I'm working on a campaign inspired by the STALKER games involving adventurers needing to journey into a hostile wasteland in order to search for treasure, quest mcguffins, etc. and then return it to safety. I want there to be a risk/reward element to the campaign and so I am thinking I may go to the old school method of making the treasure they bring back, or rewards they get for quests, be the EXP they earn. They won't get the EXP until they return to safety and I'm hoping for the kind of feeling you get from those games or even things like Pokemon Legends Arceus where you want to push on until you absolutely can't anymore. Then you come home to a big, fat, stack of rewards at once.
I figure that using treasure as a motivator will help with a couple of things:
1) Combat won't be all important but it won't be meaningless either. One thing I dislike about milestone advancement is that when the goal is strictly story progression, encounters become more of a punishment than an opportunity. We could fight that group of baddies but why do that when we could stealth around them or talk our way out of it and save more time? On the other hand, EXP as it's written in 5e puts all the emphasis on combat and swings that pendulum too far the other way. I figure combat will allow the party minor rewards by letting them loot the enemies but it won't be as big of a reward as whatever is waiting for them at the end of a dungeon or quest. That way, the party may want to avoid combat in order to press on to the big reward but they still benefit if they want to fight some enemies for a while too.
2) It makes growth completely transparent to the party. A major element I'm going for is the ability for the party to plan out their trek into the wasteland. If they don't know what they're going for or what the possible rewards are, it makes it very hard to plan out. Plus, it's hard for them to gauge how they're doing while their trek is in progress. This way, they can accurately gauge their rewards from quests and how that translates to their growth, plus it lets them know precisely how much they will get when they come back (I plan to be up front with them regarding appraisal of their items).
I know that I want to make sure the party actually has stuff to spend their hard-earned gold on and that it should correlate to the party's growth so I'm working on a pricing chart for items and several items and things the party can spend their money on later such as wasteland renewal projects, faction investment, magic items, etc. Also, regardless of what they wind up doing with the treasure, EXP will be split evenly through the party, so as to avoid any issues of who gets which items. I'm wondering if other folks have experience doing campaigns like this and if there are any major pitfalls I should watch out for or just tips on how to run this. I'm new to TTRPG as of 5th edition so I haven't ever run a treasure as EXP campaign before and would love any advice you all may have.
I think you're looking at awarding xp the wrong way. You don't give players xp for killing monsters, you give it to them for overcoming challenges. If they sneak or talk their way out of a fight, you award them the same amount as if they'd killed the monsters.
Why is the growth more transparent his way? They won't know how much money a monster is carrying before they fight it, so it's impossible to make a risk/reward calculation. They'll find out after, just as they would if at the end of the fight you say, everyone gets 75 xp. And presumably, you'll have every enemy carrying around its exact xp value in gold. It seems like you're just adding an extra step. And then you really can't have a monster with no treasure -- a wolf will somehow need a pouch of gold around its neck, or it just happened to eat its exact xp value in gems or something. In the more standard model, if the wolf doesn't have anything, the next monster has a little more than normal, and it all balances out. But in this, they may not fight the next monster, then they get nothing.
Are you going to give them bags of holding to carry all that cash? Or just ignore it.
And then, as you note, there's spending the money. There's really not much to do with all that cash, by RAW, other than buying boats or something unless you start homebrewing. It sounds like you have done that, but you've basically just made work for yourself to solve a problem that you created. DMs have enough to do without creating new systems, particularly new DMs. Also, it may actually throw off the balance at early levels, as the characters will be able to afford plate mail earlier than expected, though that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
If you're new to the game, I'd really suggest running a campaign RAW first. Get one under your belt before you start making a change like this, so you can better understand what you're changing, and if it actually even needs to be changed. (I'm not trying to forecast what will be fun for you. If you play through and realize that you want to go to this model, then go for it and have fun. I'm just saying it can help to use the standard systems first so you can understand how the game works before you change it.) What you're suggesting is the way the game was in 1e. 1gp=1xp, and you had to go back to town to get training before you could level up (I know you're not saying training, but you are saying they have to go back to town to cash in their xp). It made things more complicated, but it really wasn't more fun.
Xp should be awarded for overcoming challenges, such as avoiding traps or defeating monsters, but also for negotiating their way out of hostilities. Successfully sneaking around a monster should be worth some experience, but probably not as much as facing the monster, because what they did wasn't nearly as difficult as fighting the monster. At the same time, experience farming trivial encounters needs to not be a thing. If there's no risk or expenditure of resources, it shouldn't be worth experience.
Ex: An Owlin Wizard obliterating a million Gelatinous Cubes with firebolts from the sky shouldn't really be getting experience for that, but that same Owlin enabling his party to cross a vast chasm of lethal depth by casting Wall of Stone to create a bridge should get experience for overcoming that challenge.
I suggest having the whole party level up together, because it encourages comradery, rather than being competitive for the experience points.
If they're gathering wealth to take back to civilization, and this is a distinct part of the adventure, it sounds like tracking the weight of things will be a big part of the adventure. Keep track of what the characters can carry, and give them a chance to purchase pack animals or maybe a Portable Hole or Bag of Holding. Maybe even a cart. They load up on rations before going out, and as the adventure progresses, their food supplies dwindle, and their load of treasure grows, until they decide to go back, and if you use a hex map to show travel, they can use those distances to gage at what point they need to start back to not run out of food, or have to leave treasures behind.
