EXP costs alternatives?

[TheMutant]

I'm running a weird more-story-based-than-combat campaign that's mostly 3.5e with some Pathfinder rules inexpertly glued in- but that's pretty much just the skill rules (yaaay for no more god damn half-ranks) and the combat maneuvers.

Not too far in, but I'm anticipating a tiny problem that I could use some advice on. Several of my PCs are eying either crafting skills or PrCs that involve EXP costs- not to mention eventually there'll be spells with EXP costs as well- therefore they'd need to spend EXP to use these things, but the trick is that they're understandably worried about falling behind the rest of the group levelwise- since there's not much combat, most sessions just net them small chunks of story EXP. (They do have plenty of downtime, however.)

Has anyone encountered this before? I don't want my players to lose out on the fun of doing stuff with EXP costs, but have to endure the worry of behind behind their fellows. But I dunno if it'd be a smart idea to just waive the EXP costs... I could use any tips or variant rules or whatever. :3

[Telonius]

BoED lists the suggestion of using a "5gp to 1xp" rule for Vow of Poverty characters. It could easily work the other way around.

[HunterColt22]

BoED lists the suggestion of using a "5gp to 1xp" rule for Vow of Poverty characters. It could easily work the other way around.

This, there are also various crafting things you can go into, such as it taking far more time to complete during their down time, magic McGuffins you can use so that the pcs have to go and find said McGuffin and get it, thus not having an exp cost to worry about anymore. :/ There are many different things you can do to change the cost around. If you still want the feel of it being worth something without the level drop, look into draconic grafts, alot of them drop your hp by a few points for an ability, such as breath weapon. Same though can be applied here if what they want is rather big. A longer wait time though along with an increased gold cost should alleviate most of your worries. I never understood the exp crafting cost in D&D anyway. I mean sure you get more powerful things faster I guess, but half the time with a competent DM, who knows you are optimizing with this I might add, can circumvent this by having a few encounters with anti magic fields/circle.

[Absol197]

Or, you could just paste in yet another Pathfinder rule - they did away with XP costs entirely in Pathfinder, instead multiplying the XP cost by 5, and making it a gold cost.

So, essentially what BoED did for Vow of Poverty, just applied to everyone.

[RFLS]

Or, you could just paste in yet another Pathfinder rule - they did away with XP costs entirely in Pathfinder, instead multiplying the XP cost by 5, and making it a gold cost.

So, essentially what BoED did for Vow of Poverty, just applied to everyone.

Do this, it works quite well. XP costs are a pain.

[willpell]

I do the 5 gp thing for NPCs since they have as many levels as I want them to, so dinging their WBL instead is a bit more sensible as a way of measuring how many powers the town Erudite should have picked up or how many inherent bonuses the Sorcerer-King has Wished for. But otherwise, I really don't like the idea of paying mere gold for something that's supposed to represent your "inmost essence" or the sum total of your life experiences (the latter is the common-sensical approach, while the former is an explanation more consistent with things like being level-drained by wights and then having to learn things over again). Apart from "feeling" wrong IMO, it also increases the pressure to get the treasure amounts and/or WBL carefully balanced; you'll end up giving extra importance to issues like buying adquate food or keeping track of how many torches you've burned, and that sort of thing can get annoying fast.

I think it's probably wiser to use XP costs as a balancing mechanic, maybe even for some things currently covered by gold (such as a wizard's collection of spellbooks, or buying a horse which you ride so invariably that it's functionally a part of your character), and meanwhile to handwave most of the issues related to gold costs unless they're measured at least in hundreds, if not thousands of gold (you could save yourself some random zeroes by converting to platinum pieces or even 100-gp "unobtanium pieces"). This way, your game is less about nitpicky accounting and inventory trivialities and more about the big awesome stuff that you can only afford on a protagonist budget.

[Slipperychicken]

(such as a wizard's collection of spellbooks, or buying a horse which you ride so invariably that it's functionally a part of your character)

"Uhh... sorry sir, you can't pay for that horse with gold. It'll be come an integral part of your character concept, so you'll have to give me 500xp for it. I know the last guy didn't pay any XP, but he's just using the horse as transportation, not as character-development. What? Don't look at me like that, I'm just doing my job!"

Makes perfect sense.


