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Saturday, September 19, 2015

Revised XP, Take III

Here is yet another take on revised XP for my DF game. Maybe the last for a while.

The goal is the same - encourage risky behavior and more exploration even at the cost of dead characters.

XP House Rules Proposal III: Explore & Loot Equally

Base: 0 xp. Delvers without loot or exploration are worthless.

Loot - Loot is still central.

Sufficient Loot to cover your threshold ($200 for a starting guy): 3 xp
5x or more than that: 4 xp
Under threshold: 1 xp
1/5 to none: 0 xp

Exploration - Exploration is also important. "Interact with" means explore, map, fight, or otherwise deal with new areas in a positive and basically effective way. Running away, not touching anything, etc. doesn't count. Significant areas have some kind of monster, major feature, treasure, puzzle, or other element of note. Generally, hallways, doors, traps, random dungeon color, etc. doesn't count.

Interact with many (4+) new areas: 3 xp
Interact with at least one new area: 2 xp
Nothing new: 0 xp

Character Death - No effect on xp.

Roleplaying, Awesome Bonus, MVP - Unchanged.


In this approach, taking home sufficient loot, exploring a little = 5 xp. Taking home a LOT of loot is 4 xp, even if you didn't explore at all (making a straight-up "spend the session getting that treasure" a worthwhile delve, if you also count the money as worthwhile.) You can potentially get up to 7 xp with lots of exploration and great amounts of loot. And I get to give 0 xp for those sessions that consist of spending 1/2 of it messing around with a profitless dead end because no one can decide what to do and then 1/2 spent opening doors and running away from monsters.

Death has no effect outside of roleplaying and the usual consequences on hiring new NPCs when you come back with half the PCs dead and all the NPCs eaten by purple worms. High upside, high downside with this approach, but cost of achieving your goals isn't important.

I kind of like this one, too, if my players are more into "yes, make sure we explore!" instead of yesterday's "Consequences, shmansequences, as long as I'm rich" approach.

6 comments:

  1. Looking forward to it.

    It seems the risk avoidance that concerns you most is taking multiple sessions to defeat a force that was killable in one. I'm wondering if 'XP for victory in first combats against a sizable force' is different from 'XP for killing'. Combats, so one can't get max value per session at one fight a session. Sizable, so it doesn't count picking fights with weak nonhostile individuals. Victory because capturing is sometimes also useful. The flip side might be a penalty for letting foes survive the first fight.

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    1. I really do want to make fighting a means to an end, never an end in and of itself - which is why I don't give out XP for them. I didn't even give bonus XP for a dragon.

      I figure people will be less likely to be careful about engaging foes if they are much more dependent on loot and/or exploration. Right now, no exploration and no loot is still 2-3 xp, with a penalty for casualties. If it's 0. . . . and casualties don't matter . . .I'm betting it's more tempting to go for it.

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  2. How do wealth levels interact with this (an Artificer with Very Wealthy, or Bard with Wealthy)? Just makes it easier to hit each of the loot levels, or are the loot levels set at a "40% of sale price" universal standard, and the extra gold from wealth levels is its own reward?

    I suppose a lesser, but similar, question pertains to Claim to Hospitality (though... I dont know if any of the templates/power ups you allow include that, so maybe a moot point). If you dont have to pay for room and board, does it make it easier to meet the "sufficient" level, or change the 5x sufficient level at all?

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    1. It's net take, not raw value, so Wealth means you don't need as much non-cash, non-gem, non-jewelry loot to get lots of XP. (Those three I listed, I give full value for)

      "Sufficient" is a hard number, not set on upkeep. We found it's easier that way, and fairer on the guys who have a very high upkeep cost (martial artists, for example) and those who have none (Barbarians and Scouts who use Survival to camp in the wilderness.)

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  3. This may be me missing something obvious, but given your stated goals a straight out "Daring" bonus, on a per PC basis, might be warranted.

    Asking for TPKs, but warranted. ;)

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    1. Heh. Maybe I need to vote for "most daring PC" and give out 1 xp a session for that. It's not much, but +1 xp is +1 xp . . . no one has ever said, "I have too many saved points."

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