For the spending of money, there's the rations, potions, animals, better weapons and armor, specialized training (also requiring down time), and even hirelings to take care of their goods and animals while the party ventures into ruins or dungeons that you can't bring a half-dozen heavily laden donkeys into. They may also choose to purchase a shop, and hire people to work there so the treasure they bring back can be deposited there to be appraised, catalogued, and made available for sale, so each trip, the party could collect the money from the previous trip's loot. The shop would also require some money in upkeep on top of the employees (including guards)' pay.
You might even make certain magic items available for purchase or trade (How reputable the bearer of said magic items is being completely up to the DM).
I would have them level up during long rests, but not make them wait until they get back to town. That way it doesn't interrupt the adventuring day, but doesn't needlessly make them wait.
I don't think you will have any real problems using the value of loot recovered to award experience. The characters will have had to overcome some set of challenges to obtain the loot and presumably, the amount of loot recovered will be related to the difficulty of the challenge.
This also gets around the issue of whether XP should be awarded for killing things or overcoming a challenge whether you kill it or not. Some games will give the same XP either way since the players/characters overcome the challenge while other GMs only award full XP for killing the monster. I find the latter approach a bit problematic since it tends to encourage murder-hobo scorched earth tactics where the party kills whatever they can to maximize XP. I've seen it in practice and don't like that play style so I prefer awarding the same XP based on the characters overcoming or avoiding a situation rather than just killing monsters.
In your case, you just need to scale the loot the party recovers either from the adventure or from quest givers by recovering their item or performing their task with the difficulty/challenge - it should work out the same.
Note: In 1e 1gp=1xp and much of the character XP was earned from the treasure they found - so the system will work.
P.S. If you want to scale using loot, you will need to decide how much loot they will earn and then give them something to spend it on that will be interesting, fun and make sense for the characters. Magic items is an option but I'd make them expensive.
I mean XP was awarded for loot in the past and was dropped in newer editions, there’s a reason for that. Lot’s of stories floating around. As someone who was playing when this was a thing I am glad it isn’t a thing anymore. I can remember lots of disagreements when somebody would sneak off and keep everything they found for themselves. That kind of behaviour is still around but thankfully doesn’t het rewarded as much any more.
You also have a bad understanding of how XP actually works in 5e so I would learn the actual rules and play with them first. Players get the XP whether they kill a monster or the bard seduces it. They get XP if a rogue disarms a trap or the wizard uses mage hand or unseen servant to safely trigger it at a distance. Or even if they come up with a plan that completely circumvents going into the dungeon that you set up as long as they complete the objectives successfully. The how factor isn’t important.
First of all, I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond to this but I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding here. When I said that I was new to D&D as of 5th edition, I didn't mean that I am new to D&D. I've been playing and DMing 5e for the last 6 years and have done both in games using both milestone and XP progression. I am fully aware of how they work and the pros and cons for each. I have also DMed other non-D&D games as well. I'm sorry that I gave the impression that I've never done this before. I didn't spell out precisely how I've run EXP before because I didn't think it relevant to this particular topic. I simply meant that I have never used the AD&D or OSR method of equating treasure to XP before and was looking for advice on pitfalls I can watch out for with that, specifically. I gave the example of players being incentivized to hoard their treasure away from the rest of the party and am solving that problem by giving the party equal XP regardless of what anyone specifically does with the treasure brought back.
I also want to throw out there that I'm not looking to rewrite 5e. I'm not saying I want to generally throw out all standard methods of progression in favor of this OSR-styled system for every campaign going forward. This is a specific campaign that I'm working on that has a specific feel in mind. My players are fully aware and are excited to try it in this particular campaign. I'm not looking for arguments convincing me of the merits of EXP or milestones. If you have a specific story to relate about running or playing a game that used a treasure = EXP system before though, I would love to hear it, good or bad, so that I can learn from it.
I don't think you will have any real problems using the value of loot recovered to award experience. The characters will have had to overcome some set of challenges to obtain the loot and presumably, the amount of loot recovered will be related to the difficulty of the challenge.
This also gets around the issue of whether XP should be awarded for killing things or overcoming a challenge whether you kill it or not. Some games will give the same XP either way since the players/characters overcome the challenge while other GMs only award full XP for killing the monster. I find the latter approach a bit problematic since it tends to encourage murder-hobo scorched earth tactics where the party kills whatever they can to maximize XP. I've seen it in practice and don't like that play style so I prefer awarding the same XP based on the characters overcoming or avoiding a situation rather than just killing monsters.
In your case, you just need to scale the loot the party recovers either from the adventure or from quest givers by recovering their item or performing their task with the difficulty/challenge - it should work out the same.
Note: In 1e 1gp=1xp and much of the character XP was earned from the treasure they found - so the system will work.
P.S. If you want to scale using loot, you will need to decide how much loot they will earn and then give them something to spend it on that will be interesting, fun and make sense for the characters. Magic items is an option but I'd make them expensive.
Thank you for your post! I appreciate it. I agree that the magic items will need to be expensive, if used as money sink. I figure that I want the party to just start to be able to dip their toes into buying magic items around level 4 which, would put the total party earnings between 8,100 gold and 19,500 by the time they get to level 5. Since they will be spending at least some gold on other things, I figure around 10,000 gold for the uncommon magic items will put things just about perfect. That way, if they don't pool their resources at all, they'd still be able to start buying individual magic items by level 6. I'm thinking quest rewards/dungeon treasure up until this point will mostly be non-magical but exciting finds like Adamantium armor or the like, so as to not have a reward early on that boosts them up a level by itself or something.
