I know this will be an unwelcome complication for some, if not most, but I've been wanting to develop a system for awarding experience that sidesteps some of the emergent issues when you require that your PCs must rest and reflect before levelling.
Issues like: "We've got enough XP to level! I know it's only half an hour since we camped but let's go and camp again! Now!"
The intent is to highlight the importance of proper rest to the players whilst also providing an impetus to keep adventuring as long as possible during the day.
I also wanted to allow players to have a bit more fine-grained control with the levelling process, which helps when you require that there must be some sort of in-game method (however tenuous) for a character to acquire a completely new skill, feat, or class but where that character hasn't yet had the opportunity to access a suitable method. The intent is to allow players a bit more time to plan and acquire the character features that they want in game, without forcing the full acquisition at a point in time that might be inappropriate to the storyline.
Anywhere here it is. All comments welcome. I'm sure there'll be stuff here that many of you wouldn't want to see in your game. My poor players! ;-)
In order for characters to learn and improve their abilities, they must be able to properly rest and reflect on their experiences. Thus, experience points will only be awarded in circumstances that would also result in natural healing. Most characters, therefore, require a full night's rest (8 hours of sleep or more), without significant interruption, to receive experience. Elves receive experience after successful rejuvenation/trance.
Unfortunately, unless they are capitalised on swiftly, the benefits of experience dim with time. If a character has yet to be awarded experience that was earnt over 1 week ago, the amount of that pending experience is halved when it is finally awarded. For each further week that elapses, the experience is halved again. Pending experience can be reduced to a minimum of 1 point in this way.
A character that has been awarded enough experience to increase in level can do so immediately in full, providing that he is conscious, or can choose to delay wholly or in part until a later time. A character might choose to delay increasing in level if he wants to acquire, for example, a new skill, feat, or even class, for which he currently has no means to learn.
A character levels by taking the following steps in order:
1. Select your new class level. You must be able to qualify for this level before any of the following adjustments are made.
2. Apply any ability score increases due to gaining a level.
3. Integrate all of the level's class features and roll for additional hit points.
4. Add new skills and feats.
Until you have completed step 3, you are still considered to be a character of your existing level.
A character that delays increasing in level can continue to earn experience but only up to an amount that is 1 point below the next level again. Any experience earned over this amount is lost. A character cannot advance in level, either wholly or in part, until a previous level advancement has been completed in full.
For example, Seltyiel is a 1st-level fighter (on medium advancement) who wishes to become an evoker but must receive final instruction from his tutor before he can fully grasp the Art. Upon being awarded over 2,000 XP in total, Seltyiel chooses not to become a 2nd-level fighter, but to delay until he can reach the home of his tutor and consolidate his experience in another way. In his battles along the way, Seltyiel continues to earn experience as a 1st-level character, rising to a total award of 4,000 before he reaches his tutor and receives the necessary lessons. He then becomes a 1st-level fighter/1st-level wizard (evoker). Any experience that Seltyiel might have earnt over 4,999 would have been lost.
Valeros is a 3rd-level fighter (on fast advancement) whose recent experience with a dangerous rope bridge has made him keen to learn about engineering from Sandpoint's Brodert Quink, just as soon as he can get back there. Upon being awarded over 6,000 XP in total, Valeros chooses to become a 4th-level fighter but to delay adding all his skill ranks. He increases his Dexterity, integrates the class features of a 4th-level fighter, rolls a d10 for his additional hit points, spends all but two skill ranks and selects his new feat. Valeros continues to earn experience as a 4th-level fighter, rising to a total award of 13,000 before he finally arrives safely back in Sandpoint for some well-earned rest and recuperation. Although he has the requisite experience, Valeros cannot choose to advance to 5th-level, either wholly or in part, because he has not completed his advancement to 4th-level and any experience that he might have earnt over 14,999 would have been lost. Under Brodert's direction, Valeros starts his education and spends his final two 4th-level skill ranks on knowledge (engineering). He can then choose to advance to level 5.
