XP Unhappiness

[ExploderWizard]

XP is so easy to fix on the fly it's hardly an issue. It will be the same as it ever was, it will be up to the group to determine what types of activities are worth the greatest rewards.

 

[Rhenny]

I'm thinking (like most of you) that the xp budgets, etc. are really just guidelines for less experienced DMs. I liked how the budgets helped me design encounters in 4e, but I only use xps as a rough guideline to help me decide when the PC should level up. I mostly let them level up when they near the xp value for leveling and they have reached an important point in the campaign.

I did the same with 1e, 2e, 3/3.5e too.

That being said...I do agree with OP. The budgets/guidelines have to include non-combat in the equation.

 

[Jester David]

Mike's comment in the latest L&L (on monster design) has me a bit perturbed.

If 5E is supposed to be equally balanced on three pillars, can we get away from th majority of XP being earned from killing stuff? I'd much rather see the XP budget to be split for quest/accpomplishments, traps, puzzles and other activities, with combat XP taking up at most a third of the XP pie.

why would he talk about traps, hazards, role-playing challenges and the like in a blog about monster design?

 

[Lanefan]

There is a philosophy I would like to see in the game when it comes to XP for those who enjoy using it:

* A Section of an Adventure ("The Goal")is worth a certain amount of XP, let's say 1,000XP.
* This entails going into the dungeon and rescuing/stealing the McGuffin.
* As long as you succeed in the goal, you get the XP.

I've thought about this in the past, and keep running aground on situations where:
- there is no clear goal presented (i.e. a true sandbox) and-or the goal presented is a red herring with the real goal being unknown
- the party, for any of a bunch of possible reasons, have no way of knowing whether they achieved a known goal or not
- the party achieve more than the known goal with or without realizing it
- not everyone in the party is aware the goal has been achieved (e.g. the party thief finds, steals and uses the McGuffin without anyone else ever knowing it exists)

You could have fought every monster there was, or evaded all of them; regardless the XP is the same.

I don't think I'd ever go this extreme.

An example: in a previous campaign of mine, one of the PCs had been kidnapped during an in-town R&R break; the party found out where she was and set out to rescue her - my intent was they'd find out all sorts of other plot-related things in the process. What happened was by the most amazing luck they found where she was being kept without having to enter the BBEG's complex at all, thus avoiding an entire adventure. They got their "dungeon bonus" for completing the mission but that was pretty much all the XP they got for that adventure.

By your suggestion they'd have received XP as if they'd waded through the whole thing; and this gets into the definitions of what XP represent. To me the key word is "experience" - you learn from what you do and this is reflected by your XP. If you don't do it, and in this case never even realize what was there to be done, you can't exactly learn from it.

A secondary problem arises when the party goes back later (which they eventually did) to clean out the place - in your system they'd have already earned XP for that complex, do they then get 'em again?

Lanefan

 

[Stormonu]

why would he talk about traps, hazards, role-playing challenges and the like in a blog about monster design?

The blog was worded in a way that made it sound the ONLY thing that granted XP was combat, because it was the only thing that expended PC resources. A "daily budget" of XP based on expected rounds of combat (or resource expenditure) - no mention of that XP budget split out for traps, hazards or other things, some of which may expend the party's resources in equipment, spells or HP to overcome).

To my thinking, if you have 600 XP to spend on things the players will encounter that make them burn resources, at the least a pit trap (or dart trap) should certainly pull from that pool for its potential to use up spells like detect traps, dealing hp damage or using up the rogues gear to disable or bypass it.

And if your designing an adventure, why wouldn't you want to account for story and other awards that may affect the PCs levelgains by its end? Even though the blog is primarily about monsters and allocating budgets for fights, at least a nod to XP coming from elsewhere would be nice.

I guess I'm just frustrated that it seems like all these articles are blatently ignoring the other two pillars to focus on the combat aspects of the game. For example, in the minotaur's development, what abilities does it have that speak to it's place in the other two pillars - such as its old ability to never be lost in a maze?

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, I'm not TOO worried about it.

If there's XP for monsters, there can be XP for traps, conversations, fording rivers, dealing with annoying pixies, and other noncombat things. If the XP budget is by the day, this means that other challenges can be slipped into the XP budged easily, with their "monster equivalents" quite obvious: "Crossing this raging river is worth 3 orcs and a dire corby" works for me, and lets me mix in other pillars with the combat.

As mentioned above, XP is also crazy flexible. An XP budget is a handy guideline for how many resources will be drained by various challenges the party encounters -- it's more granular than level, and is tied to a demonstrable reward.

You could even have DMs who haven't bothered tracking XP ever using it as a guideline for the challenges for their adventures. "Okay, this MacGuffin is worth about 3 day's worth of XP, due to all the monsters and disasters and stuff the party will have to go through" can peg difficulty rather well, without futzing with advancement too much.

 

[Zaukrie]

I don't see anything that says only combat will grant xp. He doesn't even imply it imo.

Sent using Tapatalk 2

 

[Jester David]

The blog was worded in a way that made it sound the ONLY thing that granted XP was combat, because it was the only thing that expended PC resources. A "daily budget" of XP based on expected rounds of combat (or resource expenditure) - no mention of that XP budget split out for traps, hazards or other things, some of which may expend the party's resources in equipment, spells or HP to overcome).

Yeah, but he's not writing about anything but monsters and monsters relating to encounters. Everything else is superfluous and room for confusion. Keep in simple and stick to the topic: monsters.

 

[Mark CMG]

I've posted this elsewhere but here is my solution. The XP system isn't designed to support all three "pillars" in the same fashion, so the XP system is what needs an overhaul. XP for treasure was problematic, so it got changed. XP for killing is problematic, so it needs changing. For my part, I use what I call an "Event System" wherein each GM/group can consider what is important to the campaign they are playing. If it is determined that a single battle constitutes an "Event" then so be it. If a mission is considered an Event then that works for that group. After a given number of Events, a character or group advances, and none of it needs to be necessarily tied to combat specifically if that isn't meant to be the focus of a campaign. It's simple and a natural evolution of the XP system meant to be more inclusive for as many styles of play as one could imagine.

 

[Lanefan]

For my part, I use what I call an "Event System" wherein each GM/group can consider what is important to the campaign they are playing. If it is determined that a single battle constitutes an "Event" then so be it. If a mission is considered an Event then that works for that group. After a given number of Events, a character or group advances, and none of it needs to be necessarily tied to combat specifically if that isn't meant to be the focus of a campaign. It's simple and a natural evolution of the XP system meant to be more inclusive for as many styles of play as one could imagine.

I'd rather it be a bit more fine-tuned than that, in that I often give out half-XP or even quarter-XP for a given encounter to characters whose participation was peripheral at best, and none at all to those who did nothing and-or were off elsewhere.

Giving XP to the whole group as SOP just over-rewards those players who have their characters hang back all the time and let others take the risk.

Lanefan