I mean XP was awarded for loot in the past and was dropped in newer editions, there’s a reason for that. Lot’s of stories floating around. As someone who was playing when this was a thing I am glad it isn’t a thing anymore. I can remember lots of disagreements when somebody would sneak off and keep everything they found for themselves. That kind of behaviour is still around but thankfully doesn’t het rewarded as much any more.
You also have a bad understanding of how XP actually works in 5e so I would learn the actual rules and play with them first. Players get the XP whether they kill a monster or the bard seduces it. They get XP if a rogue disarms a trap or the wizard uses mage hand or unseen servant to safely trigger it at a distance. Or even if they come up with a plan that completely circumvents going into the dungeon that you set up as long as they complete the objectives successfully. The how factor isn’t important.
Thank you. I do understand how EXP works in 5e as it's written out in the DMG on page 260-261. I didn't spell out the system here because it wasn't particularly relevant to the conversation. I'm not arguing the pros and cons of EXP. FWIW though, I would recommend double-checking what RAW 5e has to say on rewarding EXP for disarming traps.
You mentioned that you have played in treasure = EXP games before and had trouble with people sneaking off to keep treasure for themselves. Incentivizing players to hoard or hide treasure was one of the things I had thought about which is why I mentioned it in my post specifically. EXP in my game will be evenly spread out for the party based on the total amount brought back, regardless of who has what and what they choose to do with it. There will be no experience reward given for hiding treasure from the group. If you had other feelings towards that kind of system, I would love to hear specifics from you. Those are exactly the kinds of things I want to know about so that I can avoid problems going forward.
<snip>I want there to be a risk/reward element to the campaign and so I am thinking I may go to the old school method of making the treasure they bring back, or rewards they get for quests, be the EXP they earn. They won't get the EXP until they return to safety and I'm hoping for the kind of feeling you get from those games or even things like Pokemon Legends Arceus where you want to push on until you absolutely can't anymore. Then you come home to a big, fat, stack of rewards at once.
Ok, so you're suggesting that the adventure (risk) not end until the party is back inside the the wall with whatever MacGuffin they were sent out to collect, monster bits, NPC, trinket. Sounds like an episodic fetch quest, and totally doable, might be fun.
Understanding that affixing an xp value to gp collected has little to do with risk/reward, or when the reward is given. The gp=xp method is simply a method of determining how much "growth" a character experienced during said adventure. Just like assigning a value of 450xp for a 4th level PC disabling a Dangerous Trap, or adding the xp value that was assigned to the monsters that the party defeated/captured. All xp values are assigned by either a designer or the DM, but they are all assigned based on the amount of risk v. reward. The amount of gold that a monster would collect is indicative of how dangerous they are, and that gp amount is assigned either by a designer or the DM. Frequently, the designer is the DM.
During your prep of the adventure, fetch quest, whatever, you (the DM) know how much risk there is available and how much loot is available. You know whether or not the party will level up when they return simply because there is a minimum required amount of xp to be earned to meet the threshold for next level. You know whether they will meet that milestone or not. The idea that Milestone Advancement is only tied to story is simply inaccurate. What you are suggesting is, in effect, Milestone Advancement, by reaching a specific destination (returning home), or the recovery of a specific item, or the accomplishment of a set of goals.
1) Combat won't be all important but it won't be meaningless either. <snip>
It seems like there is some inaccuracy in this as well. There is no requirement in RAW that combat be the solution to any conflict. XP is rewarded for overcoming a challenge. How this is accomplished is party driven. Yes, if you *only* reward xp for killing things, then that is the behavior that you are rewarding. If you award xp for stealth, cunning and tactical thinking then this becomes the behavior that you are rewarding. Combat's importance in the game is not inherently driven by xp, if there is no reward for exploration or social interaction, then the party will eventually figure out that combat is the only thing that gives them a reward. DMs are the custodians of what is important and what is meaningless, not a the game system being used. You are the game designer at your table.
2) It makes growth completely transparent to the party. <snip>
This is a viable method of running a game, and for some it might be enjoyable. If you are going for the Pokemon style game that you mention earlier, this will likely get you there. Planning for risk is done by assessing the likelyhood of injury or mission failure, balanced by familiarity with task, competence level of those performing task, and the frequency that the task is performed without incident. If they are going out to clear out the gobling warrens again for the third time, low risk, probably low reward. If instead they are sent out for the very first time to take on an adult red dragon, likely extremely high risk, high reward. Party level will alter these assessments, as will any controls (NPCs) put into play to mitigate some of the risks associated. Giving the PCs an ala carte menue of how much xp/gold certain bits of the adventure might only encourage meta-game thinking. I'm not a fan of requiring meta-knowledge to be used for in-character decisions, unless there is a method for the PC to learn and understand this knowledge in-game. Your PCs might know that it only takes one or two well placed hits to dispatch a goblin, but they don't know that each goblin has 7(2d6) HP, a 15 AC and max 3 PP as loot.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
[...] I am thinking I may go to the old school method of making the treasure they bring back, or rewards they get for quests, be the EXP they earn. They won't get the EXP until they return to safety and I'm hoping for the kind of feeling you get from those games or even things like Pokemon Legends Arceus where you want to push on until you absolutely can't anymore. [...]
