Saturday 28 February 2015

New Way of Handling XP For My Campaign

  So, you can apparently learn more as an adventurer by picking up this...





  Than by doing this:


  When it comes to old-school D&D, I like the idea of treasure giving XP because it encourages the players to figure out ways to bring it back, which is always fun to watch and makes them think. The problem is that if one uses treasure as the main source of XP, it means monsters and combat in general aren't worth much. If your players don't meta-game (and mine don't) then they won't go for the nearest loot necessarily, but rather where the story and their own characterization naturally leads them. Sometimes that can mean sessions of dealing with NPCs and not going treasure hunting, especially if the adventure is happening in a city. They'll get into fights but won't get much of a chance to loot.
  I do give XP for good RP and accomplished goals per the Castles & Crusades guidelines, but that's as far as I allow my own bias to affect XP in my games and we're talking about fairly small amounts of XP anyway.
  So we've established that I like treasure as XP, but I don't want to punish my players because they're doing other stuff than looting old dangerous places all the time. Sure, I can give a gold value to an object to be retrieved or a mission to be done from a 'quest giver' if you will, but I want to encourage players to also do whatever they want beyond choosing from missions I thought of.
  While my players were stuck as gladiators, I switched the XP system to the one from Akratic Wizardry for the simple reason that they had all been captured by Drow and until they escaped all they could do would be fighting, so it seemed unfair to keep the normal XP rules during those games. That alternative XP system is mostly about XP for combat. It also seems like it would have been a better system for the campaign as it has been the last two sessions even after their escape from the gladiatorial arenas of the Underdark.
  I've decided that I'm gonna use both, but at half their value each to balance them out.
  A monster will be worth 50 XP per HD.
  2 GP will be worth 1 XP.
  From there I will also not have to worry about if I'm being fair or not in the amount of treasure or monsters they encounter along the way. Killing monsters is more dangerous but gives you the XP pretty much right away. Carrying treasure is easier if you have the resources to carry it, but if you lose it before you get to the next civilized area then you've lost all that XP. Now they'll both be worth equally as much.
  Mostly, I won't have to worry about feeling bad because the previous session didn't lead players into one huge treasure pile!
  The poor guys are STILL level 1...


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