How do you personally conceptualize “experience points?” How do you translate those boring numbers into something meaningful for your character? And no fair calling "I just use the milestone system." You still learned spells by stabbing goblins. How do you justify that in your own head canon?
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People get better at things as they do more things. That's good enough for me.
Pathfinder, like its predecessors, has a built-in conceit that player characters can become extremely skilled in a very short amount of time. Since it's part and parcel of the system, we've already pretty much come to terms with how silly it is before we ever sit down with our character sheets. There are other games where advancement is more realistic in pace, and there are other games where advancement follows your actual practices or areas of study (i.e., you get better at chess by either playing more chess or studying the classic games, not by killing goblins). Pathfinder doesn't care about that, and that's okay.
I should read the comic first! : D
In that specific case, the difference between a priest who can raise the dead and one who cannot is the difference between a priest who has demonstrated sufficient devotion to their god/ideal to perform greater miracles and one who has yet to demonstrate said devotion. Admittedly, it's easier to visualize this for priests since they literally commune with their deities each day and ask them for their powers. A sorcerer may accidentally activate a magical talent they didn't know they had (see any number of "chosen one" fictional works where the protagonist accidentally lobs a fireball or something). A wizard is constantly studying magical theory, so a level represents the culmination of that study. A barbarian just gets unstoppabler and unstoppabler, and so on.
Every so often, I miss the old "you have to train to level" mechanic, and this is one of those times. It's more trouble than it's worth in the end, but it provides more association for the leveling mechanic.
What blahpers said. XP is pretty abstract in Pathfinder. You could make it so you get xp in each different skill but then you would have to keep track of like 20+ different kinds of xp.
Conceptually I think of Levels/XP as a measure of how much 'destiny/fate/significance" a character has. By overcoming challenges and accomplishing great deeds, the character becomes more significant to the universe which entail both having greater skills and being harder to kill (more HP.)
This also justifies having NPCs that are higher level then their kill count could account for. A king might have a higher level even though they have never personally gone out adventuring because through an accident of birth they are automatically significant to the universe.
Really though, this doesn't change anything about running a game or how it is played, it just translates the mechanics into flavor that makes sense to me.
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I don't. for me XP has no place in game. it is a pure mechanical construct. My character does stuff and gets better at that stuff, and learns other stuff - it's just living life.
My characters don't 'level' in world either. In character you just slowly get better at things, it's only the need to divide it into meaningful chunks to make it a playable game that gives you mechanical levels.
Maybe that's just me :)
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This is an area where videogames like quest for glory and rage of mages (I know, very old games but they were the 1st ones to come to mind), get it right and you improve skills directly by doing said skill instead of having an all encompassing leveling system.
XP is what it stands for, experience. In game you might have visited the local goblin warren, smashed a bunch of heads, leveled and then gained some seemly completely unrelated skills and abilities. The thing is, the character experienced a lot more then just smashing some heads. Maybe on your travel you discovered a new breed of plant and that's the "real" reason your knowledge nature skill went up. Maybe you're a bard and had the opportunity to learn a new folk song a local was singing that had an unusual vocal technique and so your perform: sing skill went up.
IMO experience points represent milestones to a whole host of experiences, some of which are important to your character but would be trivial and/or boring at the game table. The parts that are exciting for players are not necessarily the most educational experiences for the characters. This translates somewhat IRL. I took typing in highschool and it's a skill I benefit from on a regular basis. But my typing class wasn't a highlight of my HS experience. In an RPG I would of gained skill in typing even though the particulars of my class weren't played out because it would of been incredibly dull to do so.
Experience is quite literally its exact definition. You get it by doing things. Venturing out of your comfort zone is experience. Doing things you haven't done before, and so on. That's why MMOs and most RPGs that let you craft things let you level up quickly in the beginning: you chop down your first tree. Congrats! You're a level 2 Lumberjack now. But then, diminishing returns start to set in. Now it takes three trees, and then ten. you technically still get experience from chopping trees, as you get stronger muscles, develop techniques, and encounter slightly different situations, but at its core, you're still doing the same thing over and over again. The same thing happens here: at some point, killing the same group of Goblins over and over again yields less experience, as by now you know how to kill Goblins. You need to step up to bigger challenges, such as Hobgoblins or Bugbears. New enemies, new techniques, new experiences.
