So I started my campaign a couple of days ago and here's how it went down:
I have two players and one NPC with a character sheet. I threw 4x Bullywugs at the two players before the NPC w/ Character Sheet joined them, after which I threw a total of 5x Bullywugs and 5x Bandits at them. Now - I awarded 10XP for every kill on top of their share of the Encounter's XP (so if the total encounter XP was 200XP between two players and one player made 2x kills, they'd get their 100XP share + 20XP). So the way I calculated each encounter's XP to be share was:
-- I took the total experience from all the creatures killed and add them together; -- Then I added 60XP because the encounters tended to be hard for them; -- I divided this total by 2 (3 if the NPC w/ character sheet was there) and gave the result to the players along with their 10XP per kill bonus.
Now - with this system and the default XP thresholds found in the PHB: One of my players made it to Level 2, the other is on the cusp of reaching Level 2, and the NPC w/ Character sheet has some experience (150 odd XP). Did I throw too much experience (or at least to many opportunities to earn experience) at my players for a 3-hour session? Should I expect it to take longer for players to level up? Any other thoughts?
Because I was thinking that if it's this easy for my players to level up, I either need to change the experience thresholds or change up my campaign to involve less combat or less experience rewarded.
I think low levels are designed to level up more quickly and I wouldn't be worried at level 1. The bonuses are what has tipped them over so quickly but if that's not what you were after I'm not sure why you'd do it. IN any case, a 10XP bounty is going to become pretty insignificant as they level up (unless they're wading through multiple low CR monsters) so I can't see it being too much of a problem.
BTW, I presume your table likes a pretty crunchy game because awarding XP for a kill is going to encourage a certain kind of gameplay. Nothing wrong with that, just be aware of the consequences.
I think low levels are designed to level up more quickly and I wouldn't be worried at level 1. The bonuses are what has tipped them over so quickly but if that's not what you were after I'm not sure why you'd do it.
Well the intent was to reward them for being in the action and having the guts to be in the fight in order to finish of creatures because there are scenarios (once already against the bandits) where they had help (from guards, in this particular case). In the situation where the got help from guards, the guards actually got two kills, so neither player received the bonus experience for killing them. In other words, I wanted to rewards them for getting things done on their own rather than relying on others and I was going to apply to scenarios that are more RP-heavy (e.g. RP'ing that progresses a quest or simply really good RP).
IN any case, a 10XP bounty is going to become pretty insignificant as they level up (unless they're wading through multiple low CR monsters) so I can't see it being too much of a problem.
Well I don't plan on them wading through swathes of low-CR monsters. If they are for whatever reason, then I'll do it World of Warcraft style and I won't be awarding extra XP for it.
BTW, I presume your table likes a pretty crunchy game because awarding XP for a kill is going to encourage a certain kind of gameplay. Nothing wrong with that, just be aware of the consequences.
Yeah I'm aware that awarding XP for kills will definitely encourage that sort of behaviour, but as I said - I aim to reward XP for good RP as well. I got a new player making their start in the next session, so I'll be going over this in a redo of the Session 0 just to be clear for everyone.
I am personally more of a milestone kind of DM but I believe, as Barbarulo also said, the first 2-3 levels are designed to go by quickly (in a published adventure [don't remember if it is CoS or SKT] you have a n extremely short introductory mission that takes the characters to lvl 5 VERY quickly). It helps giving the sense of growth and allowing the DM to push the limit a bit more with higher-lvl encounters (be them combat or non-combat ones) early on in a campaign, and gets the characters to the more interesting and specialized things they can do, building excitement for the new stuff in the players (that adds to the hopefully already rewarding RP experience).
The XP method can feel a bit unfair, imho, as while for RP you are definitely rewarding the player's good performance, sometimes the kill XP can be just due to the luck of the roll in landing the killing blow (if that's what you use as indicator of who takes said XP). I prefer to decide based on the story when the characters progress in level, and reward their deeds in other ways (items, social/economical bonuses) as to integrate rewards into the actual story based on what they do and how they do it.
Different style, neither is better, neither is worse, just a matter of preference :)
In conclusion: do not worry if it seems they proceed quickly through lvls 2 and 3, their progression will naturally slow down going on.
It really depends on the kind of campaign you're running, but in my experiance the game up to level 5 feels pretty quick to most. My group wants to play a long campaign, so i've been throttling things a little, but I figure once they get high enough (maybe level 10) I might move to milestone levels instead. I'd tell you to keep doing what you're doing and watch the impact up too level 5. After that, give your opinion to the players and ask them for theirs. Tailor it as needed, whether that means chucking XP everywher because no one wants a 5 year campaign or using milestones for story and personal arch completion.