Maybe you've already considered this, but it's worth mentioning that there are a couple of spells and magic items that can really make it hard to build a challenge like that. If they're journeying out into the wilderness, they'll need to track things like food, water, medicine, torches, etc. But if anybody's got access to spells like Goodberry, or Create Water, or Lesser Restoration, then they could really stretch their "supplies" indefinitely. Fresh water in a wilderness adventure can be worth its weight in gold... unless somebody's got their hands on a decanter of endless water. On the other hand, if they're expected to go out adventuring until they've reached the limit of what they can carry back, then a bag of holding is going to affect that. So you might end up with a scenario where the only reason to go back to town is to "cash in" the XP value of everything they've collected. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with doing that... as long as that's what you're actually going for.
The only other potential complication I can think of, would be a scenario where bribing a monster might be a useful thing to do. In a game I ran, the players encountered a vampire-esque cursed mermaid who, after a few hostile interactions, eventually agreed to let them pass unharmed if they would give her "something pretty, and something with blood." Not wanting to insult her with worthless trinkets, they handed over a few hundred GP worth of gemstones (plus a pig that she devoured alive). In a game where XP and loot GP are separate, players can just consider: "we can trade X amount of treasure for Y amount of XP because that will resolve this challenge." In a game where loot GP is linked to the players' XP, it changes the equation: do they want to (1) fork over treasure that also has an XP value, in the hope that this "investment" will have a bigger payoff, or (2) just stab the monster so they can go through its pockets for more treasure, or (3) if they're worried that the monster will kill them, they just pay the bribe and run like mad for the town so they can lock in their earnings? Once again, I don't think there's anything wrong with this... as long as that's what you want to encourage your players to be thinking. Depending on your players, and how you present it, this could lead to more combat, or less combat, and only you know which way that's likely to go. Of course, if an encounter like this simply isn't going to be a part of your game/setting/story then you can just disregard this whole paragraph.
[...] I am thinking I may go to the old school method of making the treasure they bring back, or rewards they get for quests, be the EXP they earn. They won't get the EXP until they return to safety and I'm hoping for the kind of feeling you get from those games or even things like Pokemon Legends Arceus where you want to push on until you absolutely can't anymore. [...]
Maybe you've already considered this, but it's worth mentioning that there are a couple of spells and magic items that can really make it hard to build a challenge like that. If they're journeying out into the wilderness, they'll need to track things like food, water, medicine, torches, etc. But if anybody's got access to spells like Goodberry, or Create Water, or Lesser Restoration, then they could really stretch their "supplies" indefinitely. Fresh water in a wilderness adventure can be worth its weight in gold... unless somebody's got their hands on a decanter of endless water. On the other hand, if they're expected to go out adventuring until they've reached the limit of what they can carry back, then a bag of holding is going to affect that. So you might end up with a scenario where the only reason to go back to town is to "cash in" the XP value of everything they've collected. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with doing that... as long as that's what you're actually going for.
The only other potential complication I can think of, would be a scenario where bribing a monster might be a useful thing to do. In a game I ran, the players encountered a vampire-esque cursed mermaid who, after a few hostile interactions, eventually agreed to let them pass unharmed if they would give her "something pretty, and something with blood." Not wanting to insult her with worthless trinkets, they handed over a few hundred GP worth of gemstones (plus a pig that she devoured alive). In a game where XP and loot GP are separate, players can just consider: "we can trade X amount of treasure for Y amount of XP because that will resolve this challenge." In a game where loot GP is linked to the players' XP, it changes the equation: do they want to (1) fork over treasure that also has an XP value, in the hope that this "investment" will have a bigger payoff, or (2) just stab the monster so they can go through its pockets for more treasure, or (3) if they're worried that the monster will kill them, they just pay the bribe and run like mad for the town so they can lock in their earnings? Once again, I don't think there's anything wrong with this... as long as that's what you want to encourage your players to be thinking. Depending on your players, and how you present it, this could lead to more combat, or less combat, and only you know which way that's likely to go. Of course, if an encounter like this simply isn't going to be a part of your game/setting/story then you can just disregard this whole paragraph.
I think a couple of things to keep in mind ...
- the characters likely won't know the value of the items they find and if the DM hides the gp->xp exchange rate or allows it to float depending on the quest then the players won't know how much xp they have accumulated from treasure
- although some of the play may just be treasure hunting, it sounds like the OP intends to have some of it quest driven too. Quests with time limits can prevent the characters just going off into the wilderness for long periods of time
- the party will be motivated to return to civilization so that they CAN earn the xp for the treasure they have gathered. They may also hit weight/encumbrance limits depending on how much they are carrying which will also be a motivator to return to town. Finally, if there are some threats out there that can steal their treasure then the players will be motivated to both eliminate these threats and return to town more often. (This gives the OP the option that if a TPK happens, the opponents may leave them alive and just take treasure - if the PCs only benefit from treasure then the same may be true for the NPCs making it a much more valuable commodity ... treasure=actual power :) ).
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Finally, although ideally experience should be awarded for overcoming challenges ... there are a lot of DMs who don't run it that way and the PHB/DMG are fairly vague on the topic.
PHB: "As your character goes on adventures and overcomes challenges, he or she gains experience, represented by experience points. A character who reaches a specified experience point total advances in capability. This advancement is called gaining a level."
