(Yeah, I've been watching too much Phineas and Ferb with my kids lately)
Looking back at yesterday's post, something occurred to me. In the standard version of Ye Auld Game, 1 gp = 1 XP, which requires you to collect an awful lot of XP to level up. Thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. I must confess to never being crazy about the scale of the numbers. I'm also not thrilled with the bean-counting on the preferred XP award scheme for monsters.
Now, I solved that later problem by going back to the original scheme of 100 XP/HD. And now I realize that if I keep all the XP awards in nice round numbers like that, I can smallinate (i.e. decrease) the awards and the requires by a factor of of 100! It just requires one change to yesterday's scheme, which I was considering anyway:
Encountering a Monster for the 1st Time: 100 XP (instead of 50XP/HD + 50/special ability).
With that, and my already nicely-rounded advancement table from Empire of the Petal Throne, I can divide everything by 100.
Surviving in the Wilderness: 1 XP/day
Visiting A New Place: 1-10 XP depending upon difficulty and strangeness
Deciphering Artifacts: 1 XP base + additional 1 XP/difficulty modifier
Encountering a Monster for the 1st Time: 1 XP
Defeating Opponents: 1 XP/Hit Die + 1 XP/special ability
Defeating Sorcerous Item in Ego Struggle: 1 XP/item CHA
Mind-Altering Experience: 1-10 XP depending upon extent of alteration.
The advancement then goes:
Level 2: 20 XP
Level 3: 40 XP
Level 4: 80 XP
Level 5: 160 XP
etc.
Interesting. I like the smaller numbers, though it does look like it would take a little more time in keeping track of the little things player's did to earm XP.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do find the smaller number elegant, I'm also foaming with nerd rage about your deviations from somewhat baseline oldschool D&D rule...keep it intercompatible dammit! ;)
ReplyDelete@Trey - maybe, although I foresee not having to work out how to split up the XP gained from 501 GP, 63 ep, 712 sp, and a bagful of coppers. That seems like more work to me.
ReplyDelete@Blair - see now, if you go calling something I do "elegant" , then there is no chance I'll change my mind. :) But, really, it is old-school (it's the EPT advancement table) simplified and divided by 10.
Although your small experience system is elegant, I find general compatibility with baseline D&D Elegant-er. ;)
ReplyDeleteIf it makes any sense, I just don't want any barriers to people using the Dying Sun setting (and the awesome exploration experience system) with a relatively vanilla version of D&D and simulacra?
I'm probably overthinking things here..but it's because I care dammit! :)
I feel the love, man.
ReplyDeleteI'm including a number of Designer's Note sections with options on making things more baseline. So I think I should include one on making the XP more normal. Good idea.