[3.5] A game without XP?

[Maginomicon]

Assume for a moment that characters never gained experience points, but leveled-up explicitly through plot-dependent events. That is, no matter what, their effective XP pool for doing anything notable was zero.

What all would they miss out on?

Item Creation
Spells/Powers with XP costs
LA Buyoff (assuming your group uses that optional variant)


...and that's all I can think of (I'll update this list as replies come in).

I could swear there's more they miss out on though. Can the playground help me out?

Furthermore, what ultimately would be the most unjustifiably unfair thing that could happen when no one gains "XP"? (subjective, I know, but I want to know what the playground thinks on this)

[stack]

Well, Pathfinder already has removed xp loss, so you could take a look at that. The system has its flaws, but that is something I think they did very right.

XP costs from items where simply scrapped (good riddance). Spells that cost XP cost GP. Level drains work differently, imposing stacking penalties instead of actually removing levels.

[Essence_of_War]

LA Buyoff requires spending XP.

*shrug* but it's an optional rule anyway.

[supermonkeyjoe]

I ran it like this in my last campaign, every 13 encounters give or take the party levelled up, xp for crafting was scrapped, xp for spell components was handled as 5X xp cost in gold, and no-one used LA buyoff so the point was moot. It worked well, no-one complained and it got rid of a lot of book-keeping,

One thing I found important was letting the players know if they were close to levelling, otherwise they'd level up and be completely unprepared in terms of feat/skill/class choices. It would generally take them twice as long to level as most of the party would be sifting through books to try and find that feat they were thinking of taking.

[Fates]

I know I'm practically alone in this, but I personally like using XP loss rules. Really powerful magic should have a significant cost, in my opinion, and 25000 gold is nothing to a 17th+ level wizard anyway. I guess I also like the idea of magic items being rare and special- I know D&D doesn't lend itself to that mindset, but I prefer to leave magic-marts out of my RPGs. It really kills the mood for me.

[Trekkin]

I know I'm practically alone in this, but I personally like using XP loss rules. Really powerful magic should have a significant cost, in my opinion, and 25000 gold is nothing to a 17th+ level wizard anyway. I guess I also like the idea of magic items being rare and special- I know D&D doesn't lend itself to that mindset, but I prefer to leave magic-marts out of my RPGs. It really kills the mood for me.

It can have a significant cost without an XP tax; my favorite DM generally makes us go on a harrowing side quest to recover rare reagents whenever we want to make something particularly powerful. He might dock the party XP a bit in favor of the reagents; I don't know. We pay HP rather than XP, really.

I like that method, and I think the rest of the party does; it allows partywide XP rewards (and the attendant ease of having a single, easily trackable party XP total) without keeping the casters a level behind.

It might work for XP-less play, too, to dock the rewards proactively (or in this case increase the challenges per level) rather than lowering their total earned XP.

EDIT: Come to think of it, we basically play Pathfinder without XP now. We have a number somewhere, but it's more like a progress bar we watch than a resource we try to accumulate for our use. We could just as easily be awarded "percent progress to the next level", skip the number entirely, and nothing in the game would change.

[RogueDM]

I'm currently running a 3.5 game without XP, as I believe I mentioned elsewhere around the playground. It hasn't come up yet, but I'm replacing the XP cost of most anything with three times as much gold or component equivalent.

As it happens there are currently no spell casters in the party. (aside: I introduced black powder weapons so everyone opted to grab a gun instead of magic... I was rather surprised) So a lot of the standard issues simply haven't cropped up yet.

Regarding magic items: I make magical tools available in major cities (Everfull Mug, Magic Bedroll, etc) but restrict more impressive items (weapons, armor, Bag of Holding) to quest rewards... even then I've been imposing charge limits on magical enhancements to force them to ration their bursts of awesome. Our setting has regions of high and low magic so I didn't want them stocking up on magic in one area and riding roughshot over the low magic areas.

[Chronos]

My current group doesn't use XP either; mostly, the DM just occasionally says "OK, you've done a lot of stuff since last level; everyone level up". And this is generally done at the end of a session, so we have a chance to go through all our books etc. at home.

We're not yet at a high enough level for spells with XP components to show up, so that's not an issue. A couple of players have taken item creation feats, though: I'm not entirely certain how that's handled.

[cerin616]

LA buyoff - add in additional situations that let them buy off LA.

[Fates]

It can have a significant cost without an XP tax; my favorite DM generally makes us go on a harrowing side quest to recover rare reagents whenever we want to make something particularly powerful. He might dock the party XP a bit in favor of the reagents; I don't know. We pay HP rather than XP, really.

I like that method, and I think the rest of the party does; it allows partywide XP rewards (and the attendant ease of having a single, easily trackable party XP total) without keeping the casters a level behind.

It might work for XP-less play, too, to dock the rewards proactively (or in this case increase the challenges per level) rather than lowering their total earned XP.