In the end, it's just a necessary abstraction. Technically, dealing with traps is also experience. How dodging a spear trap or surviving a fireball trap makes you better at swinging your sword, I don't know. But that's the point. It's an abstraction. You've dealt with your environment, and that should be rewarded. A level 1 Expert might become a level 2 Expert by sheer repetition, grinding out those diminishing returns, but they don't have to deal with anything else. Surviving a bandit attack might elevate him to a level 3 Expert, as that's something he hasn't done before, and surviving, if not succeeding. Because players keep doing new things, they keep earning new (and more) experiences. Being level 6 and killing a CR 1 creature technically still earns you experience, even if you didn't exert yourself much, because you still did learn from it (or at least had to put some effort into it). Again, how surviving an attack allows you to learn higher-level magic, or learn things without knowing you could do those things, is just an abstraction. I mean, say you level up from killing a Goblin. I get how surviving a fight might make you tougher (more HP), but if I put one skill rank in Linguistics, how does killing a Goblin suddenly enable me to speak Elven?
I like Dave Justus's idea of "significance." I might tweak it a little bit, though. You often see how NPCs of higher level are more famous than lower-level NPCs. that's not just because of fame, but they caused things to happen. That also explains Story XP. Usually, story XP is awarded when a piece of plot is revealed or if the PCs did something significant. That's the world bending around the PCs' presence. Them just being there, doing their thing, caused a visible change/shift in the world. Those shifts are basically XP: the universe acknowledging their actions. By wiping out that Goblin village, you've become a power player in the immediate area. People don't refer to you anymore as "the people from that village," but as "the Goblin-Slayers of Mudholeville." Higher status doesn't necessarily equate to more XP, but you can see the correlation here. Because you did things, people notice your existence. People start interfering with your lives, whether you want to or not. That also explains why trouble keeps befalling adventuring parties. Yes, it's an easy way to keep the adventure going, but by becoming more and more famous, you start to attract the attention of other interested parties. To me, the best adventuring hooks are always those were adventure happens to the party, not the other way around. Or, more accurately, where players don't feel in control of the situation. "We go kick that person's ass because we're told to do so" is much less interesting than "we have a personal stake in kicking that person's ass." You just came back from murderising a Goblin village, and for some reason, the local crime lord thought it was a good idea to piss you guys off by stealing your loot. And while you're in his hideout, you stumble upon a plot to assassinate the King. Now you feel obligated to tell someone about it, and a new adventure starts!
Conceptually I think of Levels/XP as a measure of how much 'destiny/fate/significance" a character has. By overcoming challenges and accomplishing great deeds, the character becomes more significant to the universe which entail both having greater skills and being harder to kill (more HP.)
This also justifies having NPCs that are higher level then their kill count could account for. A king might have a higher level even though they have never personally gone out adventuring because through an accident of birth they are automatically significant to the universe.
Really though, this doesn't change anything about running a game or how it is played, it just translates the mechanics into flavor that makes sense to me.
That's not bad at all! It's pretty much how mythic tiers are assumed to work, just on a larger scale--do mythic things, become more awesome.
has anyone ever played where levels come to you piece by piece, bit by bit? meaning, you murder some gobbos, and instead of gaining a level wholesale, you instead gain just your skill points. Kill some more gobbos (poor gobbos!) and you unlock a class feature, then comes your new HP, etc.?
When I first saw the word Gestalt, I pictured this kind of advancement. Turns out its something completely different.
has anyone ever played where levels come to you piece by piece, bit by bit? meaning, you murder some gobbos, and instead of gaining a level wholesale, you instead gain just your skill points. Kill some more gobbos (poor gobbos!) and you unlock a class feature, then comes your new HP, etc.?
When I first saw the word Gestalt, I pictured this kind of advancement. Turns out its something completely different.
The Step System (Sean K. Reynolds)
It's easily melded with the XP system by staging each step at the 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 marks of the XP required to advance from level N to level (N + 1).
Cool. Ever given it a go?
Nope, I haven't given it a go just yet. Among other reasons, we use Hero Lab, and the thought of hacking together the data files required to make it work frightens and confuses me.