Ok with my group weve had a long discusion about how to better integrate leveling in gameplay without totaly rewriting the rules or totaly ruining suspension of disbelief. And proposals similiar to what you are sugesting were brought forward. One of the things we considerd was how looks from an ingame/intime perspective, with people just magically gaining new abilities,skills and atributes in a block with no learning proscess. That this isnt the way learning works outime/in real life is clear. Its actually part of the reason I had earlier abandoned DnD 2e to go play other RPG's back in the day, i prefer organic leveling systems were indiviual skills and abilities are bought with exp rather than levels. But with pathfinder ahving convinced me to give DnD another try I have brought alot of my DMing and playing style from other games, most prominently the old World of Darkness. And one thing we did there that Ive been trying to port to pathfinder is having leveling happen off screen. Ie may players have 2 monthes intime/game time between adventures hanging out somewhere and in this time they level so the choppy discreet block leveling doesnt happen visibly in my game as often. Of course sometimes there is no way to build in such a pause and my players have to level on the fly in that case, a tiered on ability at a time system like you propose would be useful, so I'm going to try a variant of what you propose next time my group levels, although I'm not going to penalize them XP for taking there time and making the process feel organic, I find that rather counter productive.
You're right that the penalty for not having completed a full rest in a week resulting in a gradual loss of XP is a penalty that could become counter-productive and I'm in two minds about it. Its intent is to strongly underline the fact that proper rest is extremely important in a way that no player is going to mistake. The threat of gradually eroding XP is going to make most parties take extreme measures to ensure that they get proper rest at least once a week, regardless of how difficult it might be to arrange. It's not intended as a means by which I, as a DM, will seek to deprive them of XP in any but the harshest of campaigns that the players have agreed to beforehand and in which, therefore, the XP earned is probably very fast.
But I also wanted to model the notion that learning, if not applied, is gradually forgotten. And it also emphasises my belief that sleep consolidates experience.
The whole enforced training idea is nice in theory but very difficult in practice, as you have commented, as characters frequently level mid-adventure. I generally permit the improvement of existing features, classes, and skills without training as a sort of "learning on the job", as do most people. But I balk at the out-of-the-blue acquisition of a new skill or class.
An example would be, a party starts out in Rise of the Runelords. A couple of days go past in which they fight a lot of goblins. They level, and suddenly they can all speak Goblin...
In general I prefer the players to provide projections of where they intend their characters to go, in terms of class, skill and feat acquisition at the least. Its for them more than me; it helps them to plot prerequisites and do their thinking in advance so that they make less missteps when choosing their abilities and take less time updating their characters when levelling. This also means that, if they have a plan of what they want to learn in advance, then they can start doing the background stuff in game - searching out people who speak goblin to start teaching them, for example, before they get the opportunity to place a rank in it.
But my proposal above is also designed to allow them to do it retroactively, after partial levelling, so that they don't necessarily have to wait until the next time they level. I don't expect that they'll make frequent use of it, but it's nice to have as an option.
You raise a couple good points. First off language, we long ago houseruled that you need intime study to learn a new language, this has made language aquistion more realistic and has lead to comprehend languages and tongues becoming viable spells even for a sorceror.
As to the getting proper rest maybe that could be achieved by houseruling that if a players get under a certain threshold for rest they get the fatigued condition and eventualy exhausted. Like if the go on 3-6 hours of sleep a night for a week and constand marching and fighting for the rest of the day. Of course this requires a lot of gm record keeping but if ones into realism then that is the price one pays i guess.
Also another house rule weve played for a while is that you can add languages and feats bewteen levels if you save up the points.
So taking my house rules and your new system combined if we take your structure of:
A character levels by taking the following steps in order:1. Select your new class level. You must be able to qualify for this level before any of the following adjustments are made.
2. Apply any ability score increases due to gaining a level.
3. Integrate all of the level's class features and roll for additional hit points.
4. Add new skills and feats.
And make it so that once you reach the nessecary exp you go to step 1.
1. Select your new class level. You must be able to qualify for this level before any of the following adjustments are made.
Then there are two possibilites for step 2
if your taking a level of a class you already have ranks in or have a trainer for in your party or in the past few game sessions then go straight to step 4. Other wise go to step 3.
3. If a player wishes to take a level in a class in which he has no previous levels and no trainer he must first gain 10%(just a provisional number) more xp.
