First-Time DM--Track XP or Milestone Leveling?

[TheCleverGuy]

So, I'm likely going to be running my first game in a week or so. Planning on playing through the Sunless Citadel module with my group. Assuming everyone carries over from our current Curse of Strahd campaign, I'll have six players, which is more then recommended, but I figure if they breeze through the early encounters I can add monsters to the later ones to up the difficultly a bit.

I'm wondering about level progression for the PCs though. The module is supposed to bring characters from Level 1 to Level 3. Would it be better for me to track XP, or just have the PCs level up at certain points? We've been using milestones for CoS, and I think I prefer that method to tracking XP for each player, but the Tales from the Yawning Portal book doesn't really provide any indication of where level-up milestones might occur in the adventure. I'd appreciate any advice you can give.

Thanks!

p.s. If you have any tips on adjusting for the number of players, I'll take those too.

[Cikomyr]

I prefer milestone levelling. Less details to track.

[darknite]

I like checkpoints better than xp simply because it feels more balanced for rewarding non-combat play. Sure you can use xp for social and exploration events but you need to have a system for doing that and hey, checkpoints just work better IMHO.

In any case, ask the players and see if they have a preference. It's their game, too.

[Laserlight]

I think the players ought to have some sense of advancement every session (unless they really screw up a session), so I would suggest XP, or at least tell them "You're halfway to L5" or something similar at the end of each session. I polled my groups a couple of weeks ago, and more players preferred XP than I expected. Several didn't care, as long as they advanced. No one said that when they were players, they wanted milestones; they only wanted milestones when they were DMing.

[suplee215]

Ultimate I think it comes down to players and whether you are leveling up characters all at the same time or not. I am currently dming a game with experience points but everyone leveling up at the same time and it's a mistake.

[SheVa]

I started with XP-leveling when I set out as a DM. By now, I only do milestone levelling - it's just so much better in every particular!

1) Your player's don't track XP, so they have no idea when the next level comes up, so to them it doesn't matter how you decide leveling.

2) You don't need to track anything for leveling purposes! It's so much simpler in terma of book-keeping!

3) Milestone-leveling feela so much more epic! Milestone-leveling: you defeated the evil Count Grimdark - you awaken feeling stronger, empowered by your great victory! XP-leveling: you successfully chased off the Swarm of Squirrels that was pestering you during the night - you awaken feeling stronger, empowered by your great victory...?

4) There is no party-imbalance. When someone misses out on a session, they would normally not get XP - but you can carry them to the next level with the rest of the party once a milestone is reached. (Level inequalities within the party only create hassle - some feel less powerful, encounters are more difficult to balance, etc.)

I never want to go back to tracking XP.

[Foxydono]

I prefer xp, I don't track it, I just say hoe much xp they got every session. So it's not much work and because I always play with the same group there is no imbalance.

Why XP? I hate it when things are 'fixed'. It may bring balance, but I don't want that. I want players 100% in charge in what they do, and bound to this is xp. If players do something epic, I reward them extra xp. Milestone levelling feels like computer gaming and d&d is all about having a choice and being able to reward players for doing clever and epic things.

[NRSASD]

I tried out milestones for Curse of Strahd, and I have to say I vastly prefer it. That said, I think xp is more suitable for a less structured campaign.

[johnbragg]

There is a middle-ground option between milestone leveling, which can feel arbitrary, and tracking every 25 xp goblin the players defeat. Instead of tracking XP by the book, track Encounters. I started doing this in 3rd, where it was a regular 10 Encounters per level (13.333 by the book, but 10 is simpler) but it still works in 5th with a tiny bit of work.

Using the numbers from the DMG page 82, a 1st level medium encounter is worth 50 xp. Boom, there you go. Your 1st level party defeats an encounter in the 1st level part of the adventure? They each get 50 xp. No need to count whether it was 7 or 8 skeletons, etc. Easy encounters get half, really hard encounters get double. Count up the encounters at the end of the session, give out XP in nice, round numbers.

Use the table on DMG page 82, take your APL (Average Party Level), evaluate the Encounter as easy, medium or hard, divide or multiply by 2. (I don't fiddle with deciding between Hard and Deadly.)

A 1st level encounter is worth 50 xp, it takes 300 xp to get to 2nd level. So 6 encounters, more or less.

A 2nd level medium encounter is worth 100 xp. 6 100 xp encounters takes you from 2nd to 3rd level.