DMG: p260 : "Experience points (XP) fuel level advancement for player characters and are most often the reward for completing combat encounters. Each monster has an XP value based on its challenge rating. When adventurers defeat one or more monsters-typically by killing, routing, or capturing them - they divide the total XP value of the monsters evenly among themselves. If the party received substantial assistance from one or more NPCs, count those NPCs as party members when dividing up the XP. (Because the NPCs made the fight easier, individual characters receive fewer XP.)"
The DMG does not actually list "avoiding" as a reason to get experience from an encounter with monsters. So some (maybe many - I know a few) DMs and published modules only award the full experience if the monsters are "killed, routed or captured" ... not "tricked, avoided, dodged". In addition, if the party is cunning and tricks a group of kobolds into fighting a group of goblins to clear the way then based on the DMG they don't receive much XP at all since at least one if not both of the groups of NPCs is providing substantial assistance :).
So, no, 5e from what I can tell does not in fact state that XP should be awarded for overcoming challenges, but instead, just like previous editions, it explicitly awards XP for defeating things - though there could be sections elsewhere that address awarding XP for other activities.
The DMG does not actually list "avoiding" as a reason to get experience from an encounter with monsters.
So, no, 5e from what I can tell does not in fact state that XP should be awarded for overcoming challenges, but instead, just like previous editions, it explicitly awards XP for defeating things - though there could be sections elsewhere that address awarding XP for other activities.
Take a look at Noncombat Challenges and see if that might fit the bill for earning experience for not killing, or capturing creatures. It's the section after the guidance for what to do with absent characters. Two paragraphs down from Experience Points. So, you might say that 5e does cover this. There are more ways to defeat something than just brute force and ignorance.
Regardless, the DM can still assign an experience point values for anything. You want to make an encounter about crossing a chasm with a plank, some duct tape and chewing gum wrappers, you can do it. You want a challenge to infiltrate an opposition holdout without being seen, xp can be given for that success. Not listed in the DMG, write it in you DM screen margin or your DM notebook and move on.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I'm not really clear on the benefits of this unless your goal is to make the party primarily treasure-motivated. This just feels like you're awarding EXP that is spendable, and so now you have to invent a bunch of money-sinks to solve the problem you created. Allowing progression to be based on achieving goals and overcoming obstacles can be done without involving treasure.
Anyway, if I were to make a treasure-hunting campaign that featured 1gp = 1 EXP, I'd make leveling up itself the money sink. You have to train at the academy or whatever and the fees equal the treasure you've awarded minus whatever is actually appropriate for the party to have at that level. Then you don't need to charge the price of a small barony for a magic jar that produces mayonnaise every day.
I'm working on a campaign inspired by the STALKER games involving adventurers needing to journey into a hostile wasteland in order to search for treasure, quest mcguffins, etc. and then return it to safety. I want there to be a risk/reward element to the campaign and so I am thinking I may go to the old school method of making the treasure they bring back, or rewards they get for quests, be the EXP they earn. They won't get the EXP until they return to safety and I'm hoping for the kind of feeling you get from those games or even things like Pokemon Legends Arceus where you want to push on until you absolutely can't anymore. Then you come home to a big, fat, stack of rewards at once.
I figure that using treasure as a motivator will help with a couple of things:
1) Combat won't be all important but it won't be meaningless either. One thing I dislike about milestone advancement is that when the goal is strictly story progression, encounters become more of a punishment than an opportunity. We could fight that group of baddies but why do that when we could stealth around them or talk our way out of it and save more time? On the other hand, EXP as it's written in 5e puts all the emphasis on combat and swings that pendulum too far the other way. I figure combat will allow the party minor rewards by letting them loot the enemies but it won't be as big of a reward as whatever is waiting for them at the end of a dungeon or quest. That way, the party may want to avoid combat in order to press on to the big reward but they still benefit if they want to fight some enemies for a while too.
2) It makes growth completely transparent to the party. A major element I'm going for is the ability for the party to plan out their trek into the wasteland. If they don't know what they're going for or what the possible rewards are, it makes it very hard to plan out. Plus, it's hard for them to gauge how they're doing while their trek is in progress. This way, they can accurately gauge their rewards from quests and how that translates to their growth, plus it lets them know precisely how much they will get when they come back (I plan to be up front with them regarding appraisal of their items).
I know that I want to make sure the party actually has stuff to spend their hard-earned gold on and that it should correlate to the party's growth so I'm working on a pricing chart for items and several items and things the party can spend their money on later such as wasteland renewal projects, faction investment, magic items, etc. Also, regardless of what they wind up doing with the treasure, EXP will be split evenly through the party, so as to avoid any issues of who gets which items. I'm wondering if other folks have experience doing campaigns like this and if there are any major pitfalls I should watch out for or just tips on how to run this. I'm new to TTRPG as of 5th edition so I haven't ever run a treasure as EXP campaign before and would love any advice you all may have.
I think you're looking at awarding xp the wrong way. You don't give players xp for killing monsters, you give it to them for overcoming challenges. If they sneak or talk their way out of a fight, you award them the same amount as if they'd killed the monsters.
Why is the growth more transparent his way? They won't know how much money a monster is carrying before they fight it, so it's impossible to make a risk/reward calculation. They'll find out after, just as they would if at the end of the fight you say, everyone gets 75 xp. And presumably, you'll have every enemy carrying around its exact xp value in gold. It seems like you're just adding an extra step. And then you really can't have a monster with no treasure -- a wolf will somehow need a pouch of gold around its neck, or it just happened to eat its exact xp value in gems or something. In the more standard model, if the wolf doesn't have anything, the next monster has a little more than normal, and it all balances out. But in this, they may not fight the next monster, then they get nothing.
