Talked to a guy the other day that had a couple of PCs that he had leveled only from XP gained via DMing. One was only 4th level, but the other was 10th level.
He said that any DM that had been DMing since 'the beginning' could have enough XP for 2 10th level PCs.
One PC would be a minimum of 64K XP. Which means about 1500XP a week, *every* week since AL started. Including Thanksgiving, Christmas, New years, etc.
Now, I don't really care, but it seems very unlikely..... Have any of you guys earned that much DM XP?
Ask Chris. His instincts will tell you if the player lied. Or you could ask to see his logs.
1500 seems like way too much. You would have to be running at least 3 games plus an expedition 'every' week. My guess is he was giving himself an XP award for every session he DMed, rather than each time the players got downtime/renown.
Convenient that he has max level characters for tier 1 and 2. However if he isn't more than 2 levels higher than the others it shouldnt matter much. If he is 3 or more levels higher, it is probably gonna be a lot less fun for the other characters. Especially if he is a spellcaster.
Sorry, this does sound indeed bogus and I dont think he has been following the AL rules.
That's a Tier 1 expedition every night of the week. It's possible. But it seems more likely to be wrong, either intentionally or unintentionally.
Not possible unless they were running an adventure or two every day. As is, it is exceptionally difficult for a PC to reach 10th level in Expeditions without also playing encounters.
DM experience is far less than that. A DM does not earn XP each session played. They only earn XP for completing an episode or adventure.
Encounters/home XP: 300/tier/ episode. This gives us the following:
- HotDQ: 3600 DM XP (entire adventure)
- RoT: 5400 DM XP (entire adventure)
- PotA: 8000 DM XP (entire adventure)
- Expeditions: 200/400 DM XP each
Caveat: Playtesting (but not DMing playtests) awards Dm XP equal to what a character would earn for playing the adventure. With that being said - playtesting is only a new feature and unless you were playtesting the DDEP3 epic, most only award 450-600Xp.
Given his comment that "any DM who has DMed since the beginning could have enough DM XP for two L10 characters" - I find it highly likely that this individual is lying through his teeth, or is seriously misinformed as to how DM XP works - as he seems completely unaware of how difficult it would be to create one character via DM XP (possible but unlikely), let alone two.
With that being said, you should not outright call the player a liar, but should instead follow the guidelines on the Cheating Sidebar in the ALPG
As such, you are well within your rights to disallow the character at your table on the grounds of questionable log entries.
If this happened at my table - I would ask to see the characters log entry, and expect to see the following:
- Separate log entries for each instance of DM XP. Such entries should list the date the adventure was DM'd, adventure name (or code - eg. DDEX 1-XX), and the reward itself. If the reward was for a multi-part adventure, I expect the episode name and a brief description as well (eg. HotDQ Ep4 or PotA Ch3 - Feathergale spire).
If the player combined multiple DM rewards into a single log entry, I would ask to see their DM Logsheet
- The DM logsheet should have each instance of DM rewards listed (with the same expectations as a character log entry as above). In addition, each DM reward should also indicate which character the award was applied to.
If the player is unable to provide DM logsheets, or has questionable log entries, you can disallow those entries (or the character itself) on the grounds of Questionable entries on paperwork (Log entries).
If the player is able to produce that information however, and nothing seems suspect with the dates - we should allow it no matter how unlikely it seems.
As an LC I am highly active with two games/week (Tues Expeditions and Wed Encounters) and occasional mega-sessions once/month on Saturdays (we usually complete an entire episode in those sessions). Due to scheduling - I am forced to break most Expeditions into 2 sessions.
I am also in the playtest group and have play tested the epic.
