It seems like now that Wizards has officially moved on, everyone's been wanting to take the d20 engine and alter it to their liking. Over at BG there are at least 3 different D&D3.X redux projects. I'm working on my own D&D 3.X redux, as well as a d20Modern revamp.
Heck, even Pathfinder's the result of a game design team taking D&D 3.5 and remodeling it to their liking.
Add to it that D20's "kernal" is open source, and mostly non-mainstream, and I think we've got an accurate metaphore for our aging system.
I'm not sure what's to discuss here, but I thought some of you would appreciate the parallel.
I've been saying things like that for years! d20 is in effect an open-source RPG at this point, although it must be pointed out that it is still legally Wizards' property. I'm not sure how long it takes before a copyright is considered "abandoned" by the owner, although I believe that not "protecting" the brand can be a defence against a copyright suit.
Oh, I know statements like the OP are nothing too new. I've mostly referred to D20 as the RPG equivalent of the Source engine, which it is, though I think the Linux relation might make sense to a broader audience.
And yeah, D20 is still Wizard's IP, but almost the entirety of the system is covered by the OGL. The biggest problems are figuring out a new XP table and method of determining starting ability scores. Otherwise, you can prettymuch go nuts with anything in the SRD-or at least that's what I understand.
Whenever the words "user", "owner" and "copyright" come up, I picture a pack of vultures circling above a dying animal.
Really? Because I picture a whole heard of vital, living animals that have been allowed to multiply and propagate. Strength through variety.
That might sound flowery, but it's my honest opinion. Ideas live when people can be creative with them. It's not the soul of commerce, certainly, but it is the soul of creativity.
The XP Table and CharGen are just simple math mechanics,
anyone can just define a function to do that task without using someone elses IP way
as such, a 'new' game could just say
"Character attribute scores are 1-20, roll 1d20 for each of the six attributes. Note: GMs may of course subsitute other generation methods to fit their games"
Do we really have to mention to gamers that they can just use 3of4d6 by directly referncing it?
Heck no.
We dont have to directly say PointBuy or 3of4d6, or the OLD UA 9d6 ways... gamers will use what they want reagrdless of it being listed or not.
XP is just benchmarks, set the first at 777 and each next tier is 777^x if you want... its just a nonlinear progression that is completely arbitrary.... we could make it "500 doubled per level" if we want, or reverse CyberDaves FtLb conversion to get 500x 3.5^newlevel
At this point, I agree that it seems unnecessary to explain ability score generation if you don't want to.
Does anyone know if it's a violation of the OGL to make your own XP tables? If someone were to post that somewhere it would be very useful...
My favourite variant is 500 x level x (level+1)
'Splain how that works? (Keeping in mind that my degrees are all in arts, so math and I don't get along well.)
What it looks like to me is the experience is equal to the character's level times 500, times the character's level+1.
Equation would look like this: E=500L(L+1)
Assuming L=1
E=500X1(1+1)
E=500(2)
E=1,000
Assuming L=5
E=500X5(5+1)
E=2,500(6)
E=15,000
Assuming L=10
E=500X10(10+1)
E=5,000(11)
E=55,000
Seems reasonable enough to me. Hopefully that wasn't too complicated of an answer. @_@
I think the difference, for me, between 3e and linux is that linux works, and works well. I don't know if I would give 3e d20 the same credit. Of course, different peoples millage may very. Thus, I suppose that the analogy is subjective. Depending on subjective perspective, it may or may not be accurate.
I think the difference, for me, between 3e and linux is that linux works, and works well. I don't know if I would give 3e d20 the same credit. Of course, different peoples millage may very. Thus, I suppose that the analogy is subjective. Depending on subjective perspective, it may or may not be accurate
3e d20 works, and in some cases works really well. 3e D&D, however, is another story. I consider that more akin to Vista or Office 2007 *shudders*.
I think the difference, for me, between 3e and linux is that linux works, and works well. I don't know if I would give 3e d20 the same credit. Of course, different peoples millage may very. Thus, I suppose that the analogy is subjective. Depending on subjective perspective, it may or may not be accurate
3e d20 works, and in some cases works really well. 3e D&D, however, is another story. I consider that more akin to Vista or Office 2007 *shudders*.
