So it looks like level 6 is where all the fun starts...

[golentan]

Given that's where most classes have something that sets them apart from the first five levels of play, and it often seems to be something specialization related. It's when necromancers begin animating the dead, lots of classes get a second attack, Moon Druids get access to more creatures and their attacks count as magical... Looking it over, I'd describe it as levels 1 and 2 are your apprenticeship, levels 3-5 are journeyman, and level 6+ is where you start to really come into your own and set the tone of your abilities for the remainder of the game. Do other people agree? Disagree?

[TheSethGrey]

Given that's where most classes have something that sets them apart from the first five levels of play, and it often seems to be something specialization related. It's when necromancers begin animating the dead, lots of classes get a second attack, Moon Druids get access to more creatures and their attacks count as magical... Looking it over, I'd describe it as levels 1 and 2 are your apprenticeship, levels 3-5 are journeyman, and level 6+ is where you start to really come into your own and set the tone of your abilities for the remainder of the game. Do other people agree? Disagree?

Paladin, Divine Smite and Spell Casting level 2--and I'd say it varies from class to class.

[golentan]

Paladin, Divine Smite and Spell Casting level 2--and I'd say it varies from class to class.

Folks get something at earlier levels, I'm just saying that it's at 6th level that things start kicking off. 3rd level is where things start developing, with taking their sacred oath and getting access to the associated powers. At 6th level, Paladins have acquired their second attack and started accumulating auras.

[Naanomi]

Getting 3rd level spells seems to be the pivotal point for casters; which is 5th level; and many classes get their extra attack then. I'd agree that 5-6 seems to be a big swinging point in your adventuring career.

[Demonic Spoon]

Per "Tiers of Play" on page 15 of the PHB, this is exactly intended (except they peg it at 5 rather than 6). Similar divisions exist at 11 and 17.

[golentan]

Per "Tiers of Play" on page 15 of the PHB, this is exactly intended (except they peg it at 5 rather than 6). Similar divisions exist at 11 and 17.

Oh, I managed to miss that. Good to know I'm not imagining things.

[TheOOB]

Yup, basically, levels 1-4 you're an apprentice adventurer, still learning the basics. Note that it should only take one session each to gain levels 2 and 3 with how the xp chart is skewed, which means you'll reach that level 5 professional adventurer level fairly quickly.

[Lokiare]

Yep, so basically they shaved the top 10 levels off 4E and then if you don't want to start as dirt farmers you have to shave off the bottom 4 levels. Meaning 5E is half the game of 4E....:smallsmile:

[golentan]

Yep, so basically they shaved the top 10 levels off 4E and then if you don't want to start as dirt farmers you have to shave off the bottom 4 levels. Meaning 5E is half the game of 4E....:smallsmile:

By volume perhaps. By quality density, it's at least a dozen times more nutritious!

[MeeposFire]

By volume perhaps. By quality density, it's at least a dozen times more nutritious!

I don't know if I would go that far. It is high quality Italian food. Good food and very accessible to most Americans. 4e is more like high quality INdian food. It is high quality but its intense and complex flavors tend to make it less accessible to the general American populace, however to those that like those kinds of flavors it can be among the best (personally I prefer Thai but that is just me).

[golentan]

I don't know if I would go that far. It is high quality Italian food. Good food and very accessible to most Americans. 4e is more like high quality INdian food. It is high quality but its intense and complex flavors tend to make it less accessible to the general American populace, however to those that like those kinds of flavors it can be among the best (personally I prefer Thai but that is just me).

As both a foodie and a lover of a wide spectrum of RPGs, I take issue with your analogy.

[Falka]

I don't know if I would go that far. It is high quality Italian food. Good food and very accessible to most Americans. 4e is more like high quality INdian food. It is high quality but its intense and complex flavors tend to make it less accessible to the general American populace, however to those that like those kinds of flavors it can be among the best (personally I prefer Thai but that is just me).

Personally I don't see that much complexity in Indian food, it's just incredibly spicy and intrusive. That's appealing for some (my case), but it's hard to digest due to that and not for everyone.

You can have interesting flavors that are more healthy. You should try Mediterranean food (Italian is just pasta).

[TheOOB]

5e doesn't compare to 4e well, they don't even really resemble eachother.

