D&D 1E Too much XP (1e D&D)

[Croesus]

Under no circumstances can a character gain additional experience points by any means until he or she actually acquires the higher level through the required training/study course. Thus, a character who successfully adventures and gains experience points which not only equal a new level but are almost sufficient to gain yet a second such level, cannot opt to forego the period of training and study necessary to go up a level in favor of gaining a few more points and training and studying for two levels at once.

While not stated explicitly, I stand by my earlier answer that the character can receive a very large XP award, but only up to 1 point shy of the level beyond the one they are gaining.

The clear implication by the first bolded passage is that a character receives all the XP, even the points that are above the threshold for his new level. The clearly stated point of the second bolded passage is that once the character's XP are over the threshold needed for a new level, no new XP awards occur until the character trains.

My reading of the rules is:
-A character can receive XP awards so long as the character is short the number of XP needed to reach a new level.
-Once the character is over the threshold for the new level, they stop receiving XP awards until they train.
-The XP award that pushes the character over the threshold can push the character over the minimum XP needed for that new level.
-The XP award that pushes the character over the threshold cannot be enough to allow the character to gain more than a single new level.

 

[airwalkrr]

You make a good case, @Morrus;

 

[Croesus]

...which does not rule out all other possibilities, such as a character who gains enough XP entirely to gain more than one level.

Agreed. In fact, in my college days we played it that way. I remember one party with only two survivors who gained enough XP to go from 1st to 4th level. It was only later that we played it that you could only gain enough XP to get within 1 of the next level. I believe we made the change because it was too easy to gain several levels at once simply by tagging along with a higher level party.

 

[kitcik]

I think you guys finally have it right, although I thought I stated it clearly a number of posts ago.

You cannot earn additional XP awards after you have been awarded XP that levels you, until you train.

If, in one award, you earn more than enough to level you, you keep the excess, but only up to the amount needed to level a second time, minus one.

I agree there is some murkiness, but this is the RAI (and nearly RAW) as I understand it.

 

[airwalkrr]

I happen to agree that the intention was probably there not to allow a character to earn enough XP to level more than once on any given occasion under any circumstance. I believe the author of the DMG simply didn't address it because he didn't think of it coming up. Obviously, it did come up many times over the course of the many years in which AD&D was in print, leading to the now-concise rule in 3e which makes the matter plain.

 

[MerricB]

Gary Gygax certainly had it come up! The problem was that he was inventing a new rule than what had come before, and it probably wasn't playtested.

In Original D&D (and Basic D&D), the rule is that if you gain enough XP to gain two levels at once, you stop one shy of what you need to gain the second new level.

Note that XP are granted at the *end* of the adventure, not during. And, at this point in the game's history, most sessions would end the adventure with the heroes out of the dungeon.

In AD&D, Gary decided that requiring training (not part of the earlier ruleset) would replace this rule. So, when you gained XP at the end of the adventure, if you had got enough to gain a level, you stopped gaining XP from then on until you trained. Of course, that left open the possibility of training 2 or 3 levels at once if you got a big enough windfall... Mind you, the *training time* was significant in some of those early campaigns, where the game world and real time mapped 1:1 to each other. (You'd have to use a different character whilst training).

The intent was probably one level at once, but the wording doesn't support that.

Note also this answer to my question about training from Gary back in the day:
"When I ran my AD&D campaign, training was generally quite informal and considered to be done "on the job" as it were. Only if a virtual windfall of XPs came at once did I call for PCs to take a protracted period of time from adventuring to do their studies, train, be educated, gain experience, and practice what they had learned. A week to a month was the normal period. Otherwise, it was subsumed that the time between adventures was spent thus." - Gary Gygax

Cheers!

 

[howandwhy99]

We play it kind of like Croesus has said.

1st level (zero XP, pre-level 1 class training only)
- Characters increase in level via training & experience points.
- XP is gained through adventuring (i.e. performing class-relevant acts).
- Training costs time and usually money for a trainer one class level higher or more. Self training costs double the time, but there's no monetary fee.

2nd level
- Requires a PC to reach the XP cap for his or her level.
- Requires a specific amount of training by level, but not class.
- XP & training requirements use log2 scales. As much XP and training are needed for the next level as all previous ones combined.

As to your question, our PCs cannot train effectively beyond the training required for the current level and the next. Ditto for experience points. These limitations are in place until another level is reached. So a newly minted Thief who earns 4000 XP in one session loses some of that total. Level 1=1250, level 2=2500, so 3750 in all. The other 250 are lost.

That's a pretty extraordinary amount of XP in one session though.

OTOH, with enough trade in for room & board a self-training group of PCs could potentially reach their limited of "effective" training by just running out the clock until their funds are gone. Not that being broke won't lead to some immediate XP rich encounters, but its not necessarily the best way to go about gaining treasure either.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

First and foremost you should do what you want and what you feel is right for your campaign (assuming you're the DM). That more than anything is what Gary would have wanted and expected.

By RAW it works thus: you gain xp until such time as the xp award which the DM hands out (whenever and whatever that may be) puts you over the total that you need to gain a level. Then you cease gaining any xp no matter what you do until you have completed training.

The one complication to that is that advancing more than one level in a go is not allowed. If you should be given an xp award that would theoretically enable you to advance TWO levels then your actual xp total is first hard-capped at 1 experience point below the next level and any excess xp is lost forever. You then train up to your new level. THEN you have to go adventuring again to gain your next xp award - even though that's just 1 xp. THEN you have to train again to your new level.

In practice, as has been suggested, the enforcement of the BTB rules should not be so... rigid. If a PC falls 10 xp short of his next level - why not give him the 10 xp and let him train? If a PC has a lot of downtime between adventures (which he can and does devote to "training") then you should not feel obligated to force more downtime on him when he levels up. If PC's are gaining two or more levels at once you should probably re-examine what's going on in your campaign to make that happen - but it's not the players fault if it does.

The 1E training rules are a tool intended for pacing of character advancement. It serves also as a reminder to the DM that there needs to be downtime between adventures.

 

[MerricB]

If you should be given an xp award that would theoretically enable you to advance TWO levels then your actual xp total is first hard-capped at 1 experience point below the next level and any excess xp is lost forever.

Show me that rule in AD&D.

 

[airwalkrr]

Show me that rule in AD&D.

Merric is right. That rule doesn't exist in quite so erudite a form as you claim, MitFH. It can be derived by assuming a few things, but that rule was never codified until 3e.