gp recovered = xp gained / gp spent = xp gained

[Leprechaun]

Hi everybody,

long time lurker, first time poster. I have been a player for quite some years, and about a year ago I took up the mantle of being a DM for a group of 5 friends who were interested in getting into D&D. I am always enthusiastic about passing on the hobby, and so far everybody is having a blast. I would like for my new group to avoid the common pitfalls of powergaming in order to make sure all players around the table have a great time. One of the things catching my attention lately is the XP for gold system used in older editions, and I would like to introduce my own take on it.

A) value of money, trade goods, jewelry, art objects, ... recovered from dungeon and brought back to civilised lands, gp = xp. So for example, if my group of 5 loots a bandit camp for a total amount of 5000 gp, they each get 1000xp.

B) In case of magic items found a choice needs to be made: sell it for 50% and divide the money between the party members, increasing the xp amount received as described in A, or keep it for one of the players. Said player may or may not be required to pay the rest of the party for the loss they incur because the item doesn't get sold, I leave this up to the party. It is important though that is a one time decision: magic items sold later on do not generate XP as described in A. They do however generate money when sold, which brings up the choice described below on C and D.

C) Spending in character, gp = xp. Whether it's something a specific class would do, like a cleric donating money to church related charity, or something a specific character would do, like Bob the cleric investing in building his own temple as per his character background is not important. This spending could be anything: training, drinking, gambling, building a house, an inn, investing in their own cult or guild, getting a boat, building temple, going for vanity and a luxurious lifestyle. The important thing is that it's not related to improving the numbers on your character sheet.

D) Following from C, anything you buy improving the numbers on your sheet gets you no xp at all. This forces players to make a choice: bringing their characters alive in the world and following their dreams/ambitions/goals and gain xp/levels, or get better items but stay on a lower level. This somewhat discourages 'ye olde magic ship and somewhat encourages keeping what you find. Crafting is also encouraged this way for those investing in it, while actually bringing back the xp costs associated with it which I assume get hand waived by a lot of DM's out there.


So, assuming the standard xp needed to level table, a first level character starting at 0xp and gaining level 2 at 1000 xp needs to bring back treasure worth 1000gp back to civilised lands, or spend 1000gp on in character activities, or most likely, a mix of both. A fourth level character at 10000 xp gaining level 5 at 15000xp recovering 2500gp needs to decide if he spends it in character to gain the needed xp to level, spend it all on gear but no xp, or spend it on a nice +1 sword (2000gp) and party up the remaining 500gp for 500xp.

One flaw I see with this: spellcasters need less gear, and so they can spend more money into partying and gaining XP. A possible fix for this is simply increasing the xp needed per level per tier, meaning they need more to recover and spend in character in order to level compared to a fighter. After all, a wizard's spell research and magical tuition is expensive, while the fighter is a simple brute mercenary drinking and gambling it all away (according to the wizards).

In order to level you need X * your current level to reach the xp threshold for the next level. I would use the following values for X according to the tiers in order to offset the discrepancy in gear needed to be effective:

T1: 2500XP Wizard, Cleric, Druid
T2: 2000XP Sorcerer
T3: 1500XP Bard
T4: 1250XP Rogue, Barbarian, Ranger
T5: 1000XP Fighter, Monk, Paladin

So, what do you think? I am sure there are more flaws or pitfalls I am missing, or maybe this idea is completely moronic? :smallbiggrin:

[JNAProductions]

I think you identified the big issue-Spellcasters will be even better under this system-but honestly, that's an issue pretty much no matter what in 3.5.

Honestly, I think it sounds like a cool system! Just ask your players to not abuse it, and if people start getting unbalanced to the point it's detrimental to the fun, talk to them and work it out.

[Leprechaun]

Honestly, I think it sounds like a cool system! Just ask your players to not abuse it, and if people start getting unbalanced to the point it's detrimental to the fun, talk to them and work it out.

Thanks! It obviously needs to be tested at the table over a campaign. I have talked to my players already about it and they want to give it a go when we finished the current campaign (red hand of doom of course :smallbiggrin: )


I think you identified the big issue-Spellcasters will be even better under this system-but honestly, that's an issue pretty much no matter what in 3.5.

Yeah, I have seen the amount of discussions those topics generate on the boards, not touching that one with a 10ft pole before I gained some more experience as a DM.

[JNAProductions]

How experienced are your players? On the newb-Tippy scale, where do they fall?

[Mordaedil]

Dave Arneson, I believe, was pretty famous for doing all his campaigns like this, using the logic that the adventurers used all their gold in town partying until they ran out and leveled and then had to go adventuring again to earn more money.

[KillianHawkeye]

Thanks! It obviously needs to be tested at the table over a campaign. I have talked to my players already about it and they want to give it a go when we finished the current campaign (red hand of doom of course :smallbiggrin: )

I would be interested to hear how it turns out. Please do share the results with us!

