Non-Combat/Treasure Related Experience Points

[xerxez]

Greetings all. Really hoping someone could be of help here.

Does a table exist that provides suggested Experience Points for undertaking character class abilities, solving tricks/traps/puzzles and role playing (including playing alignment properly)?

This table must of course be compatible with OD&D/Holmes/AD&D classes and the attending XP levels.

It makes sense to me--in the AD&D DMG (1e) it mentions it but does not elaborate. Holmes does not indicate it and I don't know about OD&D as I do not own a copy of these rules yet.

Level progression in my campaigns tends to be a bit slow, and I'd like to change this. I know the early books seem to indicate this is proper enough but in our case it's a little too slow. In a two year campaign the highest levels attained are 3rd.

Now this is very much due to switching characters mid-campaign (i.e., creating new ones) and playing a few other systems but much of it is, I think, due to my inexperience in knowing how to stock dungeons with treasure commensurate with the party's XP needs for progressing. In my opinion, the treasure type tables are little help in this--often I will roll and the roll indicates nothing.

That simply isn't realistic or, in actuality, fair...not when the PC's have hazarded their lives against such beasts.

I would like to quit glutting my dungeons with coin and gems and start placing treasures like tapestries, silk, jade bars, ivory cases, paintings, incense, etc--stuff the party will have to convert and that may not be as enriching as coin but is more interesting, because, frankly, it gets a little old when they know that the chest they are about to open contains--can you guess....gold pieces! Or electrum pieces! Or....you get the picture.

A slight decrease in the monetary value of many treasure piles (not all mind you....) would be offset by awarding XP for the above mentioned player efforts.

My players always enjoy our games...but I can sense that they'd like to see a character who has adventured in twenty or thirty dungeons do a little better than 3rd level.

If anyone knows of a ready made table for this or if you have better advice, I'm all ears.

Thanks.

[Deleted]

You didn't say how often you play or now long the games are; in our case the current campaign has lasted 29 months which is also 29 game sessions at an average of about 5 hours each. This Saturday Dec. 3rd will be our 30th game in the campaign and in that length of time we have had one player who has made it to 7th level as a fighting-man from 1st level. This is his second character (the first one made it to 3rd level) and he is the only player who has been able to attend almost every game having made it to 27 out of the 29.

I don't use any table or list I work off of in providing experience points, although if we played twice a week, eight (8) hours at a time a closer tracking of experience would be needed and I would create one. Since our play is limited, I assign experience based on share of treasure (if any) not every game has much and some have a lot, participation, good ideas, good roleplay, etc. I award experience pretty consistently from one game to the next assuring a steady progression for a PC whose player is present every game and who survives.

If you think things are going too slow, you can always make the decision to just award a bit of extra experience each game to bring the progression of level to level to where you want it. I don't make it a focus of the game or even discuss it with the players, they are just excited when they gain a level and there is no need to involve them in the mechanics or lack thereof behind it. The main thing is that you are fair across the board with however you do it. Don't have a favorite who is only there occasionally be the one who advances the fastest.

I am sure that others will give you more specific advice, but for me I don't sweat it and I keep it simple for all that I carry it in my head and assign it on the fly.

Nov 29, 2011 6:26:14 GMT -6 xerxez said:

I would like to quit glutting my dungeons with coin and gems and start placing treasures like tapestries, silk, jade bars, ivory cases, paintings, incense, etc--stuff the party will have to convert and that may not be as enriching as coin but is more interesting, because, frankly, it gets a little old when they know that the chest they are about to open contains--can you guess....gold pieces! Or electrum pieces! Or....you get the picture.

By all means, spice it up!

[DungeonDevil]

Does a table exist that provides suggested Experience Points for undertaking character class abilities, solving tricks/traps/puzzles and role playing (including playing alignment properly)?

I'm not familiar with such. I would have to scan the books again. I tend to adhere to an Arnesonian model whereby the majority (3/4ths) of xp is more dependent upon non-dungeoneering activities (1/4th) -- i.e. what Arneson called 'interests' in the FFC. This encourages more RP than mere hack/slash and booty-purloining.

[tombowings]

I encourage you to take a look at Jeff's carousing rules. They definitely speed up the first few level or make it so that you don't need to hand out as much treasure to progress at a reasonable rate.

I curious how your stocking treasures. I use the OD&D by the room random dungeon stocking methods and it works great. No need for role playing experience or any of that. Just 100 xp per HD for monsters killed and 1xp per 1gp of treasure. That being said, I typically convert all those hundred of gp into bronze statuette, rare spices, and the like.

Another option is to check out the god Neo-Classical Geek Revival. It has some pretty good tables for bonus XP from tricks, traps, travel, and the like.

[Stormcrow]

Nov 29, 2011 6:26:14 GMT -6 xerxez said:

Does a table exist that provides suggested Experience Points for undertaking character class abilities, solving tricks/traps/puzzles and role playing (including playing alignment properly)?

Such a table was introduced in AD&D 2nd Edition.

It makes sense to me--in the AD&D DMG (1e) it mentions it but does not elaborate. Holmes does not indicate it and I don't know about OD&D as I do not own a copy of these rules yet.

AD&D doesn't use such a table. Rather, it uses a performance grading system: the better the DM decides the player played his class role, the better his grade, and when it comes time to train it will take less time and money than someone who played poorly.

Previous versions of D&D didn't grade this at all. It was generally assumed that if you survived with lots of treasure, you were playing your role correctly (because you probably wouldn't survive if you weren't).