1 xp per gp

[Tom Kalbfus]

Suppose we altered the rules for d&d 3.5 by reducing the experience gained through combat to one tenth the original value and then awarding 1 experience point for every gold piece value of treasure collected, how would this change the game?

[Kane0]

Gear and levelling would directly compete with each other and PCs will be heavily incentivised to obtain wealth rather than get into fights. Which may be exactly what you want.

Only one way to see how it plays out, eh?

[Tom Kalbfus]

Is there an actual advantage to this redundant, fluff-unjustified, ethically odd advancement system that got dished long ago for good reason?

The only mechanical benefit I can see is as a way of more tightly justifying and formalizing the WBL system, but not in a particularly effective way. It also means that characters are going to start thinking of winning economic schemes instead of fighting monsters, which may be what you want, but in that case why aren't you just playing a game where money is its own incentive?
It would make it more like Traveller in fact. Traveller doesn't have levels, the way you advance there is by owning a lot of stuff and getting other people to fight for you.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

When old school D&D used this system, it made stealing treasure more important than fighting monsters.

Over the years, gamers have come to see fighting monsters as the point of the game [EDIT: the more important, more enjoyable part of the game, I mean], so now the modern game rewards combat. But by tying XP to treasure, combat was far less important than loot. Negotiating your way past guards, sneaking past monsters, looting the dungeon - these were all rewarded more heavily than combat. You could have games that ran more like a heist movie, than like an action movie.

If that sounds like fun for you, then it would be a good house rule.

By the way, one of the worst ways in which the GP = XP rules were applied was a fairly common house rule that personal GP = personal XP, as opposed to party GP = party XP. This would lead to the thief advancing levels like crazy - they were stealing all the treasure, and so getting all the XP, and they were already benefitting form having the lowest XP / level requirement (because XP / level was different by class).
Avoid this method - unless you want the game to become a competitive, PvP, backstabbing scramble for loot!

[Breccia]

Suppose we altered the rules for d&d 3.5 by reducing the experience gained through combat to one tenth the original value and then awarding 1 experience point for every gold piece value of treasure collected, how would this change the game?

Spending money on training? Man, that takes me back to, like, first Edition.

I see three risks you'd have to get in front of.

1) If you really mean "they spend the money" then the risk is the PCs spending the money on nothing else. Which in turn means they could wander into, say, sixth level while still using 3rd level items. You'll either have to discourage that with, say, a finite cap of spending per level, throwing enough wraiths and trolls at them until they get the idea, or add more magic items to the treasure since they'll be advancing faster.

2) If you meant "they get 1XP per 1gp they find, whether they spend it or not" then you're doubling down on resources. You'll have to be extra cautious about adding too many coins to the treasure hoard, since that turns into their advancement rate.

3) Is the XP awarded based on the total, or could the party say "hey let's give all the money to Steve" and boost one PC higher than the others? If you don't want Steve to be 3 levels higher, make sure the rules don't allow that.

Either way, if you do either, I strongly recommend quest XP rewards. If combat XP is dropped by tenfold, you'll be able to control the XP and therefore level pace with fixed XP amounts from specific tasks.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Spending money on training? Man, that takes me back to, like, first Edition.

I see three risks you'd have to get in front of.

1) If you really mean "they spend the money" then the risk is the PCs spending the money on nothing else. Which in turn means they could wander into, say, sixth level while still using 3rd level items. You'll either have to discourage that with, say, a finite cap of spending per level, throwing enough wraiths and trolls at them until they get the idea, or add more magic items to the treasure since they'll be advancing faster.

2) If you meant "they get 1XP per 1gp they find, whether they spend it or not" then you're doubling down on resources. You'll have to be extra cautious about adding too many coins to the treasure hoard, since that turns into their advancement rate.

3) Is the XP awarded based on the total, or could the party say "hey let's give all the money to Steve" and boost one PC higher than the others? If you don't want Steve to be 3 levels higher, make sure the rules don't allow that.

