This is in many ways a question with no right or wrong answer but I am intrigued, when creating you campaigns do you put touchpoints in for when they should level. For instance if running Milestone levelling in your head do you think they will be level X by about session Y, or do you just let the story carry you and level them when it makes sense.
With XP do you plan out and set the average XP you expect to be achieved session y session therefore allowing you to anticipate when levelling will take place?
personally I prefer Milestone levelling and in my head I know where in the story the next level will take place. If the players take a while getting there (sessions run a little slow or they divert off course to go do a side quest etc) then that is ok they just stay at that level a little longer in real time. If a player asks, are we getting close to levelling and it has been a while I might tell them, I think suitable moment will appear after you deal with X or Y, (if they are already on there way to dealing with it). My player understand this does not always mean kill a thing :).
The DM-guide proposes a couple of ways to level up (p261), one of them is the session-based advancement, they propose to get to lvl 2 after the 1st session, 3 after the 2nd, and 4 after session 4. After this they say 2-3 sessions for each level is a good rate. Ofcourse this is just something they say you could do, not should do, and depends on the length of your sessions.
Personally I think milestone based is great for the story, as leveling means you really did something important. XP is great as a player because you can feel you're getting closer to leveling up, and making progress during the game, even without leveling up. When deciding what milestones you will be using for leveling up, you could use the guidelines of the session-based advancement to give yourself an idea about how long it should take the players to reach a milestone (or generate intermediate milestones if it'd take to long).
Finally, as a DM, it's up to you to decide when is a good time to level up, and you should do what you feel fits your campaign best, some worlds will suit faster leveling, and some are better slower.
I’ve never used XP, it feels like a chore to keep track of, it makes a session feel too video-gamey, and a million other reasons as to why I don’t use it.
Non-XP-based progression ( Milestones or what have you. ) feels more natural, it’s simpler, and it doesn’t slow down the game to a grinding halt at the end of every combat, ( plus it solves the ‘Bag of rats’ problem. ), a lot of DMs reward XP for good RP or problem solving, and other non-combat things, and that’s a solid way to play, but I prefer non-XP based progression, because when when the session ends, you either level up or ya don’t.
The DM-guide proposes a couple of ways to level up (p261), one of them is the session-based advancement, they propose to get to lvl 2 after the 1st session, 3 after the 2nd, and 4 after session 4. After this they say 2-3 sessions for each level is a good rate. Ofcourse this is just something they say you could do, not should do, and depends on the length of your sessions.
Personally I think milestone based is great for the story, as leveling means you really did something important. XP is great as a player because you can feel you're getting closer to leveling up, and making progress during the game, even without leveling up. When deciding what milestones you will be using for leveling up, you could use the guidelines of the session-based advancement to give yourself an idea about how long it should take the players to reach a milestone (or generate intermediate milestones if it'd take to long).
Finally, as a DM, it's up to you to decide when is a good time to level up, and you should do what you feel fits your campaign best, some worlds will suit faster leveling, and some are better slower.
There is lots on the DMG I disagree with and this is one of them following this thread players would be at level 20 within 6 months or so, considering how slow burn I run my stories that makes no sense to me.
My interest here was just in how other dms do it, I suppose I am also used to playing other systems where leveling happens so very differently.
I’ve never used XP, it feels like a chore to keep track of, it makes a session feel too video-gamey, and a million other reasons as to why I don’t use it.
Non-XP-based progression ( Milestones or what have you. ) feels more natural, it’s simpler, and it doesn’t slow down the game to a grinding halt at the end of every combat, ( plus it solves the ‘Bag of rats’ problem. ), a lot of DMs reward XP for good RP or problem solving, and other non-combat things, and that’s a solid way to play, but I prefer non-XP based progression, because when when the session ends, you either level up or ya don’t.
I used to love XP, probably a hold over from 20 years of playing various systems that utilize it. In many ways XP is what influenced computer games vs it being a way to turn Ttrpgs into a computer game. But, I generally always give the majority of XP for roleplaying, and in some cases have been known to give no XP for combat. However I also always balanced xp so players leveled when I wanted them to.
Currently the only real use of XP is with the Challenge Rating system, and it's rather math intensive. What is worse, the entries in the Monster Manual don't use the published CR system.
