Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Werlynn Aug 08, 2014 5:10:58	I have some concerns about the season of D&D Encounters. There are hard XP limits for each chapter. That bothers me. What do I tell somebody who hits 300XP and still has a session or two left of episode one (theoretically)? Sorry you don't earn anymore XP come back and play again in 2 weeks when the next episode starts and you can earn XP again? I know not THAT, but that's how a player could feel if they stop getting XP.   My second concern is specifically focused on episode 1. This episode has a specific time span of seven hours. Each mission takes an hour. They cannot take a long rest without essentially failing the rest of the episode. They can take short rests, but they'll eat up hours. This can get rough on a level one party. They only have a handful of healing spells and one hit die each.   This seems pretty hard to survive.
#2 DM_HEEGZ Aug 08, 2014 6:29:32	1. A couple ways to do this. If you want to give XP in increments, give them smaller amounts, and then at the end of the episode give them a bit extra to bring them up to 300 xp if they won't hit level two. This is assuming you feel they should have 300 xp and level up of course. I imagine some groups won't hit level two here, but it seems to be the design.    The way I will be handling this is giving out the xp at the end of the episode. I will just ask them to record xp a single time, and when they have 300 xp I will help them level up. This way, the players can focus on the story and not have to erase and rewrite their XP a bunch of times during the adventure. More of a style thing, but avoids your concern.   *** Spoiler Alert ***         2. Allow a short rest for hit dice to be spent while in the keep. Recall that the Sanctuary mission contains a priest of Chauntea. You can have him be a NPC that provides healing for the party for a reduced cost and maybe Cure Wounds for free for saving him and the people. You may want to bump the order of this mission to the front so that you as a DM have access to him for the duration of the battle. Also, don't forget that the Governor can award two potions of healing for the Champion encounter. If you need to award them sooner, do so, but then don't award them later for the champion.   On a personal note, I view the time-keeeping suggestions as just that, suggestions. If it facilitates play for an encounter to only take 15 or 20 minutes, then the PCs will have a bit more time for short rests, maybe 2-3 total. Besides spending hit dice, the fighters regain their second wind, and wizards a spell slot. I'm not sure what other classes will recover, maybe Rage? You could also award a scroll of cure wounds or healing word or potions of healing from encounters as a last resort. The clear design goal is that the PCs are not to take a long rest. Also, starting at 9pm and ending at 4am can be fudged an hour in either direction. Again, the design goal is to give the players some pretty clear boundaries of "this raid ends before dawn, so if you rest too much you won't be as helpful as real heroes." The adventure clearly states:   Make decisions and adjudications that enhance the  fun of the adventure whenever possible.
#3 GrendelDave Aug 11, 2014 15:00:29	I'm thinking about setting up episode 1 so that it looks like this. My sessions run from 6-9 pm. 8/20: Session 1 6-730pm character creation (which I'm sure will run over a little) 730-830pm arriving in Greenest, Seek The Keep 830-9pm wrap up, assume they want to take a short rest (end game time 11pm) *Doing some rough numbers and assuming my full table of 7 players they'll get 174 each for the night. Session 2: Meeting Nighthill and doing missions, should burn 1 long, 1 short, and 1 hour for a short rest (game time 2am) Session 3: Unless they're dead set on something else I'll probably use sally port and champion to end the episode. (game time 4am)     I'm just scratching my head because the max xp for the episode is 300 per character, flat. Now if they get 170 for session 1, and 130 for session 2, that means they get 0 xp for session 3 by the book (unless they somehow move on to Ep2). I feel really bad telling the players after 3 hours of heroics and getting beat up that they earned nothing.
#4 DM_HEEGZ Aug 11, 2014 16:08:10	We are working our way through the first episode of Hoard and it looks like my PCs will be hitting 300 well before we finish, due to combat. I am thinking about not awarding any more XP and then just giving them the remainder to reach 300 at the end.
#5 Prom Aug 11, 2014 22:12:35	Sounds like the adventure requires more fighting for episode 1, than they have allowed experience points to be earned. Given I have so many DM's at my tables, this is going to cause issues. If I stop awarding exp for fights or wait till the episode is finished. I may ask players to put their character aside after they earn 300 exp and bring in a new character with no experience points.
