A way to lose XP

[gooddragon1]

Is there any way to lose XP without spending GP at low levels (1-5) and without dying (or risking death)?

I've got my reasons.

[jiriku]

Repeatedly cast alter fortune (PH2 101). Costs 200 xp per casting. In fact, sell your services as a spellcaster to cast this for others and you could make money doing it.

Craft items for 1/2 base price, then sell them for 1/2 base price, for a net profit/loss of 0 gp.

From a metagame perspective, if your DM grants xp each game session, and grants it only to those who attend, skip a game session, and you'll fall behind the rest of the party by as much xp as was granted to those who attended. That's not quite the same as losing it, but it's close.

Likewise, if your DM grants xp per encounter only to those who participate in the encounter, contrive a way to "miss" one or more encounters during a game session and thus not gain xp from them.

[SamBurke]

I'm curious as to why you're doing it, actually...

[nonsi]

I'm curious as to why you're doing it, actually...

To undo past mistakes in character build, I guess, but I'm not sure one can actually lose levels that way.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

XP Cost (XP)
Some powerful spells entail an experience point cost to you. No spell can restore the XP lost in this manner. You cannot spend so much XP that you lose a level, so you cannot cast the spell unless you have enough XP to spare. However, you may, on gaining enough XP to attain a new level, use those XP for casting a spell rather than keeping them and advancing a level. The XP are treated just like a material component—expended when you cast the spell, whether or not the casting succeeds.

So you can't use XP costs to drop a level, but you can drop some XP with it.

[ShiningStarling]

You could find a vampire or other level draining creature, then willingly fail the saving throw the next day to keep the level, thus resulting in level and xp loss.

[Deviston]

Retrain: Unearthed Arcana methinks, or maybe the PHB2

[kalminos]

Retrain: Unearthed Arcana methinks, or maybe the PHB2

Retraining is in PHB2.

[gooddragon1]

The reason is because my DM runs his games in modules in which we gain XP and GP according to the APL (Average Party Level (Total EL/4)). I had one session where a guy had a high level character but another person didn't want to have that guy run him as his level would have increased the APL too much for his liking. As a result, in addition to my main character I would run a crystalline troll (32 point buy) and simply neglect to record XP and donate the treasure (I was considering other methods in this thread but settled on this) to the help azaeus (reasonbly kind dragon deity) take over Manai (country) fund.

For those with further curiosity:
My DM does not count racial levels towards LA and does not even grant them to EL +1 or higher creatures. My crystalline troll would have 1d4 (4) HP+Con and an EL of +5.

STR: 30 (16 points)
DEX: 12 (0 points)
CON: 22 (2 points)
INT: 10 (6 points)
WIS: 12 (6 points)
CHA: 08 (2 points)
total 32 points

Equipment:
Heavy Mace (for busting down doors because I don't want to use my claws)
Leather Armor (No reason for almost any character not to wear this unless they've got spell failure or monk levels...)
Cloak of Resistance +1 (May not purchase items outside of core and no items in core greater than 1000 gp in cost without a special mission and this item to be attained later)[If he allows traits I will take the detached trait and not bother purchasing this]
Backpack
Lots of Food (In backpack)
Remainder of GP to the Help Azaeus take over Manai fund.

No Feats, skills, almost anything else allowed for the 1d4 HD thingy

Will save of +2 is the amount that a standard level 5 character with a wisdom of 10 and poor will save category class would have. For games above 5th level I will use my main character.

EDIT: Thank you all for the responses, sorry about this being in the wrong forum, and retraining costs GP not XP.

[Ziegander]

Nothing you just said makes any sense to me... what does your Crystalline Troll buddy, your DMs XP & GP rules, etc have to do with losing XP? And, if I'm understanding this correctly (I may well not be), your solution for "losing" XP is to simply choose to not record XP gains? I am thoroughly, thoroughly confused. :smalleek:

[gooddragon1]

Nothing you just said makes any sense to me... what does your Crystalline Troll buddy, your DMs XP & GP rules, etc have to do with losing XP? And, if I'm understanding this correctly (I may well not be), your solution for "losing" XP is to simply choose to not record XP gains? I am thoroughly, thoroughly confused. :smalleek:

I was thinking of losing XP to keep my level low enough for players who are low level to not risk dying if I joined a low level game.

Crystalline troll is hard to kill.

Stats for crystalline troll that I would play.

Breggidown!