I don't know. I'm not totally discounting your perspective out of hand. I admit that it is possible that some 3e d20 games, that are not d20 D&D, might work and work well. But I have not seen them. d20 Modern is fundamentally broken. Whatever potential it had wasn't realized by d20 Modern, but by Star Wars Saga (at least as far as my subjective perspective is concerned). It was a great concept. It was the best d20 game at the time of its release. It has since become nothing but a stepping stone to the process of producing better games. Monte Cooks World of Darkness has great potential in it as well, but I had to write a fairly large pamphlet of rules to get it work. 3e D&D was a joke. By the time I started playing d20 Modern, I already refused to play 3e D&D. I hear that some games, like mutants and masterminds, worked really well. But I have never had the pleasure of playing those games. So, unfortunately, they don't enter into my subjectivity. So far, in my personal experience, I have never found a 3e game that I didn't have to heavily house rule before I was happy with its mechanical operations. Some, like d20 Future, "heavily house rule" meant rewrite from scratch. Even Star Wars Saga, which I think is an amazing game, requires a bunch of house rule (in my opinion). So, me personally, I can't accept the linux/3e d20 allegory. It works on the level of them both being open source. It doesn't work on the level of them both being (what I consider to be) acceptably operational.
I think the difference, for me, between 3e and linux is that linux works, and works well. I don't know if I would give 3e d20 the same credit. Of course, different peoples millage may very. Thus, I suppose that the analogy is subjective. Depending on subjective perspective, it may or may not be accurate.
Agreeing with Bone_Naga's reply. That and I think most of your disatisfaction with D20 comes from your horrible experience with Future, and not Modern. D20 itself is a highly modular core and quite stable if you design off of it properly, just like a good Linux OS (and I've seen bad ones). Wizards did some shoddy work with Future and D&D3.X, but just because they couldn't do it right doesn't mean it cannot be done with the core system they used.
double post
What it looks like to me is the experience is equal to the character's level times 500, times the character's level+1.
Equation would look like this: E=500L(L+1)Assuming L=1
E=500X1(1+1)
E=500(2)
E=1,000Assuming L=5
E=500X5(5+1)
E=2,500(6)
E=15,000Assuming L=10
E=500X10(10+1)
E=5,000(11)
E=55,000Seems reasonable enough to me. Hopefully that wasn't too complicated of an answer. @_@
Thank you. That was very clear. And it looks like you're right. It's funny, but it never occurred to me that there was some simple, regular pattern under those numbers. I figured they just conjured them from thin air.
That still leaves the central problem, though: how do we reverse-engineer ourselves a way to calculate and award XP in such a way that we don't violate the OGL?
I think the difference, for me, between 3e and linux is that linux works, and works well. I don't know if I would give 3e d20 the same credit. Of course, different peoples millage may very. Thus, I suppose that the analogy is subjective. Depending on subjective perspective, it may or may not be accurate.
Well, let's think the analogy through, though. Does Linux work by itself? Not really. You have to heavily customise it (i.e., install half the components manually) in order for it to be the tech-geek's wet dream of efficiency. Ubuntu, which I hear is just slick as a greased pig, is in effect a heavily "house-ruled" version of Linux, right? So perhaps the analogy is even more accurate than the OP might have guessed? The whole point is that in order to make it work, and work well, you do have to work with it. I respect that your d20 experiences have not made you happy, but I've had nothing but good experiences with the system, and, to a great degree, that's because it's so open and flexible that you can build anything you want. That might "unbalance the game" to one player, but if you're more concerned with living your fantasy than measuring your fantasy against the next guy, then the openness is the best thing about it. I don't mean to make presumptions about why you didn't enjoy d20 games; I'm just using that as example of a common complaint I've heard over the years.
That still leaves the central problem, though: how do we reverse-engineer ourselves a way to calculate and award XP in such a way that we don't violate the OGL
- party XP = 400 x ( Encounter Level / Party Level )2
- all levels require 1000xp to enter next level
thus, at any level, you need to encounter 10 things of the same EL as the 4guy Party Level
Dare I ask for a lay-person's explanation of that math? Again, arts degrees over here.
party XP = 400 x ( Encounter Level / Party Level )2
Level up at 1000XP.
