Back in the day when I was playing AD&D 1e (late '70s/early '80s), we had a system for leveling up (I don't recall if it was "official" or hinted at in the rules or just a house rule we invented). Basically, when you had enough experience points the PC would need to return to civilisation, find someone of higher level in their class and pay for training. Typically the cost was the XP in gp and the training took as many weeks as your new level. This had the effect of disposing of cash, requiring some roleplaying, creating significant NPCs, and making leveling a longer and more significant process (Is it worth trekking the party all the way back to town and waiting a few weeks just so Bozo the Thief can level or do we wait?). It was probably created as a house rule to be a more plausible process rather than a PC instantaneously become stronger/more competent/etc. right in the middle of a dungeon (as it they'd had some sort of epiphany or by magic).

Thoughts? Are there any published games that have similar rules?

Experience and leveling are a way of modelling the practical knowledge your character has gained while out bashing heads. While in D&D land it happens all at once, the actual leveling process is just the mechanical aspect of the gradual process that's been going on for however long it took the character to collect the experience.

That said, either WotC or Paizo has offered a few alternate level progression options to do very similar things what you have done in past games. This was typically included along with rules for retaining feats, attribute gains, and/or skill assignments. Meaning, there are a lot of moving parts, so here is a way to dump gold and optimize your character.

Additionally, I want to say there was an alternate leveling system proposed in either Unearthed Arcana or Arcana Unearthed that split the leveling process into milestones to make it more granular. Then again, I may just be thinking of the generic classes.

Generally, I prefer the more granular method of advancing a character. That is to say, not level based and not in the realm of D&D land. With modest gains overtime. The downside to this method is that advancement may not feel as significant or feel too slow, particularly after completing several story lines and moving out of the realm of a starting character. In these types of games it may take added thought when assigning experience, especially if you are transitioning from a more level based game.

Quote from: Stainless;890476Thoughts? Are there any published games that have similar rules?

Well, there is this 25 year old czech 2e-meets-BECMI "retroclone" 'Dragon's Lair', which uses this kind of level advancement as default - unles you spend time and money, no level up for you. Which is incredibly tedious and does not really work with campaign without any kind of home base and lot of gamers just ignores this rule altogether.

AD&D does indeed have rules for levelling up time spent in the DMG. Pretty sure 2e does as well.

BX does not say actually. Make of that what you will.

5e has optional simple rules for level up time spent.

Not sure about O or 2-4e.

In Earthdawn, every person of PC power level is an "Adept" (wielder of the ambient magic in the world, 10% of the population). Adepts have paths called Disciplines ("Classes) which exists as collections of in-game secret societies with shared mythology, and ranks called Circles ("Levels", with a power scale of roughly 1 Circle = 2 BECMI D&D Levels ) which represent how much of the secret magic of the Discipline you have mastered.

As these are in-game concepts, in order to go up a Circle you have to find a teacher and convince them that you have mastered your previous Circle's magic. Each magical Talent a character gets from their Discipline is individually increased in rank by spending Legend Points (XP), and you can increase it as much as you want. Discipline magical and meditation condenses weeks of what a normal person would spent learning and conditioning a new skill into 8 hours of meditation. You need X Talents at rank Y in order to be initiated into Circle Y.

So if you are caught in the field you can still increase you effectiveness, but there is no *DING* !!new-powers!! until you can convince a master you are ready.

All in all, a very good system. Earthdawn 4E added a concept called "Optional Talent Pools". Previously, you got 2 talents per Circle and they were the same as every other member of your Discipline. Now, you get 1 Discipline Talent, and get to choose 1 Optional Talent from a pool that increases as you pass certain Circle thresholds and become a Journeyman, Master, etc.

It depends on what kind of behavior you want to reward. I've seen games that give you XP for failed rolls, for tugging on your relationships with other characters, or for creating complications.

Iirc in Chaosium systems you keep track of which skills you use during an adventure and then test for improvement between adventures.  I think RuneQuest also had rules for training to improve skills.

I have usually just had people level up when they hit the amount of xp needed, it is meta-game anyways, so might as well pay as little attention to it as possible. Plus it is good when you are mid-dungeon or whatever and need a little something.

Not necessarily "metagame".

You return to some place to train and perfect the things youve learned, or research bits of insight gleaned while adventuring. Or just using the locations better equipment and veterans to train and improve with. Things possibly not do-able while out adventuring.

Use of skills and abilities in action is superior to training. Becoming more proficient, makes some sense, becoming more damage resistant at the same time? Not so much. Might as well just give it to them, and move on, rather than be caught deep underground where they would have the xp to level 2-3 times, but can't due to some external circumstance like finding a Spaniard with a Scottish accent to train with.

Thanks for your thoughts. In my current game using ACKS I'm using the instant levelling approach. But with possibly a new campaign on the horizon (using S&W) I was musing about how to approach levelling up afresh.

Now I've had more time, I've looked up the AD&D DMG and indeed on page 86 there is a fairly extensive set of rules/suggestions for how levelling up works. To cut a long story short, Gygax et al. suggests training and study is necessary taking 1 - 4 weeks and costing level x 1,500 gp per week. It also reminded me of the rule we used to use; once you've reached your XP for the next level, you gain no more until you've levelled up. I remember that causing me some consternation at the time, but no resentment. Even as a youth I enjoyed a long and detailed campaign with delayed gratification.

The OP's rules are not uncommon. However, they do have a big disadvantage: player groups that are playing strategically rather than immersively might find themselves loathe to travel too far away from civilization. If you have to be in a town to level up, you'll want your PC to always be no more than a day or two from a town.

Quote from: RPGPundit;891861The OP's rules are not uncommon. However, they do have a big disadvantage: player groups that are playing strategically rather than immersively might find themselves loathe to travel too far away from civilization. If you have to be in a town to level up, you'll want your PC to always be no more than a day or two from a town.

I had not thought of that. But knowing who's more interested in playing strategically is potentially worthwhile information about the players.

Back when, we leveled up and recovered spells only slowly and in secure places (generally, that meant in town), but our D&D adventuring generally took place in the dungeon, so there was no choosing how close to civilization you were.

The OP's rules include finding a mentor, so the GM can always prod the players to travel further when their mentor tells them "I have taught you all that I know! But I have heard rumors of more skilled mentors far away in that direction."

It was a problem in a campaign I'd played with that type of rule. You'd have PCs never wanting to go to some quest that took them more than a few days away from a city where they could train, and level up.

It also meant that if they got enough XP to level in mid-dungeon they might just leave the dungeon in mid-adventure, go back to town to level up and then come back, in a way that made perfect sense for tactical play with the system, but made no fucking sense at all in terms of what they would want to be doing in the world.