Since I found out about it on these boards, somebody here's probably tried it out.
RAW you can play piano every day of your life. You can play it day and night. But you won't get even a little bit better at it, until you kill something.
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RAW you can play piano every day of your life. You can play it day and night. But you won't get even a little bit better at it, until you kill something.
Kill something, or bypass a trap or other obstacle, or get through a meaningful roleplaying encounter, or conclude a major storyline, or otherwise make an important accomplishment. RAW:
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game characters advance in level by defeating monsters, overcoming challenges, and completing adventures—in so doing, they earn experience points (XP for short). Although you can award experience points as soon as a challenge is overcome, this can quickly disrupt the flow of game play. It's easier to simply award experience points at the end of a game session—that way, if a character earns enough XP to gain a level, he won't disrupt the game while he levels up his character. He can instead take the time between game sessions to do that.
Keep a list of the CRs of all the monsters, traps, obstacles, and roleplaying encounters the PCs overcome. At the end of each session, award XP to each PC that participated. Each monster, trap, and obstacle awards a set amount of XP, as determined by its CR, regardless of the level of the party in relation to the challenge, although you should never bother awarding XP for challenges that have a CR of 10 or more lower than the APL. Pure roleplaying encounters generally have a CR equal to the average level of the party (although particularly easy or difficult roleplaying encounters might be one higher or lower). There are two methods for awarding XP. While one is more exact, it requires a calculator for ease of use. The other is slightly more abstract.
Exact XP: Once the game session is over, take your list of defeated CR numbers and look up the value of each CR on Table: Experience Point Awards under the "Total XP" column. Add up the XP values for each CR and then divide this total by the number of characters—each character earns an amount of XP equal to this number.
Abstract XP: Simply add up the individual XP awards listed for a group of the appropriate size. In this case, the division is done for you—you need only total up all the awards to determine how many XP to award to each PC.
Story Awards: Feel free to award Story Awards when players conclude a major storyline or make an important accomplishment. These awards should be worth double the amount of experience points for a CR equal to the APL. Particularly long or difficult story arcs might award even more, at your discretion as GM.
Yup. It's all relative. Lots of NPCs who hav never adventured have many class levels; it's assumed they gained experience by overcoming challenges relative to their lives, such as "I composed a masterpiece and played it for the Empress, earning a standing ovation", "I finally learned how to cool that weird Qadiran glass without it getting all bubbly", or "I finally saved up enough to build a cottage in the hinterlands". Adventurers are adventurers--they earn experience doing things relative to their circumstances.
I'll tailor it to the character, but my start point is to assume that the character has theoretical knowledge and training to execute 20th level effects but lacks the ability to pull it off.
Your 8th level cleric can go through the motions of casting the raise dead spell, but nothing happens at the end. Maybe they didn't get it exactly right, or their god doesn't trust them with that kind of power yet, but it doesn't work.
If a player roleplays their advancement somehow, then I usually let them slack on other prerequisites since they fulfilled them in an unnecessary way in game.
If a player roleplays their advancement somehow, then I usually let them slack on other prerequisites since they fulfilled them in an unnecessary way in game.
I'm doing the whole sucked-through-a-dimensional-portal thing for a paladin PC at the moment. She's come from a non-magical world, and is learning how to lay on hands. I'm having a blast making her healing juju stick to her hands. It's like Venkman trying to shake off ectoplasm in the first Ghostbusters. :D
I don't. XP is a metagame concept just like levels are.
This is why I tend to like the xianxia genre- it has a built trope of power levels gained through 'cultivation'. It works with the idea that, through a mix of slow accumulation and ephiphanies gained through real experience, you can progress to a higher power level. As such, you can write it off as "the intensity of that battle allowed him to gain a deeper understanding of the sword".
Honestly, a lot of the xianxia genre fits well into the D&D experience- the archetypal plot progression is "start off weak, get some special power and build that up, get in a fight with an evil noble, defeat and rob the noble of loot, and then deal with the noble's father that wants revenge (then lather, rinse, repeat the loot/bigger boss cycle)". Occasionally add in some dungeons that belonged to previous high level characters as a backdrop. A lot of works in the genre are basically single player murder hobo games, most of the time.
Heh, you've just described why I don't like that sort of thing. Takes all types!