4.A player can after the next period or rest of at least 24hours gain skill ranks in skill where he already has ranks and has used at least once since the last level up and skill in which he has no ranks but has made at least two untrained skill checks since his last level up. as well as any points in linguisitcs in languages he has been learning intime since his last level up. As well as any feats for which he has an intime trainer
5. A player can then upon the secon period of rest of at least 24h, gain a skill rank in any other skill. and in skills for witch he has an intime trainer but no ranks. As well as any new feats.
&. After a third period of at least 24h rest a player gains any class features other than bonus feats as well as BaP and Saves. an now counts as his new level.
I think that organic enough and slow enough that one can do without an exp penalty. Theres plents of incentive for rest.
What do you think?
I know it is probably not exactly what you are looking for, but there was a variant for 3.5 called buy the numbers. I posted about that here. Basically, the classes are broken down into their separate features, and those features are then given a xp buy value, so you can easily mix and match class features and get rid of the limiting level advancement. It would need some work to fit it to pathfinder, however.
Stefan
I always require they have enough down-time they could fit a montage into. Fighter running up and down some steps, monk jogging in place in the shower, wizard tapes his eyelids open while he studies a big stack of books, barbarian drinks a glass of raw egg, dwarf and elf are arguing over a map, but then ranger turns it around for them and looks of comprehension light up their faces; that sort of thing. If they can come up with an amusing montage that could take place in ten minutes, so be it, but otherwise, they have to wait.
...we long ago houseruled that you need intime study to learn a new language, this has made language aquistion more realistic and has lead to comprehend languages and tongues becoming viable spells even for a sorceror.
I can't remember where I came across it, or what system, but I also liked the notion of languages being at different levels of difficulty to learn. Therefore, some are really just dialects and can be picked up relatively easy; some share the same (probably ancient) base language and script and so aren't as difficult to learn than another class that have a completely different root and script and are thus complex. If you have a house rule like the above, I'd adopt a system similar to this.
As to the getting proper rest maybe that could be achieved by houseruling that if a players get under a certain threshold for rest they get the fatigued condition and eventualy exhausted. ...
I already have something similar to this as well but there are ways around it, with restoration and such like. Ultimately, the XP penalty is such an edge case that it's likely to never see play. I just like covering the bases though with a significant threat if the players start to try to push things too far.
3. If a player wishes to take a level in a class in which he has no previous levels and no trainer he must first gain 10%(just a provisional number) more xp.
Why? What's the in-game reasoning behind this? I think this, and the final few points, are probably getting too complex and arbitrary. If it's really done just to avoid an XP penalty that is a remote threat, I think it's probably too much effort to apply. I think stebehil's ref to the "buy the numbers" is probably worth a look as a substitute for this.
I can't remember where I came across it, or what system, but I also liked the notion of languages being at different levels of difficulty to learn. Therefore, some are really just dialects and can be picked up relatively easy; some share the same (probably ancient) base language and script and so aren't as difficult to learn than another class that have a completely different root and script and are thus complex. If you have a house rule like the above, I'd adopt a system similar to this.
Yeah thats good stuff we do if informally though we just through roleplaying
I already have something similar to this as well but there are ways around it, with restoration and such like. Ultimately, the XP penalty is such an edge case that it's likely to never see play. I just like covering the bases though with a significant threat if the players start to try to push things too far.
Personally i have no problem with my players using restoration to "get around it" because in a 4-6 person party thats alot of spell slots or magic item charges. As to the exp penalty well i can see where your coming from using it as a weapon of last resort but id prolly have to use it alot with my players.
Why? What's the in-game reasoning behind this? I think this, and the final few points, are probably getting too complex and arbitrary. If it's really done just to avoid an XP penalty that is a remote threat, I think it's probably too much effort to apply. I think stebehil's ref to the "buy the numbers" is probably worth a look as a substitute for this.
Ok so the in game reasoning is simple: learning something totaly new and unrelated to anything you know without aid of a teacher is harder than refineng skill you already have, train skill related to ones you have, or learning from a teacher. If you think its too complicated i understand, but im going to try it out and see if it cant be refined. Also i dont see how it is any more arbitrary then the fixed xp costs to level up is.
But anyway thanks for getting me started thinking on this topic.