I like to track monster XP on my end, just to get an idea of how much "combat XP" the party gets in each level. The problem (in my mind), and I found this rampant in publish modules, is that purely combat XP games change the mindset to gear towards combat.
If you ever played the old Neverwinter Nights games they had this problem very badly. You could use Persuasion and Intimidate to end an encounter peacefully, but the game awarded you less XP then you would get for fighting them, plus you didn't get the loot drops.
I remember being a player in 3rd Ed, and when our party hit and city and were doing story stuff. We'd spend an entire session meeting contacts, getting invites to the duke's ball, buying fancy clothing, tracking down new gear, getting drunk in the tavern... All of it wouldn't account for any XP because we didn't "kill anything" even though we accomplished more in those sessions then we did and many more combats!
That said IF you are using Combat XP. You can give minor rewards for to players for other things.
One thing a group of mine does is the players go around the table and say something the player did that they felt was particuarly awesome. Then they have to elect another player for something they think that player did that was awesome... it goes round robin. Give an XP bonus for that. The players then comment on something they liked/like to change about how the game ran that day. Give a minor XP bonus for that. Often before a game starts, ask if a player wants to give a recap, of what happened last game and Give a minor XP bonus for that.
So if I'm understanding correctly, it would be better for me to eliminate my "Kill Bonus" and make it clear to my players that I will be rewarding good RP as well as non-combat solutions just as well as I would combat with regards to XP?
So if I'm understanding correctly, it would be better for me to eliminate my "Kill Bonus" and make it clear to my players that I will be rewarding good RP as well as non-combat solutions just as well as I would combat with regards to XP?
Personally that's what I'd do, but I use milestone levelling up rather than XP anyway, and one of my groups is far more RP than combat focused. Coming to the end of a dungeon crawl and they're going to knowingly leave half the dungeon unexplored - they're bored with it. But it's your game so do what you feel works best!
The second and third levels should come quickly. First level characters aren't very exciting to play anyway, and it can be hard to design encounters that are interesting but not deadly to low-level PCs.
Leveling based on milestones is easier to track, but I recently decided to switch back to rewarding experience based on individual encounters. Using milestones means your players won't know when or how they earned experience points, which I consider to be important. Instead, I immediately tell my players whenever they receive experience points, so they know how their actions and decisions impact their progress, and to make it clear they can earn experience points in non-combat situations just the same as they would by winning battles.
I use my own system, though, as the experience thresholds in the Player's Handbook seem pretty nonsensical to me, and I don't like the emphasis placed on combat encounters. Instead, I consider each level to be 100 experience points. Each encounter (whether that be a combat, social, exploration, investigation, or other encounter type) rewards XP to each character who was involved based on how challenging that encounter was to the PCs. Easy = 3 XP, Medium = 6 XP, Hard = 9 XP, and Deadly = 12 XP.
These ratings are the same as the ones in the DM's Guide, and this makes the encounters required to level roughly match up with what the Dungeon Master's Guide proscribes. When characters succeed in an encounter, they earn this XP. Failing means they don't get anything at all. Partial success (such as killing some creatures and then retreating) halves the XP they're rewarded. Also, I always reward all characters in the party the same XP, and I don't penalize players who couldn't make it to a session, as I think parity between characters is more important.
In the event I need to convert this back to the standard XP thresholds, I just use the party's level progress as a percentage (say, 57/100 to the next level).
I don't don't give addition xp for combat encounters as the basic rules already rewards the characters for combat. What I do do is give out extra xp when each character does something notable or special. For example, a clever way of avoiding a situation, solving a riddle, RP'ing well etc. Then give out xp depending on their level * a modifier. I've played around with various modifiers before settling on 25. So if a level 2 character has done 3 clever things I would award 150 bonus xp (2 * 25 * 3).
This hopefully incentivises things other than combat.
I use he XP guidelines to get the XP amount, but I give experience largely independent of success or failure, but rather based on how they play the encounter against the “goal” of the encounter and the nature of their characters. Failure with style will earn more than success with luck.
This is easy for non combat encounters. For combat, do they work together (unless that’s not in character), cleverly avoid the fight or do something to ensure victory, retreat keeping (mostly) everyone alive when clearly outmatched, stay in character, add clever flourishes, etc. Basicially, do they try to do more than dice it out?