E=400(C/P)^2
Encounter Level (C for challenge) = 2
Party Level (P) = 1
E=400(2/1)^2
E=400(2)^2
E=400(4)
E=1600
C=2
P=2
E=400(2/2)^2
E=400(1)^2
E=400(1)
E=400
C=3
P=5
E=400(3/5)^2
E=400(0.36) (yay calculators)
E=144
So after this is divided amongst the party members, it makes sense. Kinda a cool system, though some of the numbers aren't pretty.
Does anyone know if it's a violation of the OGL to make your own XP tables? If someone were to post that somewhere it would be very useful...
I think it was forbidden with the d20 system license but that isn't available any more anyway. Multiple companies have made their own XP chart.
Really I don't think comparing d20 to Linux is accurate. Most d20 variants people are creating are different enough from each other that compatability is limited. Pathfinder for example increases the power of the classes and races a bit. So previous designed class need to be reengineered to be balanced with the new power level.
Ubuntu, which I hear is just slick as a greased pig, is in effect a heavily "house-ruled" version of Linux, right?
Not really. Ubuntu is more like a "setting" for linux than a "house-ruled" version. The linux API is fundamentally the same. The difference is that the d20 variants are changing some of the fundamentals so that pieces can't be reused in other d20 games without some changes.
yeah, Vega got it, but I'll explain the WHYs:
We are assuming the party is 4 guys, the monster CRs are alreday scaled in RAW as that.
We desire more XP for besting challenges that are higher than the party level,
along with getting less XP for beating things below the party level.
Finally, we figure at any given level, it should take like 10 encounters of equal level to Advance.
RAW has higher char levels requiring insanely high XP sums to advance,
and sets high XP rewards for high CR encounters... resulting in maintaining the same ~10 encounters per level to advance.
Why bother with the powercreep inflation?
Each guy will get "some" XP for a fair fight, more for tough fights and less for easy fights, and it takes 10 "some"s to Advance: If you always get 100XP for a fiar fight, then it will always take 1000xp to advance.
100xp, more & less for difficulty:
Use the ratio of level comparing the EncounterLevel vs the PartyLevel... EL/PL.
Use that number again in the calculation, cause it is that important... ( EL / PL )2
Then we adjust it for 4man party, and one tenth of advancment xp...... 400 x ( EL / PL )2
An interesting thing happens when squaring the EL/PL,
at low levels, a guy 2 levels above you is really powerful,
but at higher levels, the difference of a PL 16 party hitting a EL18 mob is less onesided.
So in the EL/PL we see that 3/2 squared (2.25) is far more reqarding than 18/16 sqrd (1.27)
Comparing it to RAW,
now we say... That creature was the same level as the party, look up how many thousands of XP the party gets on the table and divide by 4. With this plan, we say... It was same level, so its 400 for the party
Really I don't think comparing d20 to Linux is accurate. Most d20 variants people are creating are different enough from each other that compatability is limited. Pathfinder for example increases the power of the classes and races a bit. So previous designed class need to be reengineered to be balanced with the new power level.
and Linea are also different,
as explifide by bin package installers,
and that Linux variants run from user desktop, server, embedded appliance code, and bootfloopy (thumb/cd/DVD) and LiveCD
... and with root access you can in most cases change from one setup into another (if the hw supports it)
just like a GM can take any d20 system and houserule it to be like another
All right, fair enough. The analogy doesn't fit. I think this thread was totally worth it for those XP formulae, though. I don't really understand Backstabbist's math, but I can certainly implement a formula. Neeto.
oh, Ubuntu has been my primary bootup for over almost 2years
It is a pain getting games to run under WINE or Dosbox (when some games flat out need a real dossy dos), but winehq.com helps a whole lot
Okay, I have a couple more question about that modified XP formula.
First, it doesn't change if there are more or less than 4 members of your party/team, right? It just means that everyone gets less or more XP each because more people are splitting it. Just let me know if I'm understanding that correctly.
Second, let's say I want to run a faster game, fewer gaming sessions between level-ups. How would I adjust the math to make, say, 6 encounters between levels? I could just multiply the results by 1.4, I suppose, but is there a cleaner way?