I actually played a game where we used XP instead of gold, and leveled whenever the DM said so. Paying with XP felt incredibly forced and video-gamey, and I don't recommend it at all.

[willpell]

The XP cost isn't paid to the dealer, it's paid to the horse in the form of time and effort spent caring for it and forming a bond with the animal. The cost in money is handwaved as being ultimately unimportant to an adventurer-scale economy.

[Slipperychicken]

The XP cost isn't paid to the dealer, it's paid to the horse in the form of time and effort spent caring for it and forming a bond with the animal. The cost in money is handwaved as being ultimately unimportant to an adventurer-scale economy.

So the horse won't serve you as a mount unless you sacrifice a piece of your soul/life-essence to it. That makes even less sense. Unless it's a badass flaming demon horse, in which case it's totally awesome.

Under that system, animal domestication would be rendered near-impossible, because farmers couldn't possibly afford the xp costs associated with maintaining/bonding with/caring for so many animals.

[TuggyNE]

Under that system, animal domestication would be rendered near-impossible, because farmers couldn't possibly afford the xp costs associated with maintaining/bonding with/caring for so many animals.

Now we know why everyone is a Commoner 1, despite the orc raids and wolf attacks!

[Tvtyrant]

The easy way to deal with this IMO would be something like soul coins; enemies explode in showers of coinage that can be absorbed or emitted by people and used to make items. Realistic? Not even slightly.

[Sith_Happens]

The easy way to deal with this IMO would be something like soul coins; enemies explode in showers of coinage that can be absorbed or emitted by people and used to make items. Realistic? Not even slightly.

BoVD page 33: 1 soul = 10 XP. Having enemies burst into "coins" Mario-style just saves the trouble of casting a high-level spell.:smallwink:

[Kelb_Panthera]

BoVD page 33: 1 soul = 10 XP. Having enemies burst into "coins" Mario-style just saves the trouble of casting a high-level spell.:smallwink:

Actually, if you cross-reference BoVD with FC2 the value of a soul can fluctuate pretty widely depending on what you're using it for and how you get it.

In any case, I like the soul-coin idea. Yeah it's a little video-gamey and absurd, but I like absurdity sometimes and videogamey doesn't always bother me.

On topic: You're probably overthinking this, OP. The sheer amount of crafting and other xp burning activities you have to do to fall noticeably behind is absurd. If someone does fall behind a level just give him an extra 20% xp until he catches up. That's all the combat tables do*.


*the tables don't actually award the lower level character a flat 20% extra, but it's close enough to keep the xp costs functional on about the same level.

[ArcanaGuy]

My own thought approaches the problem from the opposite direction:

Why is the RP xp such a small amount? If you want the game to have a lot of roleplay and less combat... then reward them with more XP for good Roleplay! Whenever you're smiling and laughing and just absolutely enjoying yourself, mark down that they just met an equivalently-leveled challenge for their party.

[Kelb_Panthera]

My own thought approaches the problem from the opposite direction:

Why is the RP xp such a small amount? If you want the game to have a lot of roleplay and less combat... then reward them with more XP for good Roleplay! Whenever you're smiling and laughing and just absolutely enjoying yourself, mark down that they just met an equivalently-leveled challenge for their party.

This is an excellent point.

If you're not giving them XP equal to overcoming a combat challenge for each RP or skill-based challenge they overcome, they're going to start looking for more combat challenges so they can level up faster.

[Slipperychicken]

My own thought approaches the problem from the opposite direction:

Why is the RP xp such a small amount? If you want the game to have a lot of roleplay and less combat... then reward them with more XP for good Roleplay! Whenever you're smiling and laughing and just absolutely enjoying yourself, mark down that they just met an equivalently-leveled challenge for their party.

Talking your way past an encounter generally doesn't use up resources at all, or require much risk beyond maybe a skill check or two. Most RP encounters will have very low CR as a result. Also, you can award as much roleplaying XP as you see fit.

The playstyle which 3.5 works best for (and which the writers spent the most time detailing, and which the system strongly encourages) is as follows: Kill bad-guys/monsters-> Take their stuff-> Buy Murder Equipment-> Find/kill more monsters-> Take their stuff.... Repeat ad-nauseum. This is because the game is very much combat-based, has roots in wargaming, and is tailored for this very specific playstyle.