[SiuiS]

So experience is decided by average party level. Monster levels (LA?) aren't considered in this equation. You want to play a very strong monster with a deceptively low level to keep the average down. And you want to be able to shed experience so you remain at said low level for a long time?

Item creation. You can even hold on to experience without leveling for a bit, specifically to give up the experience for magic items. Dip in wizard, or splurging on feats would help. I you can get a spell like ability, you don't even need the item creation feat yourself; just have a willin ally.

[gooddragon1]

So experience is decided by average party level. Monster levels (LA?) aren't considered in this equation. You want to play a very strong monster with a deceptively low level to keep the average down. And you want to be able to shed experience so you remain at said low level for a long time?

Item creation. You can even hold on to experience without leveling for a bit, specifically to give up the experience for magic items. Dip in wizard, or splurging on feats would help. I you can get a spell like ability, you don't even need the item creation feat yourself; just have a willin ally.

I had originally thought dipping artificer for that one ability that allows you to put a spell in an item for an XP cost but with this method I get to play something funny and hard to kill.

It's funny because a fighter only gets 4 attacks at lvl 16 and usually not all of them are made with this sort of accuracy.

I did forget to mention something:
The reason why I can't dip in a class starting off is that the +LA must be bought off (by equivalent XP to get that level) before I could start taking levels.

[jiriku]

Aha! LA buyoff. Another means of disposing of xp.

[gooddragon1]

Aha! LA buyoff. Another means of disposing of xp.

Well, it's not exactly that either, what happens is that you have to have enough XP to be 5th level for a +5 LA race before you can get your first level of a class and then to get that you need to get enough XP to be 6th level.

[~Corvus~]

hmm... If only your DM allowed you to have a nice, juicy level adjustment, all that XP would be no problem...

[gooddragon1]

hmm... If only your DM allowed you to have a nice, juicy level adjustment, all that XP would be no problem...

Problem is that the "levels" gained to offset a level adjustment still count so I will still have to neglect the XP gain.

[SiuiS]

I had originally thought dipping artificer for that one ability that allows you to put a spell in an item for an XP cost but with this method I get to play something funny and hard to kill.

It's funny because a fighter only gets 4 attacks at lvl 16 and usually not all of them are made with this sort of accuracy.

I did forget to mention something:
The reason why I can't dip in a class starting off is that the +LA must be bought off (by equivalent XP to get that level) before I could start taking levels.

there are a handful o feats that have different prereqs, and target classes, but all do the same thing. My favorite is Redhead [GENERAL] from Ravenloft. Basically;

"Pick one 1st level spell or two 0th level spells from [CLASS]'s spell laity. You can cast that spell as a spell like ability once per day, each."

Redhead is specifically Druid. Your caster level is your actual level, or ECL. get access to cure light wounds or Vigor, have something that TCDD youa ccess to the Craft Wand feat, and use your SLA and experience to crank out healing wands. Each one is at minimum 30 XP gone. More with a feat from City of Ruin or whatnot, which increases your effective caster level for a SLA by 4, up to your ECL.

Requires downtime and patience though.

[gooddragon1]

there are a handful o feats that have different prereqs, and target classes, but all do the same thing. My favorite is Redhead [GENERAL] from Ravenloft. Basically;

"Pick one 1st level spell or two 0th level spells from [CLASS]'s spell laity. You can cast that spell as a spell like ability once per day, each."

Redhead is specifically Druid. Your caster level is your actual level, or ECL. get access to cure light wounds or Vigor, have something that TCDD youa ccess to the Craft Wand feat, and use your SLA and experience to crank out healing wands. Each one is at minimum 30 XP gone. More with a feat from City of Ruin or whatnot, which increases your effective caster level for a SLA by 4, up to your ECL.

Requires downtime and patience though.

I'd use the redhead ability to duplicate an identify spell and i think it would give it an XP cost (of 500 probably) and just do that. However there's no need now I think.

Also, y u no reply to my PM?

[Lord Vukodlak]

I'm surprised no ones mentioned psychic reformation yet (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/psychicReformation.htm)

[gooddragon1]

I'm surprised no ones mentioned psychic reformation yet (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/psychicReformation.htm)

No psionics allowed in this campaign.

[Dante & Vergil]

You do know you can choose not to level up when you gain EXP, right? Because you can. When I saw this thread I thought of "Exp is a River", where you are intentionally a lower level than your party members to get more EXP to spend on the cost of stuff.