Third, would you mind if I incorporated that formula in Phoenix? I'm not sure how I'd use it yet, but I like the idea of not having to dance around the OGL's rules on XP and levelling-up.
You are correct,
The Party XP is split by however many are in the party.
Partys of 3 will earn more XP each by splitting among fewer chracters.
Optionally, you could use 500 x (el/pl)2 if you had 5man party and consider that close enough to RAW party of 4
If you want a faster leveling game,
use 600XP between levels to have six fair fights between advancing instead of 1000.
Of course, they could still hit that 600 by having 4 fair fights ( Same level monsters) and one really tough fight (EL > Party).... or end up fighting a whole bunch of kobald squads all the time ( EL < Party)
I like this idea
in that it keeps the effect of ROlePlaying Reward XP constant thruout low & high levels.
At low level, a 50xp or 100xp Roleplaying reward will be 1/20th or 1/10th the way to advancement,
and at high levels that same 50xp or 100xp reward will still be 1/20th or 1/10th the way to advancement
Yeah, that is a really cool system, backstabbist. Wish I'd thought of it. :P
Crap, I really should get back to my projects. I kinda froze when my school started. @_@
hah,
I've got a skelleton wing and no fuse for a RC plane I've been "building"
hanging on my wall for almost a year and a half
Yeah, get back on your projects,
and post them!
I miss reading about your stuff
Man, I miss posting my stuff here like I used to. Maybe I'll whip up some vanilla D20Modern classes and share 'em with you guys. Like old times and all that. I remember a couple years back I could sit down and throw together a full 20-level D&D 3.5 class together in a few hours; I should be able to make something good for standard Modern if I put my mind to it.
I have some pretty cool Overhaul stuff that I need to throw together, but I don't want to post that directly onto the forums. Expect links to it, though. 
I love this new XP system, especially because you can keep RP xp standard throughout, it seems weird that avenging someone's death at lv 20 earns thousands of times more xp than at lv 1 (discounting the xp you get for killing the dude) or finding the lost artifact, or saving some dude's life, etc.
Orion, another way to change the leveling rate is to change the multiplier. instead of 400x(Encounter Level / Party Level)2, make it 500x or 600x. 500x will earn 125/equal level encounter(8 encounters to level), 600 will earn 150(6 and 2/3 encounters), etc. assuming a 4-man band.
I might start using this XP system, too. Although I also like pathfinder's fixed XP/monster, I suppose there's no way to mix them?
it interacts wierdly with anything that costs XP, like magic item creation in D&D (although, we always ignore that cost in my group and make items cost a little more to create instead)
I might start using this XP system, too. Although I also like pathfinder's fixed XP/monster, I suppose there's no way to mix them?it interacts wierdly with anything that costs XP, like magic item creation in D&D (although, we always ignore that cost in my group and make items cost a little more to create instead)
I am unfamiliar with the Pathfinder way.
You mean each creature listing has a party XP line for killing it?
How do you work out getting more XP for killing things that are tougher (higher EL) than the party?
iir, The XP ding for crafting magic was K x SpellLevel x Caster@Level (K is some constant).
That makes higher tier items cost more twice, higher spells means higher costs, and higher Cast@ means higher costs.
What would happen if we flatten that out with K x ( Cast@ / CasterLevel ) ?
8th level guy making a Fireball(3rd) doodad with Cast@ 5th....... K x ( Cast@ / Character) = K x ( 5 / 8 ) = 0.6K
5th level guy making a Fireball(3rd) doodad with Cast@ 5th....... K x ( 5 / 5) = 1.0K
If you craft stuff that has Cast@ the same level as you, it will alway cost K.
So if you craft stuff below your level you pay less than if you were crafting stuff at your level.
High tier stuff will naturally require higher Cast@ levels
... you cant make a Polymorph wand with a Cast@ 3rd cause a 3rd guy cant cast Poly
Should crafting the most powerful wand you can
cost you 1/2 a level worth of XP? 1/3rd ? A quarter level worth?
