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Skyscraper
Sergeant
659 Posts
    
Montreal
 | | 07/24/2006 10:24 PM |
| Hi,
I was reading a thread recently where a few DMs indicated using alternate XP or player advancement systems. Would some of you wish to share your home-made systems? I'm curious on that topic.
One thing that i seem to understand, is that people find that players level too fast with the 3.5 system. I've been DMing a campaign for a year and a half (say, about 25-30 games sessions), and the players have only passed from level 3 to level 7 - so i can't really say that there is a flaw there in my experience up to now. (We have many role-playing sessions where no fights occur, and i usually hand out little XPs for role-playing unless big stuff is accomplished, we role-play for the simple fun of it.)
Thanks for comments and suggestions,
Sky
p.s.: i'll add, concerning one particular post, that i'm now wondering if i have a sub-par IQ or a whole lotta fingers... [)] | |
The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never. | |
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Wayne
Underboss
1371 Posts
| | 07/25/2006 8:33 AM |
| The only problem I have with the rapid advancement in 3.5 is the emphasis on advancing so quickly in "game time." In other words, it doesn't bother me that players gain a level every two or three sessions (sometimes faster at the first three levels), but it bothers me that a 16-year-old novice fighter becomes a 16-year-old supreme warrior, because most campaigns (including published campaigns) just don't allow for downtime.
Take the adventure paths in Dungeon, for instance. I love the concept of these, but in the latest issue Erik mentions that it'll take a "full year" for the characters to make their way through the Savage Tide path. Really? A whole year? So my fighter will be 17 years old by the time he's 20th level? Ugh.
Is it so hard to conceptualize campaigns in which the PCs adventure to 3rd or 4th level, then settle down for a few years, then adventure again when the threat rears its head again, then go through more down time, and so on? This opens up so many interesting story possibilities ... imagine one interval of downtime being the PCs languishing in gaol? How would that change the characters? It would allow the background world -- not just the parts of the world immediately accessible to the PCs -- to go through real change. Instead of inventing legends from the past for PCs to hear about, PCs can become legends for future PCs to hear about.
Obviously, when creating a campaign from scratch, I, like any DM, am free to indulge in this type of story-telling. Unfortunately, I work for a living, and try to maintain a girlfriend and sad semblance of a social life outside of gaming, so I really have very little choice but to use published adventures. And published adventures seem positively allergic to this kind of time-passage.
On another tack, I recently noticed an ad for a product -- ENnie nominated -- called "Buy the Numbers." From what I could tell, it doesn't address my personal peeve about DnD advancement, but rather smooths out advancement by (presumably) allowing players to buy abilities piecemeal with XP. It could be interesting, but since I have no problem with level-based advancement -- and, in fact, I think it's part of the reason for the enduring appeal of DnD -- it's not likely to get my gaming dollar. | |
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Sammael
Underboss
1881 Posts
| | 07/25/2006 9:15 AM |
| | I'm itching to try out the Sweet20 Experience System at some point. | |
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Mama Cass
Warrior
286 Posts
| | 07/25/2006 9:46 AM |
| My XP system if pretty simple. Every 4 games that you show up to you get a level. We play weekly with pretty good attendance and so far this seems to be working pretty well. I have a few dissenters in the group, but overall people like it. It gives everyone a chance to play the characters at each level and a level progression that is not too fast or too slow.
I was just tired of caclulating XP all the time, esp becuase we made it so much more complicated than it had to be with bonuses for this and that etc. | |
CHAMPION OF THE REDSPAWN ARCANISS
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orcdoubleax
Sergeant
692 Posts
| | 07/25/2006 9:58 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Mama Cass
My XP system if pretty simple. Every 4 games that you show up to you get a level. We play weekly with pretty good attendance and so far this seems to be working pretty well. I have a few dissenters in the group, but overall people like it. It gives everyone a chance to play the characters at each level and a level progression that is not too fast or too slow.
I was just tired of caclulating XP all the time, esp becuase we made it so much more complicated than it had to be with bonuses for this and that etc.
