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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: S'mon on August 24, 2018, 01:48:44 PM

Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 24, 2018, 01:48:44 PM
OK so I run Stonehell Dungeon as an open campaign with dozens of different players & PCs of different levels, in the Gygax/Arneson style. In this play style 5e D&D default XP seems to meet Gygax's suggestion of levels 1-9 (or 1-10 for 5e) in about a year of regular play; from starting in November and playing weekly the most frequently played PCs have just hit 8th.

However Gygax suggested advancement after Name Level (ca 9-11) should be much slower, 1-2 levels a year, whereas 5e deliberately speeds up advancement. I don't think it will work well if some PCs hit 11 and suddenly shoot ahead, so I was thinking about how best to slow them down. Halving XP awards for 11+ would help; 11-12 would go from 15,000 to 30,000. As compared to 10th to 11th needing 21,000; that seems a more natural progression anyway. Any other ideas?
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: Steven Mitchell on August 24, 2018, 02:33:31 PM
I've strongly considered being even more radical:  File a zero off of all experience point awards after 10th level is achieved.  Haven't made up my mind yet, because technically according to our group agreement, once most of the main characters hit 10th, we are starting a new campaign in the same world.  So there are other considerations (not relevant to your question) as to whether I want to even slow down advancement or not.  I might prefer to let it run fast and move onto something else, depending upon what the group wants.

My other strong option is the way I am leaning right now:  Rules stay the same, but there simply aren't that many threats above about CR 12, though plenty in the 10-12 range.  That makes it tough to do anything to get the experience to level very fast.  I like that option because it will be felt more strongly the higher they go.  Part of my interest in this is the effects I've seen from some of my mixed-level sessions at lower levels.  A bunch of characters 1st through 5th, the 5th level guys don't advance very fast, because they can't tangle with stuff that will let them do so, and keep the rest alive.  People have had fun anyway.

I should note that I am already awarding 1/10th experience for all wandering monsters, as an explicit encouragement for the players to focus on whatever goal they have set for themselves.  When the players are smart and dedicated, they level as fast as they would in any 5E game.  When they starting monkeying around, it slows down considerably.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: Chris24601 on August 24, 2018, 02:34:01 PM
Decouple from XP entirely. You level up whenever you overcome enough challenges sufficiently above your current abilities for the GM to rule that your abilities improve. It keeps the players hungry and willing to take bigger risks since pursuing "at-level" challenges will never actually level them up (there's little to learn by beating up more orcs once you can drop a dozen at a time without breaking a sweat).

Heck, I'd do this from the start. Simply surviving a nighttime goblin raid would be notable enough to get to level two. risking life and limb to enter their lair and wipe out their threat would get you to level three.

Most times I've been involved with 5e, the DMs generally race through levels 1-4 at about a level per session, then slow down to maybe a level every 4-5 sessions through about level 10, then more like 10+ sessions per level thereafter.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: Steven Mitchell on August 24, 2018, 02:36:34 PM
Also, my players that have the more powerful characters all have a second character.  When the lower-level characters are being played, the highest level ones simply aren't going on the quest.  That effectively halves the experience point gain for the high level guys right now, and it might be even more severe this year.  Not sure if that accomplishes what you want, but "not playing my high level guy" certainly slows advancement. :)
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 24, 2018, 02:46:47 PM
Quote from: Chris24601;1053933Decouple from XP entirely. You level up whenever you overcome enough challenges sufficiently above your current abilities for the GM to rule that your abilities improve.

Er...

...I'm not sure if you read my post. I have dozens of players, a few have more than one PC! No way am I tracking whether each PC has "overcome enough challenges sufficiently above current abilities" - other than by awarding XP for doing so.