3rd level medium encounter, 150 xp. 12 150 xp Encounters takes you from 3rd to 4th level.
4th level, 250 xp each. 16 Encounters takes you to 5th level with a few XP left over.

And so on.

[johnbragg]

I prefer xp, I don't track it, I just say hoe much xp they got every session. So it's not much work and because I always play with the same group there is no imbalance.

Why XP? I hate it when things are 'fixed'. It may bring balance, but I don't want that. I want players 100% in charge in what they do, and bound to this is xp. If players do something epic, I reward them extra xp. Milestone levelling feels like computer gaming and d&d is all about having a choice and being able to reward players for doing clever and epic things.

My count-by-Encounters system lets you fudge this. Your players did something awesome that the book doesn't give a good XP value for? Call it an extra Encounter. Or if it was an Encounter, call it a Hard Encounter, double XP.

Players accomplish a Story Goal from the module? That's an encounter, everybody have another 50/100/(whatever the number is for that APL) XP.

[TheCleverGuy]

Hey, thanks for all the quick replies. I have a couple questions that may be a bit specific to the Sunless Citadel module, so spoilers I guess.

First, if I decide to track XP, will having the 6th player throw off the XP balance as written in the book? Meaning that the players will advance more slowly, since the XP are divided among them every encounter. Probably adding a monster or two would mitigate that, though, right?

On the other hand, if I go with milestones, what should those milestones be (assuming I want the players to hit level 3 before the boss fight at the end)? Would level 2 come after meeting Yusdrayl, or after finding the captured dragon? Or is that too early? The dragon seems like it could be REALLY dangerous for a level 1 party--it's cold breath deals an average of 22 damage, which will drop even a Barbarian from full health to zero in one shot. But maybe I'm overestimating its survivability against a large party.


There is a middle-ground option between milestone leveling, which can feel arbitrary, and tracking every 25 xp goblin the players defeat. Instead of tracking XP by the book, track Encounters. I started doing this in 3rd, where it was a regular 10 Encounters per level (13.333 by the book, but 10 is simpler) but it still works in 5th with a tiny bit of work.

Using the numbers from the DMG page 82, a 1st level medium encounter is worth 50 xp. Boom, there you go. Your 1st level party defeats an encounter in the 1st level part of the adventure? They each get 50 xp. No need to count whether it was 7 or 8 skeletons, etc. Easy encounters get half, really hard encounters get double. Count up the encounters at the end of the session, give out XP in nice, round numbers.

Use the table on DMG page 82, take your APL (Average Party Level), evaluate the Encounter as easy, medium or hard, divide or multiply by 2. (I don't fiddle with deciding between Hard and Deadly.)

A 1st level encounter is worth 50 xp, it takes 300 xp to get to 2nd level. So 6 encounters, more or less.

A 2nd level medium encounter is worth 100 xp. 6 100 xp encounters takes you from 2nd to 3rd level.

3rd level medium encounter, 150 xp. 12 150 xp Encounters takes you from 3rd to 4th level.
4th level, 250 xp each. 16 Encounters takes you to 5th level with a few XP left over.

And so on.

This is a really good idea, I'll have to go back and read this section of the DMG again. Thanks!

[Zhorn]

I've been a player in milestone levelling games. I DM by XP.

The most 'extra' work it does is the few seconds to enter the monsters into kobold fight club, and less than a minute to count up hatch marks the players have earned during that session and multiple out their xp worth. I use Matt Mercer's hatchmark system non-combat xp, or general rewarding interesting player actions. Each time a player does a thing that pushes the story forward or drives the characters to engage/react, they get a hatch mark. Each mark is worth their level multiplied by 25 (15 is used more often, but 25 was from a video guide and the math is just easier).

Milestone is by far more convenient, but xp feels more rewarding.

[Sariel Vailo]

Milestone if it's story or narrative driven if it's kill everything xp

[johnbragg]

Hey, thanks for all the quick replies. I have a couple questions that may be a bit specific to the Sunless Citadel module, so spoilers I guess.

First, if I decide to track XP, will having the 6th player throw off the XP balance as written in the book? Meaning that the players will advance more slowly, since the XP are divided among them every encounter. Probably adding a monster or two would mitigate that, though, right?