My DM logsheet has the following entries;
Season 1
- HotDQ Ep2 (300)
- DDEX1-2 (300) - aberration
- HotDQ Ep3 (300)
- HotDQ Ep4 (300)
- DDEX 1-2 (300) - aberration
- HotDQ Ep5 (600)
- DDEX 1-10 (400)
- HotDQ Ep6 (600)
- HotDQ Ep7 (600)
- HotDQ Ep8 (600)
- DDEX 1-12 (400)
- Season 1 DM XP: 4700
Season 2
- PotA Ch6 (300)
- DDEX 2-2 (200)
- PotA Ch3 (300) - Feathergale Spire
- PotA Ch3 (300) - Riverguard Keep
- DDEP3 (900) - Track 1 playtest
- DDEP3 (4500) - Track 2 playtest
- DDEP3 (7500) - Track 3 playtest
- DDEX 3-2 (900-1200) - Playtest, this sunday (June 28)
- Season 2 DM XP (to date): 14,900 - 15,200
Total DM XP: 19,600 - 19,900
I know there are DMs who are more active than this, esp. those DMs who participate in Convention play (where they might DM 3-4 sessions in a single weekend), as well as those DMs who complete an Expedition each week, but still - having 64,000 XP seems to be excessive. I would estimate 30,000 to be an outlier for anyone who was not a player in the DDEP3 playtest.
It is possible for a single DM to run an Expedition every single weekday, but it is highly unlikely that such is the case. Few stores would have the space to sponsor such an event every day, and while a store can sponsor events in another public location (such as a library), it is unlikely that someone would DM that many Expeditions sessions, given the fact there are only ~22 odd adventures at present. If they include Encounters in their DM logs, their rate of DM XP will slow considerably, to around 300XP/week of play.
Yep, this guy is making some kind of egregious mistake regarding how much XP you can get from DMing.
Assuming he's awarding himself XP for every session of Encounters/Horde/Rise/Princes that he runs, a generous estimate of 50 weeks of play, with roughly 60% of that being level 1-4 and the rest being 5-10 would grant 9000XP for the 1-4 sessions and 12,000XP for the higher tier, for a total of 21,000XP. Add in a weekly Expedition at the same ratio of tiers and that earns him another 14,000 XP (6000 for the 30 weeks of 1-4 Expeditions, and 8000 for the 20 weeks of 5-10 Expeditions).
If applied to the same character, this would barely be enough to get a single character to level 8; while this is a rough estimate, the difference in earned XP between a single level 8 character and two level 10s is roughly a factor of 4, and I don't think the estimate is that misguided. And keep in mind that even the estimate is flawed, as it awards XP for every session rather than every episode of E/H/R/P; actual XP awards in a legal structure would be less, with no gold until the release of the EE ALPG back in February.
You'll definitely want to review this guy's log -- just because he's a DM doesn't mean he doesn't have to keep a character log.
--
Pauper
Example of a highly meticulous logsheet
This is the actual logsheet of my primary PC (sans information that is personally identifying).
Character (Wizard 8)
3 Dec 2014
- Story Origin: Tyranny of Dragons
- XP: 0; Downtime: 0; Renown: 0; Gold: 48 (160 initial - 52 = 48)
- Purchases: Starting gear (various) - 52gp
3 Dec 2014
- HotDQ (Ep5) - DM Reward
- XP: 600 (0+600); Downtime: 10 (0+10); Renown: 0; Gold: 48
- DM Reward - Episode 5 (tier 2)
17 Dec 2014
- Tyranny of Phlan - DM Reward
- XP: 1000 (600+400); Downtime: 20 (10+10); Renown: 0; Gold: 48
20 Jan 2015
- Tales Trees Tell - DDEX 1-8
- XP: 1600 (1000+600); Downtime: 30 (20+10); Renown: 1 (0+1); Gold: 60.97 (48+47.9-35)
- Expenses: Ritual (Find Familiar) - 10g
- Purchases: Thieves' Tools -25g
20 Jan 2015
- Dues for the Dead - DDEX 1-4 (Session 1)
- XP: 1659 (1600+59); Downtime: 30; Renown: 1; Gold: 60.97
- Adventure Incomplete (split session)
27 Jan 2015
- Dues for the Dead - DDEX 1-4 (Session 2)
- XP: 2134 (1659+475); Downtime: 40 (30+10); Renown: 2 (1+1); Gold: 128.11 (60.97+67.14)
- Adventure Complete
4 Feb 2015
- HotDQ (Ep6) - DM Reward
- XP: 2734 (2134+600); Downtime: 50 (40+10); Renown: 2; Gold: 128.11
- DM Reward (Tier 2)
10 Feb 2015
- Shadows over the Moonsea - DDEX 1-3
- XP: 3334 (2734+600); Downtime: 60 (50+10); Renown: 3 (2+1); Gold: 553.11 (128.11+425); Items: 1 (0+1)
- Certificate: Ring of Evasion (glows dimly in moonlight)
- Harper: Rank 2 - Harpshadow
.........................................
