Lower xp rate, discussion?

[reddir]

Are there any previous discussions on the game/play/setting effects of slower xp gain? I tried a search but had no luck.

[Yogibear41]

If you lowered xp gains, but changed nothing else, eventually you would end up more powerful at the same level because you would have more gold/loot. Other than that I don't really see any changes other than maybe not wanting to spend xp on crafting or spells with xp components.

[reddir]

If you lowered xp gains, but changed nothing else, eventually you would end up more powerful at the same level because you would have more gold/loot. Other than that I don't really see any changes other than maybe not wanting to spend xp on crafting or spells with xp components.

That was a thought that arose, re magic items/spells that required xp - there should be fewer available. Or at least they should cost more.

[Uncle Pine]

I once did something of the sort because I wanted to run a long campaign while sort of capping the world around level 10, but neither me nor my group liked the idea of xp milestone: it ended up going from 1st to 9th level and lasting 2 years and while excess of equipment and gold didn't prove to be as much of an issue, having the party deal with foes that weren't relying too much on equipment (oozes, giants, semi-sentient owlbears) definitely helped.
In conclusion, the concept of halving xp can work great, just be sure to compare expected WBL and the possessions of the party on a semi-regular basis.

[Elkad]

Having come up on 1e, I find 3.5e progression to be INSANELY fast.

I get them to L3 quickly, and then start dragging my feet. Reduced XP, raised XP tables, or just flat being a KillerDM with level drain and actual deaths. Stack enough negative levels on someone and they WILL fail one of the saves the next day. Which even with a Restoration, sets them back to the beginning of the level.

[Telonius]

I'd ask what problem it's intending to solve. If you want to just slow down the rate of level accumulation, you could jettison XP entirely and move to a plot-based level-up scheme. (Everybody levels up when you beat Boss X, or basically whenever the DM says you do). For crafting, 5gp = 1XP. It would save you a bunch of math work and figuring for each encounter.

That kind of a scheme does work best when everybody's at the same Level Adjustment.

[Gnaeus]

That was a thought that arose, re magic items/spells that required xp - there should be fewer available. Or at least they should cost more.

I’m not sure. I see where you get there, from the perspective of 50 exp being a smaller % of a level if levels take twice as much xp. But if it takes 10 sessions to level instead of 5 I’m probably going to be way more eager to level/frustrated at seeing others level before me. I think making it take 2 extra sessions rather than 1 to level might seem harsh.


I'd ask what problem it's intending to solve. If you want to just slow down the rate of level accumulation, you could jettison XP entirely and move to a plot-based level-up scheme. (Everybody levels up when you beat Boss X, or basically whenever the DM says you do). For crafting, 5gp = 1XP. It would save you a bunch of math work and figuring for each encounter.
This seems best to me.

But then again with online games post corona I’ve had a bunch of times where we get exp super late at night and some people are half asleep and don’t write it down, or it gets emailed out 4 days later and someone overlooks the email. And it’s usually the most confused player who needs xp the most and winds up a month later saying “why is everyone else leveling? How much xp should I have?” And then we usually just hand wave them to level anyway. So just making everyone level at once would be so much easier.

Or that other time when I was the party crafter and spent a ton of Xp helping the weakest players. And then they quit and the DM tried to make it up to me and it was just too hard.

[lylsyly]

Just throwing THIS (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/character-advancement/) out there. The fast progression is what my table uses. Not a problem at all ;-)

[reddir]

Wow. I was dreading learning about the drawbacks and warnings but you all are making it seem easy and a simple option to pick if it suits.

This makes me happy. Thanks! 😃

[reddir]

If you want to just slow down the rate of level accumulation, you could jettison XP entirely and move to a plot-based level-up scheme. (Everybody levels up when you beat Boss X, or basically whenever the DM says you do). For crafting, 5gp = 1XP. It would save you a bunch of math work and figuring for each encounter.

This is a shockingly simple way to do it...

My math-loving mind wants to reject it out of hand, but it does seem to be the most elegant solution.

I probably won’t use it just because no!math makes my brain itch but I have to acknowledge it is probably the cleanest solution.

[reddir]

I’m not sure. I see where you get there, from the perspective of 50 exp being a smaller % of a level if levels take twice as much xp. But if it takes 10 sessions to level instead of 5 I’m probably going to be way more eager to level/frustrated at seeing others level before me. I think making it take 2 extra sessions rather than 1 to level might seem harsh.

I don’t understand what you are saying here.

In my comment I was trying to say that since xp is more precious than in the normal game then anything that uses up xp should cost a lot more and be harder to find.

You start saying you don’t think so?

But then the rest of your comment seems to agree that people would be less likely to want to give up xp when it takes longer to get...?

[ayvango]

It is a good idea, I employ it quite often. Ritual of transference is a simple method to convert XP for money in 1:5 ratio. Not too much, but keeping level low you would get two times more XP rewards for the same challenge while money (and magic items therefore) would allow you to keep parity in combat ability with higher level characters.