[Gemini476]

It's an interesting enough idea, but it immediately runs into some problems you'll need to fix since you're messing with some of the fundamental math of the system. Chief among them is multiclassing - perhaps just have it be Gestalt with mandatory +2 level adjustment, or having XP split among the classes? I'd need to math it out to see what works, though.

You also run into the problem of the GP-XP ratio in encounters being much more skewed than in the old editions - I don't remember the specifics off the top of my head, but it's nowhere near Moldvay's near-perfect 75%GP/25%XP split. (Or OD&D's 90%GP-70%GP, depending on level.)

Also, well, you'll have to make some adjustments to the whole XP-Is-A-River catchup mechanics, and you should probably be aware that level advancement is going to be much faster for certain classes.

And that Fighters end up eight levels ahead of Wizards, and Sorcerers are one level ahead of Wizards until level 11/9 where they're two levels ahead.

There's a bunch of small things that change, basically.

[Eisfalken]

This is a very poor attempt to jury-rig 2nd edition advancement into 3rd edition. At best it screws over wizards and makes every other spellcaster even worse than they already are; if you haven't heard the term CoDzilla in your game yet, you soon will.

I strongly urge abandoning this whole thing. I get the sense this is to try and force the players into doing something other than just the stereotypical dungeon-diving activities, but you can't fix that by trying some bizarre, clunky retrograde to 3rd edition.

Here's the main question: what "problems" is this system meant to fix? Like, be specific. It seems like you are making points about them not role-playing much anymore, or really "investing" in the game setting. Is that the issue, or is it something else?

[John Longarrow]

For myself, this brings back the three most odd aspects of D&D;
1) Thieves (and only thieves) got XP for stealing. Give a thief some down time in town and they are going to go on a crime spree. This takes a LOT of time away from the rest of the party who's partying to deal with the thief who's going around being public enemy #1.

2) It makes encounters much harder to get players involved in. Players will go out of their way to avoid 'wilderness' encounter or other 'low value' monsters because they won't get XP for them. Why deal with the rampaging tiger when it won't have treasure? It discourages RP base adventures that lack a solid "fiscal" reason.

3) It encourages Sell -> steal -> repeat behavior. Players go into town and sell stuff. Players then rob the places they sold to so they can go to the next town and repeat.

It also removes the challenge of the monster from leveling. Same challenge grants different XP based on how liberal/stingy the DM (or the DM's dice) is with this monsters treasure.

[ComaVision]

This is pretty much how I do xp in my games. I've never told my players though because I don't want to influence how they play, though I think they've probably figured out they aren't getting xp for fighting random encounters with no loot.

WBL pretty much agrees that xp = gp up until level 10. I do things differently after level 10.

For (magic) items, I give the group 50% of the gp value in xp. This is basically assuming that the item will eventually be sold. I do not give any xp for consumables acquired, with the exception of consumables that have significant value and are likely to be resold (staves).

I don't give extra experience if the PC gives money to charity or something like that. I'll usually make sure the group gets that amount back in the future for WBL purposes (just add the sum to the next loot pile).

The result is that I can track xp very easily and the group should be roughly around the appropriate WBL. Again, I don't use this to influence how my group plays in any way.

[Telonius]

The first thing I thought of, seeing this, is my players completely looting a dungeon, grabbing literally everything that isn't nailed down (and bringing a crowbar for the stuff that is). I know this is common for some groups anyway, but it's not something I'd want to actively encourage.

Second thought - yeah, this is going to get kind of screwy with item crafting. Particularly for things like Artificer, that has feats and class features to decrease the cost for crafting. Personally, the only DM's I've ever heard of waiving the XP cost for crafting are the ones in XP-less campaigns. (For those, they generally use the 5gp = 1 xp exchange rate, so your cost in GP to craft is higher than it otherwise would be).

[Malroth]

Lets see, A Lv 1 artificer with Extraordinary artisan (scribe scroll) can scribe a scroll of a lv 1 spell for 9.38G and 3xp, he can then sell it immediately for 12.5G after spending the 3g carousing to make up for the lost XP he's looking at a profit of 1SP 2 CP per scroll, He can make 1000GP worth of items per day leaving him with 4.8 net gold/xp per day of downtime without touching his craft reserve.


