Wednesday, 8 September 2010

XP and Treasure

I discuss my approach to XP and treasure here.

I find the solution to "Too much money" is "Less Money". Even 100gp - 1000sp - is a heck of a lot of money in an economy where a labourer earns 1 sp/day, if he can get employment.

Mind you, I haven't messed with by-the-book monetary treasure. What I have done is not give out vast amount of cash for selling magic items, and reduced the value of random-table-generated gems/jewelry typically to 1/10.  The value of treasure in published materials is kept or amended as seems appropriate.

I use an optional level-training fee of 100gp/level for 1 week, which gives the PC a chance to raise their prime stat (must roll over it on d20, if so get +1d3 pts). Or they can self-train for free for 2 weeks, no stat increase roll.

On XP - I give out OD&D-based monster XP (100 XP/hd) but this isn't to make the game kill-centric. Replace treasure XP with suitable XP rewards for whatever goals are achieved, such as rescuing prisoners. Heck, I give XP for successful seductions!

Re maintenance, the base cost for PCs IMC is only around 2-3sp/day, but if they wanted to raise their social status in the City State it would be more, around 1-1.5 gp/day to live like a gentleman. A junior officer NPC in the military IMC (Ftr-2 Lt) is taking home 40gp/m, and may well be spending more than that on upkeep, typically 45gp/m.
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For hit dice above 4 I typically give x2 XP per +2 hd, +1000 XP/hd over 9, ie:

hd XP

3 300

4 400

5 600

6 800

7 1200

8 1600

9 2400

+1 +1000

Or where I feel it's appropriate, such as where defeating a high level monster is a major adventure goal, I give up to x5 the listed 1e monster XP. Eg when the level 2-3 PCs rescued Captain Iremath of Marsh Gate from an Annis recently I gave x5 the 1e MM2 listed Annis XP, which worked out as around 1800 XP each per PC for the session, the biggest award they've had in 12 sessions. The PCs did well though Black Annis took 1 PC to -9 hp, 1 off 'dead', before she went down, I felt they earned the XP.

I follow Arneson in giving XP for gp spent on carousing, charity, large-scale projects, training etc, but not personal equipment or basic upkeep. I may also use a gp reward for a mission as a guide to the XPV of the mission, but not as a set XP entitlement.

And in my online City State game I give XP for player time spent on non-combat roleplay stuff such as forming NPC and PC contacts and allies, carousing, and anything which is fun to roleplay. No XP if I'm bored. I use a guideline 100 XP per hour.

After 12 game sessions, or a bit over 40 hours' play, the two highest level PCs (Fighter-4, Paladin-3) have a smidgin over 9000 XP, or about 225 XP/hour, with actual session XP awards varying from 200 to 1800 per PC, and levelling about once per 4 sessions. The rate of XP gain increases over time but I expect the levelling rate to fall off as more XP is needed to level.
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Not to say the GM can't use treasure value as a guide to XP awards, but I don't generally think that killing a tribe of 100 Orcs (say 1500 monster XP per RAW) with no treasure should earn vastly less XP than killing a tribe of Orcs with 10,000gp (11,500 gp per RAW). But sneaking into the Orc lair to steal their 10,000 gp without killing any of them should certainly earn XP, and depending on the risk it might even be reasonable to award the full 10,000.

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