It’s subjective, but I try to not tie experience to the luck of the die. I keep two things in mind:
You learn more from failing than you do from succeeding (valuable only if you survive, though)
people will adapt their behaviour to what you measure for reward
Whatever your opinion on my approach, decide on the game you want (hopefully with your players input) and award experience to motivate the behaviours you want from your players.
For low level character levelling, up to level five, I use a number of play sessions equal to the current level. To get from level one to two would be one play session, from level two to three would be two play sessions, etc. It's fairly simple to adjust the xp rewards to hit the mark, especially for roleplaying. Those xp rewards can be fudged a bit easier.
Once the characters hit level five, this plan falls apart, but that's not a big deal. By then, players should have a good handle on their character's personality and style, they've got the newfound power of level five, and they are ready to kick butt to level six, even if the advancement happens at a different rate.
Hey guys,
So I started my campaign a couple of days ago and here's how it went down:
I have two players and one NPC with a character sheet. I threw 4x Bullywugs at the two players before the NPC w/ Character Sheet joined them, after which I threw a total of 5x Bullywugs and 5x Bandits at them. Now - I awarded 10XP for every kill on top of their share of the Encounter's XP (so if the total encounter XP was 200XP between two players and one player made 2x kills, they'd get their 100XP share + 20XP). So the way I calculated each encounter's XP to be share was:
-- I took the total experience from all the creatures killed and add them together;
-- Then I added 60XP because the encounters tended to be hard for them;
-- I divided this total by 2 (3 if the NPC w/ character sheet was there) and gave the result to the players along with their 10XP per kill bonus.
Now - with this system and the default XP thresholds found in the PHB: One of my players made it to Level 2, the other is on the cusp of reaching Level 2, and the NPC w/ Character sheet has some experience (150 odd XP). Did I throw too much experience (or at least to many opportunities to earn experience) at my players for a 3-hour session? Should I expect it to take longer for players to level up? Any other thoughts?
Because I was thinking that if it's this easy for my players to level up, I either need to change the experience thresholds or change up my campaign to involve less combat or less experience rewarded.
Cheers guys
I think low levels are designed to level up more quickly and I wouldn't be worried at level 1. The bonuses are what has tipped them over so quickly but if that's not what you were after I'm not sure why you'd do it. IN any case, a 10XP bounty is going to become pretty insignificant as they level up (unless they're wading through multiple low CR monsters) so I can't see it being too much of a problem.
BTW, I presume your table likes a pretty crunchy game because awarding XP for a kill is going to encourage a certain kind of gameplay. Nothing wrong with that, just be aware of the consequences.
Well I don't plan on them wading through swathes of low-CR monsters. If they are for whatever reason, then I'll do it World of Warcraft style and I won't be awarding extra XP for it.
I am personally more of a milestone kind of DM but I believe, as Barbarulo also said, the first 2-3 levels are designed to go by quickly (in a published adventure [don't remember if it is CoS or SKT] you have a n extremely short introductory mission that takes the characters to lvl 5 VERY quickly).
It helps giving the sense of growth and allowing the DM to push the limit a bit more with higher-lvl encounters (be them combat or non-combat ones) early on in a campaign, and gets the characters to the more interesting and specialized things they can do, building excitement for the new stuff in the players (that adds to the hopefully already rewarding RP experience).
The XP method can feel a bit unfair, imho, as while for RP you are definitely rewarding the player's good performance, sometimes the kill XP can be just due to the luck of the roll in landing the killing blow (if that's what you use as indicator of who takes said XP).
I prefer to decide based on the story when the characters progress in level, and reward their deeds in other ways (items, social/economical bonuses) as to integrate rewards into the actual story based on what they do and how they do it.
Different style, neither is better, neither is worse, just a matter of preference :)
In conclusion: do not worry if it seems they proceed quickly through lvls 2 and 3, their progression will naturally slow down going on.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
It really depends on the kind of campaign you're running, but in my experiance the game up to level 5 feels pretty quick to most. My group wants to play a long campaign, so i've been throttling things a little, but I figure once they get high enough (maybe level 10) I might move to milestone levels instead. I'd tell you to keep doing what you're doing and watch the impact up too level 5. After that, give your opinion to the players and ask them for theirs. Tailor it as needed, whether that means chucking XP everywher because no one wants a 5 year campaign or using milestones for story and personal arch completion.
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
I agree with LeK,
I like to track monster XP on my end, just to get an idea of how much "combat XP" the party gets in each level. The problem (in my mind), and I found this rampant in publish modules, is that purely combat XP games change the mindset to gear towards combat.
