TheRPGSite

I've noticed a problem in my current 3.5 D&D campaign.

The party often has the choice of continuing exploration, or resting for the day.

However the choice isn't a very meaningful one, since it seems that stopping is better in every case. The only reasons not to seem to be out-of-game reasons like role-playing a reckless character, deliberately creating a challenge for yourself, or not wanting to do the 'paperwork'.

I guess this is the purpose of wandering monsters, but either 3.5 doesn't have them, or they're not common enough to make the choice meaningful.

In any case, what do you do when the party has a safe haven to fall back to, such as a town?

Quote from: Age of Fable;339636I've noticed a problem in my current 3.5 D&D campaign.

The party often has the choice of continuing exploration, or resting for the day.

However the choice isn't a very meaningful one, since it seems that stopping is better in every case. The only reasons not to seem to be out-of-game reasons like role-playing a reckless character, deliberately creating a challenge for yourself, or not wanting to do the 'paperwork'.

I guess this is the purpose of wandering monsters, but either 3.5 doesn't have them, or they're not common enough to make the choice meaningful.

In any case, what do you do when the party has a safe haven to fall back to, such as a town?

Depends on the campaign...but the mean answer is "blow it up".

Or maybe there could be dangers travelling between the dungeon and the town.

Quote from: Age of FableI've noticed a problem in my current 3.5 D&D campaign.

The party often has the choice of continuing exploration, or resting for the day.

However the choice isn't a very meaningful one, since it seems that stopping is better in every case. The only reasons not to seem to be out-of-game reasons like role-playing a reckless character, deliberately creating a challenge for yourself, or not wanting to do the 'paperwork'.

I guess this is the purpose of wandering monsters, but either 3.5 doesn't have them, or they're not common enough to make the choice meaningful.

In any case, what do you do when the party has a safe haven to fall back to, such as a town?

You ambush them on their way back to town. ;)

Quote from: Age of Fable;339643Or maybe there could be dangers travelling between the dungeon and the town.

Oh, yeah. Here's a Wilderness Encounter Table I designed. It's for D&D 3.5, so maybe it'll help...

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=13052&page=18

Ah, 3.5E has rules for random encounters on pages 77, 95, and 101 in the DMG. Quick question, AoF, are you the DM?

I have noticed that to happen in 3.5 if the DM isn't wary.  I think its in part because combats take so long that after one, the party is ready for a time out.  4E also has long combats but their rules are designed to encourage players to push on (hit milestones, healing surges, encounter powers, etc).

The key is to have a reacitve, not a static environment.  If exploring the dungeon, the inhabitants should prepare traps and better organise their defences if the party leaves to rest up or just take too long.  What you want to do is make the first encounter tough as the party hits a well organised, prepared and alert defence.  If they break through and keep going, reward them by giving them a few easier encounters, in effect, catching the enemy off guard.

Other good methods are having a time limit that encourages the party to hurry.  Maybe they need to save someone before they are killed.  More ammusingly, if the party make a particularly good showing and then stop to rest, have the monsters leave and take their treasure with them! In my experience the party hates nothing more than watching treasure and xp getting away.  Alternatively have another party of adventuerers go in and clean out the good stuff while they were resting.

In short, if you put of bit of work and imagination into it, the party should always feel like they could miss out on something good if they stop to rest up a day.

Time is a ressource.

If time is not played as a ressource, spell slots become meaningless, the whole world around the dungeon becomes meaningless, as it would be frozen in time.

So really, I don´t see the problem.

Wandering Monsters don't have to be random.   It could be as simple as "the reinforcements will be arriving in an hour" or "the other dungeon looters are searching the place too" or "the undead rise up again at midnight"

At low levels especially, the undead who don't stay down are probably my favorite "timer" for getting players to keep moving.

Thanks everyone.

To answer the question above, I'm not the DM.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;339646Oh, yeah. Here's a Wilderness Encounter Table I designed. It's for D&D 3.5, so maybe it'll help...

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=13052&page=18

Thanks, that looks interesting. (And you sure love those elementals popping out of thin air.) I'll try to use portions thereof at my table in the near future.
But heaven forfend we produce something that anyone except the author can navigate? ;) Behold the fruit of my labour (product of the last 20 minutes) (http://www1.atwiki.com/ptolusalem?cmd=upload&act=open&pageid=10&file=Sacrifical+Lambs+Encounter+Table.pdf).

