From what has been said in the Oblivion Oath Thread it appears that Paizo has kept the way experience worked in the playtest for second edition. I.e. It takes 800 exp to level up, regardless of what level you are.
My concern is, how do I make this work for a mixed level party. For instance, the other night we had a party at the table of two 9th level PCs, three 8th, and one 7th. This happens because if someone misses a night, their PC doesn't get exp for that session, or if you die and roll up a new PC, they start at the minimum exp for the lowest level in the party.
Right now, doing exp at the end of the night is easy. I add up the exp for all the monsters they killed or other rewards, and then divide by the number of characters present. It's easy, that 2000 exp at the end of the night is worth a lot more for the 7th level PCs than it is for the 9th, since they need less to level up.
If the exp is based not on the Monster's level, but on the Party's this can become unworkable fast. For the level 9 PCs, each fight was worth 50 exp, because they were a level 9 equivalent fight, but for the level 7 PCs I have to recalculate because at level 9 encounter is worth a total of 300 at APL 7 instead of APL 9. Also how do I calculate the APL for a party like this? I know that exp numbers became comically huge in P1 by the low teens but having the monster be worth X exp regardless if you were level 1 or level 10 makes my job easier as a DM, especially at the end of a 6 hour gaming session.
It also makes encounter design more difficult. In P1 a CR 5 enounter is worth 1600 exp, so I just keep adding monsters until I have a 1600 and that should be about right. One CR5 monster, or two CR 3s or three CR2 or 4 CR 1s. Now I have to keep going back to another table that ells me how to calculate the level of the encounter depending on the level of each individual monster then compare it to the level for each individual PC level.
|
| 18 people marked this as a favorite. |
My concern is, how do I make this work for a mixed level party. For instance, the other night we had a party at the table of two 9th level PCs, three 8th, and one 7th. This happens because if someone misses a night, their PC doesn't get exp for that session, or if you die and roll up a new PC, they start at the minimum exp for the lowest level in the party.
In PF2 you should never, under any circumstances play with a mixed level party. Level matters vastly more than it did in PF1...and frankly, even in PF1 this was generally a bad choice.
The disparity in power level between PCs, and perhaps more importantly between each PC and their opposition, makes the game kind of fall apart (ie: a 6th level PC and an 9th level one interact so differently with, say, an 8th level enemy that they're basically not even playing in the same game any more). The range of levels you can have adversaries of in PF2 is very narrow, and having more than a single level between PCs breaks it completely, while even a single level damages it quite a bit.
Also, if you ignore the above and choose to do this, you can easily just, say, give people double XP until they hit the same level as the highest level people. That's quick, easy, and makes this problem last a shorter time.
Also, if you ignore the above and choose to do this, you can easily just, say, give people double XP until they hit the same level as the highest level people. That's quick, easy, and makes this problem last a shorter time.
I do this since i let players create a new character at (lowest player level - 1)... Weirdly enough it made people hate being the highest leveled char since they get no extra exp.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not sure I've seen a mixed level party since AD&D.
I'm not sure I've seen a mixed level party since AD&D.
1st or 2nd edition?
;p
In PF2 you should never, under any circumstances play with a mixed level party. Level matters vastly more than it did in PF1...and frankly, even in PF1 this was generally a bad choice.
The disparity in power level between PCs, and perhaps more importantly between each PC and their opposition, makes the game kind of fall apart (ie: a 6th level PC and an 9th level one interact so differently with, say, an 8th level enemy that they're basically not even playing in the same game any more). The range of levels you can have adversaries of in PF2 is very narrow, and having more than a single level between PCs breaks it completely, while even a single level damages it quite a bit.
Also, if you ignore the above and choose to do this, you can easily just, say, give people double XP until they hit the same level as the highest level people. That's quick, easy, and makes this problem last a shorter time.
Obviously I would prefer to have every one at the same spot, but not everyone can make every session. Again, I don't really understand why they moved away from "X monster is worth Y exp" and moved to a much more complicated "calculate the party level, then calculate the level of the encounter, THEN decide how much exp it's worth for the median PC level, but you have to adjust that for anyone who is ahead or behind." While every other decision for P2 seems to make the math easier, this decision seems to make it more complicated.
The way this is set up, why even have exp at all? Why not just write into the rules "you level up when the GM tells you." Right? That's in essence what they're doing.
Our group rotates GMs, and one PC may play under multiple GMs or even move from one Adventure to a different one (say b/c I'm starting an adventure for 5th level PCs and you already have a level 5 PC that isn't currently in an adventure).
How are they going to handle Society play, where you are pretty much guaranteed that no two PCs will be at the same spot for advancement short of starting at level 1 with brand new characters?