One of 5e's goals seems to be to even out the power curve, a huge problem with 3e and 4e is that there was only a narrow range of opposition a character could face at any given level, and as you leveled up it became harder and harder to build encounters as they are less and less common monsters powerful enough to challenge the players. By slowing earlier character advancement(kind of, characters feel mostly feature complete by level 5 or 6 in 5e, while in 3e many characters didn't even pick up their primary class until level 6-8), and by limiting high level power they've made the system easier to use, which seems to be design goal #1.

[ambartanen]

Note that it should only take one session each to gain levels 2 and 3 with how the xp chart is skewed, which means you'll reach that level 5 professional adventurer level fairly quickly. I don't know if you've tested this in practice but my four-player group has played two sessions of the starter pack adventure for a total of ten hours of gameplay and we have yet to reach second level. We're quite close but we already had five battles and several skill challenges to boot. Including the fact that we've had each player drop to 0 hit points at least once and one character actually died at the end of last session, I wouldn't call early levels quick at all.

As for sixth level in particular, it doesn't seem to be all that special anymore. As someone already said, most classes get their second attack or third level spells at fifth level which seems like more of a consistent power boost. The path features gained at sixth level are a lot more varied in their power and applicability.

[Gnomes2169]

I don't know if you've tested this in practice but my four-player group has played two sessions of the starter pack adventure for a total of ten hours of gameplay and we have yet to reach second level. We're quite close but we already had five battles and several skill challenges to boot. Including the fact that we've had each player drop to 0 hit points at least once and one character actually died at the end of last session, I wouldn't call early levels quick at all.

As for sixth level in particular, it doesn't seem to be all that special anymore. As someone already said, most classes get their second attack or third level spells at fifth level which seems like more of a consistent power boost. The path features gained at sixth level are a lot more varied in their power and applicability.

Is your DM only giving you 1 xp for each challenge or creature? Because with standard experience in this edition, those challenging encounters (that pose enough of a threat to reduce you to 0 hp or even kill some of you) really should have gotten you to at least level 2 by now... (Heck, just murdering 10 commoners is enough to level up)

[Fable Wright]

Is your DM only giving you 1 xp for each challenge or creature? Because with standard experience in this edition, those challenging encounters (that pose enough of a threat to reduce you to 0 hp or even kill some of you) really should have gotten you to at least level 2 by now... (Heck, just murdering 10 commoners is enough to level up)

Maybe that group is thinking that you need 1000 experience to get to level 2, rather than 300?

[hawklost]

If they thought that, they are almost to lvl 3 then, since that is 900 XP needed.

Otherwise, you might want to talk with your DM, because having 5 encounters (even just repeating the first encounter 5 times), assuming they were from the Starter set, should have given you enough xp to get to lvl 2. Note, I am assuming a typical party of 4-5 chars against the typical encounters in the beginning of the Starter Set and not some crazy amount of people playing.

[Zombimode]

(Italian is just pasta).

You are misinformed.

[ambartanen]

Maybe that group is thinking that you need 1000 experience to get to level 2, rather than 300?

Nope, we're trying to get to 300 but have only gotten to 250 so far. We've never used monster kill xp to level up before though so it's possible we are doing something wrong. When a creature "worth" 100xp gets killed by a group of four people, that's 25 xp per person not 100 each, right? Anyway, we've killed ten goblins and wolves but have mostly been roleplaying I suppose. I'm sure we'll get to second level as soon as we clear out the place.

As for getting dropped to 0, we all have decent constitution scores so the party hit points vary between 9 and 12. CR 1/4 creatures from the starter pack adventure hit for 1d6+2 each meaning that getting hit twice in a fight has a very good chance of dropping any one of us. The last thing I consider a "fight" to take place only involved me and one CR 1/4 goblin because everyone else in the party had either zero or two hit points left (two of the former and one of the latter). I had seven left and decided it's a good idea to sneak up on a goblin, shoot it from cover with my crossbow using hex to boost my damage to 1d8+1d6+3 which is almost guaranteed to drop it with it's 7 hit points. I rolled two natural ones on the attack dice, a natural one on the reflex save and just slipped and fell. Goblin beat me on initiative, reach me and hit me with his spear for 8 (1d6+2 again).

Edit: Maybe my definition of encounter is just more limited than yours? We've had multiple clashes with the goblins in a running guerrilla fight across the woods and into their cave complex. Thanks to their annoying movement and hiding ability, we clash with some of them two or more times before we kill them. We've only killed about ten creatures so far though which doesn't seem to be so few to me since the one two-goblin ambush we failed to notice dropped the full hit point fighter in the surprise round.

