A Few Points Short
My comics are beginning to predict real life games. I wrote the script for this one on a Sunday. The following Tuesday a buddy of mine ended a Pathfinder session just 50 XP short of level-up. While my newfound predictive powers are neat, I think that the call our Tuesday night GM decided to make was even more interesting.
“What,” he asked, “Did you do during the session to earn those 50 XP?”
We looked around wildly at one another. We all began talking at once.
“His RP was on point!”
“He intimidated that kobold by threatening to turn it into shoes. He had measuring tape and everything!”
“I thought it was cool when I shot that thing.”
Begging the GM, killing innocent halflings, and boiling ant hills are all time-honored methods for squeezing out bonus XP. However, the experience in that recent Pathfinder session reminded me of one of my favorite practices from Exalted 2e. For those of you who aren’t familiar, the game gives you a flat 4 XP per session. We’ve added a homebrew rule as well. After each session we take it in turns to vote on the following: Best Stunt; Best RP; Best WTF Moment. If you win any of those votes you walk away with one free bonus XP.
In the wrong group I suppose it could lead to jealousy or resentment, but that’s never been the case for us. Instead it’s a post-game opportunity to tell players how awesome they are. So many of us take it in turn to say “thanks for running” to our GMs. But when was the last time you let a player know that their triple flip full attack off the chandelier was the best moment of the evening? Or that their acting gave you goosebumps? Or that you’re impressed they finally found a use for the vial of nail clippings they’ve been carrying around since level 1?
We all put a lot of ourselves into these games. Whether you’re a GM or a player, it’s nice to hear it every once in a while.
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The XP-question is an interesting one, and I definitely think that GMs should be willing to hand it out for things other than “how many creatures did you un-life today?”. At the very least it should be linked with killing, IMO, but with resolving encounters, and if you achieve your goals without fighting, that should qualify for the full measure.
The comic itself though made me think of something else: https://i.imgur.com/w7xm40n.png
*not be linked with killing!
dammit I shouldn’t post before I’ve had coffee
Running of modules is interesting to me. I’ve been piloting this new hotness recently…
http://paizo.com/products/btpy9qy6
…And there are quite a few mentions of “if the party help the goblins, reward them with ##XP as if they’d defeated them in combat.” That thinking is there with many designers, but it doesn’t seem to be assumed within the system.
Monsters having an XP-value is useful for when they serve as random encounters, but D&D could certainly do a better job of emphasizing non-combat options as well. I think AD&D did it with gold-obtained and 4e probably awarded it for skill-challenges, but the core books could certainly use betters example of “winning” encounters via something other than bloodshed. Using Skills, using roleplay, contriving a complicated scenario where your puppet the NPCs into doing your dirty work for you, etc.
One of the defining moments for me was when I was having a similar discussion to this one on a forum somewhere, and I gave an example like earning XP by getting a magical macguffin from an orc camp. I suggested that you could award XP for a successful retrieval via any of methods I mentioned above, and recieve full credit. And one of the replies I got was from someone who basically said “if I get XP for retrieving the macguffin AND killing orc, why wouldn’t I also kill the orcs”?
The concept that you might NOT get XP for killing something that clearly had an XP value listed in the rulebook had never seemed to even cross their mind. I had to stop and step back for a moment and try to explain it an entirely different way, because we were clearly on different wavelengths.
See, this is why you need to write really long backstories. That way, when you’re just a few XP short, you can just bust into a monologue about some inconsequential event from your childhood or wax philosophical about whatever enemy you just killed and then get some roleplaying XP to boost you up.
Heck yeah! Game the system! All you’ve got to do is write a compelling backstory, launch into a monologue, and move your friends to tears with your acting ability. BAM! Easiest 50 XP you’ve ever made. And on a related note.
I’m firmly in the camp of “level progression by plot progression”. I don’t give XP at all; everyone simply levels up once they’ve hit a certain milestone.
I can see why some groups wouldn’t like that, but it fits my style better.
It’s definitely a shitload easier. I do like having a reward in my back pocket to had out for “above and beyond” type play though. Whether or not that’s worth the effort….
And this is why my group does milestone leveling.
Your desire to preserve halfling life is laudable.
