Okay, my group always seem to level up at extremely high rates (as in a level per session, at least). How we have been doing XP is awarding the total XP of each individual creature together and dividing the total between the group. Are we not doing this right, or are we just fighting too much?
The way I read the rules is that you award XP to each PC for each creature they helped defeat, using their level vs. the CR of the creature, then divide by the number of PC's in the party to determine how many XP that particular PC gets.
I have the same phenomenon in my game: Last Saturday night, we played for about 9 hours. The party defeated the final encounter in Tammeraut's Fate (ghost & undead CR10 x 1, CR4 x 4) and then decided to hunt giants and gnolls in the Hestmark Highlands. They almost ended up buying the farm, but defeated two hill giants (CR10), four ettins (CR6 I think) and 20 something gnolls (CR1). I threw in some extra XP (about 200 xp per player) for some good role-playing.
The 6th level PC's got around 6000 xp each and the one 5th level PC (who died and lost a level last game) got 9100 xp!!
All are 7th level now and the 6th level ones are only about 2500 xp from 8th level....this has been discussed on these boards before---3rd edition really shoots you up in levels!!
We've played about 12 gaming sessions in this campaign since early this year and the PC's are already almost 8th level.
I'm playing this campaign with straight up 3.5 rules and I won't pass judgment on whether or not this rapid level advancement is a bad thing or good thing until it has run its course.
According to the rules, it should take 13.33 encounters of a level equal to the party to level up. I calculated how many encounters were needed if all your encounters are 2 above party level, and believe it came to 6-7.
In any case, I think there is a sidebar in DMG saying that if you would like to slow down (or speed up) experience gained, you can simply multiply the normal Xp gained by 0.5 (or 1.5).
DMG also discusses mission goals and story awards (non-combat Xp) and says (I believe) that you should split combat Xp (standard awards) in half if you use story awards in your games. You should not simply add them together.
I don't normally hand out non-combat xp (such as for role playing) unless it is just something completely genious. I once gamed a group who had a cleric and an archer. They came up with the idea to shower an entire host of undead with holy water by throwing up a large flask of it and having the archer shoot it with his bow. It actually worked and I awarded both of them 200 xp for the idea. I can't think of many other situations where I have given out xp. I gamed last night and a friend DM'ed. He is big on handing out non-combat xp and there was a total of 200 xp given out to the group (I think). But I too have noticed a large increase in levels in a short time. We gamed for maybe 3 months with 1st level characters and they are up to 16th level. We game once or twice a month for about 12 hours each time. Anyway, I've rambled enough here.
Okay, my group always seem to level up at extremely high rates (as in a level per session, at least). How we have been doing XP is awarding the total XP of each individual creature together and dividing the total between the group. Are we not doing this right, or are we just fighting too much?
Important note about the XP charts in the DMG that you may not have been aware of:
- The charts are written under the assumtion that there are FOUR characters in the party; if there are more people in the party, the XP amounts need to be adjusted by referencing a different CR column.
For example, my 9th level party just fought a CR13 Devil last session; for EIGHT characters, the CR of the Devil would then be CR11, in the same way that the CR goes UP by 2 for each time you double the number of monsters. I had ten characters playing last night, so I decided that the CR for the Devil was CR10 - evenly matched, more or less.
If you have more than four people in your group, you will need to lower the CR of your monsters appropriately.
M
I wasn't sure how to handle that part of the rules, but since there are five to six characters at any one time, I might just lower the CR award by 1 per encounter.
They've all caught on really fast that 3rd edition is a quick level advancement game and now they complain if they DON'T level up each game session......I keep telling them "remember when it took a year of gaming every week to make 10th level?" and I'm just met with blank stares.
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The rules for this are on pg 37 of the DMG and include an example, so hopefully you'll be able to tell from that if you're awarding XP the "correct" way.
It's difficult to tell if you "just fighting too much", but certainly I've never seen a party level that fast other than when it was a deliberate munchkin game or they were "speed leveling" (automatically leveling after each session/adventure irrespective of XP in order for the party to reach a particular level), even given that advancement is much more rapid under 3ed.
I'm puzzled though as to how a party can consistently be leveling every session (at least) even if you're playing very long (12-16 hour) sessions and they're very combat heavy -- indeed combat can really slow things down as it chews up party resources, and some combats can be *really* slow!
Is there anything particularly unusual about the party or the encounters? If the party make-up is particularly favourable to an encounter then the effective CR should be reduced -- e.g. if the party has a Radiant Servant of Pelor onboard with all the usual turning-feats and every other encounter they have is with undead, it's not really much of a challenge! :)
Alright, well it seems that what we have been doing is at least very nearly "correct," so I'll explain a bit about our gaming sessions, not neccessarily for more in-depth advice, but some of you might be curious.