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The way this is set up, why even have exp at all? Why not just write into the rules "you level up when the GM tells you." Right? That's in essence what they're doing.
Our group rotates GMs, and one PC may play under multiple GMs or even move from one Adventure to a different one (say b/c I'm starting an adventure for 5th level PCs and you already have a level 5 PC that isn't currently in an adventure).
How are they going to handle Society play, where you are pretty much guaranteed that no two PCs will be at the same spot for advancement short of starting at level 1 with brand new characters?
These are not problems. It’s what society play already does and it works just fine.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
These are not problems. It’s what society play already does and it works just fine.The way this is set up, why even have exp at all? Why not just write into the rules "you level up when the GM tells you." Right? That's in essence what they're doing.
Our group rotates GMs, and one PC may play under multiple GMs or even move from one Adventure to a different one (say b/c I'm starting an adventure for 5th level PCs and you already have a level 5 PC that isn't currently in an adventure).
How are they going to handle Society play, where you are pretty much guaranteed that no two PCs will be at the same spot for advancement short of starting at level 1 with brand new characters?
He's right tho. DMW said PF2 is not designed for parties who aren't same level, but in PFS you usually need some leeway in level range so that groups can even form. This is something they'll have to handle for PFS2 in some way.
You can still distribute XP on mixed parties tho and the rules are very clear for it. Encounter go up in difficulty for them and award more XP from the POV of a lower level char. Each person's XP is technically calculated individually.
|
| 15 people marked this as a favorite. |
> motivate people by having them miss XP if they can't play
> play a game where balance is important and levels determine balance
Choose one.
Your best bet is to find a different method of ensuring that people turn up, because this one was hardly compatible with PF1 and doesn't work at all with PF1.
And as to why keep XP? Psychology of reward meets tradition.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
The way this is set up, why even have exp at all? Why not just write into the rules "you level up when the GM tells you." Right? That's in essence what they're doing.
Our group rotates GMs, and one PC may play under multiple GMs or even move from one Adventure to a different one (say b/c I'm starting an adventure for 5th level PCs and you already have a level 5 PC that isn't currently in an adventure).
How are they going to handle Society play, where you are pretty much guaranteed that no two PCs will be at the same spot for advancement short of starting at level 1 with brand new characters?
You're describing milestones. AFAIK using milestones you do not calculate xps: the whole party levels up when the GM says so, according to objectives reached, time passed and the group's preferences.
If you've ever run an AP you'll remember in the first page you're told at what level the party should be in various chapters of each adventure. This method allows you to just level them accordingly without calculating xps.
Again, AFAIK, it's one of the methods to dole out experience that made the cut.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
1) use milestones.
2) the way xp works in the playtest, full ruling, is that you take monsters' level difference relative to the party's average level and then assign the xp, but grant only half to those above average and double to those below average.
So the problem doesn't really show up.
3) use milestones anyway.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Obviously I would prefer to have every one at the same spot, but not everyone can make every session.
So have someone else run their character when the player isn't there?
This will hopefully be easier in PF2 than it was in PF1.Or do you find an excuse to have the character go off somewhere else and do something else? If so, that 'something else' could give them some XP.
Again, I don't really understand why they moved away from "X monster is worth Y exp" and moved to a much more complicated "calculate the party level, then calculate the level of the encounter, THEN decide how much exp it's worth for the median PC level, but you have to adjust that for anyone who is ahead or behind." While every other decision for P2 seems to make the math easier, this decision seems to make it more complicated.
It's not particularly complicated if everyone in the party is the same level.
Why not just write into the rules "you level up when the GM tells you." Right? That's in essence what they're doing.
I'm expecting that to exist as an official option (instead of just a popular unofficial option). But GM's like to have guidelines to work from.
That xp method follows very closely (if in a roundabout way) the 3.0/3.5 xp systems, with relative level being a thing and CR calculation being 2xCR(n)=CR(n+2). Not sure why they went that way exactly.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The way this is set up, why even have exp at all? Why not just write into the rules "you level up when the GM tells you." Right? That's in essence what they're doing.
As a guide, not everyone is absolutely sure of the best time to let their PCs level, especially new GMs.
I use EXP as nothing more than a framework. "Well the PCs did this, and this, and that, so when they finally get through with this they should probably level."
More bluntly, leveling is a mechanic, putting no rules for a main mechanic in your rulebook and just saying "yeah just do it whenever" is... not a good look.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
From what has been said in the Oblivion Oath Thread it appears that Paizo has kept the way experience worked in the playtest for second edition. I.e. It takes 800 exp to level up, regardless of what level you are.
