| Obi Kemnebi |
Okay, so I just tossed my party some items of legacy to help them out. Five out of six people got thousands of roleplaying experience each as they ran through rituals and scenarios to unlock the powers of those items. The party leader, who is already 2-CR higher than the rest of the group (I wasn't specific enough about character creation rules, and he used the "must be at least half-human" requirement to get himself a half-dragon) is also my best roleplayer, so he is now roughly 2000XP higher than the other four who unlocked their weapons. And the sixth player decided he didn't want to spend the time or money unlocking his item, so he is now 2000XP behind the middle four, and 4000XP behind the leader. At this rate, the half-dragon is going to be one level higher than the middle four (and thus be 3-CR higher than them) and two levels (4-CR) higher than the sixth player, within the next few sessions. Is there some way I can modify how much XP they each get from encounters, such that I can keep them at a more even-keel? The sixth player just shrugged off the difference, stating that in third edition D&D, lower level characters got more XP than higher level characters, so he expects to catch up in no time. Is there a system like that in Pathfinder?
| Hawktitan |
Your the DM, do the XP however you feel it's warrented. If the half-dragon player is too strong then don't let him level.
Additionally I don't think you should ever have allowed a half-dragon. You were swindled and players really shouldn't do that to GMs. Yes he went along the letter of the law but broke the spirit of it. I'd talk to the player about it.
If you want to do an 'in-game' thing sap away his dragon powers and make him work towards getting it back. Templates don't matter 'quite' as much in the higher levels and you will have a nice plot hook for awhile.
My 2 cents.
HangarFlying
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XP awards in PF doesn't scale or adjust based on level like it did in 3.0/.5. A CR 1 creature will give 400 xp regardless if the recipient it level 1 or level 10. A lower level character will certainly level up faster than a higher one just because the thresholds are narrower, but the actual xp gap between the characters won't close.
That is unless you don't house rule changes, of course.
| Obi Kemnebi |
Sweet, thanks! Now just to think up some story ideas, how do I steal the dragon powers... Though I actually wasn't as surprised by the "swindle" as I should have been. He has a proclivity for doing the crazy and unexpected. This is the guy who, as a GM, replaced the standard spike pit at the bottom of a stair-slide trap with a portal into the world of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. He once played a character with multiple personality syndrome and no less than three imaginary friends. That moment when your rogue randomly switches personalities, and 'Thias the Pious' begins bashing the prisoners' heads against riverbed rocks screaming "I CLEANSE THEE OF THY SINS!!!"
I'm actually a second-but-practically-first-time GM; divvying the XP as I feel it's warranted is part of what got me into this mess in the first place... Do you have any suggestions?
| Hawktitan |
There are no rules to take away a template, it's completely in the realm of the GM.
Just a quick thought - have the BBEG 'steal' the powers to use them himself. How he does it is up to you and without knowing more about your world it'd would be hard to give specific advice.
In terms of XP as BBT mentioned you could simply not use it. Level the group as appropriate, but some groups like having XP so it may or may not work for you.
| DM_Blake |
Don't worry too much about the XP gap you already have. Even if nothing changes, what seems big now (+/- 4,000 XP) will be trivial when they're all 10th level. This will work itself out, as long as you don't keep letting the problem get worse.
To that end, you should probably try to minimize situations where some players find ways to gain XP faster than others - if they continue to do this, then even when the group is mostly 10th level, some will be a couple levels ahead because they continuously milked the system to get extra XP (and they'll have way more than a puny +4,000 XP to show for it).
It sounds like you are giving "roleplay" XP in addition to other XP for things like combat and such?
You should be aware that this is often a bad idea that looks good in theory. In theory, handing out RP awards to individuals who RP the best seems to be a good way to encourage RP from everybody, but in practice you almost always have good RPers and bad RPers and players who don't want to RP or just aren't comfortable with it, so you end up with the "stars" gaining more XP than the rest. It really only works when the RP awards are fairly small. Handing out 10 XP here, 20 XP there for entertaining RP won't usually create a huge imbalance, but then again, if the idea is to incentivize RP, awards that small might not be enough incentive.
Or to put that a different way, if the incentive is large enough to actually motivate RP for the sake of getting that XP bonus, then it's also so large that it will create imbalance between PC levels.
As for your half dragon, just inform the player that you allowed him to pick an overpowered race, but you have realized that it's not fair to the other players that they all have to be his sidekicks, so from this point forward you are housruling that his character gains no XP while his adjusted level is higher than everyone else - as soon as at least one other PC reaches the same level as the half-dragon's adjusted level (counting his +2 adjustment), then he can start earning XP again. That should solve all your worries; he'll only be overpowered from now until the rest catch up and then he'll stay even.