#6 DocSun Aug 12, 2014 6:06:16	I don't know about you guys but don't your players find that the reward of playing through the adventure, getting to save a town, and getting item and gold rewards as well as renown in a town more then EXP? I know my players like their EXP but I usually hard cap exp gains too if I don't think its time for a level up and they seem to enjoy the story and not feel bad about not getting another exp. They trust I have a reason for it and that is usually to keep their enjoyment up.   In fact for example they started with the starter set (switching in their real characters last week when PHB came out) I expect them fully to hit level 5 and I told them they have two choices with Hoard of the Dragon Queen, (as this is a home game and not AL) they would start back at level 1 OR they could stay level 5 but be capped at exp gains until I say so and they chose to cap their exp. They wanna play the story with the characters they are invested in. The story matters to them.
#7 Setzer_G Aug 12, 2014 6:30:10	Totally agree in a home game that the enjoyment of the experience trumps exp/gold awards, but looking for a solution in sanctioned organized play is a completely different animal. I would say, if you're looking at tracking it, to see the progress on a night to night basis. If, through the course of the episode, they only get a 3rd of the way done, maybe give them 100. If the next night, they finish it all up, give them the other 200 to get to cap (if they earned it, obviously). If they don't. then only give them another 100. I don't think handing it out each encounter is the easy or best way to do it. Since there is no hard and fast way about what gets xp from and for what yet, it's easy to assume, on low combat nights, that investigation, good roleplaying, and puzzle solving all have xp rewards associated with them.
#8 TSRO_Kip Aug 12, 2014 7:32:39	DocSun and Setzer, While the experience of being a player in this game is worthwhile in and of itself. I do not actually know of many people that would way that it is worth just the act of playing and not gaining any xp or gold in a scenario is fun. Part of what this type of thing we do as in the thing being a role playing game is the ability to Role Play in another world, the ability to play something we are not and to do incredible things with said character and to watch as they grown in both power and wealth all while on the percipice of death and dismemberment, It is not just the experience of playing this game.
#9 Setzer_G Aug 12, 2014 8:33:18	I think there's a loose wire, here. We agree, Kip. My suggestion was to help the OP with the best way to divy the xp without going over cap.
#10 Prom Aug 12, 2014 18:25:54	The simple fact is that DM's are going to be required to award experience points after every session. That is why the adventure log has a section for exp each session that is run. With organized play I can't see holding experience points back when players have earned it, being anything but a disaster for new players and some experienced. This sort of thing is fine in a home game, but I'm not going to get away with it with organized play.
#11 DocSun Aug 13, 2014 6:05:24	I think I will be upfront with my player that there is an EXP cap but not an item or gold cap( I didn't see one anywhere) in order to keep players who play every week from outpacing the adventures or to be so far ahead they are no longer leagal characters for expidtions etc. So keep playing not just for story but for items and gold that will help you improve your character!
#12 Zephemus Aug 13, 2014 12:28:58	I was thinking about combining missions to save on time, and letting the players know that there's an experience cap, but should they reach the cap before ending the episode, I'm going to allow a small break to let them level up and be able to finish the episode at 2nd level.
#13 DocSun Aug 13, 2014 13:14:38	I also noticed the following in the rules for leveling up   Character Advancement A character who earns enough XP to advance a level can do so at the end of a long rest or at the end of a session. A character who earns enough renown to advance a rank in his or her faction can do so at the end of an episode.   The bolded lets me think that if they gain the exp to 300 early they can be level 2 at the end of a night and the next night when they start again they are level 2.   Also a question... the following is said in the rules.   At the beginning of each play session, players must declare whether or not they are spending any days of downtime. (pg 3)   and then   Downtime days are awarded at the end of each episode. Characters can spend downtime only at the beginning or end of an episode, or when specified during the adventure, if applicable. Each episode of this D&D Encounters edition of Hoard of the Dragon Queen awards 10 downtime days, which can be spent immediately or saved for later use. ( pg4)   This seems misworded but I assume they inteded that they can only declare to use downtime days at the begining of a session but it must be a sesson that is starting a NEW episode not in the middle of one?
#14 Zephemus Aug 13, 2014 15:02:18	I just got the Encounters version of HotDQ and yeah, I imagine they only earn the downtime at the end of an episode, not in the middle of all the chaos.