I have considered doing something similar, but have yet to try it.
I was thinking every 2 sessions up to level 5, 3 sessions from 5-10, 4 sessions 10 -15 and 5 sessions 15-20
The other idea I had was simple to have a certain storyline goal. When they reach that point in the story they gained a level.
example
Level 1 -help the old lady, clear out the rats
level 2 -defeat the wererat boss
Level 3 -help the guard capture the thief guild members who were working with the wererats. | |
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Count Dooku
Commander
4636 Posts
New York
| | 07/25/2006 10:50 AM |
| I was thinking about telling my players they have advanced in level when it was appropriate for the game.
But then how do you use spending experiance points to make magic items or casting high-level spells? | |
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yack
Commander
3164 Posts
Gatineau Canada
| | 07/25/2006 11:32 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Mama Cass
My XP system if pretty simple. Every 4 games that you show up to you get a level. We play weekly with pretty good attendance and so far this seems to be working pretty well. I have a few dissenters in the group, but overall people like it. It gives everyone a chance to play the characters at each level and a level progression that is not too fast or too slow.
I was just tired of caclulating XP all the time, esp becuase we made it so much more complicated than it had to be with bonuses for this and that etc.
You know what thats not a bad idea. I hate the way 3.5 everything is so rushed. I miss the good ol'days that you could go through a couple modules low leveled with low level encounters and not worry about levels. And I agree the whole xp point adding can be a royal pain. | |
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orcdoubleax
Sergeant
692 Posts
| | 07/25/2006 12:37 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Count Dooku
I was thinking about telling my players they have advanced in level when it was appropriate for the game.
But then how do you use spending experiance points to make magic items or casting high-level spells?
that is a very good question, and the reason I have not actually try this. | |
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Choco Monster
Ghendar
Warlord
11225 Posts
The Dark and Forbidding Lands of The Necromancer.
| | 07/25/2006 12:47 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by yack
I hate the way 3.5 everything is so rushed. I miss the good ol'days that you could go through a couple modules low leveled with low level encounters and not worry about levels. And I agree the whole xp point adding can be a royal pain.
Yup, right there with ya. I've been thinking about just doubling the needed xp to gain a level. | |
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Benimoto
Underboss
1125 Posts
| | 07/25/2006 1:45 PM |
| One thing that the stock 3.5 XP system does that I see very few alternate systems do is provide more XP to players who are below the average party level, in effect making them "catch up" to the rest of the party quickly. I've always thought that was a really nice feature, in making sure that a player who dies and loses a level is behind the rest of the party for 3-4 sessions, but eventually ends up back at their level.
That said, I've used the alternate "free-form" XP system at the bottom of DMG p. 39, rather than calculate XP, fairly often.
The Sweet20 Experience System looks fun. I'll have to give it a try sometime. | |
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Skyscraper
Sergeant
659 Posts
Montreal
| | 07/25/2006 3:20 PM |
| Interesting points. I have a few comments on what was said.
Wayne: i agree with you that it's quiestionable that a character could reach high levels of power in such a short amount of game time. At the outset, i see few solutions. Imposing downtime to gain experience or a level might be one way to go about it, but it breaks the beat of the adventure to a crawl and if your intention is to provide a fast-paced adventure, you can't do it.
Sammael: interesting concept, the Sweet 20 XP system. One thing that bothers me however in this proposed system, is that "going against your goal" makes you lose XP. For example, my understanding is that if your Key Scene is the Key of Bloodlust and you lose a battle, you lose XPs. However, intuitively i would say that losing a battle should allow you to gain experience if anything ("i wont repeat *that* error another time"). There is a saying that says that experience is the sum of our failures. A second thing that comes to mind with the Sweet 20 system, is that a party composed of different players having different Key Scenes will see its players going in different directions, alike players that have personal goals in D&D in which case the group suffers to the expense of the individual. Youmight then have characters wanting to do different things all the time, instead of a group working together.
