D&D 5E XP for monsters is bonkers

[Corinnguard]

This problem with assigning XP makes me better appreciate the benchmark approach my DM uses in the gaming sessions he runs. Instead of trying to figure out how much XP each party member is owed during a particular encounter in the adventure, he picks a particular point within it as a benchmark. If everyone in the party reaches that benchmark, everyone advances up a level regardless of who did what and by how much. Right now everyone in the party is at 5th level because of it.

 

[Shardstone]

This problem with assigning XP makes me better appreciate the benchmark approach my DM uses in the gaming sessions he runs. Instead of trying to figure out how much XP each party member is owed during a particular encounter in the adventure, he picks a particular point within it as a benchmark. If everyone in the party reaches that benchmark, everyone advances up a level regardless of who did what and by how much. Right now everyone in the party is at 5th level because of it.

I dont get it! Picks a point within what?

 

[Corinnguard]

I dont get it! Picks a point within what?

Within the adventure he's currently running us through. If the party completed an important part of the adventure's plotline or we completed one of the adventure's side quests, then my DM rewarded us by allowing us to advance to the next level. It would take us a couple of sessions to reach the benchmarks he set aside for us (we met online only once a week). So advancement wasn't some cakewalk. And the party wasn't always sure of when we reached it. When the party did reach it, it was nice knowing that everyone was going to level up.

 

[Shardstone]

Within the adventure he's currently running us through. If the party completed an important part of the adventure's plotline or we completed one of the adventure's side quests, then my DM rewarded us by allowing us to advance to the next level. It would take us a couple of sessions to reach the benchmarks he set aside for us (we met online only once a week). So advancement wasn't some cakewalk. And the party wasn't always sure of when we reached it. When the party did reach it, it was nice knowing that everyone was going to level up.

Story-based advancement is goated!

 

[Corinnguard]

Story-based advancement is goated!

I actually had to google that word.

 

[Shardstone]

I actually had to google that word.

I'm primarily on this forum to teach old dogs new slang.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

Yeah, if you were mostly running canned content, you would not have had much need for it. All I can say is, everyone I've spoken to who used it extensively felt it was very good. The only real problem I saw reported (though not all felt it was that serious) was that PC synergy and the cumulative effect of optimization meant that fights had to get harder at high Paragon and Epic if you wanted to keep your players on their toes. But "harder" could mean traps, terrain, pervasive battle effects, in-combat skill challenges, or other things besides just numbers-go-up.