Unified Class Progression Table Yay Or Nay?

[interfactor]

Nay

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't see any benefit of having different xp tables, except maybe if you want to deliver a feeling of "you chose to play an inferior character, but we'll compensate by making you progress faster", which is a very weak benefit since they could just compensate by making that character better so that it's not inferior in the first place.

 

[steeldragons]

Different XP tables are where it's at!

I use my own system, o course, but it follows your initial idea...though I am not familiar with the whole tier 1-4 classes.

But basically, the "simplest" classes advance the fastest. These are, primarily, those with no magic/spell casting ability. Mundane skills. Fighters and Thieves/Rogues fall into this category.

The "medium" classes advance slightly slowest. These classes may include magic/spell-use, but are not classes dependent on them. Alternatively, they are classes with enhanced abilities or specialized skills. Clerics, Druids, Barbarians, Rangers, et. al. are included here.

The "hard" classes advance the slowest. These classes include "full spell-casters" or classes with exceptional abilities and/or powers. Mages of all kinds, Paladins, Bards, and Psionic classes (if you use them) are all included here.

So: Fighters advance fastest. Barbarians and Rangers in the middle. Paladins slowest. Things like Swashbucklers and Cavaliers would probably fall in the middle.
Thief/Rogues advance fastest. Acrobats, Assassins...Swashbucklers, if you consider them rogues instead of warriors, in the middle. Bards slowest. Depending on the array of their abilities, I'd probably make Monks slowest as well...likewise they might be considered among the warriors or priests, depending on how you flavor your monks.
Mages: All slowest. Magics is hard.
Clerics and Druids go in the middle from the get go. Maybe something like a Shaman would be slower...or an "Invoker" style caster would be slower...Or, just make a ruling that, as the "partially reliant on casting" classes, all Cleric/Priest types are medium advancement. Or Clerics are medium and everyone else is hard.

But yes. Different XP tables work just fine. Do it!

 

[Starfox]

I no longer hand out XP, and have no desire to ever track it again, so different tables probably wouldn't work for me. But I'm not at your table . . .

PS

This was the trouble with differentiated xp tables,as I remember it. Way too many people didn't acknowledge their existence, and simply said "You all start at 5th level", ignoring that this gave the fighter twice as many xp as the thief.

It also makes the whole benchmark effect of levels fail - "this is a scenario for fifth level characters" simply doesn't work. Ok, it was used back then a lot, but IMO this use only added to the confusion.

 

[howandwhy99]

I agree with this.

What is your view of Gygax's suggestion in his DMG that experienced players might begin at 2nd or 3rd level?

A good bit of the advice in AD&D I feel is due to Gary's powergaming campaigns. I think this might cordially be ascribed to helping players who have been in several campaigns, but never one to where their PCs reached mid or high levels. I still think players who've mastered earlier levels are simply going to zip up through them quickly, 'till about the game challenges they currently have difficulty with. But that is all due to them and their play. Problems arise when players try and build or play a character that has XP/Class accomplishments in the campaign, but haven't actually played any of the campaign. In part it's unwise to take over another player's PC mid-game. And a new character shunted in from "far, far away" has even less advantages. It's much easier on everyone to Billy Madison it. The suggestion is still well meaning though.

I don't know 3E well enough to have a strong view about it, but I think in 4e - at least played in accordance with the default expectations set out in the rulebook - makes PCs of different levels pointless. XP aren't a reward - the way the rules are set up, in effect you get XP just for turning up and playing the game (at the rate of around one level-equivalent encounter's worth per hour or so). And so, given that XP is not a reward, players aren't playing for XP: they're playing for motivations connected to the fiction itself, and the transition, within the gameworld, from heroic to epic scope. And once players aren't playing for XP, but are playing for motivations connected to the scope of the ingame situation, why muck that up by putting different players' PCs at different positions within that scope?

It's been years since I read those books, so I'm not judging what they are for. 4e is a storygame in my mind. Other than players who re-purpose the combat system, the whole thing has little or nothing to do with game play or role playing, as you know from our other discussion. But as you say, all kinds of D&D stats (like XP, Alignment, Advancement, and such) may no longer be relevant to gamers except as "color". Your understanding of XP not shot through every element of the game and active game states (fictional situations?) says that loud and clear.

Also, part of my suspicions of why D&D Next has flatter advancement on the die roll progressions is because Mearls & the gang are seeing varied class levels of PC as acceptable, even if participants don't play a game and simply use these to create a fiction. Why have limit every character to be the same power level in a story too? I don't see how either mucks things up.

 

[Crothian]

It depends on the game. I think different XP tables worked great for 1e and the same table works great for 3e.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I think that unified class progression was one of the better design choices of Third Edition. It gives all players the same sense of progression, it makes it easier to craft encounters for a party of a given level, it allows level by level multi-classing, and it allows for alternatives. For example, I often run with group XP. If I give bonus XP for something like roleplaying, everyone gets the benefit, which only enhances the encouragement for players. Heck, some groups throw out XP entirely and simply level when the DM wants them to.

 

[interfactor]

Balance for its own sake homogenizes the game and takes away from the distinctiveness of each of the classes. Unified mechanisms simplify the game, but also remove some of the flavor.