D&D 5E XP Per Adventuring Day Per Player is Ridiculous

[robus]

I thought my complaint seemed familiar... and now my Enworld search-fu has been totally owned by [MENTION=6936039]Tyrson[/MENTION], on a first post no less!

I am humbled!

 

[FrogReaver]

I am sitting here putting together potential encounters for one of my campaigns. I assembled a list of 5 DEADLY encounters that still fall short of the suggested XP for a day.

This campaign has 8, sometimes 9 players of 5th level. I did all my calculations based on a party of 8. Here is what I was playing around with for ideas ( forest encounters):

4 ettercaps & 12 giant spiders- 4200XP

2 wereboars & 6 giant boars- 4900XP

3 wyverns- 6900XP

Coven of 3 green hags- 5400XP

12 harpies & 1 harpy queen (custom CR6)- 4700XP

All that earns each character 3262.5 XP each. The "standard" is 3500 XP per day.

Based on the XP per day, characters should advance to 15th level in 33 adventuring days. This is beyond ludicrous.

Does anyone else think this pace is utterly ridiculous?

Honestly, I'd say those encounters would be easier for a party of 8 than halving the party size and having the players fight half the number of enemies. Magic tends to be much more effective when you are facing a large group of enemies and you are likely to have multiple spell casters on your side.

Just for example. In the first fight. 1 fireball handles a good number of the spiders (maybe 4) and greatly injures a good number more (maybe 4 more). Any martial characters attacking an injured spider likely kill it. This leaves 3 mages left. They will do some cantrip damage and healing if needed on the party.

Round 2. (2 ettercaps and 4 giant spiders remaining)
3 giant spiders die through basic attacks and cantrips

Round 3. (2 ettercaps and 1 giant spider)

Round 4. (2 ettercaps 1 injured)

Round 5 (1 ettercap injured)

Round 6 Victory

It's actually very possible 1 extra ability or 2 could end the fight a turn or 2 early. Divine Smite or Action Surge or a few magic missles etc.


The party still has most it's hp left (after healing) and a large number of level 3 spell slots still remaining.

 

[FrogReaver]

It is worth mentioning that some of your math in the initial post is entirely wrong.

First, to find the adjusted XP value of the monsters, you multiply their total XP (sum of their individual values) by an amount shown on DMG p.82 (x4 for more than 14 monsters).
Second, if you have a large group (8-9 players qualifies) you use the multiplier from the next step down (x3 for 11-14 monsters).
So your 4 Ettercaps (CR 2, 450 XP ea) and 12 Giant Spiders (CR 1, 200 XP ea) encounter does not come out to 4200 XP, it comes out to 12,600...
It's a 12,600 XP encounter for balance & challenge purposes (well over "Deadly", which would be about 9-10,000) that actually rewards each player only about 500 XP (based on the monsters' actual XP totals).
The amount each player should get per day is based on the effective XP, not the monster's actual XP, so your 12,600 encounter divided by the 8 players means they're each getting 1575 of their daily recommended 3500... probably not worth it from their perspective, since it's only providing 1/15th of what they need to reach the next level (525 XP, but they need 7,500 more to reach level 6).

4 ettercaps & 12 giant spiders- 12,600 effective XP

2 wereboars & 6 giant boars- 9800 effective XP

3 wyverns - 10350 effective XP

Coven of 3 green hags- 8100 effective XP

12 harpies & 1 harpy queen (custom CR 6)- 11750* effective XP
(probably less, since the CR 1's are largely irrelevant next to a CR 6)

Hope that helps.

I think you may be misunderstanding what the tables are saying.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Based on the XP per day, characters should advance to 15th level in 33 adventuring days. This is beyond ludicrous.

Does anyone else think this pace is utterly ridiculous?

From a "D&D's a game" perspective, no. Players like leveling up and getting stuff. From a "D&D tells a story that should take place in and produce an internally consistent game world", yeah, it's ludicrous.

A solution could be to (1) throw out the XP awards for combat and replace it with story awards, and (2) advance the timeline a lot between adventures.

I could easily see campaign run on the basis of 1 level per adventure, and 1 adventure per six months or year of internal game time. You go on the adventure, and then everyone writes down what they do with their downtime. Maybe they go back to the farm, or study and teach magic at the academy, or go back to the cloister for a while. Whatever.

Obviously this doesn't work for the big campaign books that WotC publishes and assumes that you'll advance from 5th to 15th level in the course of seven set-piece and close-related locations. But it could easily work in a homebrew campaign.

 

[Xetheral]

Look at the classic example, Lord of the Rings - nobody, even the most powerful champions, actually fights Sauron.

Finrod and Huan want to have a word with you. (And Huan won his fight with Sauron.) And Fingolfin too, even though it was Sauron's boss that he fought. Otherwise yes, few people fight Sauron, but that's largely because he has a tendency when overmatched to run away (during the War of Wrath, and again from the White Council) or surrender (to Ar-Pharazôn).