Edit:

With using their craft reserve to immediately craft items for sale upon leveling (thus getting 8x the value of their craft reserve in XP) artificers can get a significant start on earning their next level, It starts as 16% less XP at lv 1 but increases rapidly topping 60% at lv 13 and alowing them to immediately level once they're past lv 17

[Deophaun]

Lets see, A Lv 1 artificer with Extraordinary artisan (scribe scroll) can scribe a scroll of a lv 1 spell for 9.38G and 3xp, he can then sell it immediately for 12.5G after spending the 3g carousing to make up for the lost XP he's looking at a profit of 1SP 2 CP per scroll, He can make 1000GP worth of items per day leaving him with 4.8 net gold/xp per day of downtime without touching his craft reserve.
Better off being a Wizard using normal crafting bolstered with magecraft; you'll get about twice the amount using Craft (Composition) since the results are art objects that sell at full--not half--price. At level 3 you can then add unseen crafter to it. At level 9 it's game over as you can use a single casting of fabricate to create tens of millions of gold worth of sculptures out of platinum.

Although it's likely better still to use Profession (Engineer) and build ships due to the large number of assistants you can plausibly employ to use aid another on your check; you're guaranteed to get to level 3 faster, at least, though there is the issue of seed money, which is obviously why anyone sets out to adventure in the first place.

[Malroth]

Lets see, Lv 1 Wizard with Skill focus (craft) max ranks 18 Int and the magecraft spell, is looking at a +15 Modifier to his craft rolls, assuming he takes 10 he can make a 6.25 gp art object in a week with materials costing 2gp. It's more profitable per unit input but not as fast as the magic item creation assembly line could be (due to how borked mundane crafting rules are)

[Deophaun]

Lets see, Lv 1 Wizard with Skill focus (craft) max ranks 18 Int and the magecraft spell, is looking at a +15 Modifier to his craft rolls, assuming he takes 10 he can make a 6.25 gp art object in a week with materials costing 2gp. It's more profitable per unit input but not as fast as the magic item creation assembly line could be (due to how borked mundane crafting rules are)
Some bad math there.

Skill focus +3, 18 Int +4, Ranks +4, Magecraft +5 = +16. Add +2 for masterwork Artisans tools for +18. Making novels using accelerated crafting for a DC 25, he is making 700 silver a week, or 68 net gp a week, or 9.7 gold a day, versus the artificer's 4.8.

Again, though, we're not crafting at level one, or level 2, or maybe even level 3; you'd get a lot more XP a lot faster by adventuring. It takes a while for any form of crafting to ramp up.

[Leprechaun]

I should have mentioned that I will be running core only for the foreseeable future in order not to overwhelm the new players. I assumed this was obvious, but I guess I should have mentioned it more clearly. My bad.


How experienced are your players? On the newb-Tippy scale, where do they fall?

In my group of five I have
- one solid roleplayer who so far has shown a lot more interest in interacting with the setting than in optimising/powerplaying. He seems more interested in things like immovable rod than in weapon + x. I would like to encourage this.
- two roleplayers who are both more introverted, showing equal amounts of interest in optimising and interacting with the world. They are okay, and they seem to have the most interest into actually developing background stories and acting on them.
- two gamers who have shown an aptitude for knowing/learning the rules and optimising. They are okay enough as roleplayers so far, but I fear they are going down to the dark side as they will always pick the most effective option. One of them is particularly rules savy, but I am grooming him to be the backup DM.

The fact that they are all inexperienced (experienced gamers in general though) is the reason I want to try this, as it would offer a more pure RPG experience in which they are adventurers/mercenaries at heart, rather than a bunch of powerplayers playing a tactical wargame.


It's an interesting enough idea, but it immediately runs into some problems you'll need to fix since you're messing with some of the fundamental math of the system. Chief among them is multiclassing - perhaps just have it be Gestalt with mandatory +2 level adjustment, or having XP split among the classes? I'd need to math it out to see what works, though.

You also run into the problem of the GP-XP ratio in encounters being much more skewed than in the old editions - I don't remember the specifics off the top of my head, but it's nowhere near Moldvay's near-perfect 75%GP/25%XP split. (Or OD&D's 90%GP-70%GP, depending on level.)

Also, well, you'll have to make some adjustments to the whole XP-Is-A-River catchup mechanics, and you should probably be aware that level advancement is going to be much faster for certain classes.

And that Fighters end up eight levels ahead of Wizards, and Sorcerers are one level ahead of Wizards until level 11/9 where they're two levels ahead.

There's a bunch of small things that change, basically.

Because they are inexperienced players I discourage multiclassing, but I agree I have no good solution for that problem. I don't precisely know what XP-Is-A-River means, but I assume it means lower level characters should level quicker? If that is the case, I am okay with that. The player running a level behind a level 6 party receives level 6 treasure, so is in fact catching up.

I am also okay with certain classes leveling somewhat faster than other classes, depending on the gap and the classes. Assuming even distribution of loot tier 1 classes should at most be 2 levels behind tier 5 classes.


This is a very poor attempt to jury-rig 2nd edition advancement into 3rd edition. At best it screws over wizards and makes every other spellcaster even worse than they already are; if you haven't heard the term CoDzilla in your game yet, you soon will.

