Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Maniacal_Cackle 01-15-05, 02:52 AM	We just started our new campaign today (rather suddenly I might add, no one prepared in advance for it, we just decided to start it, seems to be working quite well.) Anyway, my problem is this: as my players were leaving, I said something about needing to calculate XP based on roleplaying and the encounters they had (they fought a bear and made it run, surprised me, I expected the group to simply try to make it run, it was sniffing at their packs for food). Some of the players then told me that they didn't like the idea of "leveling up." They told me that they would rather receive "stat bonuses" than XP. I asked like what, and one of the players said "something like +1 constitution" (Presumably because he took damage or something). When I explained to them that's the type of thing that should only happen once every four levels, he suggested various bonuses to saves, which also only happen occasionally. Another player suggested increased proficiency in his weapon. All of these, I believe, would quickly unbalance the game and result in me being able to challenge the party appropiately, as well as create large power differences. I tried to explain to the players that the system revolves around XP, and trying to change that would take an immense amount of work. "You're smart, you can do it" was the response (Note: One of the few times they express this view :P) Then after that we got into a discussion about when they leveled up, only getting abilities they trained for (such as skills, possibly feats, and even going so far as class skills) while they leveled up. I think that this is a fair way to do it, but I hate controlling characters. I told them I "encouraged" picking skills and what not to reflect what you had been doing, but they said I should force them. As I said before, I don't like forcing all the characters to do things my way (though I should note that the other half of the party had tried to convince me to choose character races and maybe even alignment for everyone before we began). Maybe the players just want to force each other to conform to their ways. But the characters are the domain of the players, and I want everyone to control their own characters, not having the other players telling them what to do with them, including me. What should I do? Edit: That turned out to be more of a rant than I expected... And on a positive note, I think that was my best DMing session to date!
astute1 01-15-05, 09:26 AM	So, your players want stat bonuses, increased proficiancy in weapons, and increased saves? How is that not the same as levelling up? When a fighter levels up, he gets Increased proficiancy in weapons, reflected by increased bab & bonus feats. He also gets an increase to his saves. He also gets a stat bonus, albeit only ever 4th level. He also picks up an extra hit die, which will vastly increase his survival rate. I'm not sure what your players want, but it would seem to be that it's not as good as just levelling the ol' fashioned way.
Habronicus 01-15-05, 09:34 AM	D&D XP system is just a simplified way to level up. Realistically, every skill and attibute in the character sheet would have its own XP value, thus, if you use you Strength more than any other attribute, it would rise sooner. And if you fight with a sword for too long, you may develop Weapon Focus after 100XP with that weapon. The problem is, it's not practical to keep a XP table for every skill and attibute. Since this is a game, the "whole-character" level-up is simple and provides a similar experience. Your players sound like they're more into the stat-raising than role-playing, but I could be wrong. The point is, if you just raise their stats without having a specific way to measure their use of such stat, then you're just "buffing" the characters randomly.
Diamond Starfire 01-15-05, 10:54 AM	I like the training system in Everquest d20 rpg myself. When you advance, you gain training points per level which are used to buy things like feats and stat bonuses.
Lord Ian Stark 01-15-05, 11:20 AM	This reminds me of how Dungeon Siege advanced characters. You only got better in the bow through practice and so forth. I always did think that was a great way to make characters as it always seemed wierd that just because you leveled up you learned all these new things over night that you really havn't done to know it. Go check out how Dungeon Siege uped skills and abilities during the adventure. Make sure that if you change this rule in your campaign, you change it for EVERYTHING. NPC's and enemies. Even the Gods in your game can reflect this by being the gods of certain things like weapon master and arcane magic lord and so-forth. Funny how a 10th level fighter who never fired a bow before is quite accurate in it considering how he never fired one before in his life. Oh sure he is a FIGHTER and trained in basic training all the basic weapons right? Not in everyone's campain is this so.
Maniacal_Cackle 01-15-05, 08:22 PM	That's what I thought, I would basically have to rewrite the entire xp system... Well, I do not think I am willing to do that. Therefore, I will tell the players they can make whatever choices they wish when leveling to reflect what they have been doing. I believe the characters are the domain of the players, and as I have not heard anything that seems like it would be worth switching over to (though I agree, systems where each individual ability levels are good, such as morrowind, but probably impractical for anything but a computer) Thanks everyone!
fireangel37 01-15-05, 11:19 PM	You could always change over to another game system that works in a fashion more to their liking. Fantasy Hero might be a good choice where experience translates directly into improvements in the character without a level mechanic. Though that's a boat load of work to do. Barring a good 3rd party system for training (never seen the Everquest d20, but it might work), there's not much to do if you want to keep using the d20 rules.
A R Dragon 01-15-05, 11:54 PM	Well, there is a compromise between levels and seperate XP for each stat: First, list out all benifits that would be gained by leveling: 1HD, skills(list each different skill that the player will put points into seperatly), saves(list each that will increase seperatly), feats(if they will get any), ability points(if they get them), class abilities(each seperatly) and so on. Count them up, and also find the total amount of XP the character has to gain to get from the level that they are at to the next level. Divide that by the number of things on the list, and every time the character gains that amount of XP, they get one thing off of the list. The list should be empty just as they hit the next level. What this does is mnake leveling up a lot more gradual with little additional work on your part. It is much more realistic to become slowly better than to have sudden jumps in power, and as far as I can tell, more realism is what your players are after. You could decide what they get each time by what they have been doing (if they fight a lot, give them the BAB first, ect). There are some problems with this method though. First, it makes the characters more powerful - they will have half (probably the best half) of their level two abilities while they are still technically level one. As long as you watch things carefully you can just make things a little tougher to compensate. The second problem is not really a problem with the system, its just that this still can get someone skilled in, say, climb when they have never climbed anything. You can solve this by saying that the bonuses that they have accumulated for things that they have not practiced don't apply until they have some time to practice quickly. I haven't really thought this last bit over (about needing some quick practice to apply bonuses), but the first bit should help apply some realism, or you could use it secretly and apply each thing from the list as a "stat bonus" so you do what your players want while still keeping things balanced.