#HalfLivesMatter
I must say, I’m confused as to why you insist on calling Hin “Halflings”, (Which is only relative to the most unremarkable and uninteresting people) and Twicelings “Humans”, when their only distinct trait is that they’re like halflings, but less graceful and lucky, but twice as tall.
While I’m at it, why would we call creatures that are like Dwarves “Humanoid” instead of the more logical “Dwarfoid”?
Because WotC (or whoever owned D&D at the time) couldn’t get the naming rights to “Hobbits”.
Well yeah, Hin exist in reasonable numbers and don’t smell bad.
Elves have a low rate of reproduction, but they live long enough that there are too many of them kicking around, and they all smell like dirty hippies. (Natural deodorant doesn’t work)
Humans are an ever expanding pestilence, once you take care of the rat problem you should deal with the real vermin.
In addition to playing Pathfinder, I also play two other systems (Blades in the Dark and Burning Wheel). Each of these systems have their own ways of awarding RP experience.
In Blades in the dark, a player may gain bonus XP by completing actions that are relevant to their class and backstory (similar to how in AD&D a rogue may gain XP for picking a lock or a bard may gain XP for earning gold through public performance).
In Burning Wheel, at the end of every session, we go through something called Artha, where the players determine who is awarded RP experience (which is a resource that is tracked separately from other experience). The GM’s input during Artha is largely irrelevant as it given out by other party members. Players may be awarded RP experience through any of the following:
– Driving the game forward with a Belief (3 Beliefs are chosen by the player at character creation).
– Using an Instinct that creates a difficult or awkward situation (3 Instincts are chosen by the player at character creation).
– Invoking a Trait that alters the direction of the story in an unforseen way or makes life difficult for the character (Traits are like character traits in Pathfinder)
– An in-character game stopper (Where the character says something IN-CHARACTER so funny, that the game pauses for a 30 seconds or more).
– If a character has the right skill (when no one else does) to keep the story moving.
– Exceptional Roleplaying (great speeches, desperate decisions, or gruesome revenge).
– A character comes to a point in the story where his Beliefs, Instincts, and traits conflict with a decision he must make, and plays out the inner turmoil.
– A character accomplishes a personal goal (revenge, promotion, seduction, victory, etc).
– A character is the most relied upon person during a scenario.
– A character is voted MVP (most valuable player).
Ooh… I wonder how applicable Artha could be to other systems? At the very least it’s a good list of “things to shoot for” in any given session.
If I were to convert Artha to Pathfinder, I would do it in the following manner:
Gain 1 hero point per ‘Artha’ gained (maximum: 3); After a player has reached their maximum of hero points, they gain XP in increments of (10 x Character level) for each ‘Artha’ gained.
c‘mon, Fighter should know that the cat is enough. No need to kill the commoners.
Cats are dangerous, yo! If you’re already injured from a dire rat infestation, that’s just asking for a TPK!
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?318517-Commoner-vs-Cat-A-Mathematical-Analysis
bah, no worries: cat ia clearly wounded.
We all make a big deal about funny or epic moments in games, but we also do the ignore XP thing where the GM just decides when the group should be the next level.
It has been fun not needing to track every little thing.
Though there is still DM begging going on after a particularly big battle…
I think my favorite accolade is when the GM overlooks a language the PC knows.
“Wait, you speak Aklo?”
“Yup!” smug grin “so what’s he saying?”
“We killed the Demogorgon! What do you mean we don’t level up!?”
XP is at least nice for letting PCs anticipate their next level and have some sense of control over when it comes.
My experience (ha) is that progress-based level-ups are the way to go. Easier, avoids this problem, and a lot less math. Also means that people who miss a session aren’t punished, and avoids slowing down the game as everyone works out their level-up stuff at once (instead of taking the time to update stats three different times).