Either way, if you do either, I strongly recommend quest XP rewards. If combat XP is dropped by tenfold, you'll be able to control the XP and therefore level pace with fixed XP amounts from specific tasks.

In old school D&D high level characters also ended up very rich, a 10th level character was often a lord of a castle, because accumulating wealth is the name of the game, and after you've earned your experience from all the treasure you collected, you might as well do something interesting with all that treasure besides letting it sit there in a vault. So you build castles, towns, and you manage a population in between adventures and eventually you build armies and have adventures trying to defend your realm, basically the adventure comes to you kingdom, and you as the head of state have to deal with it. That is what usually happens when you award xp for gp.

When you award xp for defeating monsters, you high level character might end up as a murder hobo, he has no major responsibilities, but he likes to look for greater things to kill in order to earn xp.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

In old school D&D high level characters also ended up very rich, a 10th level character was often a lord of a castle, because accumulating wealth is the name of the game, and after you've earned your experience from all the treasure you collected, you might as well do something interesting with all that treasure besides letting it sit there in a vault. So you build castles, towns, and you manage a population in between adventures and eventually you build armies and have adventures trying to defend your realm, basically the adventure comes to you kingdom, and you as the head of state have to deal with it. That is what usually happens when you award xp for gp.

When you award xp for defeating monsters, you high level character might end up as a murder hobo, he has no major responsibilities, but he likes to look for greater things to kill in order to earn xp.

Exactly! Murderhobo-ism is one of the perennial complaints about the modern game: XP for Gold kind of solves this.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Exactly! Murderhobo-ism is one of the perennial complaints about the modern game: XP for Gold kind of solves this.
Fortunately this change is easy to implement. A simple little house rule, changes everything.

[HouseRules]

In old school D&D high level characters also ended up very rich, a 10th level character was often a lord of a castle, because accumulating wealth is the name of the game, and after you've earned your experience from all the treasure you collected, you might as well do something interesting with all that treasure besides letting it sit there in a vault. So you build castles, towns, and you manage a population in between adventures and eventually you build armies and have adventures trying to defend your realm, basically the adventure comes to you kingdom, and you as the head of state have to deal with it. That is what usually happens when you award xp for gp.

When you award xp for defeating monsters, you high level character might end up as a murder hobo, he has no major responsibilities, but he likes to look for greater things to kill in order to earn xp.

Basically, players level up and become game masters for a subset of the game.
They have their own player characters that defend their realms.

[Vaern]

XP is balanced so that a party of four adventurers set against challenges appropriate for their level will level up once every 13 encounters or so. This allows you to plan a variety of encounters and know with some reliability when they're going to level up, which in turn allows you to plan higher-level encounters several sessions in advance. If you give XP based on gold found, you create a massive amount of inconsistency that neither you nor your players can plan around.
Animals, vermin, magical beasts, aberrations, elementals, constructs, and undead tend not to carry treasure on them at all. There are also non-combat encounters - traps, environmental hazards, puzzles, skill challenges, social encounters, etc., which the party is generally not expected to get loot rewards for. These encounters would become doubly disappointing, as the party is now denied both loot and XP for may have been a particularly difficult fight. Some creatures which do carry treasure are specifically listed as carrying no coins, which would again rob the party of experience points.
Then there's the issue of randomization. Even creatures carrying standard loot have a chance of rolling low to determine what kind of coins the party finds, resulting in them not carrying any coins at all. And if they happen to be carrying coins, it's impossible to predict how much the party will find. From a level 2 encounter, for example, they might come out with 1,000 copper or 160 platinum. 10 gp vs. 1,600 gp.
If character progression was made to be strictly based on gold it would be impractical to try making plans, for example, to have the party delve into a dungeon and level up just before the end so that they have some cool new abilities to use against the final boss, or to calculate xp gains throughout the dungeon to have them level up as they defeat the final boss as an extra reward for clearing the dungeon.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