[Yuki Akuma]

You're not even supposed to get XP for killing the goblins in chapter one. You get 75 xp each for finding the hideout and 275 xp each for clearing it.

[Gnomes2169]

And I'm rather certain that in this edition, the exp for killing a monster is not divided by your number of adventurers... I could be mistaken on that one, though.

[Yuki Akuma]

And I'm rather certain that in this edition, the exp for killing a monster is not divided by your number of adventurers... I could be mistaken on that one, though.

You are mistaken.

[Yorrin]

You are mistaken.

This was my assumption, but could you point to a ruling for that in the books and/or basic PDF?

[ambartanen]

You're not even supposed to get XP for killing the goblins in chapter one. You get 75 xp each for finding the hideout and 275 xp each for clearing it.

Ah, that's it then. I just recounted everything and realized we've killed twenty golbins and wolves so far, four more we've fought and not yet defeated. We've also overcome at least one encounter without fighting. At any rate, we have yet to try and clear the hideout- I assume most of the goblins are still around.

[linklele]

(Italian is just pasta).

That's it.:smallfurious: You con cancel the avatar now.:smalltongue:
Anyway, yes you have to divide the exp between characters.

In the Lost mine of Pandelver for example it says "Divide 400 XP equally among the characters if the party
defeats the ruffians".

And remember there is a multiplier for large number of monster in an encounter.
Single Monster —
Pair (2 monsters) × 1.5
Group (3-6 monsters) × 2
Gang (7-10 monsters) × 2.5
Mob (11-14 monsters) × 3
Horde (15 or more monsters) × 4

You can check the rules at page 57 of the free rules pdf for the DM

[Yuki Akuma]

This was my assumption, but could you point to a ruling for that in the books and/or basic PDF?

I can't find the rule in the basic rules (I may be missing it), but it's in the starter set: Lost Mine of Phandelver, page 27, under 'Wilderness Encounters':


When an encounter occurs, and the adventurers gain XP if they defeat the monsters*. Each creature's stat block has the XP value for one monster of that sort. Multiply that value by the number of creatures encountered, then divide the total equally among the characters.

*What

[Gnomes2169]

Ah, that's it then. I just recounted everything and realized we've killed twenty golbins and wolves so far, four more we've fought and not yet defeated. We've also overcome at least one encounter without fighting. At any rate, we have yet to try and clear the hideout- I assume most of the goblins are still around.

You don't need to kill things to actually get the xp from them... You can talk/ bribe/ avoid your way around them. As long as you get past and there was an obvious display of effort put into it, you should get the experience reward. (However, then you don't get to take their stuff in true murderhobo fashion, so I'm not sure if that is completely desirable... :P)

[pwykersotz]

*What

I'm not picking up what the problem is here...

[ambartanen]

You don't need to kill things to actually get the xp from them... You can talk/ bribe/ avoid your way around them. As long as you get past and there was an obvious display of effort put into it, you should get the experience reward. (However, then you don't get to take their stuff in true murderhobo fashion, so I'm not sure if that is completely desirable... :P)

But the amount of experience a creature grants is based almost entirely on it's combat ability. Tricking a troll is no more difficult than tricking a goblin so why would one give you ten times as much experience? Hmm, this actually made me realize I have no idea how the social skills work. Do creatures have a specified way to "defend" themselves from being lied to or intimidated? Anyway, we've always just played by giving out experience/levels at story-appropriate moments and I doubt we'll stick to the monsters-are-xp-bags-that-need-to-be-chased-down-and-murderized approach for much longer. We didn't even loot the goblins we killed because their weapons were described as very crude and it hardly seems worth the effort to search a creature armed with a sharp-rock-tied-to-a-mostly-straight-stick type spear.


I'm not picking up what the problem is here...
The sentence structure is very weird?


And remember there is a multiplier for large number of monster in an encounter.
That directly contradicts the quote from the Starter Deck adventure that says you just sum up the monster xp and divide it between players.

[Yorrin]

The sentence structure is very weird?
Indeed. Grammar!


That directly contradicts the quote from the Starter Deck adventure that says you just sum up the monster xp and divide it between players.

Within each encounter the number of foes in the encounter affect their experience multiplier. Once that number has been determined, it is divided amongst the party.