On the other hand, if I go with milestones, what should those milestones be (assuming I want the players to hit level 3 before the boss fight at the end)? Would level 2 come after meeting Yusdrayl, or after finding the captured dragon? Or is that too early? The dragon seems like it could be REALLY dangerous for a level 1 party--it's cold breath deals an average of 22 damage, which will drop even a Barbarian from full health to zero in one shot. But maybe I'm overestimating its survivability against a large party.

Question 1. Thinking in encounters-per-level means that you don't have to worry about dividing by 5 instead of 4 or 6 instead of 5. (You still have to worry about "do I throw in extra mooks to balance the extra player, or use Max HP instead of Average HP or Rolled HP for monsters, but you don't have to re-do the XP budget math)

Question 2. I don't know enough Sunless Citadel to judge.

[quote]This is a really good idea, I'll have to go back and read this section of the DMG again. Thanks!

The DMG doesn't really explain what I'm talking about here at all, but it has the table with the numbers.

I came up with the idea running 3rd Edition, where every level takes (level number *1000) xp. 1000 xp for 2nd, 3000 xp total for 3rd, 6000 xp total for 4th, etc. By the 3rd edition DMG encounter XP guidelines, it should take 13 1/3 perfectly balanced encounters to level. Having that consistent algorithm let me play with the math, handwaving "13.333" to "10", and everything got radically simpler. (I was playing with my kids, who were just learning, so you never knew which encounters they'd remember all of their abilities for and steamroll, and which one's they'd forget or make terrible tactical choices for, and have a near-TPK).

If you want more in-depth thoughts coming from a very similar perspective, there's https://theangrygm.com/angrys-guide-to-experience/. The writing style is intentionally abrasive ("Angry GM"), but if you don't mind being yelled at, he lays out his philosophies in much detail.

[Spectrulus]

I've played by milestone leveling for twenty years, it enables characters to level up twice without having to murder something, which promotes better gameplay in my experience.

I prefer games to have story with combat 2/3rds of sessions.

It's pretty easy as a DM "Yeah, they've done enough storyline and/or fought a hard enough battle to level up." Which I follow with "Now they're high enough level to throw this terrible encounter at them!" =D

[NRSASD]

If you play Sunless Citadel as written, yeah, they'll level slower. That said, I would absolutely increase the monster count by 33%-50%. In my experience of 5E, a singular monster almost always loses to a large number of players, much more drastically than the stats alone suggest, because having more actions is extremely powerful. Rather than buff the monster to the point it one-shots players, adding an extra one or a couple of lesser helpers really evens out the fight.

[Guy Lombard-O]

As a player, I really don't have a strong preference between XP or milestone leveling. That may partially be because I'm generally in no hurry to level up. My DM starts to get overwhelmed somewhere in mid-tier-3, and starts wanting to shut the campaign down (we're more sandbox as a group, rarely do any modules). Plus, tier 2 is probably my sweet spot for enjoyment, as well.

That said, the one thing I do care about is that the PCs all be of equal level. Real life responsibilities often keep me and some of the others from being able to sit in on every session, but me more than most others. It's really not a lot of fun being 3 levels behind the other characters, and feeling like it's extremely difficult to make any significant contributions. So I greatly prefer that the DM just declare a party-wide character level for the campaign, and level everyone up together regardless of how many sessions various people were able to make. Honestly, not being able to play the sessions is "punishment" enough for missing them. No additional incentive is needed (by getting stuck at a lower level) to try to make it as often as possible.

[Tawmis]

I have DM'ed for centuries it feels like, and had always used XP.

And then 5e comes along, introduces Milestones.
My life as a DM got increasingly easier because of this.

Now the need to kill anything and everything "just to get some XP" was finally out the Window. I had players who would be 60XP shy of their next level, so they would go "hunting" to try and find animals to kill (when they normally never mentioned hunting previously during rests). So it was clear that they were "roleplaying" just to get that extra 60 XP.
Milestones also diminish the chance that the party might kill someone or something important to a quest, just for XP.

Milestones also let you, as the DM, have better control of the adventure ahead. You can pace it out - like, "I will do five sessions of adventures for level 1." Or simply finding something like that that feels right. Especially as a new DM. You don't want to hand out too much XP, and suddenly your party is growing more powerful than you had planned. You could always Milestone up to a specific level if you wanted... so Milestone up to Level 5, then from 5 on switch to XP.

But my preference these days is definitely milestone.

[RSP]

XP has issues, in my experience, with keeping the party balanced. If this isn’t an issue, then go for it; but I find its more trouble than it’s worth.