Back in the days when I started play, you didn't roleplay much with monsters. Those were for killing. It was usually pretty easy to know what needed killing. Looks nasty, acts nasty, gets sworded. Roleplay on top of that could get you a nice tiny bonus to your XP. This has been replaced with the Inspiration system.
Inspiration is functionally superior, but I've never seen it used in play. It's easy to understand why not. If the DM awards it, the other players may accuse them of favoritism. If any other player awards it, they have the same problem. It pretty much can't work unless the players all vote in secret and privately communicate with the DM, who then has to tally the votes. What if the DM doesn't agree?
XP also had the problem of you knowing a little too much. If you are far away from leveling, you knew it. If you are really close to leveling, you knew it. It's bad either way.
Milestone advancement suffers badly from the fact that it's all Dungeon Master whim. You get into a long series of fights that would easily have gotten you a level with XP? No good. You still have not rescued the Prince. He's in another castle. You can play for months and get nothing achieved level wise. You either feel like you should have earned your level long ago, or that you really don't deserve a level so quickly, and most especially not the other players who haven't really contributed a thing.
The rules of the game are almost entirely about combat and danger. It's a roleplaying game. You are supposed to be roleplaying while you fight, but in practice, people end up getting stuck at the table sitting there talking and talking while waiting for some excuse to roll some dice. There are rules for social interaction, but they are entirely arbitrary, the DM has to set the Difficulty Class, and you're apt to disagree. Don't even think of applying the rules to another player character. That almost never turns out well.
There really is no good system. Real life is what happens while you were making other plans. People move away, change jobs, get tired of playing, and so on. It can be many many miles to reach a single Milestone, and get a level. For what it's worth, I think we are pretty much stuck with Milestone now. The road is lovely, dark and deep, but I have miles to go before I sleep, and I'm kind of tired now. I hope I reach a Milestone soon.
I have been using real milestone leveling (not the story-based leveling that everyone calls milestone). That is to say, I make milestones for the characters, and when they reach a minor, major, or campaign-level milestone, they get an amount of XP equal to an easy, hard, or deadly encounter for their level. Milestones are usually things like, "Reach the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa," or "Discover the truth behind the kidnappings." I set the milestones, and they sometimes don't do all the potential ones I have set, but the idea is, however they go about it, if the reach the goal, they get the milestone.
This was the first time any of us (me, or the players) had used milestone leveling. Just a couple of sessions ago, one of the players who used to do a lot of Adventurer's League before the pandemic volunteered that he really likes the milestone leveling because it lets them achieve their goals however they want, and they get XP for successfully completing an objective, rather than for how many things they killed or how many traps they dodged. The other players all were in agreement that they like the system.
Now, one issue with it is that the leveling curve means that it takes more and more milestones to level up as you go (or at least, more and more "encounters" worth of XP). This would mean that it would take upwards of 50 major milestones to gain a single level at the higher levels, which would be many, many adventures... or else I'd need to introduce a lot of things that I call "major" milestones but are really trivial. I fixed this by introducing the campaign-level milestone for more XP. But I also stopped trying to make sure there are enough milestones to gain an entire level in each and every adventure. I think if you want to do something like that, story-based is better because then you can just level them up at the right break-points.
This does mean leveling will be slower... this last adventure they just finished (gaining level 8) is likely the last time they will gain a whole level from a single adventure. But we'll see how it goes....
The rate that this has produced is 7 levels in 32 sessions, or about a level every 4 or so sessions, with earlier levels being a little shorter (2-3 sessions), and higher levels being longer (4-6 sessions). As a player, I definitely would not want to be level 2 after just 1 session -- I think that is too fast. I want to experience each level not blow through them. But as a DM, I can see the attraction of it, if for no other reason than it is so easy to accidentally kill a level 1 PC, but by level 2 they have enough meat on their bones that you probably won't kill them in one blow completely by accident. (On purpose is another story, MUH-hahahaha, evil DM laugh).
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
For me, a character levels once every 2 sessions up to level 5. After that, they level every 4 sessions. Pacing games is something my players and I are very good at, so I rarely have adventures run more than one session.
Currently the only real use of XP is with the Challenge Rating system, and it's rather math intensive. What is worse, the entries in the Monster Manual don't use the published CR system.