I suppose I could technically only give XP for 'challenges sufficiently above current abilities' but the calculation would have to not be too complicated, and I wouldn't want to be doing individual calculations for every PC in a group.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 24, 2018, 02:50:54 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1053934Also, my players that have the more powerful characters all have a second character.  When the lower-level characters are being played, the highest level ones simply aren't going on the quest.  That effectively halves the experience point gain for the high level guys right now, and it might be even more severe this year.  Not sure if that accomplishes what you want, but "not playing my high level guy" certainly slows advancement. :)

Yes, some players choose to play new and lower level PCs, and I sometimes ask players to stay within about 4 levels, eg 1-4 or now 5-8.  I could require PCs above 10th level to only be played fortnightly, say, and keep the alternate fortnight for lower level PCs. Hmm. I could even alternate my whole Meetup, and ask GMs to alternate high and low level games.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: Chris24601 on August 24, 2018, 11:17:40 PM
Quote from: S'mon;1053936Er...

...I'm not sure if you read my post. I have dozens of players, a few have more than one PC! No way am I tracking whether each PC has "overcome enough challenges sufficiently above current abilities" - other than by awarding XP for doing so.

I suppose I could technically only give XP for 'challenges sufficiently above current abilities' but the calculation would have to not be too complicated, and I wouldn't want to be doing individual calculations for every PC in a group.
I read it. It's not hard or complicated at all.

Even for small groups I use notecards with name, class and level, alignment, AC, hit points and key passive skill values for initiative order and general bookkeeping. Whenever a PC does something I think might be worth a level during their turn (since I have their level right there on the card I know just by looking at the card if what they're attempting would be a challenge or not) then I put a check mark on the corner.

At the end of the session I look at the number of check marks on the cards. Anyone with as many check marks as their current level earns a new level (and a new card since at the very least their level and hit points will change). The rest go back into my folder until next session.

That's it. Just using the cards I already use for initiative lets me easily track it. I may not remember why I put a specific check on a PCs card (or even which specific PC it was given the situation you describe) by the end of the session, much less stuff from sessions ago, but I know I checked the card at the time for a reason and that's good enough.

It's far easier than rejiggering XP thresholds and/or awards and hoping the values come out right, but still allows individual tracking. There's also the even simpler approach for any system with a unified XP table for leveling of just saying "Okay, after achieving this as a group you're all level X now. See you next week."
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: Omega on August 25, 2018, 03:03:11 AM
Here we go again...

Actually the EXP curve for 5e is more or less the same as the average for AD&Ds EXP curve if you knocked a zero off AD&Ds EXPs. In comparison an AD&D Fighter actually levels to 10 faster than 5e classes do and the Thief warps along really fast.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 25, 2018, 07:50:08 AM
Quote from: Chris24601;1053989I read it. It's not hard or complicated at all.

Even for small groups I use notecards with name, class and level, alignment, AC, hit points and key passive skill values for initiative order and general bookkeeping. Whenever a PC does something I think might be worth a level during their turn (since I have their level right there on the card I know just by looking at the card if what they're attempting would be a challenge or not) then I put a check mark on the corner.

At the end of the session I look at the number of check marks on the cards. Anyone with as many check marks as their current level earns a new level (and a new card since at the very least their level and hit points will change). The rest go back into my folder until next session.

That's it. Just using the cards I already use for initiative lets me easily track it. I may not remember why I put a specific check on a PCs card (or even which specific PC it was given the situation you describe) by the end of the session, much less stuff from sessions ago, but I know I checked the card at the time for a reason and that's good enough.

It's far easier than rejiggering XP thresholds and/or awards and hoping the values come out right, but still allows individual tracking. There's also the even simpler approach for any system with a unified XP table for leveling of just saying "Okay, after achieving this as a group you're all level X now. See you next week."

OK, thanks. The idea of using an index card for each PC seems potentially viable, although I think the tick mark system won't work for me since some of the PCs are also played in other GMs' games in the shared campaign world - short of getting every GM to adopt a new system, we need to stick with XP, and the published XP table. But the way we award XP can and does vary, as long as we all give a very roughly similar amount overall.

Currently I use a note pad where I record each session on a page with the date, each PC present, and usually some details like their passive perception.