Quote from: Windjammer;339676Thanks, that looks interesting. (And you sure love those elementals popping out of thin air.) I'll try to use portions thereof at my table in the near future.
But heaven forfend we produce something that anyone except the author can navigate? ;) Behold the fruit of my labour (product of the last 20 minutes) (http://www1.atwiki.com/ptolusalem?cmd=upload&act=open&pageid=10&file=Sacrifical+Lambs+Encounter+Table.pdf).

lol....hey, man...I really like how you formatted that. I don't know how to use Photoshop or whatever you did to make it look that good, but I like it. Well done. Maybe I should hire you. :)

That's just plain Winword. Doing the stat blocks like I did on page 1 is extremely time consuming (that's why I didn't follow that formating for the stat blocks on pp.2-9). The rest can be done really quickly.

Edit I once re-layouted Judges Guild' Ready Ref Sheets for my own pleasure. Obviously I can't post that without a massive copyright violation, but I hope posting a small excerpt (http://www1.atwiki.com/ptolusalem/?cmd=upload&act=open&page=Optional%20player%20material&file=City%20Life%20Encounter.pdf) won't harm. It contains part of the city encounter tables. There's tons of fun to be had with these.

I'm thinking of giving the party a choice on their way to their destination: dangerous shortcut or safe round about way. If they take the dangerous short cut, I'm going to have them fight like 6-7 encounters in one day. If they go around, only one or two. If they try to camp in the ravine on the short cut, there will be three monsters that get to make perception checks to notice the group. If they fight one and then don't move one, the others will get a bonus.

None of these fights will be super hard, but, it should get taxing after a bit.

Quote from: Cranewings;339690I'm thinking of giving the party a choice on their way to their destination: dangerous shortcut or safe round about way. If they take the dangerous short cut, I'm going to have them fight like 6-7 encounters in one day. If they go around, only one or two. If they try to camp in the ravine on the short cut, there will be three monsters that get to make perception checks to notice the group. If they fight one and then don't move one, the others will get a bonus.

None of these fights will be super hard, but, it should get taxing after a bit.

But with no time counter there is no benefit to the dangerous shortcut. If the only effect is that the DM doesn't say... you travel for another 6 hours.. then there is no point.
I think the timing isuse is one of the real problmes with Sandbox style environments. In a plot driven game  you have numerous ways to drive the game onwards but in a sandbox players can always leave and come back later. Wandering monsters are not the answer as PC in a sand box are likely to  be driven by experience and treasure and you get that from WM as well as the in place guys. An opposing team after the same things is interesting but you start to move out of the pure sand box and toward a narative again.

What's the problem?  If there is no in game reason for the characters to press on then I agree that it is to their advantage to rest up.  If you don't want to, then branch out on your own.  When they say, lets go back to town, you can decide to just stay behind for a bit, check out one more room maybe.

Quote from: Cranewings;339690I'm thinking of giving the party a choice on their way to their destination: dangerous shortcut or safe round about way. If they take the dangerous short cut, I'm going to have them fight like 6-7 encounters in one day. If they go around, only one or two. If they try to camp in the ravine on the short cut, there will be three monsters that get to make perception checks to notice the group. If they fight one and then don't move one, the others will get a bonus.

And playing softly in the background is Glenn Miller (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2uoH6kcpMc) . . .

Sorry, Cranewings, you're a good guy and I'm sure your players really enjoy your game, but the contrast between our refereeing styles is striking.

Quote from: Age of Fable;339636I've noticed a problem in my current 3.5 D&D campaign.

We're struggling with it in our 4e game as well. I'm not sure there's a good solution. It seems to be a risk vs. reward thing that unless you somehow mitigate the risk down to the point where, really, you have to shrug and say, "Why are we bothering?," I don't think it'll go away.

Seanchai

This has always been a problem with my group. And yes, I use all of the traditional methods to harry players - random encounters, active response by alerted monsters, etc. - but it's still a problem.

My players know that if they dawdle, I'll throw something at them. But a lot of times they'd rather face that unknown peril, than press ahead to a known peril that they feel they're too weak (in spells, HP) to deal with. So we get the 15 minute adventuring day.

There isn't an easy solution, beside trying to make sure your group is composed only of devil-may-care risk takers.

Quote from: Seanchai;339744We're struggling with it in our 4e game as well. I'm not sure there's a good solution.

In 4E it's a bit easier, since the "extended rest" (where encounter powers get renewed) provides an additional avenue for the DM to exert pressure on resource management.

I'm currently reading Revenge of the Giants, and it's super nasty from that point of view. As written, it (at times) doesn't grant the PCs an extended rest for 3 encounters, something I consider really brutal.

I'm not sure you would appreciate this approach, though. It strikes me as very railroady, since the encounters end with a bang and the PCs are transported to the next battle scene quickly by a NPC.

I just thought of another possibility for dungeons: spending a night there could have the danger of disease (perhaps especially if you're wounded).

This fits with the idea that normal food will rot overnight in a dungeon.

