XP / CR and 13.3

[Mace Hammerhand]

My biggest beef with 3.5 in general is the 13.3 encounters per level rule. Maybe I am nostalgic but I love the way 1st and 2nd edition handled it: the more powerful you got the more difficult it became-- to a degree.

In my campaign the players complained about leveling too fast, they want to play their characters for a long time. So I went to work with the UA, back before the alpha release came out. But I did not take the UA table and monster XP rewards as printed because they still stuck to the 13.3 (IMO) nonsense. Instead I decided to use the original CR/lvl rewards system as shown in the DMG. It will take a long time to level, which in turn keeps the players more motivated for playing their characters and the old-school fun in the game. Also it gives me the chance to award story- and RP-XPs more freely, which I think is also a better way to handle my style of GMing.

What are the chances to do the same or something similar in Pathfinder?

and

If such a system were to be worked out, how would it influence APs if at all?

[Kelso]

Mace Hammerhand wrote:

My biggest beef with 3.5 in general is the 13.3 encounters per level rule. Maybe I am nostalgic but I love the way 1st and 2nd edition handled it: the more powerful you got the more difficult it became-- to a degree.

I know what you mean. I worried about that too. Even though it seems like leveling up should go quickly at every level, in my experience, it definitely seems to slow down the higher the level. I think that's in large part due to the increased complexity as you level. In any case, it seemed to take my players 3 times as long to go from 10th to 11th than it did to go from, say, 2nd to 3rd.

[Jim Callaghan]

I've eliminated XP in my game. I'm running the Savage Tide adventure arc from Dragon magazine, and the characters level according to the recommendations of "how far along they should be at this point". The reward they get for an encounter well played are additional action points. This won't work for all games: my group is fairly dedicated, and everyone is serious about "doing his part" (of course, if they weren't, the normal XP system isn't very good about addressing that anyway).

[Mistwalker]

They do have a possible solution for that in the Alpha, put in place at fan request.

There are 3 XP advancement tracks, fast (regular advancement), medium and slow.

XP is based on CR of the creature, a fixed amount with no XP gain if you are 10 levels or higher than the creature.

Page 13 has the XP tables

[Mace Hammerhand]

Mistwalker wrote:

They do have a possible solution for that in the Alpha, put in place at fan request.

There are 3 XP advancement tracks, fast (regular advancement), medium and slow.

XP is based on CR of the creature, a fixed amount with no XP gain if you are 10 levels or higher than the creature.

Page 13 has the XP tables

I know, but a CR 20 monster gives some 300k xp or so...

[Mistwalker]

that 300k is for the creature, it is smaller for each character that participated. Rather than 300k, each char would get 51k for a party of 6.

Yes, I know, it will get you to 20th level with 14 of these fights, but you don't normally have 14 fights of that level, one after another.

[see]

If you want to slow things down progressively, hmm. The easy way for Pathfinder would be a new XP table with that built in. Say:

2nd - 2,000
3rd - 5,300
4th - 10,100
5th - 17,900
6th - 29,100
7th - 47,100
8th - 72,700
9th - 113,500
10th - 171,100
11th - 262,300
12th - 390,300
13th - 591,900
14th - 873,500
15th - 1,315,100
16th - 1,929,500
17th - 2,889,500
18th - 4,220,700
19th - 6,294,300
20th - 9,161,500

This chart takes 20 equal encounters to reach level 2, 22 to reach 3, 24 to reach 4, 26 to reach 5, and so on, to 56 for a level 19 character to reach 20.

[Steven Hume]

hey i am new hear still looking over the pdf but i do miss the 2nd ed exp tables. i thought of applying different advancement for classes based on power levels, where most use the std, caster classes, arcane and divine, take a bit more to advance using mid range(1500) for them.

I also thought about using normal for levels 1-7 med for levels 8-14 and high for levels 15-20+, that means some levels (8 and 15) take alot longer, will seem like forever to players, to get by but like in 2nd where 11 and 12 was the biggest jump, a sense of relief is felt knowing it would be hard the next level.

[Kobajagrande]

What I did when I wanted a better control over character's advancement was to focus more on story advancement. Not the "story awards" suggestions in the DMG but more of a "character develops as he advances through the story" philosophy:

1. The campaign is divided into individual adventures. According to your personal preferences they can be related, build up on each other, or completely unrelated and episodic. Doesn't matter.