Biggest issue, I find, tends to be dealing with absent players, as we’re all adults with work and commitments that come before playing: are their characters still involved in fights? If so who plays them? Can they be killed, or lose items/gold/whatever, while not under the control of their player?

As a player, I’d dislike losing my character because another player, who isn’t necessarily aware of the character’s abilities or motivations, did something I wouldn’t. Likewise, if I needed to RP a situation or outcome that I feel my character never would have done.

The easy solution is to remove the characters of absent players from those sessions, but then why are they gaining XP if they’re not in danger: other characters risk death but the PC that isn’t involved gets the reward? That seems unfair.

I know milestone equally rewards all characters regardless of involvement, but that seems a lot more palatable as it’s taking the story as a whole and not worrying about the worth of each encounter. Why spend the time to value each encounter in its XP worth, but then disregard whether PCs actually took part in them or not? Just seems a waste of time.

[Keravath]

There are alternatives to milestone vs XP.

The biggest issue I find with XP is that it tends to reward combat focused play more than other styles (for most DMs) and as a result can influence the players towards combat focused strategies/scorched earth/murder hobo in order to maximize their XP.

I saw this most frequently in Adventurer's League before season 8 where rewarding XP for social actions isn't spelled out in most modules and where even the guidelines in some of the modules or hard covers significantly limit the amount of XP the DM is supposed to reward for non-combat encounters (ToA has a provision like that).

As a result, the players adopted specific character behaviours to maximize the XP their characters would receive which I found really negatively impacted a lot of the other play styles or trying to deal with encounters either via social interaction or by avoiding them entirely. In theory, all of these should reward the same XP since the party has dealt with the problem ... in practice it rarely works out that way with XP systems since often the DM rewards more XP for the combat solution.

Milestones are one way to get around these issues. The DM chooses a reasonable time, perhaps after enough encounters or at a certain point in the module where the characters have gained some amount of experience and levels them up then. This works well without encouraging any specific play style.

Adventurer's League adopted an intermediate approach in season 8 where they award Adventure Check Points. After a certain number of points are acquired (amount varies depending on the tier of the character levels 1-4 need 4 to advance, 5+ need 8), then the character levels up. In AL, they award ACP for objectives achieved or in the simplest case just for time spent playing toward the goals of the module (i.e. no ACP for socializing unless in game :) ).

If you wanted something intermediate between XP and milestones that isn't biased towards combat you could award an ACP for each encounter resolved (no matter what ingenious method the characters come up with to deal with it). Adjust the ACP awarded to achieve the rate of character advancement that fits the narrative and the story.

[Man_Over_Game]

Especially for a new DM, Milestones, or a similar system, is the way to go.

You could do something like gaining Experience from completing objectives, and you only need 3 Experience to level up or something like that. For example, saving the kobold counts as an objective, as does "negotiating" with the goblins.

You could do something like Session-based experience, where you gain a level after attending a number of sessions equal to your level (up to level 5, where every level up then only takes 5 sessions). This incentivizes people to show up.

Or you could do something like Exalted does, which rewards extra EXP for players who helped others within the team in a support role, who played more of their weaknesses than their strengths, or who struggled more within the team.

Or you could mix-and-match. Personally, I like to use a session-based foundation (5 points per session), rewarding extra experience for completing objectives (1-5 each) or performing well for the team (1-5 each), with each level up taking 10*level in points to level up, up to 50.

[Zakhara]

IMC I began with the former and ended the latter. I think 5e's XP/CR relationships are pants, so I would recommend doing milestones for the sake of streamlining.

[Sigreid]

I recommend brand new DMs do xp. You can transition to milestone later, but tracing right now will give you an idea of the normal pacing for levelling.

[King of Nowhere]

a question regarding milestones: how do you handle xp spent to craft or cast spells with xp component?

my preferred method is giving an arbitrary amount of xp depending on what was done in the session. it has the best of both worlds: you don't have to keep track of anything or make calculation. you are not pushing your players to be murderhobos to squeeze more xp. everyone levels up the same.
at the same time, you don't have problems in paying an xp cost or reward the players for creativity

[Segev]

So, I'm likely going to be running my first game in a week or so. Planning on playing through the Sunless Citadel module with my group. Assuming everyone carries over from our current Curse of Strahd campaign, I'll have six players, which is more then recommended, but I figure if they breeze through the early encounters I can add monsters to the later ones to up the difficultly a bit.

