D&D 5E XP is a major weapon in the DM arsenal

[FormerlyHemlock]

In my game the Nameless One would have quite a few minions. I never run a solo-monster combat encounter. I guess I could make my players total up the number of foes they killed and flip through the Monster Manual to find their XP values and then total it up and divide it among themselves. I would be worried about that slowing the game down though. And if I know my players I doubt they would enjoy doing that any more than I would.

They shouldn't flip through the MM, but every time a goblin goes down you could shout "50 XP!" and every time a Fire Elemental goes down you can shout "1800 XP!" It's no different from having to know the monster's AC or HP.

If your players hate totalling up XP, that is obviously a different story. <<And if I know my players I doubt they would enjoy doing that any more than I would>> Players who don't like XP shouldn't have to use it.

I'm not saying I don't see the immediate appeal of getting rewarded with XP. I do. I just find it easier to not use it. And since none of my players are lining up to take over DM duties it's likely to stay that way.

No worries. Peace.

 

[robus]

Xp is an illusion.

So skip xp, use milestone levelling instead, and save yourself a ton of work

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

It may be an illusion, but it's a very visible progress bar to the players. They start to salivate when they see their characters approach the next level. It's a great incentive to keep pushing on to try and get over to the next level.

I switched to milestone leveling when we switched from LMoP to ToD, but I think they're starting to miss it. Leveling seems quite arbitrary to them... leaving them thinking: "Was this the big moment? No? OK maybe the next one will be enough to satisfy whatever criteria the DM has in mind...?"

I agree that totaling up the XP and dishing it out is tedious so something to make that easier would be nice (though much can be pre-calculated before the session I think?)

 

[iserith]

One time when I was running Sunless Citadel for D&D 5e (pre-TftYP, doh!), I divided all XP by 25 to get it down to single and, at most, double digit numbers. Then I assigned small XP values to exploration discoveries and social interaction stuff. I would award it as we went along and one player would keep track, updating the party in chat as to how close they were to leveling. It was pretty fun, especially the closer they got to their next level.

In my last campaign, I made it a requirement that players take a short rest (8 hours) or long rest (1 week) to level up, so I would calculate XP at rests if they thought they were close. In my current campaign, I post the XP after the session and there's no resting requirement.

 

[Fanaelialae]

It may be an illusion, but it's a very visible progress bar to the players. They start to salivate when they see their characters approach the next level. It's a great incentive to keep pushing on to try and get over to the next level.

I switched to milestone leveling when we switched from LMoP to ToD, but I think they're starting to miss it. Leveling seems quite arbitrary to them... leaving them thinking: "Was this the big moment? No? OK maybe the next one will be enough to satisfy whatever criteria the DM has in mind...?"

I agree that totaling up the XP and dishing it out is tedious so something to make that easier would be nice (though much can be pre-calculated before the session I think?)

What one of my DMs does (in the group that uses milestones) is announce at the start of a milestone worthy "mission" that we will gain a level at the end. So, for example, "You guys will level up once you've cleared this dungeon" when we go to the dungeon.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Xp is an illusion.

So skip xp, use milestone levelling instead, and save yourself a ton of work

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

Yes, xp, like every other piece of the game, is an illusion. But getting xp is fun. And as a DM I've always found the effort required to compute it trivial.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Indeed, I present a clear and present danger, and I can only hope someone will stop me before I post again.

The question is how much exp I would I get for doing so?

Sent from my VS990 using EN World mobile app

 

[pming]

Hiya.

Experience Points are a nice thing to add up after an adventure. If you started with 0, then after three session have 650, then another few sessions you have 2394, and so on...the player can see a direct link to the characters "accomplishments" via this little number. They can remember the sessions, monsters, NPC's, epic successes...and failures...and everything else, for sure, but that one little number is a sort of "time line glue" that holds it all together.

That said, my players don't care that much for XP. We've gone three, four, or more sessions without me handing out XP's. The only time it may come up is if a player starts to feel his character should be "better" at something after all they've been doing and reminds me ("You know...we haven't gotten any xp's for over a month now...just saying...").

Long ago I started reducing monster XP down to 10% to 25% or so, but awarding 1:1 ratio of GP's recovered/gained to XP. So a monster that has 400xp listed would be reduced to between 40 and 100, but recovering it's 380gp's worth of treasure would be worth 380xp's.

Why? By using recovery of treasure as the metric it allows all types of players to benefit equally (mechanically) while they play the game and character they want to. It also encourages the players (IME anyway) to think "outside the box" in terms of how to overcome some particular situation/encounter. I was finding it (many many moons ago...) that the players were almost looking to start fights so that they could 'get the xp'. Since changing to a gold/treasure based reward system, this has changed drastically. Now, players will try and avoid combats that they think they can...because they know that it's just not worth it in the long run. This has not diminished their blood lust...but now they focus that blood lust on the NPC's and monsters that deserve it (well...most of the time...sometimes the players just wanna blow off steam, and beating the living tar out of a trio of would-be muggers puts a smile on their faces... ).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Darkness]

Any suggestions otherwise are fundamentally repugnant to the concept of role-playing.

Your statement is unequivocally false. You are either trolling, or dangerously ignorant of the facts.

Keep it civil, please. This is just an internet forum for games about pretending to be an elf. One-true-wayism and aiming for the poster instead of the post are inappropriate.

 

[discosoc]

Conditional XP gains were easier for me to do back in the 2e era, because encounters didn't have any semblance of balancing mechanics. With 3e+, I find that it's a real pain to prep encounters when I won't know what level they'll be until the week before. Not impossible, but still annoying enough that I'd rather go with consistency over use XP rewards to influence player behavior or actions.

 

[JeffB]

I stopped using XP a few editions ago. I just let players level up when it seems appropriate. Because I often run smaller self contained adventures (like any number of early TSR modules, size-wise) generally they would level up when completed. But if needed will mid-adventure too.

Talking D&D type games here. D&D, C&C, etc.

I do use Dungeon World and CoC/RQ's experience systems, and used XP in the recent FFG Star Wars sessions I ran. But tracking gold/monster XP in D&D is not worth the hassle, IME