Lets say
At any character level, it will cost you Half the xp to your next advancement to craft the most powerful Wand you can.... well, thats 500 if all levels always take 1000XP to advance. So an 10th level guy making a Wand with an effect powered with a Cast@ 6th (6die Fireball) would be 500 x ( 6 / 10 ) = 300xp
ok, I just picked that "Half"... do you guys think it should cost all, a quarter...???
in that it keeps the effect of ROlePlaying Reward XP constant thruout low & high levels.
At low level, a 50xp or 100xp Roleplaying reward will be 1/20th or 1/10th the way to advancement,
and at high levels that same 50xp or 100xp reward will still be 1/20th or 1/10th the way to advancement
That is a great reason to adopt this system! I can write in role-play rewards. That's just wonderful. Just to make sure, do you mind if I use this for Phoenix?
Okay, one last question: How would we figure out the Challenge Rating for groups in this system? The standard rules have a wierd "pick the highest level and then add stuff for multiple opponents" thing, which I've never fully understood. In this system, can we just average the levels of villains to figure their CR, or is it more complicated than that?
Edit:
Here's an idea. Tell me if this is stupid:
The EL in that formula is just the total CLs or CRs of all the villains. So if you have 6 villains who are all CR 5, then the EL is 30. The exact same calculation applies to the PL, the Players' party. Then you take those totals and divide the one by the other. It would achieve the same ratio, wouldn't it? I'm thinking of implementing this formula in a system in which the heroes will almost always fight villain NPCs instead of "monsters." Therefore, the villains will always have levels, so why not just jump straight to that, right?
So does that math work? If all we're looking for is a ratio of Hero Power Level to Villain Power Level, then a total is even more precise than an average.
Edit II:
And why keep the 1000xp per level? If it's 10 encounters per level, then why not just use 10xp? That way, you can take out the "400 x" from the formula and just aware the results individually. "(EL / PL)^2" is what every PC gets per encounter. You could multiply by 100 if you don't want to deal with decimal fractions, but that's just aesthetics at that point, isn't it?
Yes, yes... yessity yes yes 
Everythig you said works for me.
1000xp per or 10xp per...I could see dropping down to 100, but I feel that going all the way down to 10 may hamper the resolution of one activity being more rewarding than another
.... especially if we are having the ( Particular Difficultly / Max Ability ) pro-rating each activity reward for difficulty. If we say it takes 10xpto advance, and a fair fight is worth 1xp... that doesnt leave much wiggle room to rate 'kinda easy' fights or 'a little hard' one earning more than 1xp
( be that Monster/PartyLevel for fights, or Cast@ / CharLevel for item creation)
100xp per advancement, and 40x ( EL/PL)2 would probably work alright,
so RolePlaying Reward would be 5 or 10 xp in that scale
It really is an arbitrary scale, 100 might be better cause you can think in terms of percentages for advancing
To be honest, I've never been a huge fan of dividing XP by the number of players. I guess it makes sense because its easier when you have more people, but it discourages having more people playing- altough, this might be because our group has a fairly fluid number of players. We have about 5 PCs with between 3 and 5 of them being present each session, and IMO the more people playing the game the more fun it is (so long as combat isnt slowed), so I don't divide by players.
So if I were using this system, I would do 10x(monsterCR/playerLv) and give that to every person there.
I'm not totally sure how the Pathfinder XP system works yet, I haven't played very often. But I do know that every monster has a value of XP written in its writeup that isnt modified for any reason, but I think the amount of XP you need to level increases faster to make up for it. I'm not sure if it is modified for being extra challenging, I'll look into it.
Guys, this is genius.
I think I'm going to go with individual rewards and work the number of team-members into the ratio, and but I will multiply the results by 100. You end up with what look like whole numbers (even though it's just a matter of moving a decimal point), and 1000xp just sounds cooler. Yes, it's purely aesthetic, but aesthetics matter.
