Which XP track to use?

[Mothman]

I’m after some advice on the most appropriate xp track to use when running 3.5 era modules or Aps using Pathfinder rules.

Specifically I am running the Age of Worms AP and (separately) the Falcon’s Hollow series of modules (Hollow’s Last Hope, Crown of the Kobold King, etc.) linked as a short campaign. I am planning to run things fairly close to as written, but converted to Pathfinder.

To keep things fairly on track, so that the PCs level roughly where expected, which Experience Track should I use?

To forestall suggestions that I forget xp rewards and just have the party level when they need to, I appreciate the various benefits of doing so, but prefer to hand out xp awards.

[Dox of the ParaDox twins]

Most pathfinder APs are built for the medium (or whatever it's called) track and when I still used EXP I used that track

[Mothman]

I know all the PFRPG AP’s are designed with the medium track in mind; I vaguely recall that the Fast track best corresponds to the 3.5 XP table, but I’m not sure if I have that right.

[Lady-J]

when we use exp we usually use fast or medium

[Dox of the ParaDox twins]

I seem to remember that too. I'd use fast for 3.5 stuff if I used EXP...yeah that sounds right

[Andre Roy]

Fast track best emulate 3.5XP gain, but it's only on par until level 7 then 3.5 skyrocket compare to PF.

[Jhaeman]

I can't speak to all APs, but I know Rise of the Runelords uses the Fast progression (perhaps because of it's 3.5 inheritance?).

[shadram]

Yeah, 3.5 is even faster than fast XP in Pathfinder. You'll either need to pad the adventures with side quests, or find other ways to hand out bonus XP. The Curse of the Crimson Throne, PF version, throws out bonus XP like candy to keep everything lined up, even with all the new content they added.

[Kileanna]

I've always liked not leveling up very quick, as I like to have long lived characters and play quite a long time them before I play a new character. So the lower I level up, the longer my characters remain playable xD

[Lady-J]

Kileanna wrote:

I've always liked not leveling up very quick, as I like to have long lived characters and play quite a long time them before I play a new character. So the lower I level up, the longer my characters remain playable xD

i'm the opposite i prefer fast leveling up, when i 1st started playing D&D it took us 8 months to level up from level 1 to level 2 and it was awful, now i cant stand it if we don't level up once in every 4 sessions or so

[Kileanna]

8 months is too much for me too.
I like going through the first 5 levels a bit more quickly to get some of the bases of my character running, but after that I don't care of the leveling slows a bit.
A bit. Not 8 months, though.

[walter mcwilliams]

I've run Age of Worms twice (3.5 and PF) and using the medium XP track worked fine. I've been running Serpent Skull for a year now and I started and continue to use the slow track and it has worked great.

[Ierox]

In short: If you run an AP written for 3rd edition using the Pathfinder Fast XP track, you will level up almost exactly as the AP assumes.

This does assume that the CR of the opposition is unchanged, which is not always the case. For example, all class PF NPCs have a CR chopped off of them relative to 3.5e, and NPC classes are CR=lvl-2 as opposed to CR=Lvl/2. There's a big difference between fighting a CR 10 kobold adept 20 and a CR 18 kobold adept 20, no?

Dragons have also been up-CR'ed.

---------------------

I'll do some stats here:

Assuming a party of 4 people always fight encounters of ECL=APL, you need to fight this many encounters to level up to the next level:

Level:3.5e xp worth/pathfinder xp worth/3.5e/Fast/Med/Slow
1:300/400/13.3_/13/20/30
2:600/600/13.3_/13.3_/20/30
3:900/800/13.3_/13.5/20/32.5
4:1200/1200/13.3_/13.3_/20/30
5:1500/1600/13.3_/12.5/20/30
6:1800/2400/13.3_/13.3_/20/30
7:2100/3200/13.3_/13.75/20/30
8:2400/4800/13.3_/13.3_/-/-
9:2700/6400/13.3_/13.125/-/-
10:3000/9600/13.3_/14.16_/-/-
11:3300/12800/13.3_/12.5/-/-
12:3600/19200/13.3_/13.54./-/-
13:3900/25600/13.3_/13.28./-/-
14:4200/38400/13.3_/13.54./-/-
15:4500/51200/13.3_/13.67./-/-
16:4800/76800/13.3_/13.02./-/-
17:5100/102400/13.3_/13.67./-/-
18:5400/153600/13.3_/13.02./-/-
19:5700/204800/13.3_/13.67./-/-

In conclusion: 3.5e xp had a certain elegance to it. Pathfinder XP is a hatchet job in comparison.

But Fast xp does keep up with 3.5e, roughly speaking. It takes 13.3_ encounters under 3.5e experience to level up, and roughly the same number under pathfinder XP. It *should* hold up if you fight encounters of a higher level than APL - a +2 ECL increase is worth double XP in both systems.

And as you can probably surmise, I got bored and quit halfway through the slow and medium progressions. There's not a lot of variance there, anyway: You need roughly 30 encounters to level up on the slow progression, and 20 on the medium one.

[Devilkiller]

In a homebrew game I'd always go with Fast Track since everybody I play with has played Pathfinder many times before and doesn't need to savor each new level. That's probably most appropriate for a 3.5 AP too, but if you're in an AP you could also consider just leveling up when appropriate since the encounters and progression are pretty much predetermined.

[Mothman]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[Dox of the ParaDox twins]

May I ask why just leveling without EXP doesn't appeal to you?

[Jhaeman]

Dox of the ParaDox twins wrote:

May I ask why just leveling without EXP doesn't appeal to you?

Let's not get into that whole debate. The OP is happy.

[Dastis]

How about you just use the 3.5 xp rules so you don't need any conversion factor. Xp only affects level gain after all so its numbers being different really have no effect so long as everything is on the same scale