I'm wondering about level progression for the PCs though. The module is supposed to bring characters from Level 1 to Level 3. Would it be better for me to track XP, or just have the PCs level up at certain points? We've been using milestones for CoS, and I think I prefer that method to tracking XP for each player, but the Tales from the Yawning Portal book doesn't really provide any indication of where level-up milestones might occur in the adventure. I'd appreciate any advice you can give.

Thanks!

p.s. If you have any tips on adjusting for the number of players, I'll take those too.

I recommend XP, because it kind-of self-regulates for difficulty based on number of players. The more players, the fewer XP per player, so they level slower for the easier challenges. They also will thus encounter tougher challenges later on without having leveled quite so much.

It is very possible for the right party to bypass any hostile encounters with the kobolds; this is by design. Do not give them XP for this beyond what the module says; actually fighting all those kobolds has a high chance of being lethal, and bypassing them isn't worth the XP you'd get for killing them. The rewards for not fighting them are less risk, whatever rewards the party gets from working with them, and the possibility of allies against the goblins if they come back with the recalcitrant calcryx.

If the party does go into rooms 7-12 or so (the dragonpriest tomb), keep in mind that Jot can move after attacking. I say this because I foolishly forgot it, and he stayed in line of fire rather than moving so that only the one PC already across the pit could come after him, and died in one turn. That pit makes for excellent battlefiled control; Jot can do all sorts of mischief while they're crossing and when they're split across it. But keep lines of sight in mind and have him take advantage of breaking them to further control his exposure.

The mamma rat encounter is going to be pretty easy if the PCs don't cooperatively all walk in and let the rats surround them. It's hard for the rats to get OUT with the open pit trap in front of the door, and they're in a pile of potentially flammable offal and detritus. Don't worry too much about this, but keep it in mind when planning that fight.

The goblin archery range and caltrop path is a really good one for frustrating the PCs and making a small number of goblins a threat to a larger number. When they see they're outnumbered 3:1, the goblins should definitely retreat to the larger room and call out warning, unless the PCs are very clever and careful. Both the goblins and the kobolds can and should react to the PCs' actions, and if they're not careful, pile up numbers to try to take them down.

Remember that the goblins will capture rather than kill, chaining prisoners up in the room with Erky Timbers until they can send them down to Belak. This provides potentially more play even if the PCs get overwhelmed.

[TheCleverGuy]

I recommend XP, because it kind-of self-regulates for difficulty based on number of players. The more players, the fewer XP per player, so they level slower for the easier challenges. They also will thus encounter tougher challenges later on without having leveled quite so much.

It is very possible for the right party to bypass any hostile encounters with the kobolds; this is by design. Do not give them XP for this beyond what the module says; actually fighting all those kobolds has a high chance of being lethal, and bypassing them isn't worth the XP you'd get for killing them. The rewards for not fighting them are less risk, whatever rewards the party gets from working with them, and the possibility of allies against the goblins if they come back with the recalcitrant calcryx.

If the party does go into rooms 7-12 or so (the dragonpriest tomb), keep in mind that Jot can move after attacking. I say this because I foolishly forgot it, and he stayed in line of fire rather than moving so that only the one PC already across the pit could come after him, and died in one turn. That pit makes for excellent battlefiled control; Jot can do all sorts of mischief while they're crossing and when they're split across it. But keep lines of sight in mind and have him take advantage of breaking them to further control his exposure.

The mamma rat encounter is going to be pretty easy if the PCs don't cooperatively all walk in and let the rats surround them. It's hard for the rats to get OUT with the open pit trap in front of the door, and they're in a pile of potentially flammable offal and detritus. Don't worry too much about this, but keep it in mind when planning that fight.

The goblin archery range and caltrop path is a really good one for frustrating the PCs and making a small number of goblins a threat to a larger number. When they see they're outnumbered 3:1, the goblins should definitely retreat to the larger room and call out warning, unless the PCs are very clever and careful. Both the goblins and the kobolds can and should react to the PCs' actions, and if they're not careful, pile up numbers to try to take them down.

Remember that the goblins will capture rather than kill, chaining prisoners up in the room with Erky Timbers until they can send them down to Belak. This provides potentially more play even if the PCs get overwhelmed.

Thanks so much! I'll be sure to keep all of this in mind.

[Segev]

Thanks so much! I'll be sure to keep all of this in mind.