BTW, that method of just giving a monster a set number of XP is the old 2nd Ed. system. That's where all the increasing numbers of XP per level comes from. A Dragon might be worth 10,000XP, for example, because by the time you're at the level where you can fight one, you need that much to get to the next level. They worked all the scaling into the monsters themselves rather than fixing it to a "Challenge Rating." In that system, you just scored more and more "points" for defeating particular kinds of monsters; there were other things you could get rewarded for, too. The thing that I liked about that system is that everyone got XP for different things, not just killin' monsters. I'd like to work that into this new thing that Backstabbist has come up with, too. I'll have to think about how, though. I want to be able to give out awards for dangerous situations, for saving people, and for role-play stuff. I'll report back when I have something concrete. Perhaps in a new thread, since this one was been totally derailed (in a good way!).
I cant believe a simple demonstration
that we can do anything we want to replace the ogl / ip "XP Table",
has gotten such a life of its own
Good ideas are like that!
I gotta move all my junk from Geocities hosting... seems they are closing it down.
Anybody got a decent free web hosting place?
Is "50webs.com" any good?
Maybe it's the fact that I don't like doing math more elaborate than addition, subtraction, and multiplication during my off-hours; but I find myself wondering why we don't just give 1 xp (for each xp-awarding event) to each character that participated. If we assume it takes 10 xp-awarding events to level up, this is probably the most basic way to accomplish it.
Another option is to make xp spendable. 10 xp buys you the next level, but you can also purchase attribute increases, feats, skill ranks, and other things. This also helps mimic the real world where any character can lift weights to get stronger, study/practice their skills, or do cardio & eat better for all-around better health (ie. Constitution).
I have to confess the latter in my preference. I've always liked the idea of actually being able to buy stuff with my experience instead of just letting it accumulate on my character sheet. It's also a good way to allow ability increases in a non-FX setting.
MP-
The problem with the 1xp for each 'participant'
is when the PC party of 6 10th level gunmen shoot an unarmed blind kobald in a wheelchair,
all six PC just earned the same XP they would get if they survived fighting a couple 15th level shotgun ninjas.
Fighting Anyone, 1xp
Defeating any CR trap, 1xp
Any degree of roleplaying, 1xp
I will spend my time picking fights at the local elementary school playground,
cause shooting CR1/250 kids is a lot easier than stakin CR25 vamps,
and both get me a that precious 1xp
MP-
The problem with the 1xp for each 'participant'
is when the PC party of 6 10th level gunmen shoot an unarmed blind kobald in a wheelchair,all six PC just earned the same XP they would get if they survived fighting a couple 15th level shotgun ninjas.
Fighting Anyone, 1xp
Defeating any CR trap, 1xp
Any degree of roleplaying, 1xpI will spend my time picking fights at the local elementary school playground,
cause shooting CR1/250 kids is a lot easier than stakin CR25 vamps,
and both get me a that precious 1xp
That's only a problem if the DM is as blind as the Kobold you mentioned, but I suspect you already knew that. If an encounter isn't a challenge, it is not xp worthy. If you have any real comments on the 1xp per xp-worthy encounter system, I'd be interested in those.
Also, I've discerned from some of your post you are concerned about lesser challenges. Like those a few CR's lower than the party. That is an avenue of discussion I would be open to. It would be a simple matter to give 1/2 an xp for that, or to only give 1 for those but to give 2 for normal ones and require 20 xp to lvl.
Also, I've discerned from some of your post you are concerned about lesser challenges.
no, I am for having the reward scaled to fit the challenge
You say if it is easy,then give 0.5xp,
how easy is "easy" in the CR EL PL metrics of things?
How hard is HARD that will give Double XP?
Double the party level?
You have changed your All Fights = 1xp
to become a 0.5 - 1.0 - 2.0 set of rewards based on Easy - Normal - Hard
but you havent defined how easy a normal can get before you are hit with a 50% XP penalty
If a 15th PC kills a CR14, he is penalized 50% xp cause it was Easy?
It sound like you want to draw up an XP TABLE
and fill it with arbitrary numbers like Half, One, Two for the various EL vs PL cells
Maybe it's the fact that I don't like doing math more elaborate than addition, subtraction, and multiplication during my off-hours; but I find myself wondering why we don't just give 1 xp (for each xp-awarding event) to each character that participated. If we assume it takes 10 xp-awarding events to level up, this is probably the most basic way to accomplish it.