I'll have a think about not awarding high level PCs XP for below-level challenges, & awarding full XP for at-level stuff, which is close to how 3e D&D did it. Not sure if this will work in a mixed group. Maybe if low levellers get double XP awards for above-level stuff, again similar to 3e.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 25, 2018, 07:51:38 AM
Quote from: Omega;1054001Actually the EXP curve for 5e is more or less the same as the average for AD&Ds EXP curve if you knocked a zero off AD&Ds EXPs. In comparison an AD&D Fighter actually levels to 10 faster than 5e classes do and the Thief warps along really fast.

Yes it's very similar 5th to 10th, which seems deliberate. Obviously it's different after 10th. It's designed to accelerate advancement after 10th, rather than slow it down.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 25, 2018, 08:25:11 AM
I guess what I've seen in 5e using the XP table is:

Levels 1-3/4 advance very quick, for Stonehell I generally reduced XP awards so it took about 2 sessions to level 1-2 and 2-3 instead of 1 session, and about 5 sessions for 3-4.
Levels 4/5-10 is perfect. Generally PCs are taking about 5 sessions to level up, though it varies a lot depending on specific achievements - one cowardly level 5 PC group insisted on spending the session in a level 1 dungeon (Mrodnar's cellar) outside Stonehell, while another went down to dungeon level 9 & nearly TPK'd but got lots of XP.
Level 11+ advancement is faster than 5-10, especially the early bit ca 11-13. This has been ok in my previous 5e campaigns (I've GM'd up to 18-20 a couple different campaigns), but won't work so well in a megadungeon game with PCs of mixed level including some of 8-10 and some of 11-13.

For very high level PCs there are also issues around potentially out levelling the content. Stonehell has 10 dungeon levels and is designed for Labyrinth Lord PCs of levels 1-10. In 5e it probably best suits PCs of levels 3-16. After a year of play (I see the first online game PCs reached Stonehell September 2017, November 2017 for tabletop groups) PCs  have reached as deep as dungeon level 9. There is no big risk of running out of gameable content, but it's not really designed to cope with ultra high level PCs; I'd say dungeon level 10 is probably best suited to PCs in the 11th-14th range, maybe a bit higher.

So I guess my preference is about 5 sessions/level at 5-10 but more like 10 sessions/level at 11th+. Which would be about 50 sessions to go from 11th to 16th, something over a year of play - I think the most active PCs get in about 40 sessions a year.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: Omega on August 25, 2018, 08:12:08 PM
Quote from: S'mon;1054008Yes it's very similar 5th to 10th, which seems deliberate. Obviously it's different after 10th. It's designed to accelerate advancement after 10th, rather than slow it down.

Ive graphed it out and surprisingly, by comparison, 5e advancement is slower than most of AD&Ds core classes aside from the MU. And if it kept following the progression past level 20 then it would end up slower than even the MU.

Bemusingly 3e and especially 4e are even faster than 5e or even the AD&D Thief for levelling speed. 4e goes so fast it should create a time warp. Nearly 3x as fast as 5e. 3e levels about twice as fast.

Heres my old chart as I was curious just how fast 5e was in comparison.

(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/imagepagezoom/img/fRGubcFqhofVG2ytFNQs0QmvY5Q=/fit-in/1200x900/filters:no_upscale()/pic4279913.png)
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: TJS on August 25, 2018, 08:48:01 PM
Quote from: Omega;1054070Ive graphed it out and surprisingly, by comparison, 5e advancement is slower than most of AD&Ds core classes aside from the MU. And if it kept following the progression past level 20 then it would end up slower than even the MU.

Bemusingly 3e and especially 4e are even faster than 5e or even the AD&D Thief for levelling speed. 4e goes so fast it should create a time warp. Nearly 3x as fast as 5e. 3e levels about twice as fast.

4E was set up so you were always getting something.

However it did expand the old 20 levels into 30 - so that's probably worth bearing in mind.  1 level in other editions is more like 1.5 levels in 4E.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: Omega on August 25, 2018, 09:34:38 PM
I saw that and guessed it was the case. Its 1mil EXP to get to level 30. Not exactly sure how well though it equates to regular D&D levels though. Is a level 20 wizard on par with a 2e level 20 wizard or is the level 30 4e Wizard on par with the level 20?
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 26, 2018, 03:35:50 AM
Because 4e fights are so slow, if you use the rules as written it plays much slower than 3e. 4e is designed around 10 at-level encounters to level but in practice levelling after 10th level is about once per 5 4 hour sessions, or 20 hours of play, unless you add a lot of extra bonus XP. Whereas 3e is about twice that rate in terms of hours played.