Back in the days when I started play, you didn't roleplay much with monsters. Those were for killing. It was usually pretty easy to know what needed killing. Looks nasty, acts nasty, gets sworded. Roleplay on top of that could get you a nice tiny bonus to your XP. This has been replaced with the Inspiration system.
Inspiration is functionally superior, but I've never seen it used in play. It's easy to understand why not. If the DM awards it, the other players may accuse them of favoritism. If any other player awards it, they have the same problem. It pretty much can't work unless the players all vote in secret and privately communicate with the DM, who then has to tally the votes. What if the DM doesn't agree?
XP also had the problem of you knowing a little too much. If you are far away from leveling, you knew it. If you are really close to leveling, you knew it. It's bad either way.
Milestone advancement suffers badly from the fact that it's all Dungeon Master whim. You get into a long series of fights that would easily have gotten you a level with XP? No good. You still have not rescued the Prince. He's in another castle. You can play for months and get nothing achieved level wise. You either feel like you should have earned your level long ago, or that you really don't deserve a level so quickly, and most especially not the other players who haven't really contributed a thing.
The rules of the game are almost entirely about combat and danger. It's a roleplaying game. You are supposed to be roleplaying while you fight, but in practice, people end up getting stuck at the table sitting there talking and talking while waiting for some excuse to roll some dice. There are rules for social interaction, but they are entirely arbitrary, the DM has to set the Difficulty Class, and you're apt to disagree. Don't even think of applying the rules to another player character. That almost never turns out well.
There really is no good system. Real life is what happens while you were making other plans. People move away, change jobs, get tired of playing, and so on. It can be many many miles to reach a single Milestone, and get a level. For what it's worth, I think we are pretty much stuck with Milestone now. The road is lovely, dark and deep, but I have miles to go before I sleep, and I'm kind of tired now. I hope I reach a Milestone soon.
My issue with inspiration as is written is that so many things in game give advantage already. I have tried a couple of alternatives, making it like bardic inspiration, so player gets a d6 to add to any roll apart from damage, allowing the player to reroll any d20 including if they have advantage, or an auto non crit success (decide before rolling the dice).
The way I'm currently doing things is basically milestone -- the PCs have to accomplish a couple of plot points to advance -- but I'm not being super rigorous about it.
Currently the only real use of XP is with the Challenge Rating system, and it's rather math intensive. What is worse, the entries in the Monster Manual don't use the published CR system.
Back in the days when I started play, you didn't roleplay much with monsters. Those were for killing. It was usually pretty easy to know what needed killing. Looks nasty, acts nasty, gets sworded. Roleplay on top of that could get you a nice tiny bonus to your XP. This has been replaced with the Inspiration system.
Inspiration is functionally superior, but I've never seen it used in play. It's easy to understand why not. If the DM awards it, the other players may accuse them of favoritism. If any other player awards it, they have the same problem. It pretty much can't work unless the players all vote in secret and privately communicate with the DM, who then has to tally the votes. What if the DM doesn't agree?
XP also had the problem of you knowing a little too much. If you are far away from leveling, you knew it. If you are really close to leveling, you knew it. It's bad either way.
Milestone advancement suffers badly from the fact that it's all Dungeon Master whim. You get into a long series of fights that would easily have gotten you a level with XP? No good. You still have not rescued the Prince. He's in another castle. You can play for months and get nothing achieved level wise. You either feel like you should have earned your level long ago, or that you really don't deserve a level so quickly, and most especially not the other players who haven't really contributed a thing.
The rules of the game are almost entirely about combat and danger. It's a roleplaying game. You are supposed to be roleplaying while you fight, but in practice, people end up getting stuck at the table sitting there talking and talking while waiting for some excuse to roll some dice. There are rules for social interaction, but they are entirely arbitrary, the DM has to set the Difficulty Class, and you're apt to disagree. Don't even think of applying the rules to another player character. That almost never turns out well.
There really is no good system. Real life is what happens while you were making other plans. People move away, change jobs, get tired of playing, and so on. It can be many many miles to reach a single Milestone, and get a level. For what it's worth, I think we are pretty much stuck with Milestone now. The road is lovely, dark and deep, but I have miles to go before I sleep, and I'm kind of tired now. I hope I reach a Milestone soon.
There's a lot to unpack here, but let me say this may not be a fault of the system because my experience is wildly different.
