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Cicciograna
2009-10-26, 11:28 AM
Desiring to improve balance between classes, would different XP charts for different Tiers help? I mean, if Clerics, Druids and Wizards followed a different chart, needing higher XP amounts, with respect to lower Tiers, to gain levels, wouldn't the disparity in experience help the non-casters to survive and not be outshined by casters? Tell me what you think about this.

Person_Man
2009-10-26, 11:41 AM
This is exactly what they did in 2nd Ed, and IMO it didn't do much to improve the balance of the game (keeping in mind I haven't played 2nd Ed since I was 19). In most cases, you're just 1 level off from the other more powerful classes, so it doesn't really do much to limit the powers of higher tier classes.

The easiest fix for any imbalance problem is to just have the players create their characters together, at the same table. If they talk about what niches they want to fill and the general power level of their PCs, they tend to get a good division of labor and balance of power. If after this process Player 1 really wants to be a Batman Wizard and Player 2 really wants to be a CW Samurai, then the DM just needs to give the Samurai more magical gear, and the Batman Wizard should be mature enough to let it happen.

Shpadoinkle
2009-10-26, 11:42 AM
Desiring to improve balance between classes, would different XP charts for different Tiers help? I mean, if Clerics, Druids and Wizards followed a different chart, needing higher XP amounts, with respect to lower Tiers, to gain levels, wouldn't the disparity in experience help the non-casters to survive and not be outshined by casters? Tell me what you think about this.

I think it would be a huge cluster**** and a titanic pain in the ass to get it to work in a way approximating reasonable.

I also think there are much, much better ways to improve balance between classes.

Telonius
2009-10-26, 11:52 AM
Biggest problem I'm seeing with different XP charts: multiclassing. If your Wizard wants to take a level of Rogue next, does he use the Wizard chart, or the regular chart, to find out how much XP he needs? Since the XP chart isn't linear, the total amount of XP a Rogue7/Wizard1 would need, would vary according to when he took the level of Wizard.

Cicciograna
2009-10-26, 11:56 AM
This is exactly what they did in 2nd Ed, and IMO it didn't do much to improve the balance of the game (keeping in mind I haven't played 2nd Ed since I was 19).

Thank you! I was sure I already saw such a system somewhere, but I couldn't remember in which game. I played 2nd for, say, only three months, and this is why I couldn't remember it...

BTW the few considerations received seem enough to point against this system: I wasn't very appealed by it either. Thread can be closed.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-26, 12:00 PM
Desiring to improve balance between classes, would different XP charts for different Tiers help? I mean, if Clerics, Druids and Wizards followed a different chart, needing higher XP amounts, with respect to lower Tiers, to gain levels, wouldn't the disparity in experience help the non-casters to survive and not be outshined by casters? Tell me what you think about this.

Man, my English teacher was right. People do not know how to use commas.



This idea has been tossed around a few times, and it doesn't work well with 3.5. The problem lies in multiclassing, but not just between classes. You effectively have to give every single PrC in existence an XP chart. It's needlessly complex, requires extra space in books, and requires the DM to not just say "You each gain a level". Can you imagine books being a full 12 pages thicker because we had to include XP charts for every PrC and base class introduced, and rules regarding multiclassing between the various possible combination? The size of a book determines how much ink and paper is needed. That also determines the price. As you add pages the price rises dramatically. Suddenly you've got Complete Warrior costing $55 instead of the normal $38 because WotC needs to recuperate from publishing costs.


Banning multiclassing hurts the noncasters more than the casters and removes a major part of 3.5 (one of the reasons it was so popular was because multiclassing worked better than it did in previous systems).

Frog Dragon
2009-10-26, 12:04 PM
It's not that hard actually. You only need approximate tables. The xp awards can be calculate off what their levels would be in the 'medium' line.
Like here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4956718&postcount=35)

valadil
2009-10-26, 12:04 PM
Desiring to improve balance between classes, would different XP charts for different Tiers help? I mean, if Clerics, Druids and Wizards followed a different chart, needing higher XP amounts, with respect to lower Tiers, to gain levels, wouldn't the disparity in experience help the non-casters to survive and not be outshined by casters? Tell me what you think about this.

What I didn't like about different charts is that you always had to look up how much XP was needed. Assuming you're keeping the same scale it would probably make more sense to give each class an XP percentage. Wizards only get 60% XP and Monks get 150%. You could even give different races different XP modifiers instead of using level adjustments. I think this would make the Kobold sorcerers very happy. If you're more interested in this kind of system, look at the angband variant called zangband.

Cicciograna
2009-10-26, 12:05 PM
Man, my English teacher was right. People do not know how to use commas.


Wow, I completely messed up with commas :smallredface:! That's beacuse I reworded this small paragraph a lot of times, thus leaving bits of text from previous versions without removing their punctuation...
To justify me, however, I can say that in Italian such punctuation would be just a little redundant but not incorrect, as it defines clearly the various components of the sentence...

valadil
2009-10-26, 12:12 PM
Biggest problem I'm seeing with different XP charts: multiclassing. If your Wizard wants to take a level of Rogue next, does he use the Wizard chart, or the regular chart, to find out how much XP he needs? Since the XP chart isn't linear, the total amount of XP a Rogue7/Wizard1 would need, would vary according to when he took the level of Wizard.

If you went with the suggestion I had you could average the percentages. If a wizard gets 60% of his XP and a rogue gets 100% (for easy math's sake), a 5 wiz/5 rogue would gain 80%. A 4 wiz / 6 rogue would get 84% ( (4*60 + 6*100)/10 ). 3/7 gets 88%. Etc. You would earn based on your current build and when you level you get to incorporate another class. I suppose a 1 rog/1 wiz who went rogue first would get there faster than the one who went wizard first, but I'm not entirely convinced that's a bad thing. It would encourage people to start with low tier classes if they want to cheese their XP gain.

Riffington
2009-10-26, 12:40 PM
The real problem is that too much is tied to level. Skill ranks, for example. You want rogues to be the best at skills, right? Well, that means they need the easiest advancement (ie highest level). Well, that means you need to nerf their class abilities so you can justify them being higher level. You basically need to rewrite all the classes, not just the XP tables.