immotus's page

immotus, Paizo gave their reasons for relative XP in the March 12, 2018, preview blog, Leveling Up!

Logan Bonner, Paizo designer wrote:

Well, first you're going to need some Experience Points. You can get those XP by fighting monsters, encountering traps, solving puzzles, and accomplishing goals. Once you hit 1,000 XP, you level up! (That's for every level, so whenever you have 500 XP, you'll always know you're halfway to leveling up again! And if you have any extra Experience Points after leveling up, they count toward the next level.)

Thanks Mathmuse. I will give it a read. I will also read your thread on the math behind the levels. Yes, the XP required does increase exponentially, and the math behind coming up with how much xp needs to exist between the levels can become complicated. But, I stand by my clarification. Level is dependent and XP is not. In my book that makes it a logarithmic system ;) We both can be right depending on our perspective!

@Edge93 - Clearly you have never had players as boisterous as the ones I've encountered. They would tar and feather me and hang me from a flag pole if I went so easy on them. Upset would be an understatement on their part. They'd hate me and get a new DM. They'd probably burn my books at the bottom of the flag pole.

Dude. You're wrong. XP gain is relative. How are you not getting this.

Not exactly wrong. The parity suggestions are a kludge that turns a straight line XP system into a curved line XP system to account for the flaw in the system.

But, maybe I missed something? Where are these rules that throttle your XP based on the challenge level of the encounter? And, what exactly is the point of making a linear XP system then adding rules to make it non-linear. How are you not getting that relative XP gain is non-linear?

I am not sure I understand their thinking on the matter. Why add extra complications? If you are going to kludge in a leveling rate for an obvious problem why not just remove the problem? Why not just go ahead and do the math and create a leveling table and be done with it?

It doesn't take a lot of effort to see there is a problem here.

@Ruzza - Hey, this thread was still on the first page.

Someone mentioned something about an exponential leveling system...

so, for clarity:

Your XP is your XP it is not dependent on another value. Your level is dependent on your XP.

That means you put your character Level on the Y axis and your XP on the X axis of a graph. This doesn't give you too many options in the shape of the graph. Leveling systems have historically been logarithmic - ish. Knowing this is a nerd thing and not too relevant to the discussion except for one point: In an exponential leveling system your level would start to increase exponentially as you gained experience. Clearly, this is not desirable.

This is what a leveling system tends to look like:

https://imgur.com/pypAe5y

As you go up in level it takes more and more XP to attain the next level. So your growth starts out fast then slows down more and more over time. This is logarithmic. This makes it very possible for someone to catch up in levels. Will they stay caught up? Maybe not, but one thing is CERTAIN: The power difference between two characters will narrow.

Think about it. Even in real life you can see power gaps narrow.
Hold a new born baby in your hands when you are twenty. Think about all the things you can do that it can't. You are 20 TIMES older than that baby. Now, advance 15 years. You are 35 and only 2.3 TIMES older than that baby ..er teenager.

immotus wrote:

Cyouni wrote:

Do you...actually have a player bring in a level 1 character if their level 6 one dies?

That's never been a good idea.

Yes, and I am not the only. For lots of old school D&D'ers its not optional. Especially in 'Dungeon style' campaigns.

Anyway, it's an easy fix for the people that need it fixed.

It is optional.

The issue with your solution is that the player behind can never actually catch up - they'll always be X amount of XP behind, because the entire group will be earning XP together. It also means the party has to spend exponentially longer at each level in order for the new character to eventually reach the same level - at which point, they'll very shortly level up, and now the new character will be behind a level for just as long.

The only way around this is to run a s#+$load of sessions with that player one-on-one - which is godawful for a lot of reasons and is an extremely inefficient use of the GM's precious time on earth.

If a GM does want to have players "earn" XP with new characters, it's better to use PF2's existing tools. When building an encounter, XP granted is based on relative level to the party - this is with the assumption that the party is all the same level. You can very easily decide individual PC's earn XP based on their own level rather than the party's average level, which has the effect of lower level characters earning XP faster.

Once a player character is within one level of the party's highest level character, they'll continue to be treated as though they were actually two levels lower for the purposes of being awarded XP. This continues until they finally match the XP value of the highest level party member, at which point they'll gain XP as normal.

The result is that when a player dies, they'll begin by leveling very rapidly even on trivial threats, and then their XP rate slows down to a minimum of 2x what the rest of the party gets until they finally catch up. If you want them to catch up...

They CAN catch up in Level. I've seen it happen. They can't catch up in XP, obviously.

Folks, this is just a mathematical thing.

If level progression is Linear -> no catching up in LEVEL(not XP).
If level progression is Logrithimic -> easy to catch up in LEVEL(not XP).

If people play together and get XP together this will happen automatically. If you follow the rules you can't avoid it.

Whether or not you want people 2,5,10 levels of difference in the same group... I can't help you. That's all about style and the people you play with.

Do you...actually have a player bring in a level 1 character if their level 6 one dies?

That's never been a good idea.

Yes, and I am not the only. For lots of old school D&D'ers its not optional. Especially in 'Dungeon style' campaigns.

Anyway, it's an easy fix for the people that need it fixed.

Your leveling up method seems like a great thing for a play test. I haven't heard if the leveling up rate in the play test rules is meant to be kept for the main printing.

I wouldn't do that if I were you...

While it's great for one-shots or short campaigns it will not work well for long term campaigns. The main reason is character advancement rates.. fabulous as long as no one has a character die, but as soon as they do they are hosed. With the current system there is NO WAY for a new character to catch back up to the rest of the party. There are meta game methods such as the DM just gifts the character the appropriate level. Personally, I don't like that.

With progressively higher XP requirements for each level it becomes possible for new characters to close the level gap by their own efforts.

Just sayin.