First off, we play for long periods of time, meaning a six-hour session is a short one. We do this for two main reasons: 1) Some people don't know how to make decisions before their turn starts, and are power players to quite a large extent; 2) Those same people are rules lawyers too, and argue about several things during the course of a single combat, not giving in unless presented with a specific rule in print, or overwhelming reason.
Hmm... stating things such as the are makes it seem as though certain persons are horrible gamers and should be got rid of at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately with things as they are, more players are not readably available, and we barely have four characters, with the DM playing his character along with the rest (we switch off being DM every once in a while).
Anyhow, back to the matter at hand. I'll look over the DMG again and see if there is something that we are doing differently, however small, and try to fix it this weekend. If that fails, I think I'll just start assigning half XP.
Quoting Marc Chin: "Important note about the XP charts in the DMG that you may not have been aware of:
- The charts are written under the assumtion that there are FOUR characters in the party; if there are more people in the party, the XP amounts need to be adjusted by referencing a different CR column."
I don't think that would be necessary. A CR 13 creature is CR 13 wther it fights against one level 1 character or 10 level 20 characters. It's not the CR itself that determines the Xp reward, but the difference between the creature's CR and the character's level. Also, since you divide the Xp gained from a creature between all participants, it means that the more PCs participate in a fight, the less their share of the cake will be.
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You are probably awarding XP at or near the rate intended in the DMG. From your description I can see no fault in your method.
That said. I have a personal preference for slower xp gain. In serious campaigns I tend to award about 1/3 the standard experiance award per encounter, and then I also try to incorporiate as many apropriate story awards as possible. The characters end up progressing at about the half the standard rate. I prefer theis pacing much more.
Tam
Quoting Marc Chin: "Important note about the XP charts in the DMG that you may not have been aware of:
- The charts are written under the assumtion that there are FOUR characters in the party; if there are more people in the party, the XP amounts need to be adjusted by referencing a different CR column."
I don't think that would be necessary. A CR 13 creature is CR 13 wther it fights against one level 1 character or 10 level 20 characters. It's not the CR itself that determines the Xp reward, but the difference between the creature's CR and the character's level. Also, since you divide the Xp gained from a creature between all participants, it means that the more PCs participate in a fight, the less their share of the cake will be.
Yeah this is my take as well. The CRs don't change its just that the XP gained gets divided up among more PCs.
Well, in a few months we'll be in uncharted territory....I've never run a campaign with PC's above 14th level in 25 years of DMing...I foresee lots of political adventuring and large scale battles as they try to oust Overking Ivid in CY 576.
My avatar name is not just a Rush album......
When this campaign ends I'll have a better feel of 3rd edition and I can do some tinkering then to make sure the game is what it needs to be for me to enjoy DMing. My players interests are important, but I have to put out the effort to run the game, so my happiness is MORE important, no matter what the DMG says about keeping players happy.
They've all caught on really fast that 3rd edition is a quick level advancement game and now they complain if they DON'T level up each game session......I keep telling them "remember when it took a year of gaming every week to make 10th level?" and I'm just met with blank stares.
The higher XP awards and subsequent quicker level advancement was a big hurdle for me to get over when I first started playing 3rd edition rules. It was hard for me to accept that a goblin went from 15 XP to 100 XP (CR 1/3). And that a basic fighter now only needs 1,000 XP to advance to 2nd level instead of 2,000, and that every class advances at the same speed.
In my year in Korea in 1993, I ran a single dwarf fighter in a campaign that we played once or twice a week, and ended up 10th level (and that was the highest I ever got in 1st or 2nd ed). Last year I ran my last group through the SCAP in about 9 months, and everyone ended up 21st level.
The quicker advancement has definately changed the mindset of playing D&D. I used to play D&D without really planning anything in the lines of level advancement. Now with the advancement occuring quicker, and the vast possibilities of feats, skills, and PrCs (to name a few), you really need to know what you're going to do with your character, and I usually map out my progression to 20th level everytime I sit down to think of a new character concept.
Once I got over that hurdle (and it took about three years, to tell the truth) I found that the game is still about the characters, not about level advancement. Of course, every DM will have a Min-Maxing Power-Gaming Multi-Classing player that will cause severe nostalgia of the "good ole' days." But I've found my rythym in DMing again.
I think that the Adenture Paths are a great way to maintain the feel of previous editions. They generally provide a focus for role playing as well as goals for the PCs to acheive. I'm sure that even my last min-maxing power-gaming multi-classing player will always relish the fact that he helped to defeat Adimarchus. That achievement (at least in my mind) overshadowed the fact that he had a Drow Ranger/Fighter with the vow of poverty feat and several bonus feats and a crit range so good that he would do triple damage (house rules) up to four times a session.