D&D 5E Wandering Monsters 01/29/2014:Level Advancement...

[Desdichado]

The only thing I would add is that I think linking advancement to number of hours or sessions also inflicts stress upon dungeon masters whose schedules don't closely resemble the "average." Unwarranted stress, of course, because it doesn't actually make them work harder in any real way -- because real-time-based XP guidelines /do not matter/.

I think this is the source of your disconnect with many in this thread, if I can be so bold as to attempt to speak for others who may be thinking like me here. This is fundamentally an assumption that you have made that totally informs all of your discussion downstream from it, but which is not shared by all other gamers.

I personally believe that leveling rate in real time is the only kind of leveling rate that matters.

What they cannot do -- and I want to be clear, here, I'm not saying they won't do it, or they shouldn't do it, but that they absolutely mathematically CANNOT do it, because it is an impossibility -- is present any kind of meaningful guideline for advancement that considers hours per session or sessions per arbitrary period of time. Even the arbitrary period of time is arbitrary!

That's not true. Sure, they can't create a formula that works for everyone all of the time. But they can approximate what works best for the most gamers. And they should.

 

[DMZ2112]

That's not true. Sure, they can't create a formula that works for everyone all of the time. But they can approximate what works best for the most gamers. And they should.

The thing about approximations is that they're wrong by definition. But pithy one-liners aside, I genuinely don't see the value in this exercise. You're right -- that is the fundamental disconnect here.

 

[Libramarian]

JW claims that 1e doesn't have any clear guidelines for appropriate encounters, when 1e has the clearest guidelines of all: a series of lists of encounters by level. Want a level 2 encounter? Go to the list of level 2 encounters. It literally could not be any clearer than that. What 3e brought to the table was a formula for assigning a level to custom encounters. The 1e method is more user-friendly (if it were better organized and more clearly explained).

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

JW claims that 1e doesn't have any clear guidelines for appropriate encounters, when 1e has the clearest guidelines of all: a series of lists of encounters by level. Want a level 2 encounter? Go to the list of level 2 encounters. It literally could not be any clearer than that. What 3e brought to the table was a formula for assigning a level to custom encounters. The 1e method is more user-friendly (if it were better organized and more clearly explained).

The amount of time he dedicated to research 2E was also limited, it seems. Chapter 8 of the DMG gives some guidelines in how to calculate XP value for creatures without a XP value and Chapter 11 explains how to build encounters based on monster level, including both planned and random encounters.

He says:

It's hard to judge what the pace of level advancement actually looked like in AD&D (...) there weren't any clear guidelines for what an appropriate encounter was.

But...

Dungeon encounter tables are normally set up according to levels—1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Each level is a relative measure of the power of those creatures on it. In general, the level of the table corresponds to character level, although characters may also encounter and defeat (or be challenged by) creatures from higher or lower level tables. Generally, when adventuring in a dungeon, characters should meet random encounters that are equal to or no more than two levels higher or lower than their own.

Figuring the appropriate level for a particular creature is simple. Look up or calculate the experience points of the creature and check this number on Table 55, below. This will tell you where to place the creature.

To be honest, at some point I found it kind of weird that D&D designers kept showing such limited knowledge of D&D, as one would expect that a deep understanding of the game - in all of its versions - should be a basic prerequisite to get the job. Nowadays I'm not surprised by this kind of statement anymore.

Cheers,

 

[Jester David]

I'm not sure what rule you're referring to. But in 4e, a complexity five skill challenge, which in my experience takes time comparable to an on-level combat encounter, or maybe less, gives the same amount of XP.

And per DMG 2 p 25 (under the heading "Drama Rewards"),

Award the characters experience as if they had defeated one monster of their level for every 15 minutes they spend in signficant, focused roleplaying that advances the story of your campaign.​

That's 4/5 of the XP from an on-level combat encounter per hour of "focuse roleplaying" - not the 1/5 ratio you mentioned. So I'm not sure where your 2% is coming from.

I thought it was one monster per hour. Totally misremembered. Sorry, my bad.

 

[Sadras]

....(snip)... decouple Level and XP.

Use "Level" as a means of determining the character's ceiling of ability, and increase it upon achievement of a major plot point.

Have a system to spend the XP on feats and other character abilities. Higher level allows you to purchase more powerful feats. Hit points and proficiency bonuses are a function of level, every other ability becomes purchased through an XP currency.

Naturally, this isn't D&D enough to actually be in Next.

and

Sort of a breadth (XP) vs. depth (Level) measurement, yeah?

XPs buying you skills and feats...Levels decoupled from XP
[MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] this isn't D&D although if this did happen it would not be the first time they leaned more towards a White Wolf system.

 

[pemerton]

JW claims that 1e doesn't have any clear guidelines for appropriate encounters, when 1e has the clearest guidelines of all: a series of lists of encounters by level. Want a level 2 encounter? Go to the list of level 2 encounters. It literally could not be any clearer than that.

Are you referring to the Appendix C dungeon encounter charts?