That occurred to me to. In my little Phoenix write up, I have optional rules that say "OR just grant a level every ten encounters!" Simple as that. If everyone's having fun and the GM is putting consistently challening opposition up, then it's not entirely necessary to calculate XP at all. It's up to to the GM and players to decide that sort of thing, I think.
I have to confess the latter in my preference. I've always liked the idea of actually being able to buy stuff with my experience instead of just letting it accumulate on my character sheet. It's also a good way to allow ability increases in a non-FX setting.
Honestly, that's just not what XP is to me. It's not something you earn and then spend. It's just a mathematical representation of experience, living and learning and getting better at things.
no, I am for having the reward scaled to fit the challenge
...
It sound like you want to draw up an XP TABLE
and fill it with arbitrary numbers like Half, One, Two for the various EL vs PL cells
Actually, you've misunderstood completely if that's what you think. There is no need for elaborately gradiated xp tables as long as the DM uses common sense when matching monster threats to the party's level. That is what the CR system was supposed to be for anyway.
1 xp per encounter sounds just fine to me. If the encounter is too easy, they get 0 xp. If it was too hard, throw in another 0.5-1 xp (or increase the treasure, they'll probably piss it all away on hospital bills from the too difficult encounter anyway). Either way, the key is that you learn from your mistakes and try to match the threats to the PC party better next time.
What is too easy? I'm sure we all have enough common sense to figure that out, but here's a few examples:
- If the monster cannot hit the PCs (or has to roll natural 19's or 20's to hit them), it's worthless.
- If the monster's special abilities save DC's are so low the PCs can make the save better than 50% of the time, it's worthless.
- If the PCs cannot miss the monster (or has to roll natural 2's or 1's to miss them), it's worthless.
- If the monster's attacks do so little damage the PCs ignore them like mosquito bites (like doing 1d4 dam against level 10+ PCs) it's worthless.
What is too hard? It's basically the same things as too easy, only reverse the roles of the monsters and PCs:
- If the PCs cannot hit the monsters (or has to roll natural 19's or 20's to hit them), it's too difficult.
- If the PCs special abilities save DC's are so low the monsterss can make the save better than 50% of the time, it's too difficult.
- If the monsters cannot miss the PCs (or has to roll natural 2's or 1's to miss them), it's too difficult.
- If the PCs attacks do so little damage the monsterss ignore them like mosquito bites (like doing 1d4 dam against CR 10+ monsters) it's too difficult.
Sound judgement has always been an integral part of building good encounters, and that won't change with the system I've suggested. PC's shouldn't get xp for encounters that are too easy, and they should get some small compensation for encounters that were too hard (be it in the form of xp, or treasure to cover their health care costs).
I very much agree. One of the things that bugs me about the elaborate XP systems is that they seem to be created on the assumption that the GM should have to exercise no judgement at all. That's part of the "use-friendly" or "plug-and-play" design attitude. It seems basically wrong-headed to me, though, to try to create the impression that GMing doesn't require basic judgement and experience. It's something you have to get good at. Not just something you can do out of the box. "10 encounters that seem challenging" seems just fine to me. I know that there are players whom I game with who wouldn't like that. They'd want to earn points, and they'd want their level progression to be definable, which is fine! I'd do the XP math for them. But if it were up to me, I'd just grant levels when it's dramatically appropriate. "You just defeated your nemesis, 'Sisemen.' You go up a level right now, because you're just that awesome." I'd also love to level people up in the middle of fights, but that's a whole other discussion.
My point is, if you want to do the math, then have at it! Don't let me stop you. If I were to find a group of gamers who were comfortable with it, I'd be happy to just do 8 or 10 encounters between levels, and then arbitrary throw levels out every so often at big character/story moments. But that's me. I'm a story-oriented gamer.
I very much agree. One of the things that bugs me about the elaborate XP systems is that they seem to be created on the assumption that the GM should have to exercise no judgement at all. That's part of the "use-friendly" or "plug-and-play" design attitude. It seems basically wrong-headed to me, though, to try to create the impression that GMing doesn't require basic judgement and experience. It's something you have to get good at. Not just something you can do out of the box.
