Xp question for WotC folks

[howandwhy99]

Mr. Tortoise, OD&D does exactly this. Playable characters in mixed groups levels 1-10. Every new character starts at 1st level. Check it out. It works.

4e looks like it will have a similar power curve within individual tiers. I'm hoping you (and perhaps I) can pull this off with homebrew XP charts for 4e. Say, just in the Heroic tier for instance.

Also, much of d20 & 3e's incapabilities / functionality as a system are still held as conventional wisdom around here for how all systems work. You can do what you suggest, but it was for all practical purposes impossible under 3e/d20.

IOW, I'd stick to a single tier for every group and (perhaps?) alter the XP charts to be logarithmic.

 

[Pale Jackal]

I give XP after a session, and I keep all PCs the same level. I don't award XP for role-playing, though Burning Wheel rewards 'artha' (gives various types of bonuses to your rolls) for moving the story forward or creating interesting situations if the actions interact with your character's beliefs, instincts or traits, which is pretty cool.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm pretty sure 4E will be fine to have some variance in level.

I agree with the OP that everyone in the party shouldn't have to have the exact same XP. I think it's fine to do it that way, but it should also work to have variety.

Fitz

 

[Dathalas]

I know there's not an issue with having a 1st character in a group of 2nd level characters. I ran another preview adventure last night for some friends online and played a 1st level warlord with their 2nd level characters.

I really didn't enjoy playing the warlord, but he was able to hold his own in the group and contribute.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Considering monsters (and thus PCs) scale slower and encounters are balanced with the base assumption of one monster of appropriate level for each PC, as opposed to one monster of appropriate level for the party, I personally would expect it to be easier to have more diverse levels, but there could be things I'm not seeing.

I belive the suggestions for giving out xp had more to do with not creating an adversial enviroment than anything 4e specific.

 

[Imp]

This is an interesting line of questioning. It's something 1e did a good bit better than 3e, definitely. Given what I have seen of 4e so far I am somewhat optimistic.

 

[Dragonblade]

I like giving variable experience awards to players for attendance, to encourage them to show up, and bonus awards for good role-play, nifty ideas, or just plain fun enhancing moments, 3> it also encourages players to think more about how to overcome things that can affect them differently, and 4> (this one is the incoherent part when it comes to fantasy gaming) I feel like it is a more natural state for a group to be a little mismatched, much like a sports team where not everyone performs at the same capacity. Plus 5> I think I'm just comfortable with it after all these years.

No offense, but I utterly disagree. Individual XP awards are a horrible mechanic and I hope the 4e rules discourage it strongly. It encourages alpha players to dominate the game and garner all the role-play awards while quieter players lose out and are effectively discouraged.

Some people are just shy and quiet at the table, a good DM should not punish them for that.

Furthermore, playing a lower level character is horribly discouraging for players who are consistently outshined by their higher level compatriots. If its worked out for you, then good for you. In the 20 plus years I have been gaming and DMing, I have never seen such techniques add anything positive to a game.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

To answer the original question.

I think mixed level will be easier to do. They've said that a 5 person party of 1st level chars should face an encounter with an xp budget of 500. Thats 100 each.

The following numbers are pulled from my butt, but useful for my example.

1st level 100
2nd level 125
3rd level 150
4th level 175
5th level 200

Numbers is the xp per party member at that level (also the xp value of a standard monster of that level). So if you have characters whoa re at 1, 3, 3, 4, and 2, you get a budget of (pause for maths) 600 to spend on monsters so a level 2-3 solo may be good, or any other combination that comes to about 600. I'd try to tailor monsters to be appropriate for the PCs they are "opposite", ie in this example if the 1st level guy is the only defender, don't use a 4th level brute or soldier monster, at least not with out realising it'll probably kick his butt.

That's at least how I see it going, the problem will be that if the party is dumb or unlucky they'll lose people when the run into the monsters that are meant for harder party members. I suspect with the power curve we've seen it's just a matter of not letting the gap get to big.

On a side note I'm almost tempted to rule that new PCs begin at the start of the current tier of play, as I always get annoyed at the idea of a new high level person appearing in settings like Eberron, without the PCs having heard of them.

 

[Tortoise]

But do your players like it?

None of them have complained about it in practice, although when first told about it a couple were unsure how it would work. Everyone is fine with it presently and it has encouraged some of them to make more effort to make sure the group has their character info available if they expect to miss a session. That really helps in several ways.

 

[Tortoise]

Which was an attempt at balance (a very bad one, but one nevertheless).

So translating that to 3.x or 4e is just silly. Both balance things within the levels themselves, there is no need for one class to move faster or slower than another.

Thus the root of my original question ... how does it work out in 4e? I hope to learn from the WotC folks what we can about 4e at least in this one area of the game.