I don't find 5e is slower than 1e but obviously it depends on how much XP is earned. 1e is dependent on gp for XP and has very low XP awards for low level monsters. 5e by RAW gives nearly all XP for defeating monsters and could be very slow if the PCs aren't constanty fighting. 5e is mostly slower than 3e, except at 1st & 2nd level.

If you want to estimate advancement rates you can't just look at amount of XP to level, you need to look at the rate at which it's earned. Different editions give different amounts for monsters and other activities, and have different amounts of time taken up by a fight encounter. 4e is much much slower than it appears if you don't take encounter duration into account.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 26, 2018, 03:40:13 AM
Quote from: Omega;1054076I saw that and guessed it was the case. Its 1mil EXP to get to level 30. Not exactly sure how well though it equates to regular D&D levels though. Is a level 20 wizard on par with a 2e level 20 wizard or is the level 30 4e Wizard on par with the level 20?

They're not really comparable, a 4e Wizard never gets the world-altering magics of a 2e Wizard. Certainly a 4e Wiz-30 is closer to a 2e Wiz-20. A 4e Wiz-30 might be fighting Orcus on his home plane. A 4e Wiz-20 can't hit Orcus. He might at most be fighting an avatar of Orcus. His adventures will be more like those of a 2e Wiz-10, he'll have been fighting eg fire giants and such high Paragon Tier monsters.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: TJS on August 26, 2018, 05:27:17 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1054089They're not really comparable, a 4e Wizard never gets the world-altering magics of a 2e Wizard. Certainly a 4e Wiz-30 is closer to a 2e Wiz-20. A 4e Wiz-30 might be fighting Orcus on his home plane. A 4e Wiz-20 can't hit Orcus. He might at most be fighting an avatar of Orcus. His adventures will be more like those of a 2e Wiz-10, he'll have been fighting eg fire giants and such high Paragon Tier monsters.
Yeah - really the only salient point of comparison is the kind of opponents they're expected to fight.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 26, 2018, 06:03:43 AM
Quote from: Omega;1054070Ive graphed it out and surprisingly, by comparison, 5e advancement is slower than most of AD&Ds core classes aside from the MU. And if it kept following the progression past level 20 then it would end up slower than even the MU.

Bemusingly 3e and especially 4e are even faster than 5e or even the AD&D Thief for levelling speed. 4e goes so fast it should create a time warp. Nearly 3x as fast as 5e. 3e levels about twice as fast.

Heres my old chart as I was curious just how fast 5e was in comparison.

(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/imagepagezoom/img/fRGubcFqhofVG2ytFNQs0QmvY5Q=/fit-in/1200x900/filters:no_upscale()/pic4279913.png)

Your table seems to use the actual 3e 4e & 5e XP amounts needed, without taking account the rate at which XP is earned.
Your table numbers for AD&D seem to bear no(?) relation to actual amounts of XP needed. Did you take a 0 off the end? eg the AD&D Thief needs 220,000 XP for 11th and 220,000 XP per level after 11th level. You table appears to show him needing 22000 for 11th.

Of 3e 4e and 5e, 4e plays slowest in terms of sessions to level due to long battles, but 5e is the edition where you generally need to do the most 'stuff' to level up. None are comparable to AD&D.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: Omega on August 26, 2018, 07:34:53 AM
I never said anything about the how of the EXP as this was just a comparison of the exp curves.

In O, B+ and AD&D you can level really darn fast depending on what sort of treasure and goodies you find on an adventure. Turning in that +3 sword instead of keeping it netted in AD&D 7000 exp via selling it. As Gronan oft pointed out. It was better to just bypass combat and go straight for the treasure by whatever means could be concocted. In BX though you did not get any EXP for magic items. Not sure about OD&D but probably no magic item EXP there either?