If you want lots of roleplay and less combat, you can use 3.5 for that, but it's like using a knife as a screwdriver. A knife can function as a screwdriver passably sometimes, but a different tool/system will ultimately serve you much better.

[ArcanaGuy]

I would respectfully disagree, SlipperyChicken. While yes, a majority of the game is devoted to the battle - because fantasy stories revolve around those massive threats - the rules system very clearly lays out how to reward XP for RP encounters and skill-based encounters. That's one reason why there's all the NPC levels - so you can determine the CR of your social encounter.

And whether it 'just involves some skill rolls' or 'does not involve risk' very much depends on your play style. For my group, the negative repercussions of bad social combats or interactions are more significant. They'd find themselves finding it harder to find markets for their goods, having to pay more for supplies, or get less for cargo sold ... just for example. More extreme threats - and combat-related threats - might appear if they do even worse at the social combat.

*by the RAW*, talking and interacting with NPCs to achieve your goals carries the same XP reward as defeating them in combat. It is, of course, up to the DM to balance this out as he or she feels best. And to me, one of the goals of game is *having fun*, so if the players succeed in that goal, I feel that they *have* met an equivalently-leveled threat.

Engaging in social activity has its own feats, spells, magic items, and etc. associated with it. While not as detailed or extensive as combat ... it's not nonexistant. And through experience, I've found that the game applies *very nicely* to social activity. Actually a little easier than a lot of games like WoD which is supposed to be *more* devoted to social activity.

[GnomeGninjas]

That's one reason why there's all the NPC levels - so you can determine the CR of your social encounter.


I've never used NPC class levels like that. For me they are always used for when the (N)PCs rampage a town and things like that.

[ArcanaGuy]

*grins* That's one of the reasons I like chatting on forums. :) We keep finding that the rules have things that we never realized they have. I've run into that, "Ohhhh, I've never used it that way before!" a lot as well.

[GnomeGninjas]

*grins* That's one of the reasons I like chatting on forums. :) We keep finding that the rules have things that we never realized they have. I've run into that, "Ohhhh, I've never used it that way before!" a lot as well.

I agree. *grins as well*

[willpell]

*by the RAW*, talking and interacting with NPCs to achieve your goals carries the same XP reward as defeating them in combat. It is, of course, up to the DM to balance this out as he or she feels best. And to me, one of the goals of game is *having fun*, so if the players succeed in that goal, I feel that they *have* met an equivalently-leveled threat.

Engaging in social activity has its own feats, spells, magic items, and etc. associated with it. While not as detailed or extensive as combat ... it's not nonexistant. And through experience, I've found that the game applies *very nicely* to social activity. Actually a little easier than a lot of games like WoD which is supposed to be *more* devoted to social activity.

I would be very interested in hearing more detail about where you're coming from with all this.

[Berenger]

In D20 Modern, we used Action Points (http://www.d20resources.com/modern.d20.srd/basics/action.points.php) instead of EXP to mastercraft items / use certain spells. This way, a valuable resource is expended but you can level-up with the others. Obviously, you would have to implement Action Points to your setting to use them.

[ArcanaGuy]

I would be very interested in hearing more detail about where you're coming from with all this.

I'm looking at the 3.0 DMG, starting on page 165, where it says that if your players defeat a challenge without combat, they should probably get the xp for it. Then on 168, in a section which, only now that I'm looking at it, says it's *variant* Story Awards, it goes into more detail.

So while it is listed in the DMG, and almost everyone I've ever played with uses it as if it were standard rules, and the old boards I used to post on 'back in the day' of 3.0 simply assumed that everyone used that variant ... I suppose it is mostly a variant.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm looking at the 3.0 DMG, starting on page 165, where it says that if your players defeat a challenge without combat, they should probably get the xp for it. Then on 168, in a section which, only now that I'm looking at it, says it's *variant* Story Awards, it goes into more detail.

So while it is listed in the DMG, and almost everyone I've ever played with uses it as if it were standard rules, and the old boards I used to post on 'back in the day' of 3.0 simply assumed that everyone used that variant ... I suppose it is mostly a variant.

I'm looking at my 3.5 DMG on page 40, and under story award it's got non-combat encounters, mission goals, and roleplaying awards all listed as standard fare, -not- variants.