Quote from: Windjammer;339754In 4E it's a bit easier, since the "extended rest" (where encounter powers get renewed) provides an additional avenue for the DM to exert pressure on resource management.

It seems to me that rather than simplify things, it's just added a new dimension. Do we take a short rest or an extended rest?

Quote from: Windjammer;339754I'm currently reading Revenge of the Giants, and it's super nasty from that point of view. As written, it (at times) doesn't grant the PCs an extended rest for 3 encounters, something I consider really brutal.

Hmmm. That's our standard operating procedure.

Seanchai

Quote from: Fiasco;339649The key is to have a reacitve, not a static environment.  If exploring the dungeon, the inhabitants should prepare traps and better organise their defences if the party leaves to rest up or just take too long.

Exactly. We discovered this with AD&D1e back in 1984. Sure, we could leave the dungeon, rest up and restock, sell off our loot and get better gear. But those kobolds would have locked doors, set up tripwires, made sure everyone was armed, appear in a shieldwall instead of just as a bunch of individuals, and so on.

Quote from: SettembriniTime is a ressource.

And this, too.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;339793Exactly. We discovered this with AD&D1e back in 1984. Sure, we could leave the dungeon, rest up and restock, sell off our loot and get better gear. But those kobolds would have locked doors, set up tripwires, made sure everyone was armed, appear in a shieldwall instead of just as a bunch of individuals, and so on.

Very true.  The desire to rest up and regain spells was always there, from the start.  I do think, however, the nature of combat in 3.5/4E makes more of an all or nothing affair.  You have a lot more invested in any individual combat in the latter editions because of the time it takes to resolve.

Quote from: Fiasco;339794I do think, however, the nature of combat in 3.5/4E makes more of an all or nothing affair.  You have a lot more invested in any individual combat in the latter editions because of the time it takes to resolve.

Whereas in AD&D1e and B/X, combat was an all or nothing affair because it was so easy for everyone to get killed, and most PCs couldn't afford resurrection spells until 9th level or so - plus there had to be someone around to drag away the bodies.

So the resolution of the combat might have been quicker, but the results - "victory or death!" made it just as much "all or nothing."

Either way, there's always a choice between withdrawing and regrouping, and pressing on though somewhat frazzled. This shouldn't surprise us - it's a choice real world militaries face in war campaigns - "campaign" was the word for a series a battles and manouevres towards a military goal long before it was the word for a bunch of rpg adventures, and indeed that's where the word "campaign" comes from in our hobby.

Quote from: The Shaman;339710And playing softly in the background is Glenn Miller (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2uoH6kcpMc) . . .

Sorry, Cranewings, you're a good guy and I'm sure your players really enjoy your game, but the contrast between our refereeing styles is striking.

You know what's weird? I'm mainly just a prick when I run D&D. I mean, I am always to some extent, but, D&D brings it out of me. I feel like it is suppose to be really hard.

When I run beyond the supernatural or my science fiction setting, or anything modern for that matter, it becomes way more free and intricate. I think Dungeons and Dragons / Pathfinder is just way more fun when you keep it strait.

Quote from: jibbajibba;339696But with no time counter there is no benefit to the dangerous shortcut. If the only effect is that the DM doesn't say... you travel for another 6 hours.. then there is no point.
I think the timing isuse is one of the real problmes with Sandbox style environments. In a plot driven game  you have numerous ways to drive the game onwards but in a sandbox players can always leave and come back later. Wandering monsters are not the answer as PC in a sand box are likely to  be driven by experience and treasure and you get that from WM as well as the in place guys. An opposing team after the same things is interesting but you start to move out of the pure sand box and toward a narative again.

I'm hoping they piss off a local village that they can outrun but not outfight. Then they can just be chased.

It would give even better reason for them to go into the dangerous area.

Sadly, the most irrational player I have won't be there for a few weeks, so I can't count on him to make the party any more enemies... and I've already had a couple of irrational NPCs so I need to give that angle a brake for a week or two.

Quote from: jibbajibba;339696I think the timing isuse is one of the real problmes with Sandbox style environments. In a plot driven game  you have numerous ways to drive the game onwards but in a sandbox players can always leave and come back later.

I've ran sandbox campaigns for years and never had the 15-minute day problem. Of course, said campaign have been run in older TSR versions of D&D. From what I've been able to tell, the 15-minute day only became a really common problem in with 3.x.

One thing you can do should work in most campaigns, have the adventure site more than a day's travel from the town/a really safe resting place. If characters have to leave the adventure location and travel 2-3 days through somewhat dangerous wilderness (with a say, 1 in 6 chance of a daytime encounter and a similar chance during each of the three or four nighttime watches) and returning to town to rest and recover seems less appealing.  Of course, this does mean that there will be long plot-pointless combats in game systems with time-consuming combat rules.

