Slowing Advancement and Other Arbitrary Restrictions

[Ry]

Oh, if you don't want to make halving XP to be arbitrary, consider this (I do this as well). You'd think this brings the XP gain back up to normal, but it doesn't in terms of real game time (because players take longer to solve problems than defeat threats).

Problem-Solving Experience (to be used in conjunction with the doubled XP chart):

At the start of each session, players create a list of problems the party is trying to solve. The GM assigns CRs to these problems. When any problem is solved, the player characters get experience points as per a defeated monster of the same CR. The players can add to the list at any time, although the GM is always the one who assigns a CR.

Problems on the list aren't restricted to external problems in the world - they could include "we haven't seen the view from the top of Mount Awesome", or even party-internal roleplaying, like "we need to get that warlock out of his shell." The GM may give a problem a CR of 0 if the problem is extremely trivial, but even recurring, simple problems like "Thranish is probably hungry" can be used to gain experience if fun is had when resolving them.

 

[billd91]

I don't have any hard data, but I would suspect that XP and level advancement are the most home ruled part of 3E. If you want to have a fairly long campaign with a lot of time spent in the mid-levels, you pretty much have to be prepared to do it, particularly if you want to run 1st edition style adventures with lots of mook type monsters running around. I did it when my players took on the A series. So many humanoids meant that there was a ton of XP potential flying around, so I cut awards dramatically.

For what it's worth, the problem does seem less dramatic after about 10th level. I'm currently expecting the PCs to get about 2 levels out of each of the Giant modules. Faster than 1st edition, but not too crazy given the level of threat they face as giants stack up.

 

[Arnwyn]

I don't necessarily want to just say 1/2 or 1/5 normal XP -- although it may come down to that. I am looking for ways to slow advancement without having to give up the fun, desperate battles and the twisted, evil traps and puzzles. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I don't see why not. We do 1/2 XP, and it works just fine for us in slowing down the game a tad. The clear benefits are spending more time at each level, with my particular players understanding their characters' abilities a lot more otherwise. My players like the balance that we've achieved.

Also, the "magic shop" thread has made me realize that the Wealth By Level guidelines are way out of whack for how I view D&D. I am cautious just tossing it out entirely, however, because character gear is a factor in character power, and therefore challenge ratings and XP. Of course, if I come up with an XP solution, it might not be an issue.

Normally, if you cut XP by a certain amount, you have to cut treasure by the same amount (assuming you follow the guidelines in the DMG) to maintain the same wealth by level that the DMG states.

Since you don't like those guidelines, you can change them/ignore them however you want. If you plan to reduce the wealth a character of a particular level will have, all you need to do is use monsters/encounters of a lesser CR than you would otherwise. So, it may be that a CR 5 monster will be good for a party of "underequipped" Level 7 characters (and voila, you also slow down XP and treasure gain in the process!).

The only drawback to the above is that you are discarding some tools, so you will need to have a good handle on what a CR x monster is capable of - there's no mathematical formulas anymore. Once you know that, however, you're golden.

So, in summary: reduce XP by a factor of x (whatever you're comfortable with), ignore/reduce the encounter treasure, and use lesser CR monsters. Done and done.

 

[doggreen1944]

XP Alternatives

We have used a voting system for sometime now in my campaign. After an encounter the PCs vote on a scale of 1 - 10. 1 being simple, 10 being very deadly (party members dead etc.) I take the average of the party rating then I use the following scale to award XP:

Base XP= 75 x ECL of the group.

1 - 20% of base.
2 - 40% of base.
3 - 60% of base.
4 - 80% of base.
5 - 100% of base.
6 - 120% of base.

etc. up to 10 which is 200% of the base XP value.

I also slow down advancement at the 6th - 12th levels to base XP being equal to 50 x ECL of the group. This has worked very well for my group. They have all been very honest about voting on difficulty so things have progressed very well.

For story goals I award an encounter XP award at a base level. So far so good, my player like it quite a bit. Also to speed up the awards I created a simple excel sheet to do the calulations for me.

 

[molonel]

Some very good ideas have already been suggested. In my d20 Modern games, I hand out XP based on number of sessions. I don't have any artificers, or people burning XP for any reason, yet, so it's worked out pretty well.

I've always hated calculating XP, regardless of edition.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Are the 1E XP charts online? I'm tempted to make a single XP chart (like 3E has) but with a 1E style progression.

 

[Mercule]

Just be sure to at least cut treasure by about as much as you cut XP, or your group will end up with more then the guidelines recomend.

Not quite as much, actually. A certain amount of "consumption" should be assumed for things like potions, wands, etc. I would expect there to be a limit to the regression of the treasure reward line.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The DMG assumes 13-14 cr appropriate encounters per level, so you could drop the xp and just go by the number of encounters. Reduce the requirement a bit if the encounters are cr+.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

In my current campaign (using The World's Largest Dungeon) I have to cut back XP earned by about 25% each session to keep the characters from advancing too quickly.

I think that as long as your player's are OK with the pace of advancement, that's all that matters.

 

[Numion]

2) I don't tell my players stories. They tell stories to one another after the game is done.

This is very quotable. Hmm .. I don't want to crowd my sig though :\


EDIT: I hope you don't mind me quoting you in my sig. That quote is something I game by