If you ever played the old Neverwinter Nights games they had this problem very badly. You could use Persuasion and Intimidate to end an encounter peacefully, but the game awarded you less XP then you would get for fighting them, plus you didn't get the loot drops.
I remember being a player in 3rd Ed, and when our party hit and city and were doing story stuff. We'd spend an entire session meeting contacts, getting invites to the duke's ball, buying fancy clothing, tracking down new gear, getting drunk in the tavern... All of it wouldn't account for any XP because we didn't "kill anything" even though we accomplished more in those sessions then we did and many more combats!
That said IF you are using Combat XP. You can give minor rewards for to players for other things.
One thing a group of mine does is the players go around the table and say something the player did that they felt was particuarly awesome. Then they have to elect another player for something they think that player did that was awesome... it goes round robin. Give an XP bonus for that.
The players then comment on something they liked/like to change about how the game ran that day. Give a minor XP bonus for that.
Often before a game starts, ask if a player wants to give a recap, of what happened last game and Give a minor XP bonus for that.
So if I'm understanding correctly, it would be better for me to eliminate my "Kill Bonus" and make it clear to my players that I will be rewarding good RP as well as non-combat solutions just as well as I would combat with regards to XP?
The second and third levels should come quickly. First level characters aren't very exciting to play anyway, and it can be hard to design encounters that are interesting but not deadly to low-level PCs.
Leveling based on milestones is easier to track, but I recently decided to switch back to rewarding experience based on individual encounters. Using milestones means your players won't know when or how they earned experience points, which I consider to be important. Instead, I immediately tell my players whenever they receive experience points, so they know how their actions and decisions impact their progress, and to make it clear they can earn experience points in non-combat situations just the same as they would by winning battles.
I use my own system, though, as the experience thresholds in the Player's Handbook seem pretty nonsensical to me, and I don't like the emphasis placed on combat encounters. Instead, I consider each level to be 100 experience points. Each encounter (whether that be a combat, social, exploration, investigation, or other encounter type) rewards XP to each character who was involved based on how challenging that encounter was to the PCs. Easy = 3 XP, Medium = 6 XP, Hard = 9 XP, and Deadly = 12 XP.
These ratings are the same as the ones in the DM's Guide, and this makes the encounters required to level roughly match up with what the Dungeon Master's Guide proscribes. When characters succeed in an encounter, they earn this XP. Failing means they don't get anything at all. Partial success (such as killing some creatures and then retreating) halves the XP they're rewarded. Also, I always reward all characters in the party the same XP, and I don't penalize players who couldn't make it to a session, as I think parity between characters is more important.
In the event I need to convert this back to the standard XP thresholds, I just use the party's level progress as a percentage (say, 57/100 to the next level).
I don't don't give addition xp for combat encounters as the basic rules already rewards the characters for combat. What I do do is give out extra xp when each character does something notable or special. For example, a clever way of avoiding a situation, solving a riddle, RP'ing well etc. Then give out xp depending on their level * a modifier. I've played around with various modifiers before settling on 25. So if a level 2 character has done 3 clever things I would award 150 bonus xp (2 * 25 * 3).
This hopefully incentivises things other than combat.
I use he XP guidelines to get the XP amount, but I give experience largely independent of success or failure, but rather based on how they play the encounter against the “goal” of the encounter and the nature of their characters. Failure with style will earn more than success with luck.
This is easy for non combat encounters. For combat, do they work together (unless that’s not in character), cleverly avoid the fight or do something to ensure victory, retreat keeping (mostly) everyone alive when clearly outmatched, stay in character, add clever flourishes, etc. Basicially, do they try to do more than dice it out?
It’s subjective, but I try to not tie experience to the luck of the die. I keep two things in mind:
Whatever your opinion on my approach, decide on the game you want (hopefully with your players input) and award experience to motivate the behaviours you want from your players.
For low level character levelling, up to level five, I use a number of play sessions equal to the current level. To get from level one to two would be one play session, from level two to three would be two play sessions, etc. It's fairly simple to adjust the xp rewards to hit the mark, especially for roleplaying. Those xp rewards can be fudged a bit easier.
Once the characters hit level five, this plan falls apart, but that's not a big deal. By then, players should have a good handle on their character's personality and style, they've got the newfound power of level five, and they are ready to kick butt to level six, even if the advancement happens at a different rate.
You, you and you- panic. Everyone else- follow me.