My party is usually pretty good at complementing each other’s awesomeness (and have occasionally had unofficial MVPs for sessions), the best example of which is the Monk-grappling-a-levitating-glowing-sleeping-chuckling-burning-woman incident.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/76hmvo/i_was_swallowed_today/
The main story I wanted to tell, though, is that in the last session I GM’d, I sent my lvl 4 protagonists to clear out some rats in a basement. At first, there were a couple of CR 1/4 4 HP rats. Easy enough. Then the CR 1/3 Dire Rats come out. Not too bad. Then the CR 2 Rat Swarms start showing up. Then, finally, out of the ceiling (that entrance being an ad-lib on my part – he was supposed to come out of a hole in the floor originally) comes Gideon the Ratfolk Fighter, who loudly informs the PCs that this basement is now under the control of the Democratic Rat’s Republic of Lutharia! The DRRL (often pronounced “Darrell” by its enemies) is a dictatorial junta attempting to establish dominion over all of the local ratkind. They’re not very big, but their collection of Rogues, Gunslingers, Alchemists and Witches gives them plenty of firepower to cause the PCs problems.
…Meanwhile, the players will forever remember Gideon as “Ceiling Rat.”
I hope Ceiling Rat got away! He needs to bite the PCs in their sleep as part of his recruitment campaign for DRRL:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/lycanthrope/wererat/
He did not, but his twin brother shall avenge him! DRRL forever!!!
I’m just imagining the were-ratified PCs showing up at his door:
“Fix this! I’ve been craving cheese for a week!”
“Yes, I can fix. But have you considered all of the wonderful benefits of DRRL citizenship? You try one day, and I guarantee you will want to naturalize.”
“You’re saying that, if we put up with one day in your rat utopia, you will change us back?”
“Yes! Rat’s honor. Now here, I have prepared welcome baskets.”
“These are garbage pails.”
“Why not both?”
“For your first task, we require you to eliminate the nearby Catfolk village for us.”
“Never!”
“What if I said they’re Chaotic Neutral and their town is full of loot?”
“We’d still never… wait, how much loot are we talking about here?”
I’ve seen so many stories about shenanigans and awesome things that happened in Exalted, and I’m curious about something: Have you ever had the urge to dedicate ‘plotlines’/sets of comics to show the cast playing different game systems like Exalted? I imagine Fighter would probably wet himself out of excitement after reading just a little bit about it.
Well I mean…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-right-tools
And also…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/warsinthestars
It’s weird though. I keep meaning to make generic fantasy jokes (or at least generic TRPG jokes) in an effort to broaden the comic’s appeal. When I sit down to write scripts though, my gags keep coming back to specific game mechanics. I guess that’s because, for me at least, so much of the humor in TRPGs comes back to the notion of mechanics failing to reflect reality. In consequence, it seems like I wind up reverting to the systems I know best (Pathfinder, Exalted 2e, and D&D 5e) for my material.
Now that you mention it though, a 3-5 comic long mini-series where the party falls through a portal into Cthulhu / Legend of the Five Rings / Shadowrun / etc. could be a lot of fun.
Yeah, I knew there were individual comics but most of the Handbook seems to focus on the D&D/Pathfinder-style of fantasy tabletop game, and I was mostly curious if you’d ever had the urge to take them to other places for longer series, or to address the kind of tropes that pop up in other types of settings. Shadowrun for example would have some familiar elements, but would force the cast to confront a slightly different set of tropes.
I dunno, it was just a thought I had in passing after I read the text on this one!
Brr XP, luckly i always avoided XP, they are mostly a headache to figure Out, and if one dude gets one XP more than the other there are endless Debates,.. Urgh. I always use Milestone Level UP. Have you reached another part of the Story? levle up. Roughly every 3 to 4 Sessions or so, slowing down more the Higher the Lvl gets.
As a DM i spare myself the Headache, and as a Player i also like Milestones more.
But of course for those Groups for which XP works by all means, it’s just that i and ma Groups prefer Milestones.
Can you think of anything you lose out on by going milestone rather than XP?
The people who don’t show up for every session will be the same level as everyone else. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how big you are on gatekeeping.
Well you loose out a bit on the “Extra” Reward after the Session. The only Session where XP actually worked, we could give the others XP for doing the funniest Stuff, having a rare but this Time usefull skill etc. So we could assign the “Bonus” XP to other Players, funnily enough everyone got the Same amount of Bonus XP.
But thats the only thing, i think. And i don’t mind giving that up so i don’t have to deal with more discussions.