Mama Cass and others: about levelling up at fixed intervals (e.g. every X game sessions, or at determined check points in the adventure), the question that was brought about having to pay XPs to craft magic items and cast some spells appears relevant. If you have no XP penalty for doing so, crafting items becomes *very* advantageous.
Sky | |
The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never. | |
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Mama Cass
Warrior
286 Posts
| | 07/25/2006 3:37 PM |
| Here's what I do for XP loss for spells, creating items, etc.
Basically it takes you 4 points to make a level. If you create an item you would take the ratio of that XP cost out, based on the number of point that you need to make next level.
For example:
Character is level 4 (with 18 pts in my system)
Character creates an item wich uses 50 XP (we'll use easy math for this example)
Character now has 17.99 pts ⎞-(50/5000)] where 5000 is the amount needed to go from 4th to 5th level in the game.
It doesn't seem like much, but it does put them a game behind everyone else for XP.
I also award small bonus for people that contribute to the overall game, like painted figures, building terrain etc. Usually the awards are 0.25 or 0.5. The guy who designed and built our new game board on his own initiative got 0.5.
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CHAMPION OF THE REDSPAWN ARCANISS
One day I will have to explain to my kids why they have to pay for their own college, but when they realize that I have a full set of Harbinger it should make sense to them... | |
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Zenako
Commander
3467 Posts
| | 07/25/2006 4:51 PM |
| It will also depend on how often the campaign plays together. In our current games, most of the time we play about once a month, so going up a level every 2 or 3 sessions does not seem that fast since months of real time also passes.
In the Oriental flavored game that just wound up, we played for almost 4 years real time and had a little over 40 play sessions. The highest level characters probably made 19th level after the last session. In the game world we also spent close to 4 years as well, due to the contraints of the world and weather. The characters also spent many months making items (or in the case of my Samurai petitioning the ancestors to enhance the Daiysho (Katana and Wakishasi). By the time you are reaching the +10 level that will have taken over 200 days of mediation and petitioning the ancestors alone to achieve for each weapon. Other activities were made that took time to achieve, like custom crafted armor and weapons from the ancient Ogre Smith in the mountains who could work Mithril and Adamantite. Items took months to be made. It is not hard to create good reasons for the characters to spend time out of combat rounds doing "real stuff" that takes time. Even getting an audience with the local Daiymo might take days to achieve and bribe the various officials along the way. DM's can always find ways, just don't make things so easy for the players. | |
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nycfarmkid
Underboss
1210 Posts
Wadsworth, OH
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Mama Cass
Warrior
286 Posts
| | 07/25/2006 6:51 PM |
| Our group plays once a week. We may miss 4-5 weeks due to holidays and vacations and such. In our current campaign a full year of game time has gone by 21 sessions, but most was traveling.
With my XP system people level about every month of real time.
Our last campaign lasted almost 18 months and most players made it from 2nd level to 15th level. It seemed like the right advancement rate. | |
CHAMPION OF THE REDSPAWN ARCANISS
One day I will have to explain to my kids why they have to pay for their own college, but when they realize that I have a full set of Harbinger it should make sense to them... | |
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gss_000
Commander
3204 Posts
Baltimore, MD
| | 07/26/2006 1:04 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Count Dooku
I was thinking about telling my players they have advanced in level when it was appropriate for the game.
But then how do you use spending experiance points to make magic items or casting high-level spells?
I'm in a campaign that uses this system. However, this is a campaign that meets once every 6 months to a year which might make a difference.
Anyways, this is how we have it. Magic item creation is very rare and difficult, as the items themselves are rare. There is no real system on how long it takes, just when the DM feels we have spent enough time and reources we have what we were making. As for spells with XP components, it's usually ignored. The only one we cast usually is commune, and instead a time limit is placed on that spell with no caster able to cast it more than once a month. With a game session usually lasting a few days in game up to a week or two, that is a significant limit.
It works for us. | |
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Skyscraper
Sergeant
659 Posts
Montreal
| | 07/30/2006 8:43 PM |
| Nice to hear everyone's input, thanks for the posts, and keep your ideas coming if you have any others!
Sky | |
The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never. | |
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