XP is balanced so that a party of four adventurers set against challenges appropriate for their level will level up once every 13 encounters or so. This allows you to plan a variety of encounters and know with some reliability when they're going to level up, which in turn allows you to plan higher-level encounters several sessions in advance. If you give XP based on gold found, you create a massive amount of inconsistency that neither you nor your players can plan around.
Animals, vermin, magical beasts, aberrations, elementals, constructs, and undead tend not to carry treasure on them at all. There are also non-combat encounters - traps, environmental hazards, puzzles, skill challenges, social encounters, etc., which the party is generally not expected to get loot rewards for. These encounters would become doubly disappointing, as the party is now denied both loot and XP for may have been a particularly difficult fight. Some creatures which do carry treasure are specifically listed as carrying no coins, which would again rob the party of experience points.
Then there's the issue of randomization. Even creatures carrying standard loot have a chance of rolling low to determine what kind of coins the party finds, resulting in them not carrying any coins at all. And if they happen to be carrying coins, it's impossible to predict how much the party will find. From a level 2 encounter, for example, they might come out with 1,000 copper or 160 platinum. 10 gp vs. 1,600 gp.
If character progression was made to be strictly based on gold it would be impractical to try making plans, for example, to have the party delve into a dungeon and level up just before the end so that they have some cool new abilities to use against the final boss, or to calculate xp gains throughout the dungeon to have them level up as they defeat the final boss as an extra reward for clearing the dungeon.

Good points, and well worth considering!

However, I think none of these are insurmountable. The most important thing to consider is that if you were to adopt this method into a game, it would be consistent within your game. You'd develop new strategies for levelling up PCs - or rather, rediscover the old strategies.

Inconsistency of XP:
Over time, the randomness of treasure will tend towards average. Yes, that's flawed, but not such a massive issue.

Monsters without treasure:
Some creatures can be left alone, animals and vermin - they're literally not worth it. Maybe for certain creature types with no treasure, the XP award could have a bonus? Or if that doesn't philosophically fit with the scheme, then the fact that demons and undead have no treasure just makes them doubly horrible to PCs - there's little reward for the risk they pose. GMs can always award XP bonuses to Good characters who risk their lives against such creatures.

Non-combat encounters:
The OP doesn't suggest that the XP award for such encounters are changed at all. You can still get XP for traps, environmental hazards, etc.

Random treasure:
The treasure tables are supposed to even out over time, but you're right, they could result in a sudden boost to XP under the proposed rule. It seems like a more evenly distributed treasure table is needed - something with a bell curve.

[legomaster00156]

If you want to play Traveller, why not play Traveller? :smallconfused:

[Vaern]

Monsters without treasure:
Some creatures can be left alone, animals and vermin - they're literally not worth it. Maybe for certain creature types with no treasure, the XP award could have a bonus? Or if that doesn't philosophically fit with the scheme, then the fact that demons and undead have no treasure just makes them doubly horrible to PCs - there's little reward for the risk they pose. GMs can always award XP bonuses to Good characters who risk their lives against such creatures.
Animals and vermin are likely to attack as a result of random encounters while resting or traveling. If the DM puts in the effort to throw them at you it's safe to assume that getting out of it isn't going to be quite as simple as just walking away. To that end, I would consider them to be on par with environmental hazards.
To the credit of undead, the ones that don't carry loot are generally either incorporeal and thus incapable of carrying loot or unintelligent and intended to be cannon fodder. Intelligent corporeals actually have decent loot, with vampires having double standard and liches being likely to be wizards with spellbooks worth upwards of 10k.
And while low-level demons and devils don't have any loot, the higher-tier ones give some decent drops. In particular, balors always carry a vorpal sword. While they destroy any weapon they're holding when they die, it is listed as part of their treasure and could reasonably be kept by the players if they manage to disarm one before killing it.