I always preferred milestone leveling, myself. I don’t get much of a thrill about watching XP slowly trickle in and inch closer and closer to an arbitrary number that might or might not be reached before it was ‘meant to be.’ It was just another number to track, and one that to me felt almost as much of an enemy as whatever we were fighting. ‘WILL YOU CLIMB FASTER?! I WAS ONLY TEN XP AWAY FROM HAVING SOMETHING AWESOME THAT COULD HAVE HELPED AGAINST THAT BOSS THAT WAS A NEAR TPK!’
I especially burned out on the XP system when I read a blog post about the math behind XP gain and levelup, and found out that there’s an actual measurable curve on XP gain based on a group’s ECL/enemy CR that means even though XP gains increase, they’re still all balanced around an XP income that means even between level 1 and 19, you’re still gaining levels at around the same number of encounters.
And at that point, in the game I was in, I proposed to my DM – after showing them the article – that instead of tracking weird arbitrary XP against weird arbitrary XP ceilings, he should just give us 1 XP per combat or successfully navigated social/political situation, and every 10 we’d level up.
And after that it was a very short trip towards ‘I’ll just tell you guys when I think a level up is dramatically appropriate.’
You mean you don’t get a thrill from watching incremental progress? And here I am refreshing my Google Analytics on an hourly basis.
“Do people like my comic? They do! But not as much as Monday. Dammit! My self-worth hangs in the balance!”
For me, XP is at its best when it keeps you invested. If it begins to take on negative connotations for the group, then maybe it’s time to change over. And maybe I should refresh WordPress slightly less often.
Just some questions. How much is cleric worth of xp? He gives extra xp for betrayal roleplay? How much is hidding his body? And doing and redemption quest? With thif and wizard we have the same values? What about a total party kill by fighter? Killing three pc has to be a gold mine of xp, right? 🙂
I will only say it is a good thing that Fighter doesn’t like math. If he knew that he was walking around with free level-ups for companions he’d pop their tops like cheap beer.
It’s aboot sustainable leveling. If you kill your buddies, you may get more XP now, but you’re no longer able to get XP from adventuring with them in the future.
You thinking this wrong. Killing Cleric would be like the Destroying his own Costless First aid Bag, think of all the Healing Potions he would have to buy! Likewise with the Wizard, think of all the Fly, Buff etc. Potions he would need, Wizard is far cheeper in the long Run.
And Thief? Well i’d like to remember you that she’s a handy Trap disabler, again think of all the Potions of healing he would have to Buy only to get his HP back from the Traps.
Oh and also, the best thing, they are all Expandeble! So if Fighter meets an Enemy to big for him he can just throw them to the Wolves and get out himself.
Truly Fighter is an Economic Genius
I use milestone leveling because it’s way easier to deal with and control from a math and DM standpoint respectively.
Two sessions ago my group stopped the session in a tomb and their question was “didwefarmenoughskeletonstolevelup”. To which I replied “More skeletons are required.”. I get the feeling that it might become a joke when they ask if they leveled or not.
Is “more skeletons are required” from something? I feel like that’s a “construct more pylons” kind of video game soundbite.
That was me making a joke considering the amount of skeletons they fought. Unearthed tomb in the desert where it was mostly skeletons and traps with a mummy as the boss. I thought the mummy would be tougher but the Brute Fighter had a Weapon of Warning and I ruled that it could bypass non-magical resistance due to the wording of other magical weapons being similar to it.
He asked this when he crit in his first attack of course.
You’ve got to make that mess your meme.
“How will we clean up the castle in time to receive the king?”
“More skeletons are required.”
“How could we ever hope to defeat an ancient red dragon?”
“More skeletons are required.”
“How can we lure away that pack of ravenous dogs?”
“More skeletons are required.”
Turns out necromancers are just trying to be as efficient and prepared as possible. Paladin just doesn’t understand it seems.
One would think that Cleric would object to Fighter murdering those Hin, and since HoH is PF based, Cleric can stomp Fighter any time.
What gave you the idea that the comic is based on Pathfinder?
The fact that you’ve constantly referenced the rules/mechanics/classes of Pathfinder is a pretty big hint.