2e is where levelling slowed down as they removed (relegated to optional) the gp to exp part and far as I can tell at a glance seems no EXP for magic items either unless the PCs actually craft it? Doing a quick comparison, aside from one or two tweaks at certain levels for each class, 2e uses overall the same EXP progression as AD&D.

Interestingly O and BX classes exp progression was a little faster than A or 2e depending on the class.

So over time the ways to get EXP have shifted which can alter the speed of levelling up. Especially when combined with the way editions handle the progression. AD&D had the potential to allow for some rather fast levelling depending on treasure and wether or not the PCs sold off the item.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 26, 2018, 03:19:33 PM
Quote from: Omega;1054095AD&D had the potential to allow for some rather fast levelling depending on treasure and wether or not the PCs sold off the item.

Yeah, my experience running AD&D with RAW XP daily lunch times as a teenager was that PCs could level pretty fast.  With UA the PCs could chop through monsters & get lots of treasure, which then gave lots of XP and rapid advancement.

The main feature of OD&D - AD&D XP compared to 3e-4e-5e is that it is a U shaped progression rate, with the pit of slowest advancement around Name level, and then accelerating thereafter as the amount to level becomes a fixed (large) amount. PCs who played through the pit around 9th-12th found advancement speeding up again. Whereas 5e as written has slowest advancement before 11th and a sudden jump to fast advancement at 11th. Which is designed to work well with adventure path 'quest' play* but IMO is not so well suited to sandboxing.

*I ran a converted PF to 5e mashup of Rise of the Runelords/Shattered Star from 1st level to 18th, and the 5e XP table did indeed work well. 5e in general is well designed for running Paizo type adventures.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: mAcular Chaotic on August 26, 2018, 04:00:16 PM
I already run extremely slow level advancement compared to the internet at large, apparently.

We've been playing around 3 years and everyone is just hitting level 7.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 26, 2018, 04:12:06 PM
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1054136I already run extremely slow level advancement compared to the internet at large, apparently.

We've been playing around 3 years and everyone is just hitting level 7.

Yeah, I've seen PCs go from 1st to 20th (one PC*, in my Wilderlands sandbox campaign) and 18th (another two PCs, different campaign - Runelords of the Shattered Star (http://smonscurseofthecrimsonthrone.blogspot.com/)) in just a couple years of weekly play. As written** a PC can get 1st-10th in a year, and 11th-20th in another year.

*Hakeem Greywolf; I think it took him 120 or so online sessions, at about 3 hours a session. He was played a fair bit beyond that too, enough to get a couple Epic boons. By the end he was pretty much strangling gargantuan ancient black dragons bare-handed. :)

** I mean, using the XP tables as written. The official advice is that PCs should level every 2-3 sessions, which could get them to 20th in a year of weekly play. 3e said the same. IMO that's way too quick.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: Omega on August 26, 2018, 05:33:42 PM
Really depends on what the PCs and players are doing. If they are doing alot of stealth and avoidance or political intrigue plays then they might not garner as much EXP depending on whats going on in 5e. Though you are supposed to get EXP for non-com solutions too.

One of the big things of pre-3e D&D was that you got less or even no EXP if the encounter wasnt challenging in some way. A and 2e especially spelled it out that you go zero EXP for killing harmless animals, villagers, helpless foes, merchants, whatever.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: RPGPundit on August 29, 2018, 04:39:29 AM
The system when we designed it was set up so that the slowest advancement was meant to be at the sweet-spot mid-levels.

But it is pretty easy to change in order to slow it all down. Just give less XP.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: RPGPundit on August 29, 2018, 04:41:40 AM
The system when we designed it was set up so that the slowest advancement was meant to be at the sweet-spot mid-levels.

But it is pretty easy to change in order to slow it all down. Just give less XP.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 29, 2018, 07:11:02 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit;1054336The system when we designed it was set up so that the slowest advancement was meant to be at the sweet-spot mid-levels.

