Low level PCs and the Deck of Many Things

[RickDaily12]

In the SRD, under payment of XP Cost and spells, IIRC, you are not allowed to cast any spell with an XP cost whose payment would send you under the experience total of your current level.

However, certain items, like the Deck of Many Things, are not negotiable. If you draw the Fool, you must pay 10,000 XP.

What would happen if a character had 9,999 or less XP if this ever happened? Are they drained to 0, or are they killed for good? Surprisingly, no one has ever really mentioned this wherever I looked on Google (obviously lower level players shouldn't be discovering minor artifacts, but where's the fun in that?)

So? What would happen? If you were the DM, how you would interpret negative XP totals?

[One Step Two]

Ah, the deck of many things, the greatest campaign destroying tool of all time. I love it, it really is, my favorite artifact!

Here's my suggestion for you though, treat it like spending exp on crafting magic items, you lose enough EXP to set you back to the start of your current level, and and cant spend any more.

So if said player had 9,999 exp (1 shy of level 5, ouch!), he get's dropped back to the minimum exp for level 4, and has to start from there once more.

I hope this helps!

[RickDaily12]

Really? So if a character is at exactly 10,000 experience points, and draws the Fool, nothing is suffered except the draw of another card? Next he could even draw the Sun, and instantly shoot up to 60,000 XP (Level 11), free with a medium Magic item. Six levels ahead of the rest of the party.

(Sure, he could draw something otherwise horrifying, but hey.)

I can see why you love the artifact, it seems pretty hilarious in concept. :P

[One Step Two]

Pretty much! With that said though, one house rule we used was that you can never use a deluge of experience points to level up more than once, and be halfway to your next level. So in your example, a 5th level character gets 50,000 exp, he'll hit level 6, and have enough experience points to be halfway to his 7th, that's it.

It might be a real rule, but we've used it for so long I can't remember where we started using it from!

Haha, strike that! PHB page 58:
"A character can only advance only one level at a time. If, for some extraordinary reason, a character's XP reward from a single adventure would be enough to advance two or more levels at once, he or she instead advances one level and gains enough XP to be 1 XP short of the next level. Any excess experience points are not retained."

[Kelb_Panthera]

The DoMT isn't a spell or an item you're crafting. The fool is not a choice you're making, it's something being inflicted on you. You lose the full 10k if you have it to lose. Note, however, that the text says nothing about losing levels because of this.

There is precedent for being notably below the XP total for your current ECL under peculiar circumstances such as contacting lycanthropy.