My concern is, how do I make this work for a mixed level party. For instance, the other night we had a party at the table of two 9th level PCs, three 8th, and one 7th. This happens because if someone misses a night, their PC doesn't get exp for that session, or if you die and roll up a new PC, they start at the minimum exp for the lowest level in the party.
Right now, doing exp at the end of the night is easy. I add up the exp for all the monsters they killed or other rewards, and then divide by the number of characters present. It's easy, that 2000 exp at the end of the night is worth a lot more for the 7th level PCs than it is for the 9th, since they need less to level up.
If the exp is based not on the Monster's level, but on the Party's this can become unworkable fast. For the level 9 PCs, each fight was worth 50 exp, because they were a level 9 equivalent fight, but for the level 7 PCs I have to recalculate because at level 9 encounter is worth a total of 300 at APL 7 instead of APL 9. Also how do I calculate the APL for a party like this? I know that exp numbers became comically huge in P1 by the low teens but having the monster be worth X exp regardless if you were level 1 or level 10 makes my job easier as a DM, especially at the end of a 6 hour gaming session.
It also makes encounter design more difficult. In P1 a CR 5 enounter is worth 1600 exp, so I just keep adding monsters until I have a 1600 and that should be about right. One CR5 monster, or two CR 3s or three CR2 or 4 CR 1s. Now I have to keep going back to another table that ells me how to calculate the level of the encounter depending on the level of each individual monster then compare it to the level for each individual PC level.
Much simpler to award everyone the same XP but lower level characters need less XP to go up a level. So 1000 for your middle characters, 800 or 900 say for the lower level characters and 1100 or 1200 say for the higher level characters. (800 is for fast progression in Oblivion oath)
Not quite so simple. How about when some of the party level up, those who don't get their target reduced. You only need to work it out when someone levels, not every XP award
It does seem like society play is going to have to have the window of character level limited so that the party can only vary by one or two levels, or it is going to become very lethal to those players too far behind. Probably it would be easiest to recommend players show up with more than one character and for there to be rules for helping characters level up on the fly due to off screen adventures to keep things more equal. Maybe society play is not the best place for the games traditional xp system and they will come up with something else specifically for it.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Not quite so simple. How about when some of the party level up, those who don't get their target reduced. You only need to work it out when someone levels, not every XP award
If you're suggesting the same task could have different DCs for different people, I'l warn you that kind of topic led to more thread closures in the playtest than paladin alignment could have ever done.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I didn't think I had suggested that, but I haven't spent time thinking it all through.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Long ago my gaming group came to terms with the fact that we're adults and that means life often gets in the way of gaming. You have children, you get sick, work interferes, etc. But this is no reason to punish people.
We got rid of XP, and transitioned to a "level by plot" method and it works much better. No more keeping track of experience points which barely mattered (experience points only mattered to tell you when you level). Besides which, all of the more recently written APs tell you that players should be X level at certain points in the story, which makes leveling by plot very easy.
They've pretty much just kept XP as a matter of tradition, because too many people would be upset if we told them to rip it out.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Nah, they have XP because they tell GMs who don't know when people should level when to make them level.
It's fine and it should be in it. There's no "tradition", there's a need for a guideline.
That doesn't mean more experienced GMs should stubbornly insist on waiting until people chase down that last goblin before proceeding with the story.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think that "target" was XP needed to level, not DC.Not quite so simple. How about when some of the party level up, those who don't get their target reduced. You only need to work it out when someone levels, not every XP awardIf you're suggesting the same task could have different DCs for different people, I'l warn you that kind of topic led to more thread closures in the playtest than paladin alignment could have ever done.
Yes, I meant reduce the 1000 XP needed to level
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Level by milestone is the way to go and I will definitely be using it for Age of Ashes. While not only being easier to use, it helps to discourage the "kill everything to get maximum XP" mindset some players fall into.
| 17 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am not a fan of withholding XP from players that are unable to attend a game session. Usually people play this game for fun, and if they cancel on a session, the normally don't do it because they don't care, but because something, like real life, interferes and other responsibilites keep them from attending. Not awarding XP to the character of a player forced to miss a session for whatever reason feels to me like doubling down on punishment. Not only do they miss the fun of the game, they're also penalized by having their character lag behind. I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of that, and I don't like it as a GM.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
- Just give absent people experience. Playing a game with friends is its own reward, and if that isn’t enough motivation, their reason for being absent is good enough.
- Give bonus experience to catch up.
- Just translate the punishment to something simpler. Miss a session? Level up one session later than everyone else.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Agree with Zaister et al. - I can't think of any industry professional who ever expressed their intense approval of docking xps for the players who couldn't make it.