But it is pretty easy to change in order to slow it all down. Just give less XP.

Thanks - yes, I find the level 5-10 XP table works really well. Problem is when there are PCs of 5-10 and 11+ in the same party; the more powerful higher level PCs shoot ahead while the lower levels advance slower.

I think just having a rule (which I'll ask the other GMs in the shared campaign world to follow) that PCs of level 11+ get half XP ought to work for me. I understand why they don't want PCs feeling 'stuck' at 11-13 in an Adventure Path or 'epic quest' type campaign, and the table as written has worked well for me in the past with my two campaigns that went to very high level. But I think for running Stonehell Dungeon it will be better for PCs to spend plenty of time in the 11-15 range.

(a) Less risk of them out-levelling content.
(b) Lower level PCs can catch up with high levels.

It will likely be a good while before anyone reaches 11th level, but it will be good to be ready & have a rule in place.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: Steven Mitchell on August 29, 2018, 09:56:43 AM
S'mon, another thing I do that you might consider:  I award 20% bonus experience to anyone that is a lower-level than how I've rated the adventure.  Typically, with my groups, that means everyone but the highest level characters in the party for that particular session.  It sounds counter-intuitive for slowing down advancement, but remember this is in the context of also generally lowering the rates (only 10% XP for wandering monsters).  

The bonus 20% seems to have been a good number to smooth out radical level differences quickly, while not so much as to make the higher level characters feel cheated.  It tends to minimize level differences greater than 4, which is my preference.  (I've got a couple of very occasional players that don't follow this scheme.  They just get a character about 1 level below the max, as they play so rarely, they are more like guests than regulars.)
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on August 29, 2018, 12:39:27 PM
Thanks - yes I may well give lower level pcs a bit more than standard xp; indeed I already give a lot of non combat awards. Main thing I think is to have high levellers level slower than low level pcs in same group.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: RPGPundit on September 03, 2018, 04:32:53 AM
Well, while I don't tend to use it, there's certainly precedent in the idea of XP awarded being based on challenge. So if you have a mixed level party, characters of lower level can get a certain percentage modifier of higher XP representing the greater challenge, while the higher-level characters a percentage xp-reduction, to reflect the lower challenge.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on September 03, 2018, 06:56:50 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit;1054956Well, while I don't tend to use it, there's certainly precedent in the idea of XP awarded being based on challenge. So if you have a mixed level party, characters of lower level can get a certain percentage modifier of higher XP representing the greater challenge, while the higher-level characters a percentage xp-reduction, to reflect the lower challenge.

Yup, there's the OD&D formula of XP divided by character level/dungeon level, so 9th level PC on level 6 gets 2/3 XP. Or by monster hit dice so level 9 PC killing level 1 orcs gets 1/9 XP.

I think I could go with:
Paragon Tier PCs (11+) in Heroic Tier (5-10) zone get 1/2 XP.
Heroic Tier PCs in Paragon zone get x2 XP.

Either way the high level PCs get half as much as the lower level PCs.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: rawma on September 03, 2018, 11:48:29 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1054129The main feature of OD&D - AD&D XP compared to 3e-4e-5e is that it is a U shaped progression rate, with the pit of slowest advancement around Name level, and then accelerating thereafter as the amount to level becomes a fixed (large) amount. PCs who played through the pit around 9th-12th found advancement speeding up again. Whereas 5e as written has slowest advancement before 11th and a sudden jump to fast advancement at 11th. Which is designed to work well with adventure path 'quest' play* but IMO is not so well suited to sandboxing.

As you note later, dividing by character level/dungeon level if the character level was higher than dungeon level slowed down progression for very high level characters, although I think that OD&D players were more unmotivated by relatively high risks (save vs dying) compared to potential rewards (few HP per level, saving throws maxing out, and all special abilities awarded by name level; casters got more spell slots at a steady pace, but that mostly just compensated for having to commit to a specific list of prepared spells) until Greyhawk added higher level spells for magic-users and clerics at very high levels. 5e has specific high level abilities that motivate players to try to reach very high levels, and you continue to get the same HP benefits, and the risk of sudden death is reduced.

