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I like the idea of 3 different tracks, but having the fast track still be slower than 3.5 is a little irksome. I think the fast track should be a bit faster than 3.5, and what is now the fast track should be the medium track, and medium track should be slow. Drop the slowest track, or just have it be a 4th option.
I think they designed those XP charts on the assumption that story rewards would be standard rather than optional.
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I think they designed those XP charts on the assumption that story rewards would be standard rather than optional.yea i hated in 3.5 i could not give out story xp cause it would level them faster, saying that i also hate that 13 battles level them up at every level but that is here no there ;)
I agree, however, it's sometimes difficult to know just how much of a story reward to give out. I just house ruled it so that we are using the same track as D&D 3.5.
I like the idea of 3 different tracks, but having the fast track still be slower than 3.5 is a little irksome.
What is giving you this impression? By my calculations the Fast track is virtually identical to 3.5 leveling.
Actually, looking a bit closer will reveal that a 20th level character using the fast Pathfinder advancement will need over 2 million XP. (2,400,000 to be precise)
A 20th level 3.5 character only needs 190 thousand.
The fast chart is comparable to the 3.5 one up to 9th level (possibly 8th), when the Pathfinder character needs 14 thousand XP more than the 3.5 one, and the gap only grows from there.
Not that I mind too terribly much, 3.5 has always felt like it was a little too quick on leveling.
3.5 did tend to be far too quick on leveling: I've seen groups that managed to go from level one to level twenty in less than a year of both game time and real time - and if PC's can do it, NPC's can do it. Besides, its sad to have abilities that you've never even gotten to try out.
I rarely run a campaign for fewer than 2-3 years of weekly sessions, and some have run much longer than that. It gets kind of awkward when the characters are likely to be level 50 less than halfway through the campaign.
I think I read somewhere that the intent of the 3e designers was for the PCs to go from level 1-20 in a year. Apparently, market research had shown that was the length of the average D&D campaign.
Anyway, I actually looked at the experience section of Alpha 3, and here's what it has to say about the charts.
The Pathfinder RPG uses its own unique experience point (XP) charts for determining character advancement. These charts add up to big numbers, but the characters earn correspondingly larger XP rewards for defeating monsters and overcoming roleplaying encounters.
and
In addition to XP awarded for defeating monsters, players should be awarded experience points whenever they conclude a major storyline or complete an important accomplishment. These awards should be worth an amount of experience points equal to two encounters of a CR equal to the APL.
So apparently, the use of constant XP and the fact that story awards are supposed to be standard is expected to make up for the larger numbers. Presumably time and playtesting will tell whether they're right about that.
Actually, looking a bit closer will reveal that a 20th level character using the fast Pathfinder advancement will need over 2 million XP. (2,400,000 to be precise)
A 20th level 3.5 character only needs 190 thousand.
The fast chart is comparable to the 3.5 one up to 9th level (possibly 8th), when the Pathfinder character needs 14 thousand XP more than the 3.5 one, and the gap only grows from there.
Not that I mind too terribly much, 3.5 has always felt like it was a little too quick on leveling.
The leveling on the Fast track is exactly the same speed as in 3.5: 13.3 encounters per level.
The number gets big fast because the XP for an appropriate CR encounter doubles every two levels.
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Oh, this is an area of particular confusion for me, even after the explanations provided. Can someone provide an ulta simple, but thorough, explanation of the the PRPG XP system? Simple, because I think I am reading too much into it...
Okay, it works like this. In the current campaign I'm in we have 9 pcs. They defeat 3 goblins and so they get xp for it. In 3.5 they would each get 45 xp because (135x3)/9=45. In Pathfinder they would each get 75 xp because a CR 1/3 creature is worth 25 xp each to a party of 6 or more according to the chart on pg. 122 of Alpha 3. Therefore the progression needs to be a little slower than 3.5 because the awards are a little higher. This was something I didn't understand when I first started running Pathfinder so now my players a leveling up a little faster than they should, but I'm already in the fix now and it's too late to change it.
Oh, this is an area of particular confusion for me, even after the explanations provided. Can someone provide an ulta simple, but thorough, explanation of the the PRPG XP system? Simple, because I think I am reading too much into it...
Let's take the Medium XP track as an example. It requires 20 level-appropriate encounters to go up a level.
For example, a level 1 party of four needs to fight 20 CR 1 creatures (each worth 100 xp) to go from level 1 to level 2.
Similarly, a level 11 party of four needs to fight 20 CR 10 creatures (each worth 3200 xp) to go from level 11 to level 12. (Actually, you need 65,000 xp instead of 64,000 to go from level 11 to 12 -- there's some rounding involved. But close enough.)
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Honestly, I thought the 3E experience chart was way too fast. The slowest PF chart actually feels right to me and my group. That's without story awards. I give action points for story awards instead of XP. I always ran out of time to use all of the encounter ideas I had before they were too low a CR for my group.