[3.5]XP Rates for Balance Fix

[Totally Guy]

In a 3.5 balance discussion I had recently my friend proposed that experience tables could be adjusted to accellerate the low tier classes and slow down the progress of the high tier classes.

What should such a table look like? I'd guess a tier 3 or 4 class would be the standard "add a thousand" table but I'm just not experienced enough to know what the rest of the rates would have to be to fit.

The high tier classes would still have more potential and the low tier, it would just take a while longer.

How could this idea handle multiclass characters?

Or is this fundamentally flawed somehow?

[Coplantor]

Check AD&D second edition for ideas, the character curves are quite different regarding XP, wizards take the most time to lvl up while thiefs the least, although at higher levels I think fighters took the least.

From the same edition you can check the indivudal rewards for ideas, warriors got extra experience from monsters, rogues from finding treasures, wizards from creating new spells/magic items, etc...

[Eloel]

it's flawed, in that a Wiz 1/Fighter 1/Barbarian 1/Sorcerer 1/Cleric 1 character needs about 2 levels of XP under that system. Granted, it sucks with casters, but melee characters don't have much penalty for multiclassing.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Pretty much. Multiclassing was the reason they took it out in 3.5, as the new-style multiclassing was largely incompatible with individual XP tables.

[Riffington]

The biggest problem, as I see it, is that you have to reconfigure the classes if you're going to do that. So, as a straight fix it sounds easy: give fighters lots of levels and wizards fewer levels, now they're equal power. But that means that monks are higher levels than rogues. Well, that's fine for power balance, but, well, shouldn't rogues be the highest levels so they can have the best skills? Which means you have to nerf rogues so they can have the better XP tables.

Multiclassing won't cause you any major problems if you stay within the 3e multiclass paradigm rather than the 2e. If you say fighters get +20% XP and wizards get -20% XP (for example), then a fighter 4/wizard 1 just gets +12% XP. Now you may want to screw with that further to reflect the relative balance of different multiclasses, but you don't have to.

[Saph]

If you're doing it over a long term campaign, it might work. The trouble is that people disagree quite a bit over what classes should be in what tier - but if everyone in your group thinks more or less the same way, it shouldn't be a problem.

If I was doing it I wouldn't alter the XP rates much for the lower levels, but I'd alter them a lot for the higher ones. Since spellcasters increase quadratically in power to huge effect at high levels, I'd make the XP requirement to go from Wizard level 14 to Wizard level 15 massively greater than how much you'd need to go from Ranger 14 to Ranger 15.

[Whammydill]

Just curious, what is this tier system of which you speak and where can I learn more.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Whee, my search-fu is improving. There's probably a copy of it on giantitp.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boa...p?topic=1002.0

[Gnaeus]

If you're doing it over a long term campaign, it might work. The trouble is that people disagree quite a bit over what classes should be in what tier - but if everyone in your group thinks more or less the same way, it shouldn't be a problem.

Well, there is a lot of debate over a few classes, usually only whether they go up or down 1 level, and depending on what assumptions you are using and what books are in play, but even when the most vocal critics of JaronK's tier system post alternatives, they still look pretty close for most classes. For example, there is pretty close agreement on all the core classes except for rogue, and a lot of the rogue debate gets instantly settled when the DM decides on his campaign world (Are items for UMD and/or alchemical potions freely available, and how often will the party be fighting things that ignore sneak attack). The same thing is true for most of the other hot topic classes, like Beguiler and Truenamer. Once you choose your books and campaign, it is easy to say which classes get bumped up or down a notch.

[Frog Dragon]

I actually did this already
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105737

[bosssmiley]

re: the quadratic wizard problem.

Why not take a leaf from the Pathfinder beta's variable progression speed tables? Caster classes advance at the slow rate; muggle classes at the fast rate. Of course, this involves looking at classes in a slightly old fashioned 'never the twain' way...

Simple, so long as you don't wilfully over-complicate matters.

-----

As an aside: the Tiers system is over-elaborate. The real tiers, as in the ones that matter, are:

1. Worth Taking Levels In
2. Worth Taking Levels In For Certain Builds/Situations, and
3. Not Worth Taking Levels In

Anything more than that has no meaning in the context of the game, and is just fiddling for the sake of it. Your build is not a fekkin' Fabergé Egg: it needs benchmarks, not fine calibration.

[Zaq]

As an aside: the Tiers system is over-elaborate. The real tiers, as in the ones that matter, are:

1. Worth Taking Levels In
2. Worth Taking Levels In For Certain Builds/Situations, and
3. Not Worth Taking Levels In

Anything more than that has no meaning in the context of the game, and is just fiddling for the sake of it. Your build is not a fekkin' Fabergé Egg: it needs benchmarks, not fine calibration.

I respectfully disagree. The tier system is very useful for comparing the strengths (both potential and actual) of two characters in the same game, and can be a good indication of what the power level of a given game is.