[hawklost]

But the amount of experience a creature grants is based almost entirely on it's combat ability. Tricking a troll is no more difficult than tricking a goblin so why would one give you ten times as much experience? Hmm, this actually made me realize I have no idea how the social skills work. Do creatures have a specified way to "defend" themselves from being lied to or intimidated? Anyway, we've always just played by giving out experience/levels at story-appropriate moments and I doubt we'll stick to the monsters-are-xp-bags-that-need-to-be-chased-down-and-murderized approach for much longer. We didn't even loot the goblins we killed because their weapons were described as very crude and it hardly seems worth the effort to search a creature armed with a sharp-rock-tied-to-a-mostly-straight-stick type spear.

Well, think of it this way. If you fail to convince a troll to let you pass, he attempts to smash you very very hard. When you fail to do the same thing with a goblin, he pokes you with a stick. The consequences for both are quite different, which plays into the whole XP thing.

Now for an example of Intimidate between the two. The player attempts to Intimidate both of them by pretending to be fierce.
Goblin: Player attempts intimidate. He rolls against being intimidated, possibly with disadvantage since he is so much smaller (if in a group, possibly with reg or even advantage)
Troll: Player attempts intimidate. Troll gets Advantage on his defense since player is puny compared to him.



That directly contradicts the quote from the Starter Deck adventure that says you just sum up the monster xp and divide it between players.

The Starter set tells you to sum the monsters because it is a streamline of the rules. It does not ever give you a situation where you should face enough monsters to increase the XP (unless the players alert all of them, but that is not the way the encounters are designed so you don't get special rules there)

In the Basic DMG rules from the site, page 56/57 explain the way encounters with larger amounts of enemies change the CR

Here is an excerpt



3. Adjust Encounter XP Value Based on the Number of Monsters. Based on the number of monsters in the encounter, multiply the encounter’s XP value by the matching multiplier from the Encounter XP Multipliers table. Thus, if you have an encounter with 4 monsters in it, multiply the total XP value of the encounter by 2 for the purposes of determining how difficult the encounter is. This doesn’t change the actual XP award the adventurers receive for overcoming the monsters, just your calculations of how difficult the encounter is.

[ambartanen]

Here is an excerpt

Isn't that saying you don't get any more xp for fighting monsters in a group?

[MeeposFire]

As both a foodie and a lover of a wide spectrum of RPGs, I take issue with your analogy.

As somebody that loves food and loves to play a wide range of RPGs I take issue with you taking an issue with my analogy. 4e is by any measurable definition a high quality game and it works great. You may not like it but even so that does not mean it isn't a high quality game.

Just like if you have a high quality set of Indian food but if you don't like Indian food chances are you are still not going to like it.

I only chose Indian food because its flavor types are still not "common" in the US and are different enough that many people are just not that into it yet (other people of course love it, I am tepid on it despite loving many other Asian cuisines).

[MeeposFire]

Personally I don't see that much complexity in Indian food, it's just incredibly spicy and intrusive. That's appealing for some (my case), but it's hard to digest due to that and not for everyone.

You can have interesting flavors that are more healthy. You should try Mediterranean food (Italian is just pasta).

Indian food is considered very complex due to the number of flavors coming at you at once. Part of its very intensity is due to the number flavors that tend to overwhelm those who are not used to that kind of intensity.

I know plenty about Mediterranean food and like it but it would not work for my analogy very well. The reason being is that in the USA Italian food is extremely well known and easy to find. It is practically not an ethnic dish anymore (heck it isn't really all that Italian anymore if you really look at it same with American Chinese food). This familiar type of food is similar to how 5e is fairly similar to the comfort zones of a good number of D&D players. Mediterranean food is probably more accessible than Indian (and possibly Thai too) but it is certainly not anywhere near as accessible to the average American than Italian.


Also Italian is definitely not just pasta. Granted Americans love pasta which is partly why you might think that. American Italian food is really more American than Italian at this point as we do things with their food that they would not do (granted being American I do not complain because it is delicious).

[Seerow]

Isn't that saying you don't get any more xp for fighting monsters in a group?

Yeah, that's exactly what it says.


So if you have an exp budget of 2000xp, and you want an 8 monster encounter, you get a budget of 250 exp per monster. Factor in the 2x multiplier, and you end up with 8 125xp monsters making up your 2000xp encounter.

But when the players actually defeat the encounter, they only get 1000xp, not the 2000xp that was budgeted, because xp awards are based on the monster's actual value, not on how hard the encounter was.


In other words, if you're a player you want to avoid any encounters with lots of little stuff, and beeline straight for big boss monsters because those are the only ones that give experience worth caring about.