Firstly, we use inspiration all the time. It's a great mechanic. If you can't use it because awarding inspiration makes people shout favoritism, you have some form of dysfunctional group dynamics.
Knowing where you are XP wise - What's the problem with that? Wouldn't a fighter who's been practicing a new technique have an idea of how close they are to perfecting it? Wouldn't a wizard know that they were close to (or far from) working out a couple new spells? People get so hung up on the idea that meta-gaming is bad that they deny characters knowledge they would absolutely have just by living their lives.
Milestones forcing delayed leveling - More than half the time I've played with XP (including older editions of the game), the DM wouldn't let us actually get the benefit of our levels until we returned to town and got some downtime anyway. If you're doing milestones, you can extend or shorten an adventure if the pacing is way off. Or you are intentionally leveling faster or slower than XP would, making this a feature rather than a flaw.
No RP in combat, arguing about DCs, different rules for different characters - again, this is not the game I'm playing. Maybe you need to find a new group because this is not the way the game plays out for everyone. You just sound really bummed about the game as a whole.
I think both systems are great and have different strengths. Milestones are super convenient and allow the DM full control in pacing character growth. XP is more transparent and gives you an auxiliary reward system that is extremely flexible and robust. I default to milestone because my game is really story-driven and it's simply easier, but I can't deny the utility of the XP system and I'm really tempted to try to use it in my next campaign.
How i do things is I plan out the campaign, when would be a good time for them to level up, how annoyed they would be if they just killed three demons(example) and did not level up, and when they've done something pretty cool/important
There's a lot to unpack here, but let me say this may not be a fault of the system because my experience is wildly different. - I get told I'm unique in my experience all the time.
Firstly, we use inspiration all the time. It's a great mechanic. If you can't use it because awarding inspiration makes people shout favoritism, you have some form of dysfunctional group dynamics. - I'm unique here too.
Knowing where you are XP wise - What's the problem with that? Wouldn't a fighter who's been practicing a new technique have an idea of how close they are to perfecting it? Wouldn't a wizard know that they were close to (or far from) working out a couple new spells? People get so hung up on the idea that meta-gaming is bad that they deny characters knowledge they would absolutely have just by living their lives. - When the XP gets handed out, at the end of the session, the end of the week, whatever, if you are very close to leveling, you may be unhappy or not because you didn't quite get there. That's good or bad depending on your mood. The same goes if you are a long way away from your next level. You may or may not feel discouraged because you know you have a long way to go. With Milestone, you simply have no idea at all.
Milestones forcing delayed leveling - More than half the time I've played with XP (including older editions of the game), the DM wouldn't let us actually get the benefit of our levels until we returned to town and got some downtime anyway. If you're doing milestones, you can extend or shorten an adventure if the pacing is way off. Or you are intentionally leveling faster or slower than XP would, making this a feature rather than a flaw. - With Milestone, you cannot tell if the DM is dragging their feet and forcing extra sessions in for whatever reason. With XP, you know.
No RP in combat, arguing about DCs, different rules for different characters - again, this is not the game I'm playing. Maybe you need to find a new group because this is not the way the game plays out for everyone. You just sound really bummed about the game as a whole. - More of my uniqueness.
I think both systems are great and have different strengths. Milestones are super convenient and allow the DM full control in pacing character growth. XP is more transparent and gives you an auxiliary reward system that is extremely flexible and robust. I default to milestone because my game is really story-driven and it's simply easier, but I can't deny the utility of the XP system and I'm really tempted to try to use it in my next campaign. - On this, we agree.
As a lifelong accountant of XP, I am all XPed out. I switched to milestone and never looked back. I level them up when they complete certain quests, which usually takes 2-5 sessions.
As a lifelong accountant of XP, I am all XPed out. I switched to milestone and never looked back. I level them up when they complete certain quests, which usually takes 2-5 sessions.
Basically this. I don't really plan it out in advance, but I choose a reasonable time in the story after they have accomplished something big. Most recently, my group assembled a strike force to take out a mafia-like criminal empire that was trying to activate a dormant super-golem to consolidate their power in a city. they beat the leader and stopped the golem from activating and they gained a level (they also were in near constant combat for 3 sessions after planning for 1 additional one, and racked up a body count of 80-90)
Milestones forcing delayed leveling - More than half the time I've played with XP (including older editions of the game), the DM wouldn't let us actually get the benefit of our levels until we returned to town and got some downtime anyway. If you're doing milestones, you can extend or shorten an adventure if the pacing is way off. Or you are intentionally leveling faster or slower than XP would, making this a feature rather than a flaw. - With Milestone, you cannot tell if the DM is dragging their feet and forcing extra sessions in for whatever reason. With XP, you know.
