Help with house rule on XP and Character Leveling

[obatron]

Hello,

I'm not one to necessarily make great house rules, especially when it comes to games like D&D, so I thought I'd pass my thoughts here and see what others thought...

I wanted to alter the XP rules a bit to aid the complaint that advancement is so slow (I like slow advancement but I have a few power gamers...)

-- Mages can learn new spells by making an IQ check, failure means they must spend 1/2 the time again to learn the spell.
-- XP for magic items is now given immediately and split between the party members present.
-- NPCs traveling with the party (i.e. hirelings and henchmen) get 1/2 the XP the party members earn but does not reduce the player's XP pool
-- Players must train according to the book at the cost of 100gp/week of training (includes room and board) and must be from a relevant classed person of higher level, players can train one another, but then very good room and board must be obtained for both (can not cheap out during this period) at standard costs, figure Lodging, Good Inn, Tavern Meal Good, Plus whatever the characters drink. Mages can choose any new spell they want.
-- Player's may opt to skip training and level immediately at the expense of 100xp*new level (is this too high?) For mages, this means they can take a scroll and "learn it immediately without the IQ roll, but will still have to take time to write it in the book and must have the materials on hand to do so. They do not get to pick a spell out of the book.

XP will be awarded BtB but doubled, with the exception that magic item XP is awarded into the pool immediately rather than to the player that keeps the magic item for a time.


I'm trying to increase the speed slightly without going insane, but give it some of that old school feel with the training costs, etc. Suggestions and comments are welcome!

[Omote]

If you don't like making up a bunch of new categories for awarded experience, why not go by the book but simply double to amount of XP awarded? Sure, throw in some bonus for good RP, etc. This way you can eliminate the "showing up bonus" which, depending on how your groups works, is pretty pointless -- those who show up get the XP, those who don't show get no XP.

~O

[obatron]

If you don't like making up a bunch of new categories for awarded experience, why not go by the book but simply double to amount of XP awarded? Sure, throw in some bonus for good RP, etc. This way you can eliminate the "showing up bonus" which, depending on how your groups works, is pretty pointless -- those who show up get the XP, those who don't show get no XP.

~O

Good point, adjusted original post accordingly...and changed magic items so I don't have to track that...

[Treebore]

I already do these two, almost:

-- Mages can learn new spells by making an IQ check, failure means they must spend 1/2 the time again to learn the spell.
-- XP for magic items is now given immediately and split between the party members present.

However when I know they will have a lot of "down time" I don't even bother with INT/IQ checks, because I assume they have plenty of time for rerolls, so I only bother when time will be important. Plus when they fail they have to "retake the course" just like in college, so have to dedicate the same amount of time again.

Combine that with automatically allowing them to learn a spell upon leveling, and the spellcasters do fine.

[clavis123]

Personally, I don't track separate XP awards for monsters and treasures, but award a flat amount of XP per session played. Using as a baseline the XP a Fighter needs to advance to his next Level, I divide that number by as many sessions as seems appropriate, and award the resulting amount to each character per session. If the player doesn't show up, and I or another player has to run their character, that character gets half XP. Rogues still advance more quickly, and wizards more slowly, but the headache of figuring out XP awards is gone. Such a system is perfect if your players like a role-play heavy game, but perhaps less appropriate for gamist players who enjoy figuring out what they have to do to gain their next Level. I still enforce the time needed for training, mostly beacuse it forces a realistic advancement of the Campaign's timeline (so advancement to higher Levels takes place over game years, not weeks).

So, if you really want to simplify the bookkeeping on your end, I suggest giving flat XP a try.

[Tadhg]

For you and your group . . looking to speed things up, I'd remove training (perhaps have weave or make it part of the adventure, if possible).

Also, try to add XP for everything that each PC or player does well or otherwise.

As mentioned above by Omote, XP for RP'ing ~ and for those players who aren't exceptional at this, give XP to players who get some great dice rolls at the right time in which they have helped the party. XP for strategy, tactics, advice, good timing for spells . . just about anything the PCs do that help their cause.

Also, lesser XPs for failure . . rogue getting hurt by not disarming a trap properly (he just learned a bunch about not turning that chest toggle to the left when it shows straight up - heh, he should have turned it right).

