I am a newer DM preparing for chapter 5 of The Shattered Obelisk. Up to this point i have been using XP for leveling my PCs. After my first read through of this chapter, I am not sure there is enough battles to properly level up my players from level 5 to level 6 or 7 with combat alone. How much milestone XP are you giving when players complete each crime scene investigation? Other recommendations for leveling in this chapter? TIA
I am a newer DM preparing for chapter 5 of The Shattered Obelisk. Up to this point i have been using XP for leveling my PCs. After my first read through of this chapter, I am not sure there is enough battles to properly level up my players from level 5 to level 6 or 7 with combat alone. How much milestone XP are you giving when players complete each crime scene investigation? Other recommendations for leveling in this chapter? TIA
Moe.
I may be in the minority here, but I pretty much never use XP leveling if I'm running a published adventure with a pre-defined story. If the adventure doesn't have milestone leveling built in, I try to find good spots for it beforehand.
I've never used XP leveling in a campaign and having run Phandelever and Below I don't think it's particularly built for it. As you say there's not much combat in those chapters and frankly I don't think the crime scenes are challenging enough to warrant the XP for the levels the story demands they be. One option would be to just switch entirely from XP to milestone and just tell your players why, the other option is figure out how much XP they need to get to the required level and just divide it up equally between each scene
if you're have been leveling them with xp so far, i find that half a level of xp for big milestone (rescue the princes, slay the dragon) works well. smaller milestones (discover the bbeg's plan, find the horcrux, whatever) give a quarter level of xp. also if you've just gone thorough a bit of a slow ark (or just deeply traumatized your players) and need to motivate them as they start a new adventure, give them 10% of a level as they set off. this can motivate them! it also kind of makes sense, as people need time to process thing and move forward with life before they can perform at peak capacity. i hope this helps!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I am a newer DM preparing for chapter 5 of The Shattered Obelisk. Up to this point i have been using XP for leveling my PCs. After my first read through of this chapter, I am not sure there is enough battles to properly level up my players from level 5 to level 6 or 7 with combat alone. How much milestone XP are you giving when players complete each crime scene investigation? Other recommendations for leveling in this chapter? TIA
Moe.
I may be in the minority here, but I pretty much never use XP leveling if I'm running a published adventure with a pre-defined story. If the adventure doesn't have milestone leveling built in, I try to find good spots for it beforehand.
pronouns: he/she/they
I've never used XP leveling in a campaign and having run Phandelever and Below I don't think it's particularly built for it. As you say there's not much combat in those chapters and frankly I don't think the crime scenes are challenging enough to warrant the XP for the levels the story demands they be. One option would be to just switch entirely from XP to milestone and just tell your players why, the other option is figure out how much XP they need to get to the required level and just divide it up equally between each scene
if you're have been leveling them with xp so far, i find that half a level of xp for big milestone (rescue the princes, slay the dragon) works well. smaller milestones (discover the bbeg's plan, find the horcrux, whatever) give a quarter level of xp. also if you've just gone thorough a bit of a slow ark (or just deeply traumatized your players) and need to motivate them as they start a new adventure, give them 10% of a level as they set off. this can motivate them! it also kind of makes sense, as people need time to process thing and move forward with life before they can perform at peak capacity. i hope this helps!