Experience

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Revision as of 12:09, 20 August 2022 by Makros (talk | contribs) (p-point integration)
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Experience (EXP, XP) is part of the character progression system and a reward for Adventurers for completing objectives and achieving special conditions. Adventurers have certain properties that govern Experience and progression: XP, XP to level, Level and XP multiplier.

When an Adventurer gains enough XP to meet or exceed their XP to level, the Adventurer's Level increments by 1 and the Adventurer gains a certain amount of Progression Points they can use to improve other areas of their build. Experience beyond the amount needed to level is carried over to the progress of the next level.

The default XP multiplier for Adventurers is 1, however this value will increase or decrease the amount of XP gained depending on the Adventurer's state, and through certain actions and events as needed. ex. A 0.5 multiplier will halve the amount of XP gained while 2 will double it.

Glossary

Level
The Adventurer's character level, starts at 1, important value for determining the Adventurer's power.

XP to level
Defaulted to 1000, the Adventurer levels up when their XP meets or exceeds this number.

XP
This number increases when the Adventurer is rewarded for their efforts in a campaign. XP is subtracted by XP to level when the Adventurer levels up.

XP modifier
Defaulted to 1, this changes the rate of which an Adventurer gains experience.

Starting level

If a Campaign starts at Level 1
All Adventurers should gain 10 Progression-Points, unless you intend to use the Scale by P-Points rule instead of Scale by Experience, in which case Adventurers will gain different amounts of P-Points based on their Race.
When a campaign begins and the starting level is NOT 1
Take the intended Level you wish to start all Adventurers (ex. 5), multiply by 1000 (5000), then subtract by 1000 (4000). This remains true regardless of which progress scaling rule is used.
If an Adventurer has an XP modifier due to their Race (Scale by Experience)
Apply this to the Adventurer in question at the start of the campaign. If an Adventurer's modifier is 0.8x, then they would gain 3200 XP instead of 4000.

Run the Level-Up procedure until XP is less than 1000. For the example, 4000 XP would raise Adventurers up to Level 5, for the one with the modifier, they would be Lv4 with 200 XP left to Level-up.

After this step: all Adventurer's levels and experience are set.

Experience gained by Size

When a Campaign is set to Scale by Experience, instead of modifying the number of Progression Points granted per level up, the amount of experience gained through any source is raised or lowered instead. The chart below denotes the typical values used:

     Size             |   EXP multiplier
Medium (Size 1)       |        1.0x
                      |
    Small             |        1.4x
Tiny (or smaller)     |        2.0x
                      |
 Large (Size 2)       |        0.9x
  Huge (Size 4)       |        0.8x
Gargantuan (Size 8)   |        0.6x
Colossal (Size 16+)   |        0.5x

Experience Reward Examples

Quest Complete

  • Reward: Very Large
  • Adventurers are granted a large chunk of experience upon completion of an important quest or story event. Considering the amount of time and effort one would have to do to complete such an objective, this often grants the most Experience.

Chapter/Event complete

  • Reward: Moderate
  • Sometimes, a chunk of experience may be given part-way through a Quest, if it's particularly long or if the progression paces better with rewards in between. At the GM's discretion, this reward may be granted along with the eventual Quest-completion XP, or instead of the aforementioned reward by breaking it up into smaller chunks and distributing them across the story.

Combat Concluded

  • Reward: Variable
  • When Adventurers have engaged in combat, they are granted experience relative to the difficulty and outcome of that battle. Adventurers will often earn the most experience by surviving or defeating all opponents in a combat scenario.

Skill check

  • Reward: Small
  • Adventurers succeeding in difficult and unlikely skill checks that benefit them, their group and the story can be rewarded with small amounts of experience, up to a certain extent. At the GM's discretion.

Good Roleplay

  • Reward: Small
  • Adventurers may be rewarded a small amount of experience for making a good, concerted effort to roleplay their character in a campaign. As this is also at the GM's discretion, it is best to roleplay for roleplay-sake, rather than chase rewards.

Rules & Guidelines

GM's Discretion, Rule 0

  • Experience rewards, both in the amounts and the timing, are decided by the GM at all times. While there are objective milestones such as the completion of a quest or concluding a battle, just because rewards such as 'Skill checks' and 'Good roleplay' exist does not meant the GM is duty-bound to provide. The GM can simply tell players when their character levels up and to what level they become, forgoing experience entirely.

Level Cap 20

  • The current design of the game allows Adventurers to reach a Level of 20, it is the GM's discretion to whether an Adventurer can exceed Level 20 or not.

Scale by Experience vs. Scale by P-Points

  • Scaling Experience gains changes the rate in which differently sized Adventurers will level up, whereas scaling by P-Points changes how impactful those level-ups are when they occur. Both, one or no rules may be enforced in a campaign but the rules were designed to help smaller Adventurers stay relevant in the game structure and temper the front-loaded power of larger Adventurers.

There is very little data to determine which policies are more fun or more effective, so do experiment!