 

[pemerton]

D&D and other RPGs are games in which the experience of playing them is its own reward. XP is a clunky way to allow for character evolution over time and a poor model to express the arc of an adventurer's career. They're certainly not the point of the game. It's an extra reward that supplements the point of the game for those who need further incentive to play other than the fun that playing is in its own right.

I think rather the cues for that type of leveling arise from disatisfaction with the skilled play paradigm, which gamers who joined D&D in the early 80s because they were fans of fantasy, or were riding the fad wave, or whatever (in other words, they didn't come out of the hobby-store wargaming environment) didn't seem to have embraced much.

I agree that XP is way to allow for evolution over time. I tend to agree it's also clunky, though for no obviously good reason I'm still using it in my 4e game.

I don't think I agree that it's an "extra reward" to the playing of the game which is its own reward, because I think that evolution over time is part of what playing the game is about. (I especially like the way 4e is designed to reflect this, in both mechanical and story terms, from the ground up).

Despite that modest difference of perspective, I thought your two posts were excellent (which I can't XP, sorry). Especially you comments about non-wargaming, fantasy-oriented players. I find that sometimes discussion on the boards can become locked within very narrow presuppositions about what D&D and RPGing more generally are about.

The only thing saying "level at X many sessions", placed in the books even mentioned as a guideline/option, does is instill and encourage player entitlement.

Heaven forbid that players should think that, as part of playing the game, they're entitled to have their PCs (and the surrounding story) undergo any sort of evolution!

What they cannot do -- and I want to be clear, here, I'm not saying they won't do it, or they shouldn't do it, but that they absolutely mathematically CANNOT do it, because it is an impossibility -- is present any kind of meaningful guideline for advancement that considers hours per session or sessions per arbitrary period of time.

The thing about approximations is that they're wrong by definition. But pithy one-liners aside, I genuinely don't see the value in this exercise.

In 4e, they tell me that a certain number of encounters, built to certain guidelines, will lead to the party gaining a level. They also tell me that they expect each of those encounters to take somewhere around an hour or a bit more to resolve.

This isn't a "guideline for advancement", but it's a helpful description of the assumptions and reasoning that have informed their design. It helps me anticipate the rough shape I can expect my unfolding campaign to take. This is particularly helpful for someone like me who sees XP as a (perhaps clunky) pacing device rather than a reward device.

No doubt both WotC's decription of their baseline, and my projections from what they say onto my own game, are approximations. So is my knowledge that it takes me around 50 minutes to get to work. Approximate information is still helpful for planning. I know that if I have a meeting scheduled for 10.30 leaving home at 10 won't cut it.

 

[Lanefan]

So, so many moving parts and variables...

First, full disclosure: in the survey I voted for the longest slowest advancement option for every question. When I start a campaign I expect it to last for many years, which just can't happen if characters are level-bumping every real-time month!

One variable ignored by the survey (as it's probably carved in stone at the design level by now) is how many levels do you want your campaign to go through? Me, I prefer an open-ended system but with with only the lower levels used in the run of play - example is 1e; there is theoretically no limit to level advamcement but most campaigns didn't go far into the double-digits. All the E6 types would also give a different answer to this question than the designers might want...

Another variable ignored is how long in the game world it takes or should take to level. It's always been the case (but probably shouldn't be) that a character can go from apprentice nobody to near-demigod in a mere year or two of game-world time...which, when you think about it, breaks realism all to hell.

Another question not asked is whether it's important or not that characters within a party always be the same level, and-or how much variance within a party is acceptable*. Personally I've often found a good limit to be that the lowest level character should never be less than half the level of the highest-level character; but then I'm using 1e as an example and the gap between levels isn't as great there as in some later editions. This also ties into variable advancement rates between classes (e.g. Thieves bump faster than Fighters), which I've never minded at all.

* - ignoring things like henches, hirelings, etc.

Yet another variable the survey didn't hit: they ask about number of encounters and sessions it should take to bump, but never about number of adventures. Some groups can bang through a whole adventure in a session, others can spin an adventure out to last half a real-world year worth of sessions; most I think are in between. I've often found the adventure to be an excellent measuring tool for various things - so, what should the bump-per-adventure rate be? (for example in 4e, if the published WotC modules are any guide, it seemed to be 3-4 levels per adventure) Maybe a level per adventure sounds about right to me.

All in all, though - if there's one thing that needs to be put on a dial by design, this is it. I mean, if pathfinder can do it, why not D+D?

Lan-"30 years in play and just into 10th level"-efan

 

[DMZ2112]

In 4e, they tell me that a certain number of encounters, built to certain guidelines, will lead to the party gaining a level. They also tell me that they expect each of those encounters to take somewhere around an hour or a bit more to resolve.

The former is perfectly acceptable game design, although it does tend to homogenize encounter difficulty. The latter is, in my experience, a patent falsehood -- I've never been involved in a D&D4 combat that took less than an hour and a half to resolve, and most took much longer -- but even so, it still falls within the (potentially misguided) bounds of game design.

Again, the rules can talk about levels and XP and encounters all they want. As soon as they start talking about session length or session frequency, the developers have gone for the butt-tongs and begun pulling.

I'm beginning to find it entertaining that everyone keeps trying to refute my point by making legitimate claims I've already made myself.