My pleasure. I'm actually running Sunless Citadel (reflavored to fit into Chult/Tomb of Annihilation; I've got it sitting about one hex north of Firefinger) right now; the next session is tonight. My players haven't yet met the hobgoblin chief, and they bribed their way past the goblins to get to Calcryx before using some masterful flattery and trickery to capture her.


The dragonpriest tomb was...a disappointment for me, though I keep reminding myself that they had fun, and that's the goal. But both fights were over in one round, and that was...lame.

I couldn't do much more than I did with the troll (which I'd refluffed as a troll/minotaur hybrid for story purposes, but left the stats alone), but Jot the quasit I bungled.

The room Jot's waiting in has that huge spiked pit between it and the room the PCs are likely coming from. The PCs used an unseen servant to anchor pitons in the ground and turn a rope ladder into a makeshift bridge. Which Jot invisibly unhooked when the half-orc barbarian was halfway across.

Then, when she was angrily re-affixing the pitons, Jot attacked her, dealing more damage and laughing at her as he became visible. Then the whole party unloaded, as his initiative was crap. They all fired spells and arrows across the gap, and the barbarian hit him in melee. He died to an arrow just before his turn.

The way the room was laid out, I should have had him move away the moment he'd attacked. He could have gone south or north and been out of line of sight (and line of effect) from anybody on the far side of the pit, forcing only the half-orc barbarian to come for him in melee. He'd have survived that, most likely, and been able to turn invisible again.

Tonight, I don't know what their plans are; I'm not sure if they're going to press on to find the Gulthias Tree, or leave to handle responsibilities they have outside the dungeon. I am sure they'll plan to come back, though whether they WILL come back if they leave is an open question.

[GreyBlack]

I've been using Adventure Checkpoints, which actually have worked really well. It's kinda like milestones but a little simpler.

[Bjarkmundur]

Milestones.

Rewards are your means of encouraging your players to act. When the only means of rewarding XP is murder, you encourage your players to murder.

I toyed with a more modular XP system, which rewarded stuff from all three pillars (combat, social, exploration), but eventually decided on milestones (for doing stuff) and Inspiration (for being awesome while doing it). Milestones mean different things to different people. For me it's simply "when the players are ready to level up" or "when the players have played a number of sessions equal to their level" .

I recommend writing a short list of what you want to encourage the players to do, and how you want to reward them for doing it. Based on your group, some things might be its own reward. In a group that loves combat, you don't need to reward it; it's the reason they showed up. For a group that loves exploring, just giving them something interesting to explore and learn is more important to them than the potions they picked up while doing so.

The only thing I felt like players really need a nudge towards are backgrounds, personality traits, driving the plot forward and taking risks. These are virtually the only things I give rewards for.

When a player uses his background = inspiration
When a player uses his personality traits/flaws = inspiration
When the players drive the plot forward = Treasure and 'XP' at the end of the session
When the players take non-idiotic risks = I don't kill them, and instead make something awesome happen.

Seriously though, I've had a full group of "nah, we shouldn't do that, that's dangerous". I almost made them become carpenters and have the RP their mundane lives I was so pissed xD

YOU ARE ADVENTURERS. GO ADVENTURE.

"Buuuut thar might be gaaablins"

YOU. ARE. A. BARBARIAN. YOU EAT GABLINS FOR BREAKFAST.

[Honest Tiefling]

I prefer milestones, but I think you should consider running it by your party if you are undecided or uncertain. They might have particular reasons that work well for your particular group, after all. Changing the way EXP is done without consulting them might also ruffle some feathers.

Besides, pretending to be a benevolent dictator by listening to them on a matter you could go either way on is one way to remain in power.

[Pex]

For a first time DM I suggest using experience points to understand level pacing. There is no one true correct pacing of how often PCs should level. It is subjective to the playing group what is too slow, too fast, or just right. Using XP you along with the players will observe the progress that is made. You have a concrete measuring stick of the pacing for that campaign. You also get a feel of when leveling is appropriate. For example the math might mean PCs gain a level, but what just happened in the game might not feel epic enough to have warranted it. They still level because they earned it, but for next campaign should you use milestone you have the experience, pun not intended, of knowing the appropriateness of when to get the level.

[TheCleverGuy]

I prefer milestones, but I think you should consider running it by your party if you are undecided or uncertain. They might have particular reasons that work well for your particular group, after all. Changing the way EXP is done without consulting them might also ruffle some feathers.

