Yeah, I have no idea why they balanced things around the adventuring day or with the numbers that they decided to go with.![]()
I found this chart that illustrates the weirdness.
Yeah, I have no idea why they balanced things around the adventuring day or with the numbers that they decided to go with.![]()
Yeah, it varies a lot. You may even notice that there's a level where you need fewer xp to advance than you did the level before; I've not analyzed that vis-a-vis encounter budgets and all that, but it's certainly eye opening in its own right.
The idea is to extend the amount of tike people can play at the Levels people enjoy playing at, 4-10. Get to 4 fast, stay in that range longer. Also, this makes high Level play more accessible, so more people can experience it.But why??? There must be a reason. it was more work to change the progression.
While googling about for the XP charts I saw something called "the XP valley" but the video looked very click-baity so I did not look into further.
Not so weird IMO.View attachment 292233
I found this chart that illustrates the weirdness.
Side-note, what you’re describing here is not “half-way to milestones,” it’s in fact precisely what the DMG defines milestones as. What everyone calls milestones (most likely because it was erroneously described that way in Hoard of the Dragon Queen) is what the DMG calls Story-Based Advancement.I was looking over the encounter building and XP rules in order to figure out how to build equivalent XP rewards for completing an adventure (as opposed to awarding XP per encounter; sort of half-way to milestones). What a mess this is.
It varies by level, actually. It takes about 6 medium encounters (or one adventuring day) to get to 2nd level, the same to get to 3rd, 12 (or two adventuring days) to get to 4th, and 15 (or two and a half adventuring days) to get to 5th, and every level thereafter until 11th. After that, it takes about 10 medium encounters (about one and a half adventuring days) to reach each level thereafter all the way to 20th. There is a bit more fluctuation than that, but if you round a bit, that’s approximately how it works out.Gotcha. So the rule of thumb appears to be 10 Hard encounters in order to level up. And a Hard encounter for 5th level PCs would be a druid riding a giant elk with a couple awakened trees. Which sounds more reasonable (and fun!).
If you ever get a chance, check out the 4e rules. (I assume that's one of the ones you haven't played.) The XP Budget system is not absolutely, perfectly reliable--it gets a little wobbly for levels 1-2 and like 26+ AIUI--but it is (in)famous for being well-balanced and effective across a wide range of levels.The encounter building guidelines/rules has always bothered me in every edition of D&D I've played. I don't understand why they can't create a simpler more straightforward system that works the same across all levels. I always feel like I'm just guessing when building encounters.
I did play/DM 4E for awhile but not too long. I don't recall it being particularly good or bad, it was just too different than what I thought D&D should be. At that point we were playing Star Wars and 4E back and forth at the same time. Im pretty sure in that edition we ran alot of pre-published adventures so I didnt have much need to build encounters, Im sure I did here and there but not enough to remember if it was reliable or not. We switched to Pathfinder after about a year of the 4E/SW sessions.If you ever get a chance, check out the 4e rules. (I assume that's one of the ones you haven't played.) The XP Budget system is not absolutely, perfectly reliable--it gets a little wobbly for levels 1-2 and like 26+ AIUI--but it is (in)famous for being well-balanced and effective across a wide range of levels.
It's deliberate design to make the levels that play the best (3-10) drag out, while the other levels should pass by quickly.View attachment 292233
I found this chart that illustrates the weirdness.