Brown dog's page

I almost forgot Puzzle Break! If you're a fan of puzzle hunts like DASH, you should really try this—you're locked into a room with 1 hr to figure out the clues that will let you escape. It goes better with a bigger group (the success rate with a full team is 20%), but I think they sometimes combine smaller groups to get up to critical mass, so you can try for that option.

Oh puzzles! I love puzzles, especially challenging ones. Pandemic is probably my favorite board game because of how much I've lost at it.

I'm definitely interested in doing something like the Underground Tour. I like that I can call two hours in advance for tickets, so it can be a spur of the moment thing.

Also, found parking map which is just awesome! I'm also not a huge fan of driving so if I can manage to rent a car, park all day, and walk around that'd be ideal

Side note, thank you all so very much for putting links in your replies. Little conveniences make me happy.

@MD, Thanks for all the great ideas!

The EMP museum looks freaking amazing. I love museums and that one is just tops.

I learned yesterday the guy I'm going with doesn't drink and I've been sober for a bit; however, since I plan on moving out there in a year it sounds like a great place to visit and take friends!

CardKingdom is going to make or break me haha. I love MTG so so much. Spent more on MTG than my car, which also says something about the quality of my car. I had no idea they were there. I'm used to smaller local shops around here.

Looks like I have a fun itinerary to plan out over the next two weeks. :-)

Hi!

A friend and I are flying to Seattle next month for a week and are looking for cool places to visit. I'm likely going to be moving out there next May after grad school so I have to take a day to do boring adult stuff.

We're both into board games, RP events, online MMOs, and basically anything that is at GenCon every year (we both have gone for the last 6 years straight).

So far, we're definitely going to AFK Tavern, Pike's Place, and Kerry Park!

Got any other cool hangouts for visiting gamers to check out?

Here's the formula for xp to be used on an excel spreadsheet:

=ROUND((2000 * (2^FLOOR(A3/2,1) - 1) + 3000 * (2^FLOOR((A3-1)/2,1) - 1))/10^(FLOOR(SQRT(A3-1),1)+1)*2,0)/2*10^(FLOOR(SQRT(A3-1),1)+1)

The character level is in the cell A3.

I realize that giving you the formula does not answer your question, but if you feel like diving into the math of it maybe you'll find some clues.

I think you've asked a great question, I wonder what the reasoning is behind making some levels last longer as more xp is required to advance.

Interesting. I found out of you ROUND to 1 instead of 0 the XP chart remains relatively the same and looks VERY linear without large marginal "bumps."

From level 1 to level 20, using ROUND 1, there is a total 55,000 difference. This means using ROUND 1 requires 55,000 less xp than using ROUND 0 (as the current formula does). Overall, considering level 20 is 3,600,000 xp, it is a very small difference.

There are still a few marginal "bumps" but they are very tiny and not as noticeable.

Chart using ROUND 0 (normal xp chart):

1 0
2 2000
3 5000
4 9000
5 15000
6 23000
7 35000
8 51000
9 75000
10 105000
11 155000
12 220000
13 315000
14 445000
15 635000
16 890000
17 1300000
18 1800000
19 2550000
20 3600000

Chart using ROUND 1:

1 0
2 2000
3 5000
4 9000
5 15000
6 23000
7 35000
8 51000
9 75000
10 107000
11 155000
12 219000
13 315000
14 443000
15 635000
16 891000
17 1275000
18 1785000
19 2555000
20 3580000

I do realize that overall this has little impact as the difference between the two charts is small and only really shows up at levels 16 to 20.

My math homework this week is finding if the Inquisitor's "burst" damage balances itself.

My apologies, I did not read the forum description too well. First time on here. =(

Possible to move the thread then?

I think you are spending too much time on it. Do what I do and don't bother with handing out xp. When I want my PC's to gain a level I just tell them at the end of an adventure they've all raised one level.

I had not considered just pushing their XP to where I need it. I'm used to very structured xp rewards but giving them a large reward for completion a section would be a good idea!

I wanted to run a game with four players around level 7 and the expected length would be around six months playing once a week for five or six hours. I took a look at the medium XP chart and noticed something a little odd I hope someone can clarify for me.

There's this weird jump in XP requirement at level 10. It also happens at level 16.

The boring math:
Level 8 (51,000 xp) to level 9 (75,000 xp) requires 24,000 xp.

Level 9 (75,000 xp) to level 10 (105,000 xp) requires 30,000 xp.
A marginal increase from the previous requirement of 6,000 xp.

Level 10 (105,000 xp) to level 11 (155,000 xp) requires 50,000 xp.
A marginal increase from the previous requirement of 20,000 xp.

Level 11 (155,000 xp) to level 12 (220,000 xp) requires 65,000 xp.
A marginal increase from the previous requirement of 15,000 xp.

Level 12 (220,000 xp) to level 13 (315,000 xp) requires 95,000 xp.
A marginal increase from the previous requirement of 30,000 xp.

Simple terms:
Additional marginal XP requirements go from 6,000 to 20,000 to 15,000 to 30,000.

It's like the XP chart wants the game to slow down at level 10, make level 11 easy, and continue on past level 12 per the norm. I took a look at the Experience Point Awards table and that's linear as far as the XP reward increases go (in fact, every other level the marginal gain doubles from the previous one. Long story short, it's linear looking).

It seems relatively harder to go from level 10 to level 11 than it would be from any other spot. I thought that maybe this would be because of prestige classes or some universal event (e.g. every class gets a huge ability around 10) but it is not always the case. Some prestige classes can start before 10 and finish in the late teens which means this "bump" happens right in the middle of everything.

Even the slow and fast charts have this "bump" at level 10; although, the slow chart had "bumps" at 8-9, 10-11, and 12-13. The fast chart had level 13 as an easy one.

The entire reason for me asking and noticing is that I'm allowing my players access to item creation feats and a decent amount of in-game downtime between sessions, so I spent the last few hours going over excel spreadsheets with magic items and formulas. The XP chart happened to make its way on there because I was bored. Maybe I am over thinking this entirely but I like number crunching and irregularities get me thinking a lot. I'm hoping my tiredness didn't cause me to miss some paragraph explaining this!

Too long, didn't read version: The XP chart seems to section off games at level 1-10, level 10-16, and level 16-20. Epic does not exist for us at the moment; it was imbalanced in 3.5ed and we tend to play for RP and flavor if games extend for years and hit that point. Anyway, am I crazy in this assumption? And if so, should I just start them at 10 instead?