One of the things that has bothered me about the XP system in 3.x has been the "inflated number of XP to go up each level" was matched to the "grant more XP for an encounter of equivalent danager" in such a way that the game was telling you that you should see advancement ever X encounters.
Bad design, if you ask me.
CR should not be a measure of XP reward. Neither should EL, for that matter. What matters in XP reward should be entirely dependent upon one things:
* Tone of the Game as set by the players/game master
In other words, if the tone of the game the players want to play is one that involved puzzles and solving them, then solving puzzles should award XP; if the tone of the game is one that involves delvinginto deep underground caverns and defeating monsterous entities, then this should be what gives out XP.
To that end, I present you with my own method of handing out XP that I have used since my days in AD&D 1e (modified a few bazillion times as I have managed to refinbe it over the years):
XP = (R + D + F) * S
"R" - this is a measure of the player's roleplaying for that session. Rate the player after the session on a 0-3 scale on how well they played their character. R=0 would mean the player did not play the character very well, was disruptive, or otherwise detracted from the enjoyment of others; R=1 or R=2 would mean the player played the character fairly well, but nothing spectacular; R=3 would mean the player played the character to a tee and generally added to the enjoyment of all in the game. Advancing story-arcs, solving puzzles and riddles, or discovering plot elements are all reasons for raising the R-rating of a player in a game session. Typically, based on the typical player in your game, a player should receive 1 or 2 in the R rating (1.5 average).
"D" - this is the measure of the danger that the player's character was in for that session. If the encounters were generally below the calibre of the character such that they were never in any real risk, then the D-rating will be low (D=0 or D=1); if the encounters were generally grave with the character barely able to maintain life, then the D-rating will be high (D=2 or D=3). But danger can mean a lot of different things, depending upon the tone of the game. A rogue running a con where he or she is working "undercover" can show a higher D rating if they had a high risk of their cover being blown;a Knight may not have had to fight anything at all, but was in real danger of offending the Princess of the High Moon by not being able to attend the Grand Ball. Again, it all depends on the tone of the game. Typically, based on the challenges of your campaign and tone, a player should receive 1 or 2 on the D-rating (average 1.5)
"F" - this is Fate, and it is a mechanic I use and may not translate well in the game you are writing. If not, this one can be ignored. At the start of any session, I hand each player three tokens (I use large GO pieces, usually). These are their character's FATE points. During the session, they can use them for many functions (from getting to re-roll a die, to forcing a foe to miss a blow rather than hit, or what-have-you). At the end of the session, they turn in the FATE points and they get added to this calculation. If you are challenging your players and keeping them on their toes, typically a player will have 1 fate point remaining each adventure (a few with none, a few with 2...).
So... inside the parenthais, we have an average of R=1.5, D=1.5, and F=1 for a total of 4 (within a range of 0 to 9). So what is that "S" out on the end?
"S" -- this is Speed of Advancement. In other words, this is "baseline number of experience points to be awarded each session." Suppose, for example, I am using the D&D 3.x XP advancement charts (i.e., 1k, 3k, 6k, 10k, etc.) and I want to have players advance one caracter level about every 5 sessions.
First, this would mean that S is variable, and is based on the level of the character in question. This is all fine and dandy, I suppose. But what it means is that each session at first level, you would need to give out an average of (1000 XP/5 sessions)=200 experience points. Given that the value in the parenthasis will come out to an average of 4, this means that (at first level) the value of S is (200 XP/4 average)=50.
To scale this per level, S=(50*Level). Done.
If, however, I want to recapture some old-school AD&D feel, I can remove the "*Level" portion and know that it will taker (on average) 5 sessions to go from 1st level to 2nd level; 10 sessions to go from 2nd level to 3rd level; 15 sessions to go from 3rd level to 4th level; and so on.
I can tailor the speed by increasing or decreasing the value of S. In fact, I can set S to a value of "250*Level" and have advancement be -- on average -- one level per session if I want...
1000 XP divided by 5 = 200 XP. So in this campaign, S=200 times the character's level.
Director of Games
