One of my players wrote his own module using mostly created and custom monsters. Now I haven't played it yet, (he's DMing it tomorrow), but I was able to talk to him about it. He has no idea how much experience points to give out for anything or what the CR of his monsters are(which worries me in and of itself considering this is his first time DMing). So my questions are:
How does he determine XP?
And also as a side note: How long does it usually take you to write up a module? (Just a little worried considering he wrote it up so quickly).
XP is determined by the CR of the challenges. There is a guide in the back of the bestiary to determine CR.
Some people can sit down and improved a one-shot. I am the type of person who has to sit down and plan things out though. It would take me at least 4 hours to set up a one-shot, which I normally expect to last 7-10 hours.
I hope things go well, but I don't think he bothered to read the books before he made the monsters. Go easy on him when correcting any errors that come up, and I would do this after the session.
For my first module I had to learn the rules on a different level than I understood them as a player so to account for all the reading, and writing, and map-making it took me over a month.
One of my players wrote his own module using mostly created and custom monsters. Now I haven't played it yet, (he's DMing it tomorrow), but I was able to talk to him about it. He has no idea how much experience points to give out for anything or what the CR of his monsters are(which worries me in and of itself considering this is his first time DMing). So my questions are:
How does he determine XP?
And also as a side note: How long does it usually take you to write up a module? (Just a little worried considering he wrote it up so quickly).
Well monsters of a given CR always give the same XP. However, determining the CR of monsters is tougher. There is a table with a guide on making monsters that shows what kind of stats should be expected at each CR. Although the bestiary doesn't always follow it, it is pretty decent. If the monster doesn't fit very well, err on judging it based off of it's most lethal ability.
Assuming he used the encounter creation budgets, the XP should already be figured for him.
If he just tossed a bunch of random stuff onto a sheet of paper, there's no way to gauge XP and you might as well just handwave it all and level up when you feel like it. Although there's a good chance you'll be TPKed in the first fight, so it'll be a moot issue anyway.
Either way, good luck!
-The Gneech
Thanks all for the help! I'll have to check out those charts and tables and let him know about them as well.