Although I will say it’s a little odd that you went with such an outlandish racial makeup for the party compared to the iconic Mountain Dwarf Fighter, Hill Dwarf Cleric, Gnome Wizard, and Halfling rogue. Why would anyone be a human ever?
I reference the games I play in and GM, and a lot of those are Pathfinder. We’ve got a Warlock on the far side of the Patreon wall though, 5e references peppered throughout the comic (Remember Magus and the myconids a few weeks back?), and I’m all about Exalted 2e in today’s comic.
Point taken though. This comic was always meant to play fast and loose with system. If we’re skewing too close to Pathfinder I may need to recalibrate a bit. More Burning Wheel!
I can’t wait for the Blades in the Dark, Cyberpunk, and Upwind pages. =P
Optimization in Pathfinder’s case. Humans get a series of very, very strong bonuses. A floating +2 to any stat they want it in, an extra feat, an extra skill point every level, and humans tend to have some of the best Favored Class Bonuses. A human can do at level 1 what most other races have to wait until level 3 to do.
The more common question among minmaxers and optimizers is, ‘Why would you ever play anything BUT human?’
Weirdly, that’s the same question with the 5e [variant] human.
Because ability boosts, resistances, darkvision, and other racial bonuses are better than a feat you can pick up later anyways.
I mostly try to plan out XP before the session, at least roughly, so that I don’t run into this issue.
But if my players still come up short like 50XP, I just add those so they can level up.
You mean you fudge the rules in favor of the players? How can you possibly have fun unless the GM is trying to kill you? Poor form, Sir! 😛
Ex3 also takes a cool twist and makes XP an incentive to cooperate with others (instead of trying to take things for yourself). So, everyone gets 5 XP per session, but you can earn “Solar XP” (or Dragon XP or Abyssal XP or whatever your splat is) from some other places. 2 Solar XP from good roleplay (if your characters Intimacies or Flaws came up in play), and 2 Solar XP for either fulfilling your Caste’s role OR “intentionally ceding the ‘spotlight’ of the scene’s focus to another player’s character in such a way that it makes that character shine in the role of their Caste, or directly supporting them in a cool and dramatic expression of their Caste’s function” (Ex3 Core p177).
It’s hard to overstate how happy I was to see that in the rules.
Plus, another advantage of “Solar XP” as a system is that you can buy everything you want with it, except Solar Charms. Ex3 also has Essence progression (think magnitudes of power, 1-5) based on your total XP (but not Solar XP), instead of buying it (like it was for, say, Arete in Mage: the Ascension, or Essence in older Exalted editions). This means that by doing the stuff you do, getting better at what you like, you just BECOME more powerful. You don’t have to directly buy that magnitude-of-power boost… which means that, since everyone gets normal XP at the same rate, the party stays within the same power bracket of each other. (No more Arete 4 PCs vs. Arete 2 PCs problems.)
And, yeah, I haven’t really done leveling-by-XP in D&D in… forever. For some parties, I give out XP per session, but more as a way to let players feel like they have gained something. I also usually state it as “everyone goes up to N number of XP points.” Then, after a milestone (to steal the current term), “Everyone levels up!”
I’m running a D&D game/club for middle school students at the bilingual school where I teach (in Shanghai) next semester, so I’ve been ruminating over what ways that will best fit the age group. It’ll probably be a fair amount of experimentation, but I may start with the traditional “you gain N XP for killing those M monsters.”
I’m curious, if anyone else has run D&D (or a similar game) with that age group: how did you handle XP?
That “share the spotlight” caveat is an extremely cool rule. As long-time gamers we all know that there are best practices not codified in the rules: e.g. Don’t be a prima donna; help the other players to have fun; allow your fun to become secondary every once in a while. It’s nice to see game mechanics actually encouraging these unstated practices.
I have a question about handing out XP. How do you deal with Joe not making it to the session more often than not. And Carl being always nice bringing Cheetos, doing the RP and saving everyone’s ass, which nets him bonus XP. So XP-wise that big fight pushes Carl already to the next level (5), while Joe still is one behind(3) the party (4).
How do you handle that?
Personally, I hand wave levels. Party struggles regularly – have a level up. Party is due for two level ups according to the AP, but still hands the monsters their asses – then wait some more.