10th.
I posted a proposed XP chart in the link up there. I think the 4e chart will look something like that (there are a few assumptions that I made that could get changed, but for the most part, it has to be huge at the high ends).
Also, I stated in that thread that I think advancement will slow down. The "equal ECL fight" that WoTC planned to have be 13.33 encounters before you level was way too easy and most PCs fought fights which were higher ECL and therefore more XP and therefore levelled faster.
I think the change from party vs 1 creature to party vs N creatures is part of the slow down (and part of making lower levels more fun).
I would expect that if you run the same kind of adventures you ran in 3.x in 4, your PCs will level at about 1/3rd to 1/5th the rate. But of course, all of that is based on a lot of assumptions on my part.
-Nate
Last edited:
It won't affect me either way, we do not use exp in our campaigns, we level up when we see fit (Currently, the advancement rate is about 1 level per year in a weekly high-level campaign).
Once XP is officially not "used up" by feats and spells anymore, it'll be even easier to do without it alltogether, and advance per DM fiat, or group consensus.
Once XP is officially not "used up" by feats and spells anymore, it'll be even easier to do without it alltogether, and advance per DM fiat, or group consensus.
Sun Knight
First Post
I hope they slow the progression down compared the base system that way leveling will feel more of a reward than a chore.
Flynn said:
I don't really care how they change the XP chart as long as they don't go back to each class having a different XP chart. I like just planning my sessions such that I can give my PCs get roughly 15-20% of a level each session (depending on their performance). Unifying the XP table was probably the single best change in the upgrade from 2e to 3e, and moving backwards on that would be a big mistake in my book.
kigmatzomat
Hero
Ditto that. I can control advancement by either pacing or XP multipliers. Generally pacing does the job of slowing down advancement. Heck, if anything the advancement is too slow because it takes forever to get those 13.3 encounters. I generally have to use a handful of bigger encounters simply for plot coherency.
My guess is that rapid advancement won't be as big an issue at the high levels, because they're flattening the power curve. Didn't someone say that levels 4-14 in 3E is going to be equivalent to 1-30 in 4E? If so, then each individual level will represent a much smaller increment in actual power, so you won't get as much of the "peons to demigods in 6 months" feel.
Similar Threads