Are you going to give them bags of holding to carry all that cash? Or just ignore it.
And then, as you note, there's spending the money. There's really not much to do with all that cash, by RAW, other than buying boats or something unless you start homebrewing. It sounds like you have done that, but you've basically just made work for yourself to solve a problem that you created. DMs have enough to do without creating new systems, particularly new DMs. Also, it may actually throw off the balance at early levels, as the characters will be able to afford plate mail earlier than expected, though that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
If you're new to the game, I'd really suggest running a campaign RAW first. Get one under your belt before you start making a change like this, so you can better understand what you're changing, and if it actually even needs to be changed. (I'm not trying to forecast what will be fun for you. If you play through and realize that you want to go to this model, then go for it and have fun. I'm just saying it can help to use the standard systems first so you can understand how the game works before you change it.) What you're suggesting is the way the game was in 1e. 1gp=1xp, and you had to go back to town to get training before you could level up (I know you're not saying training, but you are saying they have to go back to town to cash in their xp). It made things more complicated, but it really wasn't more fun.
Xp should be awarded for overcoming challenges, such as avoiding traps or defeating monsters, but also for negotiating their way out of hostilities. Successfully sneaking around a monster should be worth some experience, but probably not as much as facing the monster, because what they did wasn't nearly as difficult as fighting the monster. At the same time, experience farming trivial encounters needs to not be a thing. If there's no risk or expenditure of resources, it shouldn't be worth experience.
Ex: An Owlin Wizard obliterating a million Gelatinous Cubes with firebolts from the sky shouldn't really be getting experience for that, but that same Owlin enabling his party to cross a vast chasm of lethal depth by casting Wall of Stone to create a bridge should get experience for overcoming that challenge.
I suggest having the whole party level up together, because it encourages comradery, rather than being competitive for the experience points.
If they're gathering wealth to take back to civilization, and this is a distinct part of the adventure, it sounds like tracking the weight of things will be a big part of the adventure. Keep track of what the characters can carry, and give them a chance to purchase pack animals or maybe a Portable Hole or Bag of Holding. Maybe even a cart. They load up on rations before going out, and as the adventure progresses, their food supplies dwindle, and their load of treasure grows, until they decide to go back, and if you use a hex map to show travel, they can use those distances to gage at what point they need to start back to not run out of food, or have to leave treasures behind.
For the spending of money, there's the rations, potions, animals, better weapons and armor, specialized training (also requiring down time), and even hirelings to take care of their goods and animals while the party ventures into ruins or dungeons that you can't bring a half-dozen heavily laden donkeys into. They may also choose to purchase a shop, and hire people to work there so the treasure they bring back can be deposited there to be appraised, catalogued, and made available for sale, so each trip, the party could collect the money from the previous trip's loot. The shop would also require some money in upkeep on top of the employees (including guards)' pay.
You might even make certain magic items available for purchase or trade (How reputable the bearer of said magic items is being completely up to the DM).
I would have them level up during long rests, but not make them wait until they get back to town. That way it doesn't interrupt the adventuring day, but doesn't needlessly make them wait.
I don't think you will have any real problems using the value of loot recovered to award experience. The characters will have had to overcome some set of challenges to obtain the loot and presumably, the amount of loot recovered will be related to the difficulty of the challenge.
This also gets around the issue of whether XP should be awarded for killing things or overcoming a challenge whether you kill it or not. Some games will give the same XP either way since the players/characters overcome the challenge while other GMs only award full XP for killing the monster. I find the latter approach a bit problematic since it tends to encourage murder-hobo scorched earth tactics where the party kills whatever they can to maximize XP. I've seen it in practice and don't like that play style so I prefer awarding the same XP based on the characters overcoming or avoiding a situation rather than just killing monsters.
In your case, you just need to scale the loot the party recovers either from the adventure or from quest givers by recovering their item or performing their task with the difficulty/challenge - it should work out the same.
Note: In 1e 1gp=1xp and much of the character XP was earned from the treasure they found - so the system will work.
P.S. If you want to scale using loot, you will need to decide how much loot they will earn and then give them something to spend it on that will be interesting, fun and make sense for the characters. Magic items is an option but I'd make them expensive.
I mean XP was awarded for loot in the past and was dropped in newer editions, there’s a reason for that. Lot’s of stories floating around. As someone who was playing when this was a thing I am glad it isn’t a thing anymore. I can remember lots of disagreements when somebody would sneak off and keep everything they found for themselves. That kind of behaviour is still around but thankfully doesn’t het rewarded as much any more.
You also have a bad understanding of how XP actually works in 5e so I would learn the actual rules and play with them first. Players get the XP whether they kill a monster or the bard seduces it. They get XP if a rogue disarms a trap or the wizard uses mage hand or unseen servant to safely trigger it at a distance. Or even if they come up with a plan that completely circumvents going into the dungeon that you set up as long as they complete the objectives successfully. The how factor isn’t important.