More importantly for me, it strikes me as wrong. If the player isn't coming because they just don't feel like, refusing to award xps to their character won't solve anything - the group needs to talk, player to player and gm to player, and find out why this person is not attending the game more regularly. Could be that RL intruded and they simply didn't convey that meaning well enough, could be something in the game, or someone in the group, is bothering them, and since the objective is "as much fun as possible for everyone at the table", these things should be taken into account in the social contract right from the start and also periodically if there are signs of unease or boredom among the players.
If the player would actually like to game but just can't I don't see the fairness of docking xps. It might be argued as more realistic, but that's a fallacy since xps are a huge abstraction and your character wouldn't actually become more skilled and tougher all at once after enough successful challenges - sounds total bogus to me. We use leveling up as a mechanic because it plays well, it's fast, fun and satisfying - it's not a matter of emulating anything, it's pure gamism, not simulationism (unless a character in a story would actually gain more and more powers at discrete points in the narrative, which is certainly a possibility, just, definitely not the default).
If the player just isn't that invested in the game, talk to them. You can't use a game mechanic to resolve a social problem. It can act as a palliative, but it will never amount to a true solution.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
PFS will always see mixed level tables, so there will be SOME form of guidance there, I'm certain.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Experience won't matter for PFS2 -- they've already announced their plans PFS2. 12 exp points per level. Regular scenarios are 4, quests are 1/quest, Sanctioned AP chapters are 12. Effectively the same as before, but everything multiplied by 4 to make quests work more simply with the system.
Level spreads will be a thing in PFS2 and will be more challenging to deal with, though. But that's a topic for a different thread, IMO.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
The way this is set up, why even have exp at all? Why not just write into the rules "you level up when the GM tells you." Right? That's in essence what they're doing.
The thing is that a lot of groups prefer using Exp, and Exp is better than Milestones for sandbox games. If you make the default Exp, then it's easy to just discard it outright for Milestones, but if you make Milestones the default, then your players have to reverse engineer an Exp system from scratch.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Plus for homebrews, even if you're going to use milestones it gives the GM a metric to judge roughly how much should be accomplished between milestones and they can design adventures with that in mind.The way this is set up, why even have exp at all? Why not just write into the rules "you level up when the GM tells you." Right? That's in essence what they're doing.The thing is that a lot of groups prefer using Exp, and Exp is better than Milestones for sandbox games. If you make the default Exp, then it's easy to just discard it outright for Milestones, but if you make Milestones the default, then your players have to reverse engineer an Exp system from scratch.
You know, as a GM I never once felt I needed XP to judge when my players should level up when I did any homebrew. I more had a story that I designed for the players, and had in mind what level they should be to take on that challenge. If that meant that the only had three encounters at level 9 and 16 encounters at level 10 so be it.
But I guess if you're really sandboxing it and don't have a story in mind it can be harder to decide how long to keep players at a level.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's not a penalty for not showing up, its a benefit for showing up. PC-A is present and is putting her self in harms way and using their resources to stay alive and defeat the foe of the evening. Player for PC-B is not there for one of a myriad of reasons. No one at the table begrudges him that, but that means his PC is not in harms way and is not using his resources to stay alive etc. PC-A is rewarded with Exp and treasure while PC-B is not.
We try to avoid playing someone's PC when they're not present because either A) you can die when you're not there, which is s#*~, OR B) My PC can die, but your's can't because you're not here. Again, it's not a penalty for missing, it's a benefit for showing up.
As some one mentioned up thread, it feels like you've earned something instead of just moving when the guy at the end of the table thinks it would be fun to get some new abilities.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's not a penalty for not showing up, its a benefit for showing up.
Six of one, half a dozen of another.
That said, if it works for your group, then you're doing it right, and don't let us convince you otherwise.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think ultimately, j b, the answer you are going to get isn't going to change much from "PF2e at its heart doesn't have great support for mixed level parties, and some house rules to smooth the experience are almost certainly going to be needed".
Which has basically been true since AD&D, but is much more true in 2e because of how much more level matters.
EDIT: Also... I don't have the playtest document in front of me, but "players who aren't there don't get XP" might actually technically be a house rule in the first place. I'm not sure anything in the playtest document talks about XP without assuming you are assigning it to the whole party.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
The issue with the 'no XP unless you show up' is that its a cascading penalty. Missing one or two nights and the player's character is now forever behind the others, thus his fun when he DOES show up becomes negatively impacted, making it far less likely he'll show up in the future. In general, just a bad practice.