2. Each adventure is a rounded whole. Sure, the villain might not be defeated, the players might even lose, but must give a definite sense of conclusion. It must be clear to everyone that chapter of the story is finished.

3. Upon passing through such well-rounded experience, the character advances a level and feels ready to face greater challenges up ahead.

4. Now, the trick is that each "adventure" is of arbitrary length and scope. This is where the fine control part comes. Defeating the bandits plaguing the village at level 1 might take a session. Gathering allies among the Senators of the Republic in order to pass a law might be composed of a multitude of adventures, each with its own advancement opportunity. Going into the depths of the Underworld to retrieve the soul of the deceased Princess might be a single adventure, despite it consisting of finding the entrance to the Underworld, passing through the caves where the lost souls roam, gaining favor in the City of Evermourn in order to approach the palace of Death God, and finally convincing the said Death God to release the soul, and lasting dozen sessions.

The approach always worked for us, especially for the low-combat parts of the campaigns.

[tadkil]

Actually there are three XP tracks.

They are:

Character Experience Point
Level Slow Medium Fast
1st — — —
2nd 3,000 2,000 1,300
3rd 7,500 5,000 3,300
4th 14,000 9,000 6,000
5th 23,000 15,000 10,000
6th 35,000 23,000 15,000
7th 53,000 35,000 23,000
8th 77,000 51,000 34,000
9th 115,000 75,000 50,000
10th 160,000 105,000 71,000
11th 235,000 155,000 105,000
12th 330,000 220,000 145,000
13th 475,000 315,000 210,000
14th 665,000 445,000 295,000
15th 955,000 635,000 425,000
16th 1,350,000 890,000 600,000
17th 1,900,000 1,300,000 850,000
18th 2,700,000 1,800,000 1,200,000
19th 3,850,000 2,550,000 1,700,000
20th 5,350,000 3,600,000 2,400,000

I am using medium climb in my playtest. I like a slower climb myself. Keeps the players focused on character and story and less focused on power curve.

[magnuskn]

Prime Evil wrote:

If it is desirable to reduce the number of stat-boosting items in the game, would it be a good idea to compensate for this by increasing the number of stat increases that characters receive as they go up levels?

That was one of the ideas thrown around, going the Star Wars: Saga route of 2 different attributes go up +1 every four levels.

Also, to adapt a "Vow of Poverty" benefit for everyone ( without being under that Vow, of course. :P ), to replace certain boost items which everyone has to have, sooner or later. Like attribute enhancers, deflection and natural armor items and resistance items.

I´ve worked a bit on how I want to implement this for my next campaign.

Remember, this will completely replace deflection items, natural armor items, resistance bonus items, attribute enhancers and innate bonus books, which is why the enhancement bonuses go up so much at the highest levels.

Ability enhancements: 4th lvl +2 ; 6th lvl +2/+2 ; 8th lvl +2/+2/+2 ; 10th lvl +4/+2/+2 ; 12th lvl +4/+4/+2 ; 14th lvl +6/+4/+4/+2 ; 16th lvl +6/+6/+4/+2 ; 18th lvl +8/+6/+4/+4 ; 20th lvl +8/+8/+6/+4

Resistance bonus: 3rd lvl +1 ; 6th lvl +2 ; 9th lvl +3 ; 12th lvl +4 ; 15th lvl +5

Deflection bonus: 4th lvl +1 ; 8th lvl +2 ; 12th lvl +3 ; 16th lvl +4 ; 20th lvl +5

Natural Armor bonus: 5th lvl +1 ; 9th lvl +2 ; 13th lvl +3 ; 17th lvl +4

Sorry for the formatting, but the board eats any blank spaces beyond one, so making a table is kinda impossible. :(

Of course if all these stat boosts happen to everybody, gold per level should be reduced a good deal, so that the PC´s don´t put it into aquiring magic weapons faster. Or maybe not, if you can convince your players to aquire the more diverse magic items available nowadays out of the Magic Item Compendium or elsewhere.

[David Jackson 60]

you could always just mix-match the chart.

1-5 go normal

6-14 go medium

15-20 go slow

[magnuskn]

magnuskn wrote:

snip

Oi. I posted this in the wrong thread. Please disregard. -.-

[Dennis da Ogre]

I like the idea of switching experience tables, right now for playtesting I'm using the fast table but in our campaign I am going to use Medium progression through 9th level then switch to slow. The fast progression has been altogether too fast at 1-3 level for regular play. It might be good for a group that doesn't meet often.