Besides, pretending to be a benevolent dictator by listening to them on a matter you could go either way on is one way to remain in power.

I think this is the best advice I've gotten (and you're certainly not the only one to say it, so credit where credit's due), especially since the replies are mostly split 50/50. And everyone's got valid points on both sides. I'll float the question to the group at our session tomorrow night. Thanks!

[Tawmis]

I recommend brand new DMs do xp. You can transition to milestone later, but tracing right now will give you an idea of the normal pacing for levelling.

See, I would think the reverse. Start with Milestone, so you can keep throwing Kobolds (or similar) creatures without the players over powering them due to leveling.
As a new DM, you may want to learn the ropes of less complicated monsters for awhile, and as you get more comfortable (and monsters begin having more abilities, such as Legendary Actions, or especially spells), you can control the pace of the characters going up in levels.


For a first time DM I suggest using experience points to understand level pacing. There is no one true correct pacing of how often PCs should level. It is subjective to the playing group what is too slow, too fast, or just right. Using XP you along with the players will observe the progress that is made. You have a concrete measuring stick of the pacing for that campaign. You also get a feel of when leveling is appropriate. For example the math might mean PCs gain a level, but what just happened in the game might not feel epic enough to have warranted it. They still level because they earned it, but for next campaign should you use milestone you have the experience, pun not intended, of knowing the appropriateness of when to get the level.

I would think the players will know that it's a new DM and that the DM's learning how to DM... Which is no easy task. So if it's slow moving, I would think... hope... they understand.

[Zhorn]

the need to kill anything and everything "just to get some XP" was finally out the Window. I had players who would be 60XP shy of their next level, so they would go "hunting" to try and find animals to kill (when they normally never mentioned hunting previously during rests). So it was clear that they were "roleplaying" just to get that extra 60 XP.
Milestones also diminish the chance that the party might kill someone or something important to a quest, just for XP

I find the murderhobo aspect of xp comes more from players perceiving xp as a reward for killing rather than a reward for encounters. I would still give that hunting player xp, but it would be roleplay reward, not tied to the xp value of the thing they killed. Similarly, I've made it clear to my players that succeeding in an encounter will grant the monster's xp value regardless of if they lived or died, and the 'extra' xp comes from being creative, where I don't count "hit it till it dies" as a creative solution.
With that in mind, quite often my players have chosen to take prisoners to allow for more roleplay xp, or allow the enemy to flee to conserve resources.

[Pex]

I would think the players will know that it's a new DM and that the DM's learning how to DM... Which is no easy task. So if it's slow moving, I would think... hope... they understand.

If it's slow moving the players should let the DM know, who can then adjust accordingly. It's how the DM learns what is too slow.

[sithlordnergal]

I personally prefer Exp over Milestones or Check Points for a few reasons. Exp gives the players something to track, which is actually very important because it gives players a sense that they're actually accomplishing something. Milestones don't give that feeling at all, and while Checkpoints can give that feeling, I find you earn too many too fast. And I actually have three games I am currently in that I can use as comparisons.

The first game is an AL game that uses ACP. While it works in a lot of ways as a player, as a DM I find it falls apart with Hardovers. When I ran Tomb of Annihilation before the rules change, we had played almost half a year before we eventually found the Tomb of the Nine Gods itself. The party was constantly making progress, but we did a lot of RPing. So a lot of the emphasis was on exploration over going straight to the Tomb. Hell, the party literally went the opposite direction of the Tomb because they heard about a Pirate Cove that they wanted to check out, even with the timer they were on. Had we used ACP, we would have been vastly over leveled.

The second game was one I just started playing this week. The DM is using Milestones for leveling. However, our first encounter was surprisingly difficult for a group of level one's. Now, it wouldn't have leveled us up had we done Exp, but after the fight I felt like we had done nothing. There was no point to the encounter because there was no pay off. We didn't get gold, we didn't get exp, nothing would have changed at all if we had run from the Goblins, outside of one player nearly getting K.O.ed. Rather then feeling great for finishing a difficult battle, I felt disappointed.

The third game uses exp. Now, I've missed several games, so I am behind the group. But the fact that I am earning and am able to track how much exp I need till the next level really makes up for it. Am I a little bit behind the group? Yeah, but not by a whole level so it isn't an issue. But I always feel like I accomplished something at the end of the session, even in sessions where we earned very little and only got 25 exp each.