This is not the compete logsheet (only the first handful of entries). The rest of the logsheet continues in the same fashion.
This character does have a few questionable (but perfectly legal) log entries. These log entries are as follows:
10 Jun 2015
- PotA - Chapter 4 (Incomplete)
- XP: 21,690 (18,500 + 3190); Downtime: 81 (84-3); Renown: 9 (9+0); Items: 2 (2+0); Gold: 929.61 (1,413.11+146.50-630)
- Certificate: Special Reward - Item of Elemental Affinity (Coordinator Reward); Does not count against Magic Item total.
- Expenses: Copy Spells into Spellbook (-600gp; -3DT)
- Lifestyle Expenses: -30gp (Aristocratic); 29/30 days
10 Jun 2015
- Blood Above, Blood Below - DDEP3 (Playtest)
- XP: 26,190 (21690+4500); Downtime: 91 (81+10); Renown: 9; Items: 2; Gold: 1896.28 (929.61+966.67)
- Playtest Reward (DDEP3 - Track 2; 6 June 2015)
23 Jun 2015
- Blood Above, Blood Below - DDEP3 (Playtest)
- XP: 34,886 (27,386+7500); Downtime: 110 (101+10-1); Renown: 10 (10+0); Gold: 4,358.28 (2,015.28+2500-160); Items: 3 (3+0)
- Playtest Reward (DDEP3 - Track 3; 6 June 2015)
- Expenses: Copy spell into spellbook from Scroll (Tidal Wave) -150g; -1DT
- Lifestyle Expenses: -10gp (Aristocratic) 30/30 days
- New Lifestyle: Aristocratic
The three above log entries are completely legitimate, but may raise "red flags" for some DMs.... The first questionable entry is the one where I gained access to a special LC reward for this specific character (and only this character). The fact that this award is not found in any adventure may raise questions for some DMs (although is legit). The next two entries give massive DM experience and GP awards for participating in the DDEP3 playtest. DMs not familiar with how playtest rewards are awarded would question these entries. Even DMs who are familiar with playtest rewards may question these entries as the Epic rewards are much higher than normal for playtest rewards.
Kalani wrote:
Apropos of this thread, there's an 'adventure log tutorial' on the dndadventurersleague.org page that's worth checking out.
Coredump00 wrote:
I like to think I DM a fair bit, but my master DM logsheet only has 17 entries. I have a grand total of 4600 DM XP. Now, if I had been mistakenly awarding myself player XP as DM XP, I'd have around 25000 (depending on min vs max, and rough adding in my head, since I don't feel like looking up the XP totals at the moment).
I like to run playtests with the DMs in my area to give em a little bump XP wise. Helps em stay closer to their players and not punish them too much for steppin' up to the plate to DM.
(Plus their feedback is far better)
This guy is most likely completely lying. I run two consistent weekly AL games and I don't get nearly that much DM exp (even though I've been DMing since AL premiered) I've got maybe a couple thousand, which is nowhere near to what he's getting. Maybe he's running a bunch of expeditions but I highly doubt he's running that many expeditions. Anyway, I would ask him how he's been awarding himself EXP as that doesn't seem legal but if he's got the logs to prove it and they look in order I won't argue.
IF I recall it correctly, at one point he was doing Wed encounters, and then two Expeditions on Saturday. But that still doesn't make it.
Like I said, I'm not looking to 'bust' the guy.... it just seemed unrealistic and I wanted a 'reality check' from those that DM'd a lot.
Ravix wrote:
Pauper wrote:
There's a few guys I know who run or play two games a week (one Expeditions, one Encounters) as well as running non-stop at weekend long cons (think I watched one run 8-10 Expeditions sessions in a single weekend...)
The original piece of advice in this thread is probably the best: If you aren't sure it's legit ask for the logs. If nothing else, they might simply be impressive to look at...
Like Kalani, I'm an LC. 
I like to run some of the playtests with local DMs as a kind of perk. (the second benefit being that they are good resource for gaining valuable input in our surveys)
That ALPG entry will probably be corrected in it's next installment, I believe Playtest Rewards became a thing a couple of months after it was released.