Perhaps a fighter stands toe to toe and gets hammered, but engages the enemies allowing mages to cast spells at will - XP.

Anyway, I try to award XP to every player for both good, bad and unusual or hilarious gaming tactics and play.

[obatron]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I want to speed up their progression, but want to keep some of the old school feel, that's why I put in the training and cost. I just wasn't sure if I was being too hard on them with my "old school feel" options or if it seemed fair enough, especially since I'd be giving them extra XP (double as it currently stands.)

[Tadhg]

Well that's interesting. My way is how I did it in '78 with little to go buy from BD&D Holmes and I do it the same way now. I do use some of the formula from the M&T, but most is just XP given by the seat of my pants or on the fly, as it were. Same with much of the way I run our game.
I don't know what old school is, but I do know how many of us did it back in the day.

But, no problemo - giving them the double seems perfectly fine.

Let us know how it goes and how your players respond.

[obatron]

Well that's interesting. My way is how I did it in '78 with little to go buy from BD&D Holmes and I do it the same way now. I do use some of the formula from the M&T, but most is just XP given by the seat of my pants or on the fly, as it were. Same with much of the way I run our game.
I don't know what old school is, but I do know how many of us did it back in the day.

But, no problemo - giving them the double seems perfectly fine.

Let us know how it goes and how your players respond.

Oh, back in my days of AD&D, I pretty much just winged it as well. However, I remember the side affect was that missing a session meant greater disparity between players when XP awards were high. So I figured on trying to go BtB, and there were basically complaints about the speed of leveling as being "unfun" (I want that big change to my character!)

As far as the training stuff, I remember scrambling for money to buy my training in AD&D, trying to balance it with desire to buy the sword, feeling so much more appreciative of the magic sword found. Reaching level 8 was like reaching level 20 in D&D 3.x, the struggle made the game. Perhaps I remember it overly fondly though, I'll see how they feel about the training part and may just drop it if they don't care for it. As they advance, I'm sure I'll get tired of calculating the xp and just wing it again.

In the end, it's all about fun, so I'm flexible with player's desires in gaming...

[CKDad]

Here's the solution I came up with for my kid's game. Since the kids often don't have control of their own schedules, but I wanted to keep a regular schedule, I needed a way to keep experience flowing to all the characters, but to give some benefit for those whose attendance was more regular. I hit upon a kind of "shares" system that so far seems to be working out OK.

First: I give out experience for four things:
1. Monsters, per the M&T values
2. Treasure, again per the M&T values (or as assigned by me for things I've created)
3. A flat award for the session for completing that session's goals.
4. A bonus for good roleplaying, clever tactics, good use of spells or abilities, exceptional humor, etc.

All characters, both PCs and any GMPC/henchmen (forex, the current group has an NPC rogue, and I generally wind up playing any absent PCs as NPCs) get the session award (#3) each session, as long as the character survives. Obviously, only PCs can qualify for #4, and (also) obviously the player has to be present to do whatever it is that earns that bonus. So where the shares kick in is for items #1 & #2. Here's how I handle it.

- All NPCs get 1 share.
- PCs whose player is absent (effectively, an NPC for that session) get one share.
- PCs whose player is present get two shares.

I then total up the experience for foes vanquished and for treasure found, divide by the total number of shares, and distribute accordingly.

Here's an example of how it might work:

My current group has five PCs: Isaac, Jas-car, Nolan, Samson and Sygni. They have an NPC rogue companion named Kip. Two weeks ago, three players were present: Isaac, Samson and Sygni. Each of these got two shares. Jas-car, Nolan and Kip each earned one share. This made for 9 total shares. I totaled up the experience for monsters and treasure, then divided by 9. Isaac, Samson and Sygni each got 2/9ths of the total, while Jas-car, Nolan and Kip each got 1/9th.

This past weekend, all five players were able to attend. Thus, the total number of shares came to 11 (2 per PC, plus 1 for Kip). Each PC got 2/11s of the monster & treasure experience, while Kip the NPC got 1/11th.

This sounds a lot more complicated than it is in practice! But so far it seems to be working out. At the moment, the first PC to level from 1st to 2nd will be the druid, who looks to go up after 3 sessions. The barbarian and ranger should be next, followed by the wizard (who frequently can't make attend) and the class-and-a-half cleric-bard.