I strongly urge abandoning this whole thing. I get the sense this is to try and force the players into doing something other than just the stereotypical dungeon-diving activities, but you can't fix that by trying some bizarre, clunky retrograde to 3rd edition.

Here's the main question: what "problems" is this system meant to fix? Like, be specific. It seems like you are making points about them not role-playing much anymore, or really "investing" in the game setting. Is that the issue, or is it something else?

I fail to see how it screws over spellcasters really seeing they are the ones that need less equipment to be effective. Sure they do need more gold to level, but martials do need the equipment to survive. As per rule D: buying better equipment means no xp from that gold.

As for the why: I want to encourage my players into making a strategic decision what to do with their gold: invest in gear or invest in xp. If they choose the latter they get to invest it in something that means something to their character. In short, I hope it helps with worldbuilding and getting them involved into the world. They are doing that okay-ish enough now, but it can be a lot better. Seeing as they are new to the hobby and at the same time avid gamers, I suspect they will respond rather well to these incentives. It also encourages play where the party tries to turn a profit: sure, it's nice conquering a dragon's hoard, but if you had to buy a load of equipment just to get it, was it worth it?


For myself, this brings back the three most odd aspects of D&D;
1) Thieves (and only thieves) got XP for stealing. Give a thief some down time in town and they are going to go on a crime spree. This takes a LOT of time away from the rest of the party who's partying to deal with the thief who's going around being public enemy #1.

2) It makes encounters much harder to get players involved in. Players will go out of their way to avoid 'wilderness' encounter or other 'low value' monsters because they won't get XP for them. Why deal with the rampaging tiger when it won't have treasure? It discourages RP base adventures that lack a solid "fiscal" reason.

3) It encourages Sell -> steal -> repeat behavior. Players go into town and sell stuff. Players then rob the places they sold to so they can go to the next town and repeat.

It also removes the challenge of the monster from leveling. Same challenge grants different XP based on how liberal/stingy the DM (or the DM's dice) is with this monsters treasure.

1) that's why in rule A I specifically said from wilderness to civilised lands, so thieving doesn't count. The money gained does count for rule C though, and I fail to see why this would be a problem. If a player really wants to play an actual thief he should be able to, and it's my job as DM to make it less attractive as an option to the player (because good stuff is highly secured) and to interweave it into the session without it taking away from the rest of the group.

2) I see no problem with this, monsters that drop very little loot should be a net loss for the party fighting them: maybe it will encourage other solutions or just encourage the party to go around it. If they got offered money to slay these kind of monsters by the local count, then I point to rule C where money is its own reward. If they weren't offered money to do it, and the monster doesn't drop loot, indeed, why should a party of enterprising mercenaries bother at all?

3) see 1).


The first thing I thought of, seeing this, is my players completely looting a dungeon, grabbing literally everything that isn't nailed down (and bringing a crowbar for the stuff that is). I know this is common for some groups anyway, but it's not something I'd want to actively encourage.

Second thought - yeah, this is going to get kind of screwy with item crafting. Particularly for things like Artificer, that has feats and class features to decrease the cost for crafting. Personally, the only DM's I've ever heard of waiving the XP cost for crafting are the ones in XP-less campaigns. (For those, they generally use the 5gp = 1 xp exchange rate, so your cost in GP to craft is higher than it otherwise would be).

It could evolve into that kind of play, I see no problem with it. Getting all that stuff back through the wilderness...interesting. I hope this means more use of utility spells and skills, maybe even hiring actual goods & services (porters, donkeys,...) in order to get the loot to town in the first place.

Crafting is indeed a tricky area though. Currently I am using the "you level when I say you level" system and ignore any xp costs (luckily my players haven't touched crafting yet), but under my proposed system xp cost would be a real thing. Crafting your own stuff is cheaper than buying it, but more expensive than simply finding it in a dungeon, as it should be I think.

This of course assumes players actually putting resources and feats into crafting: those that do should be rewarded for it. The lab needed to craft items would be a nice xp source as per rule C.

I am the first person to understand the idea is far from finished though :)


Some bad math there.

Skill focus +3, 18 Int +4, Ranks +4, Magecraft +5 = +16. Add +2 for masterwork Artisans tools for +18. Making novels using accelerated crafting for a DC 25, he is making 700 silver a week, or 68 net gp a week, or 9.7 gold a day, versus the artificer's 4.8.

Again, though, we're not crafting at level one, or level 2, or maybe even level 3; you'd get a lot more XP a lot faster by adventuring. It takes a while for any form of crafting to ramp up.

At which point I'd say to the player to retire his character to become a merchant and open a shop. Seems like a good way to populate your world with former pc's, I like it!