First of all, I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond to this but I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding here. When I said that I was new to D&D as of 5th edition, I didn't mean that I am new to D&D. I've been playing and DMing 5e for the last 6 years and have done both in games using both milestone and XP progression. I am fully aware of how they work and the pros and cons for each. I have also DMed other non-D&D games as well. I'm sorry that I gave the impression that I've never done this before. I didn't spell out precisely how I've run EXP before because I didn't think it relevant to this particular topic. I simply meant that I have never used the AD&D or OSR method of equating treasure to XP before and was looking for advice on pitfalls I can watch out for with that, specifically. I gave the example of players being incentivized to hoard their treasure away from the rest of the party and am solving that problem by giving the party equal XP regardless of what anyone specifically does with the treasure brought back.
I also want to throw out there that I'm not looking to rewrite 5e. I'm not saying I want to generally throw out all standard methods of progression in favor of this OSR-styled system for every campaign going forward. This is a specific campaign that I'm working on that has a specific feel in mind. My players are fully aware and are excited to try it in this particular campaign. I'm not looking for arguments convincing me of the merits of EXP or milestones. If you have a specific story to relate about running or playing a game that used a treasure = EXP system before though, I would love to hear it, good or bad, so that I can learn from it.
Thank you for your post! I appreciate it. I agree that the magic items will need to be expensive, if used as money sink. I figure that I want the party to just start to be able to dip their toes into buying magic items around level 4 which, would put the total party earnings between 8,100 gold and 19,500 by the time they get to level 5. Since they will be spending at least some gold on other things, I figure around 10,000 gold for the uncommon magic items will put things just about perfect. That way, if they don't pool their resources at all, they'd still be able to start buying individual magic items by level 6. I'm thinking quest rewards/dungeon treasure up until this point will mostly be non-magical but exciting finds like Adamantium armor or the like, so as to not have a reward early on that boosts them up a level by itself or something.
Thank you. I do understand how EXP works in 5e as it's written out in the DMG on page 260-261. I didn't spell out the system here because it wasn't particularly relevant to the conversation. I'm not arguing the pros and cons of EXP. FWIW though, I would recommend double-checking what RAW 5e has to say on rewarding EXP for disarming traps.
You mentioned that you have played in treasure = EXP games before and had trouble with people sneaking off to keep treasure for themselves. Incentivizing players to hoard or hide treasure was one of the things I had thought about which is why I mentioned it in my post specifically. EXP in my game will be evenly spread out for the party based on the total amount brought back, regardless of who has what and what they choose to do with it. There will be no experience reward given for hiding treasure from the group. If you had other feelings towards that kind of system, I would love to hear specifics from you. Those are exactly the kinds of things I want to know about so that I can avoid problems going forward.
Ok, so you're suggesting that the adventure (risk) not end until the party is back inside the the wall with whatever MacGuffin they were sent out to collect, monster bits, NPC, trinket. Sounds like an episodic fetch quest, and totally doable, might be fun.
Understanding that affixing an xp value to gp collected has little to do with risk/reward, or when the reward is given. The gp=xp method is simply a method of determining how much "growth" a character experienced during said adventure. Just like assigning a value of 450xp for a 4th level PC disabling a Dangerous Trap, or adding the xp value that was assigned to the monsters that the party defeated/captured. All xp values are assigned by either a designer or the DM, but they are all assigned based on the amount of risk v. reward. The amount of gold that a monster would collect is indicative of how dangerous they are, and that gp amount is assigned either by a designer or the DM. Frequently, the designer is the DM.
During your prep of the adventure, fetch quest, whatever, you (the DM) know how much risk there is available and how much loot is available. You know whether or not the party will level up when they return simply because there is a minimum required amount of xp to be earned to meet the threshold for next level. You know whether they will meet that milestone or not. The idea that Milestone Advancement is only tied to story is simply inaccurate. What you are suggesting is, in effect, Milestone Advancement, by reaching a specific destination (returning home), or the recovery of a specific item, or the accomplishment of a set of goals.
It seems like there is some inaccuracy in this as well. There is no requirement in RAW that combat be the solution to any conflict. XP is rewarded for overcoming a challenge. How this is accomplished is party driven. Yes, if you *only* reward xp for killing things, then that is the behavior that you are rewarding. If you award xp for stealth, cunning and tactical thinking then this becomes the behavior that you are rewarding. Combat's importance in the game is not inherently driven by xp, if there is no reward for exploration or social interaction, then the party will eventually figure out that combat is the only thing that gives them a reward. DMs are the custodians of what is important and what is meaningless, not a the game system being used. You are the game designer at your table.
This is a viable method of running a game, and for some it might be enjoyable. If you are going for the Pokemon style game that you mention earlier, this will likely get you there. Planning for risk is done by assessing the likelyhood of injury or mission failure, balanced by familiarity with task, competence level of those performing task, and the frequency that the task is performed without incident. If they are going out to clear out the gobling warrens again for the third time, low risk, probably low reward. If instead they are sent out for the very first time to take on an adult red dragon, likely extremely high risk, high reward. Party level will alter these assessments, as will any controls (NPCs) put into play to mitigate some of the risks associated. Giving the PCs an ala carte menue of how much xp/gold certain bits of the adventure might only encourage meta-game thinking. I'm not a fan of requiring meta-knowledge to be used for in-character decisions, unless there is a method for the PC to learn and understand this knowledge in-game. Your PCs might know that it only takes one or two well placed hits to dispatch a goblin, but they don't know that each goblin has 7(2d6) HP, a 15 AC and max 3 PP as loot.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Maybe you've already considered this, but it's worth mentioning that there are a couple of spells and magic items that can really make it hard to build a challenge like that. If they're journeying out into the wilderness, they'll need to track things like food, water, medicine, torches, etc. But if anybody's got access to spells like Goodberry, or Create Water, or Lesser Restoration, then they could really stretch their "supplies" indefinitely. Fresh water in a wilderness adventure can be worth its weight in gold... unless somebody's got their hands on a decanter of endless water. On the other hand, if they're expected to go out adventuring until they've reached the limit of what they can carry back, then a bag of holding is going to affect that. So you might end up with a scenario where the only reason to go back to town is to "cash in" the XP value of everything they've collected. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with doing that... as long as that's what you're actually going for.
