Quote from: S'mon;1054129The main feature of OD&D - AD&D XP compared to 3e-4e-5e is that it is a U shaped progression rate, with the pit of slowest advancement around Name level, and then accelerating thereafter as the amount to level becomes a fixed (large) amount. PCs who played through the pit around 9th-12th found advancement speeding up again. Whereas 5e as written has slowest advancement before 11th and a sudden jump to fast advancement at 11th. Which is designed to work well with adventure path 'quest' play* but IMO is not so well suited to sandboxing.

As you note later, dividing by character level/dungeon level if the character level was higher than dungeon level slowed down progression for very high level characters, although I think that OD&D players were more unmotivated by relatively high risks (save vs dying) compared to potential rewards (few HP per level, saving throws maxing out, and all special abilities awarded by name level; casters got more spell slots at a steady pace, but that mostly just compensated for having to commit to a specific list of prepared spells) until Greyhawk added higher level spells for magic-users and clerics at very high levels. 5e has specific high level abilities that motivate players to try to reach very high levels, and you continue to get the same HP benefits, and the risk of sudden death is reduced.

Quote from: S'mon;1054980Yup, there's the OD&D formula of XP divided by character level/dungeon level, so 9th level PC on level 6 gets 2/3 XP. Or by monster hit dice so level 9 PC killing level 1 orcs gets 1/9 XP.

I think I could go with:
Paragon Tier PCs (11+) in Heroic Tier (5-10) zone get 1/2 XP.
Heroic Tier PCs in Paragon zone get x2 XP.

Either way the high level PCs get half as much as the lower level PCs.

This sounds like a good approach, if you want levels to tend to even out rather than widen. Another approach might be to award more or less XP to PCs who are some number of levels lower or higher than the party average; it could lead to players trying to manipulate the average level, though.

XP needs to be adjusted by character level in general; the most obvious way is the original method of requiring more XP to advance a single level as the level gets higher (which holds until name level in early editions), but in 5e (apparently by design) the higher levels require much less XP relative to the awards for CRs they can then handle. In AL, characters generally had to adventure in a group at a certain tier with the same XP award for each PC, so a good reward for a 1st level character was paltry for a 4th level character who was stuck in the same set of adventures. But then AL had a downtime option to advance from 4th level to 5th level (20 downtime days), and from 10th level to 11th level (100 downtime days). Over time they increased the downtime awarded per adventure, so this made 4th and 10th level characters somewhat rare (usually when someone was sticking with friends who were slightly behind).

The new AL rules for the season just starting have 4 hours of adventuring to advance in 1st tier, and 8 hours per level in higher tiers, which effectively scales XP awarded by level (and hides XP totals for the innumerate). The rules also have an option for, essentially, getting less XP by player choice, presumably to stay at a level you like playing at or to let other characters who play less often catch up.

Quote from: rawma;1054994As you note later, dividing by character level/dungeon level if the character level was higher than dungeon level slowed down progression for very high level characters

I'll just note though that Classic (BX-BECMI-RC) D&D didn't have this rule at all, and 1e just said that you got full gold XP only if the threat total equalled PC hit dice, which was easily achieved on almost any dungeon expedition. I don't know 2e well enough to know if it's the same as 1e or BX. So in practice the vast majority of people played with the U-shaped advancement curve.  (Actually if you play RAW 2nd to 3rd is faster than 1st to 2nd, so there's an initial uptick then the U curve).

Mentzer in his Companion set recommends 5 sessions/level after name level and giving enough gold to ensure that, which is a big departure from OD&D-1e norms but necessary if PCs are ever going to reach 36th level.

Quote from: S'mon;1054980Yup, there's the OD&D formula of XP divided by character level/dungeon level, so 9th level PC on level 6 gets 2/3 XP. Or by monster hit dice so level 9 PC killing level 1 orcs gets 1/9 XP.

I think I could go with:
Paragon Tier PCs (11+) in Heroic Tier (5-10) zone get 1/2 XP.
Heroic Tier PCs in Paragon zone get x2 XP.

Either way the high level PCs get half as much as the lower level PCs.

That sounds about right.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1055190That sounds about right.

Thanks, ok I'm going with that and recommending to the other GMs in my campaign/group.

Quote from: S'mon;1055198Thanks, ok I'm going with that and recommending to the other GMs in my campaign/group.

Let us know how it goes!

Quote from: RPGPundit;1055680Let us know how it goes!

Currently after a year the highest PCs are 8th level, so probably another 4-6 months before the rule kicks in - I'll see if I remember to necro the thread.

Quote from: S'mon;1055705Currently after a year the highest PCs are 8th level, so probably another 4-6 months before the rule kicks in - I'll see if I remember to necro the thread.

Feel free, we're not against necros here.