My experience is that milestone leveling tends to be faster than xp leveling, at least with the same encounters, because the types of DM who like milestone leveling are also prone to low numbers of super hard fights, and those fights are actually pretty inefficient for gaining xp.
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This is in many ways a question with no right or wrong answer but I am intrigued, when creating you campaigns do you put touchpoints in for when they should level. For instance if running Milestone levelling in your head do you think they will be level X by about session Y, or do you just let the story carry you and level them when it makes sense.
With XP do you plan out and set the average XP you expect to be achieved session y session therefore allowing you to anticipate when levelling will take place?
personally I prefer Milestone levelling and in my head I know where in the story the next level will take place. If the players take a while getting there (sessions run a little slow or they divert off course to go do a side quest etc) then that is ok they just stay at that level a little longer in real time. If a player asks, are we getting close to levelling and it has been a while I might tell them, I think suitable moment will appear after you deal with X or Y, (if they are already on there way to dealing with it). My player understand this does not always mean kill a thing :).
The DM-guide proposes a couple of ways to level up (p261), one of them is the session-based advancement, they propose to get to lvl 2 after the 1st session, 3 after the 2nd, and 4 after session 4. After this they say 2-3 sessions for each level is a good rate. Ofcourse this is just something they say you could do, not should do, and depends on the length of your sessions.
Personally I think milestone based is great for the story, as leveling means you really did something important. XP is great as a player because you can feel you're getting closer to leveling up, and making progress during the game, even without leveling up. When deciding what milestones you will be using for leveling up, you could use the guidelines of the session-based advancement to give yourself an idea about how long it should take the players to reach a milestone (or generate intermediate milestones if it'd take to long).
Finally, as a DM, it's up to you to decide when is a good time to level up, and you should do what you feel fits your campaign best, some worlds will suit faster leveling, and some are better slower.
I’ve never used XP, it feels like a chore to keep track of, it makes a session feel too video-gamey, and a million other reasons as to why I don’t use it.
Non-XP-based progression ( Milestones or what have you. ) feels more natural, it’s simpler, and it doesn’t slow down the game to a grinding halt at the end of every combat, ( plus it solves the ‘Bag of rats’ problem. ), a lot of DMs reward XP for good RP or problem solving, and other non-combat things, and that’s a solid way to play, but I prefer non-XP based progression, because when when the session ends, you either level up or ya don’t.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
There is lots on the DMG I disagree with and this is one of them following this thread players would be at level 20 within 6 months or so, considering how slow burn I run my stories that makes no sense to me.
My interest here was just in how other dms do it, I suppose I am also used to playing other systems where leveling happens so very differently.
I used to love XP, probably a hold over from 20 years of playing various systems that utilize it. In many ways XP is what influenced computer games vs it being a way to turn Ttrpgs into a computer game. But, I generally always give the majority of XP for roleplaying, and in some cases have been known to give no XP for combat. However I also always balanced xp so players leveled when I wanted them to.
There are times when I miss XP.
Currently the only real use of XP is with the Challenge Rating system, and it's rather math intensive. What is worse, the entries in the Monster Manual don't use the published CR system.
Back in the days when I started play, you didn't roleplay much with monsters. Those were for killing. It was usually pretty easy to know what needed killing. Looks nasty, acts nasty, gets sworded. Roleplay on top of that could get you a nice tiny bonus to your XP. This has been replaced with the Inspiration system.
Inspiration is functionally superior, but I've never seen it used in play. It's easy to understand why not. If the DM awards it, the other players may accuse them of favoritism. If any other player awards it, they have the same problem. It pretty much can't work unless the players all vote in secret and privately communicate with the DM, who then has to tally the votes. What if the DM doesn't agree?
XP also had the problem of you knowing a little too much. If you are far away from leveling, you knew it. If you are really close to leveling, you knew it. It's bad either way.