The only other potential complication I can think of, would be a scenario where bribing a monster might be a useful thing to do. In a game I ran, the players encountered a vampire-esque cursed mermaid who, after a few hostile interactions, eventually agreed to let them pass unharmed if they would give her "something pretty, and something with blood." Not wanting to insult her with worthless trinkets, they handed over a few hundred GP worth of gemstones (plus a pig that she devoured alive). In a game where XP and loot GP are separate, players can just consider: "we can trade X amount of treasure for Y amount of XP because that will resolve this challenge." In a game where loot GP is linked to the players' XP, it changes the equation: do they want to (1) fork over treasure that also has an XP value, in the hope that this "investment" will have a bigger payoff, or (2) just stab the monster so they can go through its pockets for more treasure, or (3) if they're worried that the monster will kill them, they just pay the bribe and run like mad for the town so they can lock in their earnings? Once again, I don't think there's anything wrong with this... as long as that's what you want to encourage your players to be thinking. Depending on your players, and how you present it, this could lead to more combat, or less combat, and only you know which way that's likely to go. Of course, if an encounter like this simply isn't going to be a part of your game/setting/story then you can just disregard this whole paragraph.
I think a couple of things to keep in mind ...
- the characters likely won't know the value of the items they find and if the DM hides the gp->xp exchange rate or allows it to float depending on the quest then the players won't know how much xp they have accumulated from treasure
- although some of the play may just be treasure hunting, it sounds like the OP intends to have some of it quest driven too. Quests with time limits can prevent the characters just going off into the wilderness for long periods of time
- the party will be motivated to return to civilization so that they CAN earn the xp for the treasure they have gathered. They may also hit weight/encumbrance limits depending on how much they are carrying which will also be a motivator to return to town. Finally, if there are some threats out there that can steal their treasure then the players will be motivated to both eliminate these threats and return to town more often. (This gives the OP the option that if a TPK happens, the opponents may leave them alive and just take treasure - if the PCs only benefit from treasure then the same may be true for the NPCs making it a much more valuable commodity ... treasure=actual power :) ).
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Finally, although ideally experience should be awarded for overcoming challenges ... there are a lot of DMs who don't run it that way and the PHB/DMG are fairly vague on the topic.
PHB: "As your character goes on adventures and overcomes challenges, he or she gains experience, represented by experience points. A character who reaches a specified experience point total advances in capability. This advancement is called gaining a level."
DMG: p260 : "Experience points (XP) fuel level advancement for player characters and are most often the reward for completing combat encounters. Each monster has an XP value based on its challenge rating. When adventurers defeat one or more monsters-typically by killing, routing, or capturing them - they divide the total XP value of the monsters evenly among themselves. If the party received substantial assistance from one or more NPCs, count those NPCs as party members when dividing up the XP. (Because the NPCs made the fight easier, individual characters receive fewer XP.)"
The DMG does not actually list "avoiding" as a reason to get experience from an encounter with monsters. So some (maybe many - I know a few) DMs and published modules only award the full experience if the monsters are "killed, routed or captured" ... not "tricked, avoided, dodged". In addition, if the party is cunning and tricks a group of kobolds into fighting a group of goblins to clear the way then based on the DMG they don't receive much XP at all since at least one if not both of the groups of NPCs is providing substantial assistance :).
So, no, 5e from what I can tell does not in fact state that XP should be awarded for overcoming challenges, but instead, just like previous editions, it explicitly awards XP for defeating things - though there could be sections elsewhere that address awarding XP for other activities.
Take a look at Noncombat Challenges and see if that might fit the bill for earning experience for not killing, or capturing creatures. It's the section after the guidance for what to do with absent characters. Two paragraphs down from Experience Points. So, you might say that 5e does cover this. There are more ways to defeat something than just brute force and ignorance.
Regardless, the DM can still assign an experience point values for anything. You want to make an encounter about crossing a chasm with a plank, some duct tape and chewing gum wrappers, you can do it. You want a challenge to infiltrate an opposition holdout without being seen, xp can be given for that success. Not listed in the DMG, write it in you DM screen margin or your DM notebook and move on.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Just do not let anyone level up until they get back to civilization.
No need to stop them getting XP or gold or anything else. Just say they cannot level up with training at an appropriate facility.
I'm not really clear on the benefits of this unless your goal is to make the party primarily treasure-motivated. This just feels like you're awarding EXP that is spendable, and so now you have to invent a bunch of money-sinks to solve the problem you created. Allowing progression to be based on achieving goals and overcoming obstacles can be done without involving treasure.
Anyway, if I were to make a treasure-hunting campaign that featured 1gp = 1 EXP, I'd make leveling up itself the money sink. You have to train at the academy or whatever and the fees equal the treasure you've awarded minus whatever is actually appropriate for the party to have at that level. Then you don't need to charge the price of a small barony for a magic jar that produces mayonnaise every day.
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