EDIT: Come to think of it, we basically play Pathfinder without XP now. We have a number somewhere, but it's more like a progress bar we watch than a resource we try to accumulate for our use. We could just as easily be awarded "percent progress to the next level", skip the number entirely, and nothing in the game would change.

That works too, actually. I just object to giving casters even more power by making spells/item creation that would normally be costly completely trivial.

[graymachine]

You could simply retard the level advancement of someone with an LA until you feel that they are on bar with the rest of the party, then speed them back up in later levels once the impact of their LA on the PC's power level is less significant. Sure, this is essentially the same as with the buy off, and is fairly subjective, but it accomplishes the same goal as well with some side benefits. You will be able to control the LA much more organically, adjusting for abuse, and players will probably take LAs a little more seriously than just a set of bonuses. On the other hand, you might have players call foul if they feel that they are being treated unfairly. Either way, you could explain it as, " Bob the Minotaur isn't really learning to be a fighter as well as Jim the Human, but he doesn't really need to, being a Minotaur and all."

[Endarire]

I don't use XP. I just award levels at story-appropriate times.

Item creation feats are basically cash discounts on gear, but require time.

Spells and powers that require XP normally require 5x as much G in material components instead.

[Slipperychicken]

I know I'm practically alone in this, but I personally like using XP loss rules. Really powerful magic should have a significant cost, in my opinion, and 25000 gold is nothing to a 17th+ level wizard anyway. I guess I also like the idea of magic items being rare and special- I know D&D doesn't lend itself to that mindset, but I prefer to leave magic-marts out of my RPGs. It really kills the mood for me.

You could assign gp values to various monster-parts, so you end up having to go get something crazy like the eyes of 30 ogres to make a +1 weapon, acquire a bunch of hellcat hearts to make a wand of fireball, or collect like 40 gallons of Solar's tears to make a Wish.

[Jeff the Green]

You could assign gp values to various monster-parts, so you end up having to go get something crazy like the eyes of 30 ogres to make a +1 weapon, acquire a bunch of hellcat hearts to make a wand of fireball, or collect like 40 gallons of Solar's tears to make a Wish.

Eww. Get your MMORPG out of my PnPRPG.

[Mithril Leaf]

You could assign gp values to various monster-parts, so you end up having to go get something crazy like the eyes of 30 ogres to make a +1 weapon, acquire a bunch of hellcat hearts to make a wand of fireball, or collect like 40 gallons of Solar's tears to make a Wish.

What can we cast with two dozen bear asses?

[Slipperychicken]

What can we cast with two dozen bear asses?

Disrobe (sorc/wiz 2, BoEF)

[Salbazier]

You could assign gp values to various monster-parts, so you end up having to go get something crazy like the eyes of 30 ogres to make a +1 weapon, acquire a bunch of hellcat hearts to make a wand of fireball, or collect like 40 gallons of Solar's tears to make a Wish.

On one hand, this can be a bit difficult to do and distracting from the running campaign plot. Maybe not once or twice, but rolepalying the whole hunt everytime would get tedious. On the other hand, I rather like 'recipe' system like this. It is more interesting than abstracting everything into gold pieces. Make for more immersion.

[Azernak0]

Ever game I have ever run, and most I have be involved in, have had zero experience. You just level when the DM wishes you to. It is FAR less of a pain in the ass to do the whole "okay, you guys killed CR X and fifteen CR Y's" and add it up.

How did we handle creating magic items? Honestly, we didn't. I have never seen players build magic items, mostly because we have a tendency to run in games that are extremely high in gold income.

[drack]

I know I'm practically alone in this, but I personally like using XP loss rules. Really powerful magic should have a significant cost, in my opinion, and 25000 gold is nothing to a 17th+ level wizard anyway. I guess I also like the idea of magic items being rare and special- I know D&D doesn't lend itself to that mindset, but I prefer to leave magic-marts out of my RPGs. It really kills the mood for me.

I tend to agree with this approach. I make it so players interested in xp can generally go off and earn it back, but I don't make stuff free, and when people gain a solid level in my games (generally for something "challenging"). You could always ask the GM to botch the part about not being allowed to de-level yourself with crafting.

[cerin616]

character always has option to sacrifice a level to gain its equivalent in xp? (level 12 wizard can choose to become a level 11 wizard and have a pool of 12000 xp to cast spells with?)

trying to come up with workarounds here.

[Slipperychicken]

On one hand, this can be a bit difficult to do and distracting from the running campaign plot. Maybe not once or twice, but rolepalying the whole hunt everytime would get tedious. On the other hand, I rather like 'recipe' system like this. It is more interesting than abstracting everything into gold pieces. Make for more immersion.

The idea would be to make crafting into an adventure in itself, with the PCs trying to satisfy some preposterous conditions to make it work. Obviously, it would try to be more interesting than a fetch quest.

For example, maybe a +2 Flaming Holy Longsword can (as far as the PCs know) only be crafted using blessed dragonbone tools at a specific magic forge inside an active volcano at midnight under a full moon, while the materials are bathed in the freshly-spilled blood of an evil priestess of 5th level or higher.