Post by Bannanachair on Apr 11, 2017 11:18:21 GMT -4
I came up with a leveling up system for D&D4e that puts all the pressure of recording experience points onto the DM and works rather well for campaigns where the party has a rotating roster. That is, if the group is inconsistant and some people show up some sessions and not others, or if one player has three characters that he'd like to rotate through or anything else of the sort. Ordinarily when running campaigns like that different characters quickly become different levels and it's not long before you have level 8 characters working in the same party as level 14 characters. As such, here's a solution that I have proposed to that problem:
Instead of each character having their own experience points, I'll do a "party experience" instead and just record that. Let's say that there are four characters and they won an encounter worth 1,000 xp total. Under the normal system each character would add 250 xp to their character. However, this time the party only has that many members because the mighty Elven wizard Jim had to attend his brother's wedding in Seattle and couldn't attend the session, and it was explained away as his character was in the library researching the ritual that the evil lich was planning to use to control the dragons in the area. It seems unfair to penalize Jim for having to attend the wedding (that's punishment enough), but at the same time dividing that 1,000 xp 5 ways would cut off 50xp that the rest of the group should rightfully have, and the encounter would have had more enemies anyway if Jim were there.
Under my system instead of each individual adding 250xp to their characters the DM adds 250xp to the party and none of the characters as individuals track their own experience. The entire party levels up using the same xp requirements as shown in the PHB for an individual, and the xp gained by Jim is explained away as Jim having gained much more theoretical knowledge of spells and whatnot through his reading.
Instead of each character having their own experience points, I'll do a "party experience" instead and just record that. Let's say that there are four characters and they won an encounter worth 1,000 xp total. Under the normal system each character would add 250 xp to their character. However, this time the party only has that many members because the mighty Elven wizard Jim had to attend his brother's wedding in Seattle and couldn't attend the session, and it was explained away as his character was in the library researching the ritual that the evil lich was planning to use to control the dragons in the area. It seems unfair to penalize Jim for having to attend the wedding (that's punishment enough), but at the same time dividing that 1,000 xp 5 ways would cut off 50xp that the rest of the group should rightfully have, and the encounter would have had more enemies anyway if Jim were there.
Under my system instead of each individual adding 250xp to their characters the DM adds 250xp to the party and none of the characters as individuals track their own experience. The entire party levels up using the same xp requirements as shown in the PHB for an individual, and the xp gained by Jim is explained away as Jim having gained much more theoretical knowledge of spells and whatnot through his reading.