Quote from: S'mon;1054980Yup, there's the OD&D formula of XP divided by character level/dungeon level, so 9th level PC on level 6 gets 2/3 XP. Or by monster hit dice so level 9 PC killing level 1 orcs gets 1/9 XP.

I think I could go with:
Paragon Tier PCs (11+) in Heroic Tier (5-10) zone get 1/2 XP.
Heroic Tier PCs in Paragon zone get x2 XP.

Either way the high level PCs get half as much as the lower level PCs.

This sounds like a good approach, if you want levels to tend to even out rather than widen. Another approach might be to award more or less XP to PCs who are some number of levels lower or higher than the party average; it could lead to players trying to manipulate the average level, though.

XP needs to be adjusted by character level in general; the most obvious way is the original method of requiring more XP to advance a single level as the level gets higher (which holds until name level in early editions), but in 5e (apparently by design) the higher levels require much less XP relative to the awards for CRs they can then handle. In AL, characters generally had to adventure in a group at a certain tier with the same XP award for each PC, so a good reward for a 1st level character was paltry for a 4th level character who was stuck in the same set of adventures. But then AL had a downtime option to advance from 4th level to 5th level (20 downtime days), and from 10th level to 11th level (100 downtime days). Over time they increased the downtime awarded per adventure, so this made 4th and 10th level characters somewhat rare (usually when someone was sticking with friends who were slightly behind).

The new AL rules for the season just starting have 4 hours of adventuring to advance in 1st tier, and 8 hours per level in higher tiers, which effectively scales XP awarded by level (and hides XP totals for the innumerate). The rules also have an option for, essentially, getting less XP by player choice, presumably to stay at a level you like playing at or to let other characters who play less often catch up.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on September 04, 2018, 01:28:45 AM
Quote from: rawma;1054994As you note later, dividing by character level/dungeon level if the character level was higher than dungeon level slowed down progression for very high level characters

I'll just note though that Classic (BX-BECMI-RC) D&D didn't have this rule at all, and 1e just said that you got full gold XP only if the threat total equalled PC hit dice, which was easily achieved on almost any dungeon expedition. I don't know 2e well enough to know if it's the same as 1e or BX. So in practice the vast majority of people played with the U-shaped advancement curve.  (Actually if you play RAW 2nd to 3rd is faster than 1st to 2nd, so there's an initial uptick then the U curve).

Mentzer in his Companion set recommends 5 sessions/level after name level and giving enough gold to ensure that, which is a big departure from OD&D-1e norms but necessary if PCs are ever going to reach 36th level.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: RPGPundit on September 06, 2018, 03:55:49 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1054980Yup, there's the OD&D formula of XP divided by character level/dungeon level, so 9th level PC on level 6 gets 2/3 XP. Or by monster hit dice so level 9 PC killing level 1 orcs gets 1/9 XP.

I think I could go with:
Paragon Tier PCs (11+) in Heroic Tier (5-10) zone get 1/2 XP.
Heroic Tier PCs in Paragon zone get x2 XP.

Either way the high level PCs get half as much as the lower level PCs.

That sounds about right.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on September 06, 2018, 04:13:35 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit;1055190That sounds about right.

Thanks, ok I'm going with that and recommending to the other GMs in my campaign/group.
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: RPGPundit on September 11, 2018, 03:06:13 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1055198Thanks, ok I'm going with that and recommending to the other GMs in my campaign/group.

Let us know how it goes!
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: S'mon on September 11, 2018, 04:19:00 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit;1055680Let us know how it goes!

Currently after a year the highest PCs are 8th level, so probably another 4-6 months before the rule kicks in - I'll see if I remember to necro the thread. :D
Title: 5e - slowing down advancement after level 10 (for a more Gygaxian feel)?
Post by: RPGPundit on September 13, 2018, 02:39:20 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1055705Currently after a year the highest PCs are 8th level, so probably another 4-6 months before the rule kicks in - I'll see if I remember to necro the thread. :D

Feel free, we're not against necros here.