Milestone advancement suffers badly from the fact that it's all Dungeon Master whim. You get into a long series of fights that would easily have gotten you a level with XP? No good. You still have not rescued the Prince. He's in another castle. You can play for months and get nothing achieved level wise. You either feel like you should have earned your level long ago, or that you really don't deserve a level so quickly, and most especially not the other players who haven't really contributed a thing.
The rules of the game are almost entirely about combat and danger. It's a roleplaying game. You are supposed to be roleplaying while you fight, but in practice, people end up getting stuck at the table sitting there talking and talking while waiting for some excuse to roll some dice. There are rules for social interaction, but they are entirely arbitrary, the DM has to set the Difficulty Class, and you're apt to disagree. Don't even think of applying the rules to another player character. That almost never turns out well.
There really is no good system. Real life is what happens while you were making other plans. People move away, change jobs, get tired of playing, and so on. It can be many many miles to reach a single Milestone, and get a level. For what it's worth, I think we are pretty much stuck with Milestone now. The road is lovely, dark and deep, but I have miles to go before I sleep, and I'm kind of tired now. I hope I reach a Milestone soon.
<Insert clever signature here>
I have been using real milestone leveling (not the story-based leveling that everyone calls milestone). That is to say, I make milestones for the characters, and when they reach a minor, major, or campaign-level milestone, they get an amount of XP equal to an easy, hard, or deadly encounter for their level. Milestones are usually things like, "Reach the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa," or "Discover the truth behind the kidnappings." I set the milestones, and they sometimes don't do all the potential ones I have set, but the idea is, however they go about it, if the reach the goal, they get the milestone.
This was the first time any of us (me, or the players) had used milestone leveling. Just a couple of sessions ago, one of the players who used to do a lot of Adventurer's League before the pandemic volunteered that he really likes the milestone leveling because it lets them achieve their goals however they want, and they get XP for successfully completing an objective, rather than for how many things they killed or how many traps they dodged. The other players all were in agreement that they like the system.
Now, one issue with it is that the leveling curve means that it takes more and more milestones to level up as you go (or at least, more and more "encounters" worth of XP). This would mean that it would take upwards of 50 major milestones to gain a single level at the higher levels, which would be many, many adventures... or else I'd need to introduce a lot of things that I call "major" milestones but are really trivial. I fixed this by introducing the campaign-level milestone for more XP. But I also stopped trying to make sure there are enough milestones to gain an entire level in each and every adventure. I think if you want to do something like that, story-based is better because then you can just level them up at the right break-points.
This does mean leveling will be slower... this last adventure they just finished (gaining level 8) is likely the last time they will gain a whole level from a single adventure. But we'll see how it goes....
The rate that this has produced is 7 levels in 32 sessions, or about a level every 4 or so sessions, with earlier levels being a little shorter (2-3 sessions), and higher levels being longer (4-6 sessions). As a player, I definitely would not want to be level 2 after just 1 session -- I think that is too fast. I want to experience each level not blow through them. But as a DM, I can see the attraction of it, if for no other reason than it is so easy to accidentally kill a level 1 PC, but by level 2 they have enough meat on their bones that you probably won't kill them in one blow completely by accident. (On purpose is another story, MUH-hahahaha, evil DM laugh).
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
For me, a character levels once every 2 sessions up to level 5. After that, they level every 4 sessions. Pacing games is something my players and I are very good at, so I rarely have adventures run more than one session.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Hahah... I think our last adventure was about 5 sessions.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I like milestone leveling because it means I don’t have to adjust combat on the fly.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
My issue with inspiration as is written is that so many things in game give advantage already. I have tried a couple of alternatives, making it like bardic inspiration, so player gets a d6 to add to any roll apart from damage, allowing the player to reroll any d20 including if they have advantage, or an auto non crit success (decide before rolling the dice).
It seems I was thinking of the Bard version of Inspiration. I get confused all the time. I need more sleep, and Milestones to go before I level.
<Insert clever signature here>
There is DnD Dm inspiration for good roleplaying, but from the book that gives advantage on a roll
The way I'm currently doing things is basically milestone -- the PCs have to accomplish a couple of plot points to advance -- but I'm not being super rigorous about it.
There's a lot to unpack here, but let me say this may not be a fault of the system because my experience is wildly different.
Firstly, we use inspiration all the time. It's a great mechanic. If you can't use it because awarding inspiration makes people shout favoritism, you have some form of dysfunctional group dynamics.