The final time anyone tried to directly confront Sauron was the White Council, during the timeline of the Hobbit, so yes, by the time of The Lord of the Rings, no one was left who was powerful enough to directly confront Sauron. So you're technically right, but only by about 60 years.

 

[jgsugden]

We have some strong necromancers raising up a post from 2015 and addressing it as new...

Experince and CR should be used to help guide the shape of encounters for balance purposes, but I am amazed people use it for leveling. I have used landmark leveling since AD&D era (although obviously a bit different then) - it has always been so much better. You advance PCs when they get to an achievement, not when they happen to kill enough goblins.

 

[Fanaelialae]

We have some strong necromancers raising up a post from 2015 and addressing it as new...

Experince and CR should be used to help guide the shape of encounters for balance purposes, but I am amazed people use it for leveling. I have used landmark leveling since AD&D era (although obviously a bit different then) - it has always been so much better. You advance PCs when they get to an achievement, not when they happen to kill enough goblins.

I would prefer to use milestones myself, but every time I've proposed the idea my players have rebelled against it. They enjoy being rewarded with XP.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I would prefer to use milestones myself, but every time I've proposed the idea my players have rebelled against it. They enjoy being rewarded with XP.

As someone who played in a game that used milestones, it wasn't so much that it was a terrible way of doing things, but it definitely doesn't mesh with the default rapid healing rate in 5E.

If you have a game that uses XP rewards for combat, then the point of combat is to gain XP. If you have a game that uses slow healing, then the point of combat is to consume resources.

In a game that uses milestones and has fast healing, combat seems pretty pointless. By the next morning, you would be in the exact same position having run through the fight as if you had just handwaved the whole thing as inconsequential.

 

[Fanaelialae]

As someone who played in a game that used milestones, it wasn't so much that it was a terrible way of doing things, but it definitely doesn't mesh with the default rapid healing rate in 5E.

If you have a game that uses XP rewards for combat, then the point of combat is to gain XP. If you have a game that uses slow healing, then the point of combat is to consume resources.

In a game that uses milestones and has fast healing, combat seems pretty pointless. By the next morning, you would be in the exact same position having run through the fight as if you had just handwaved the whole thing as inconsequential.

I disagree. The DM of my other group uses milestones and normal healing. We've had plenty of combats in that group and we don't find it to be a waste of time. Sometimes we get treasure, and even when we don't it typically removes an obstacle from our path. Plus we often enjoy combat.

I like it quite a bit. I've talked my way out of a number of fights, and when I do I don't feel like I've cheated the party out of XP. I find milestones liberating for this reason. It doesn't much matter (from a mechanical perspective) whether you fight the encounter, bluff your way past it, or sneak around it.

I have convinced my regular group to award XP for overcoming encounters without fighting, so there are other means to reach similar ends. But using milestones is so much easier (alas)!

 

[5ekyu]

I disagree. The DM of my other group uses milestones and normal healing. We've had plenty of combats in that group and we don't find it to be a waste of time. Sometimes we get treasure, and even when we don't it typically removes an obstacle from our path. Plus we often enjoy combat.

I like it quite a bit. I've talked my way out of a number of fights, and when I do I don't feel like I've cheated the party out of XP. I find milestones liberating for this reason. It doesn't much matter (from a mechanical perspective) whether you fight the encounter, bluff your way past it, or sneak around it.

I have convinced my regular group to award XP for overcoming encounters without fighting, so there are other means to reach similar ends. But using milestones is so much easier (alas)!

I concur... this seems a baffling issue for me.

Thge way i have used milestone and even session Xp is to absolutely divorce "methods" from carrot/stick out of game. There is no pressure on players from out-of-game aspects like "Xp and advancement" to choose one method or another. They can choose their courses within the character and within the game setting with the thoughts being what is happening there and how they want to influence and change it. They can choose their method without worry over which particular one gets full xp vs partial xp vs maybe no xp. Their decisions have consequences but those consequences are not so much driven or at all driven by advancement concerns out of character.

As for hand-waving fights - sometimes we have - but mostly the reason to fight is to accomplish some goal that is the reward in itself (or to survive if you are the target as opposed to the attacker.) But the idea of "might as well handwave..." has not come up as an issue because so much can depend on the specifics AND its something we enjoy playing out.

To me, even when Xp was used, when it came down to "we should do this because of how Xp works" which some might consider the carrot motivator of XP... that always felt wrong. It was practically never a "good thing" to do something for out-of-game considerations. So, not something we tended to find worthwhile. that means we do not see any real changes in play when playing without it.

But different strokes.

Currently my game uses a session based variant which levels characters every 8 sessions more or less for six levels gained in a year more or less at tiers2+. This might switch ti 12 sessions once they hit tier-2 but not sure yet.