The issue with things like the balor's vorpal sword and a wizard's spellbook, though, is that they're not exactly gold... Granted, in both of these instances the creature in question should drop gold in addition to this extra loot, but this does bring up a number of questions:
Do the players gain XP for non-coin loot?
Is this XP divided evenly among the party, or is it only the person who gets the item who gets the XP for it?
Do you base the XP gained on the actual market value, or the half value that a player actually gets for selling it?
If this does not apply for magic items and equipment, will they at least get XP for things like gems and art which are worth their face value when sold to NPCs?


Non-combat encounters:
The OP doesn't suggest that the XP award for such encounters are changed at all. You can still get XP for traps, environmental hazards, etc.
Whoops, that one was my bad. The "through combat" bit must not have registered when I was reading the initial post.


Random treasure:
The treasure tables are supposed to even out over time, but you're right, they could result in a sudden boost to XP under the proposed rule. It seems like a more evenly distributed treasure table is needed - something with a bell curve.
It is supposed to even out over time, and in the DMG it also mentions that if the players are too far ahead or behind the curve for WBL then the DM should just fudge the numbers a bit to put them back on track and that they should approach the recommended WBL for their next level at a rate proportional to the rate at which they gain experience towards their next level. So the overall rate at which they gain XP can be curbed a bit, but unless you pre-roll loot for encounters, there's still a degree of randomization that makes it difficult to make plans around XP gains.



And another question that I thought of while responding to the first bit: Is XP gained from gold to be divided among the party along with the gold itself, or does everyone gain the full value of gold dropped as XP before loot is divided?
At lower levels, the amount of gold gained from an encounter is generally expected to be less than half of the XP gained from the encounter, with a CR 1 encounter at level 1 giving 300 XP to be divided amongst the party versus an average loot roll giving about 90 gold or so. Say you've got a standard party of 4 players, so the 75 XP each of them would get normally becomes 7.5. If each of them gets 90 XP from that gold before it's split up, they end up with a total of 98 XP which is just a bit higher than what they should be getting if we were calculating XP for the encounter normally. If XP is divided with the loot, though, they'll only end up getting 22.5 XP from gold, for a total of 30 XP. If XP is divided with gold, lower levels could become painful and drag on forever.
Thus, XP from gold should not be divided amongst the party.
By contrast, a level 15 party defeating a CR 15 encounter gains 4500 XP. Divide that by 1/10 for 450, then split it amongst the party for 112.5 XP apiece. They can reasonably expect to get about 4,000 gold from the encounter. If XP from gold is split amongst the party with the loot, they'll each get 1113 XP apiece which is just a tiny bit lower than what they should be getting if we were calculating XP for the encoutner normally. If XP from gold is not split amongst the party, they're likely to level up after two more encounters.
Thus, it is essential that XP from gold be divided amongst the party.

The major issue here is that XP and GP are not meant to be weighed against each other at a 1:1 ratio. The amount of XP required to level up is simply your level times 1,000, making it scale at a fairly steady rate. WBL has a bit of a pattern that it follows until level 5, but you can't reasonably predict WBL past that based on any formula. This is because, as you level up, the value of magical items scales up at a non-linear rate with the base costs being multiplied by both the level of the spell and the level of the item's creator. This results in a steep upward curve in loot rewards as the players are expected to receive and to need to buy more powerful items. Thus, the amount of loot players are expected to receive increases after level 6-7, then snowballs out of control as you cross the double-digit threshold at a rate that would probably push characters well into epic levels before they're even supposed to be level 16 if gold was treated as XP.
(Level 16 WBL = 260,000 gp, level 23 requires 253,000 XP)
(Granted, the WBL table includes non-coin wealth that may not be treated as XP, so using that as a reference in this argument may not entirely be fair of me to use in this example.)

If characters were to level up based on their loot, I think it would be best to get rid of XP altogether and have them level up based exclusively on the WBL table - effectively using that as their XP table - and include magic items, equipment, art, and gems in that calculation rather than just gold. Then you don't need to worry about trying to derive one form of character advancement from another.