It's not a penalty for not showing up, its a benefit for showing up. PC-A is present and is putting her self in harms way and using their resources to stay alive and defeat the foe of the evening. Player for PC-B is not there for one of a myriad of reasons. No one at the table begrudges him that, but that means his PC is not in harms way and is not using his resources to stay alive etc. PC-A is rewarded with Exp and treasure while PC-B is not.
We try to avoid playing someone's PC when they're not present because either A) you can die when you're not there, which is s~$~, OR B) My PC can die, but your's can't because you're not here. Again, it's not a penalty for missing, it's a benefit for showing up.
As some one mentioned up thread, it feels like you've earned something instead of just moving when the guy at the end of the table thinks it would be fun to get some new abilities.
That all sounds good to me. I'm wondering how long your group has been operating this way and what problems there have actually been?
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's not a penalty for not showing up, its a benefit for showing up.
Your reward for showing up is my punishment for not being able to make it.
Using up resources is a bad argument anyways, as unless you're using up magic items with charges you don't permanently lose the resources.
I feel your attitude is not very friendly within a gaming group, as though you're trying to compete with the other players. Playing itself, should be its own reward.
However, I feel I'm treading very close to calling badwrongfun so I'm going to stop and just say that I'm glad my gaming group does things they way we do, just as you seem to be happy with the way your group does your thing. Happy gaming.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean the penalty for not showing up is that you don't get to have a good time with friends. On the other hand, the benefit for showing up is that you do get to have a good time with friends.
I mean, I personally would just give people XP for missed sessions, maybe we can do some Play-by-Email thing to cover what they have been up to.
But since organized play literally is a set of houserules to begin with, I am sure they can figure something out.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really hate not awarding exp for not being able to show up. Gaming is something we do for fun, it's not a second profession. Losing out on level progression just feels really bad, especially when most of the time, you're missing out on your hobby because life threw a curveball at you.
Ive always kept my party at the same level, and it's not even that hard to justify why the absent player still got exp. Most characters DO have jobs, and, in second edition, just by character creation, EVERY pc has a background that justifies them being able to earn exp "off screen" doing other stuff. Hell, I take the opportunity to make the absence useful. Party alchemist cant attend the session? That just means they are crafting useful stuff for the party or developing a weapon to kill the big bad? Fighter's player got called into work? Well there's plenty of people who'd love to learn a thing or two about the art of war from a hero.
Denying people exp doesnt help anyone, and it just feels like doubling down the punishment wgat life happens to people
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think ultimately, j b, the answer you are going to get isn't going to change much from "PF2e at its heart doesn't have great support for mixed level parties, and some house rules to smooth the experience are almost certainly going to be needed".
Which has basically been true since AD&D, but is much more true in 2e because of how much more level matters.
EDIT: Also... I don't have the playtest document in front of me, but "players who aren't there don't get XP" might actually technically be a house rule in the first place. I'm not sure anything in the playtest document talks about XP without assuming you are assigning it to the whole party.
This has been a problem since forever. One way we can help is by realizing that taking the arithmetic mean of the level to determine "Average Party Level" is a bad way to determine the power of a mixed group. This has been true in other editions as well, and it's strange that it's always been the suggestion to use that calculation on the PC side whereas it's clear the math doesn't work that way from the opposition side: Seriously, consider using APL for a PF1 encounter. I have a fight with 1 CR 17 monster and 3 CR 1 monsters, APL 5, and there's 4 of them so a total CR for the encounter of...9. Yeah that's clearly a completely inaccurate measure of the CR, so why do we use it for PCs? The fact that we use APL is the cause of a lot of drama when PFS tables have to decide whether an in-between group is playing the high or the low level content. In truth (though the data is noisy in PF1 because of the extreme disparities between characters of the same level) a team with two 9th level PCs and 4 5th level PCs (APL slightly above 6) is pretty different than a team of two 7th level PCs and 4 6th level PCs (same APL), though not as bad as when the level disparity is greater. Not that it's perfect either, but by monster rules, the first group is 19,200 XP in PF1 if you beat them and the second group is worth 16,000, so it's 20% weaker by that measure despite being claimed equivalent by APL.
Anyway, the main point is, if you count the contributions of the lower and higher level characters correctly, the game can work out with a mixed group (and since negative HP are not an effective a lifeline to avoid death, one-shot dying for being underleveled and hit by a big AoE or something is way less likely) and provide encounters that are predictably effective against that mix-leveled group. But that's not to say it's super fun to always be the low level character in that mixed group, outshone by the others.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You could give all players the +level of the highest party member or Average. Experience would still be important for feats and class features. This would give some power to higher levels, but not have it break the core mechanics of the system.
Personally, though, I just do milestone and keep everyone at the same level.