I mostly agree with you, but I do like that they have certain tools in place to make it easier for inexperienced DMs to craft more appropriate encounters (tools like the CR system). I think DM judgement is a great thing, but we've all known people with bad judgement (or had momentary lapses of our own). At those times, having some kind of yardstick to measure the monsters against the PCs is quite handy. I've seen many systems that don't provide such a means to measure things, and it takes quite a bit of experience to avoid pushover-encounters and tpk-lvl encounters in the same adventure.
Right, so you put those yardsticks in place, but you include the following rider: "It's your game. You can do whatever you like. If you want to just run 10 encounters and then level up, go right ahead." The problem right now, with gamers I talk to, is a slavish devotion to following the rules to the letter, often to the exclusion of actually enjoying the game. It's really painful watching a GM who just ran a great, fun, engaging game to then get stymied by a bunch of overly-complicated math. "10 encounters ten level-up" would work very well if you had a GM who already knew how to weight games for the appropriate level of challenge.
And really, when did we invent this idea that it's the GM's job to adjudicate how much the players "learned" today, to judge their experience? To my mind, levels exist so that you can have new toys to play with on a semi-regular basis. Getting our collective knickers in a twist about not giving out too much or too little seems pointless. If your GM is so bad that they can't weight the challenge right, then your problems run deeper than mathematical formulae.
I agree with those sentiments entirely.
I played under a DM at one time who actually varied it with each level. He (and the group) preferred a more action-oriented game, so he doubled xp awards at early levels then halved them for a while once we hit the "sweet spot" for actiony games. It takes more skill & judgement than a begginning DM is capable of; but it worked well for the group at the time. It's certainly not for everyone, but it is a fine example of a DM using their own judgement to improve play (and fun) for the whole group.
meanwhile,
this brings us back to the LInux aspect of using the d20 Kernel and fitting any Chargen & Leveling system you want to it, be that oldschool Tables / Formulaic / 10 GameNights ( I say game nights because as a catburgler, geting into fights is what happens when things go terribly terribly wrong)
Rise from the grave!
An idea that a friend suggested, multiply the CL ratio by the number of participants as well as everything else. So:
(Villain CL / Hero CL)^2 x (# of Villains / # of Heroes)^2 = Experience Award
You can achieve something like this by assuming a four-person party, but this version is more specific, for the sake of people who want to be really specific.
The XP Table and CharGen are just simple math mechanics,
anyone can just define a function to do that task without using someone elses IP wayas such, a 'new' game could just say
"Character attribute scores are 1-20, roll 1d20 for each of the six attributes. Note: GMs may of course subsitute other generation methods to fit their games"
Do we really have to mention to gamers that they can just use 3of4d6 by directly referncing it?
Heck no.
We dont have to directly say PointBuy or 3of4d6, or the OLD UA 9d6 ways... gamers will use what they want reagrdless of it being listed or not.XP is just benchmarks, set the first at 777 and each next tier is 777^x if you want... its just a nonlinear progression that is completely arbitrary.... we could make it "500 doubled per level" if we want, or reverse CyberDaves FtLb conversion to get 500x 3.5^newlevel
I like catergories
Very Low 1-3
Low 4-6
Below Avg 7-9
Avg 10-11
Above Avg 12-14
High 15-17
Very High 18-20
Pick an abjective to describe the character and then roll the range assocated with it.
heh, reminds me of the old L.E.G MIssion Point difficulty 1-10 scalar:
The higher point missions are more dificult.
GM asked what kind of mission for my team, I said "Start with a 1point, 1 sounds like a good place to start"
play play play play ouch play dammit play Oh Come On play
.... half the chars wake up in the hospital, the other half never wake up.
Next session GM reinforces the team, and asks what mission, I say "Still workin on the 1point"
play play play play ouch play tpk
Next session GM replaces the team, and asks what mission, I say "Havent completed a 1point yet"
play play play play Mission Failure: VIP killed
Next session asks what mission, I say "Still workin on the one point mission."
GM says he is tired of running the simple 1 pointers,
I say "SIMPLE??? They are supposed to be simple, but you keep killing us off... why try a 5point if we cant even get a 1point right"
GM says "Well yeah, I have to make it challenging or it would be a cake walk"
Its a frickin 1 Point Mission... its supposed to be easy and not worth as much as a 5point or 10point mission.