Knowing where you are XP wise - What's the problem with that? Wouldn't a fighter who's been practicing a new technique have an idea of how close they are to perfecting it? Wouldn't a wizard know that they were close to (or far from) working out a couple new spells? People get so hung up on the idea that meta-gaming is bad that they deny characters knowledge they would absolutely have just by living their lives.
Milestones forcing delayed leveling - More than half the time I've played with XP (including older editions of the game), the DM wouldn't let us actually get the benefit of our levels until we returned to town and got some downtime anyway. If you're doing milestones, you can extend or shorten an adventure if the pacing is way off. Or you are intentionally leveling faster or slower than XP would, making this a feature rather than a flaw.
No RP in combat, arguing about DCs, different rules for different characters - again, this is not the game I'm playing. Maybe you need to find a new group because this is not the way the game plays out for everyone. You just sound really bummed about the game as a whole.
I think both systems are great and have different strengths. Milestones are super convenient and allow the DM full control in pacing character growth. XP is more transparent and gives you an auxiliary reward system that is extremely flexible and robust. I default to milestone because my game is really story-driven and it's simply easier, but I can't deny the utility of the XP system and I'm really tempted to try to use it in my next campaign.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
How i do things is I plan out the campaign, when would be a good time for them to level up, how annoyed they would be if they just killed three demons(example) and did not level up, and when they've done something pretty cool/important
"Hero of the Heavens" (Title by Drummer)
Scatterbraind was heard to say:
There's a lot to unpack here, but let me say this may not be a fault of the system because my experience is wildly different. - I get told I'm unique in my experience all the time.
Firstly, we use inspiration all the time. It's a great mechanic. If you can't use it because awarding inspiration makes people shout favoritism, you have some form of dysfunctional group dynamics. - I'm unique here too.
Knowing where you are XP wise - What's the problem with that? Wouldn't a fighter who's been practicing a new technique have an idea of how close they are to perfecting it? Wouldn't a wizard know that they were close to (or far from) working out a couple new spells? People get so hung up on the idea that meta-gaming is bad that they deny characters knowledge they would absolutely have just by living their lives. - When the XP gets handed out, at the end of the session, the end of the week, whatever, if you are very close to leveling, you may be unhappy or not because you didn't quite get there. That's good or bad depending on your mood. The same goes if you are a long way away from your next level. You may or may not feel discouraged because you know you have a long way to go. With Milestone, you simply have no idea at all.
Milestones forcing delayed leveling - More than half the time I've played with XP (including older editions of the game), the DM wouldn't let us actually get the benefit of our levels until we returned to town and got some downtime anyway. If you're doing milestones, you can extend or shorten an adventure if the pacing is way off. Or you are intentionally leveling faster or slower than XP would, making this a feature rather than a flaw. - With Milestone, you cannot tell if the DM is dragging their feet and forcing extra sessions in for whatever reason. With XP, you know.
No RP in combat, arguing about DCs, different rules for different characters - again, this is not the game I'm playing. Maybe you need to find a new group because this is not the way the game plays out for everyone. You just sound really bummed about the game as a whole. - More of my uniqueness.
I think both systems are great and have different strengths. Milestones are super convenient and allow the DM full control in pacing character growth. XP is more transparent and gives you an auxiliary reward system that is extremely flexible and robust. I default to milestone because my game is really story-driven and it's simply easier, but I can't deny the utility of the XP system and I'm really tempted to try to use it in my next campaign. - On this, we agree.
<Insert clever signature here>
As a lifelong accountant of XP, I am all XPed out. I switched to milestone and never looked back. I level them up when they complete certain quests, which usually takes 2-5 sessions.
Basically this. I don't really plan it out in advance, but I choose a reasonable time in the story after they have accomplished something big. Most recently, my group assembled a strike force to take out a mafia-like criminal empire that was trying to activate a dormant super-golem to consolidate their power in a city. they beat the leader and stopped the golem from activating and they gained a level (they also were in near constant combat for 3 sessions after planning for 1 additional one, and racked up a body count of 80-90)
My experience is that milestone leveling tends to be faster than xp leveling, at least with the same encounters, because the types of DM who like milestone leveling are also prone to low numbers of super hard fights, and those fights are actually pretty inefficient for gaining xp.