PCs leave a dungeon in my game? The "Monsters" that live there make modifications and prepare for their return to the best ability of the monsters. New Traps, post lookouts, change schedules, etc...

Rather than regurgitate the same advice that's been repeated (orcs set up bear traps and ambush), has your GM considered giving you enough resources that you actually have the choice of going on or resting?

Obviously, if your party is choosing to rest all the time, it's likely "going on" is a dumb choice and therefore an invalid option.

Punishing parties that decide to rest is going to lead to your party leaving the adventure site earlier (so they're fit enough to face the "ambush") or only trying an single attempt at each adventure site (so they don't have to deal with the heightened difficulty).

EDIT: Assuming that your GM is actually using the treasure guidelines (which I think is not the case), your GM should also consider varying the ELs of the adventure site. The percentages found on page 49 can serve as a useful guide on how many encounters should be easy, easy (if handled properly), challenging, hard, etc.

Also, assuming that you're low level and you have somebody in your party who can use them, I recommend your party purchase wands of cure light wounds, color spray, and sleep. Those who can create scrolls should also do so (by the rules, the XP loss doesn't hurt at all).

Quote from: greylond;339880PCs leave a dungeon in my game? The "Monsters" that live there make modifications and prepare for their return to the best ability of the monsters. New Traps, post lookouts, change schedules, etc...

I'm not sure that really works. If the players are rational (cynical? jaded?) enough to go back to town to rest between fights, then all restocking the dungeon between rest does is provide the players with more XP opportunities.  Same for putting random encounters between the town and dungeons - it's just more XP for the players, why should they care if it gained inside or outside the dungeon?

I don't know, but perhaps the solution is tinkering with how XP is awarded. So maybe the first combat encounter of the day is worth 1/4 of the notional XP value, the second fight 1/2, the third the correct XP value and any further fight is worth 1.5 the normal XP. That would give cynical players a reason to press on rather resting after ever little scrap.

Of course this only works if the players understand how much X they are earning.  A lot f GM like to just give out XP in largely subjective chunks between adventures - often just to level players up so that they can do the next adventure.

Quote from: Cranewings;339813I think Dungeons and Dragons / Pathfinder is just way more fun when you keep it strait.

Different strokes make a horse race, or something like that. :)

Well the way to fix it is to have a narative driven plot. The Princess has been kidnapped by the orcs.... The Lord of the Manor has given you until midnight tomorrow to return with the dragon's head or he will outlaw you and drive you out of the province etc etc ... They don;t have to be railroady the lord of the manor one gives the PCs plenty of opportunity to take up lives as outlaws.

I think the issue was always prevelent though in fact it was worse in older editions. In 1e when you healed at 1 hp a day without magical curing and a wizard could cast 5 spells all in by the time they were 4th level (is that right ? 3, 2? ) a room with a thing to negotiate and then a monster was about it.
This, and a general lack of clerics and surpluss of common sense, was why we moved to a hp system much like 4e and toyed with various spell point systems.

I truly hate the idea of stacking up on wands of Curing and colour spray and all that crap. Its like there is an Honest Joe's adventruress' outfitters in each village that sells magical items ...yuk!.

No simple answer if you want to avoid players that rest and regroup is to avoid dungeon delves and points of light encounter based games and go for narative driven plot based games.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;339888EDIT: Assuming that your GM is actually using the treasure guidelines (which I think is not the case), your GM should also consider varying the ELs of the adventure site. The percentages found on page 49 can serve as a useful guide on how many encounters should be easy, easy (if handled properly), challenging, hard, etc.

That all depends on what game system you're talking about. Something tells me that "Page 49" isn't an exact reference 'cause I know that HM4 and HMB have different "Page 49s"... ;)

Quote from: Soylent Green;339889I'm not sure that really works. If the players are rational (cynical? jaded?) enough to go back to town to rest between fights, then all restocking the dungeon between rest does is provide the players with more XP opportunities.  Same for putting random encounters between the town and dungeons - it's just more XP for the players, why should they care if it gained inside or outside the dungeon?

Depends on how XP is awarded. I'm not saying "Restocking" as in adding more monsters, just the monsters changing things around. So, instead of the monsters waiting around in a barracks, or whatever, because they don't think anyone is coming in on them, they post a lookout or two and dig a new Pit Trap. All depends on the Monsters, best example is Tucker's Kobolds...

Quote from: Age of Fable;339636I've noticed a problem in my current 3.5 D&D campaign.

The party often has the choice of continuing exploration, or resting for the day.

However the choice isn't a very meaningful one, since it seems that stopping is better in every case. The only reasons not to seem to be out-of-game reasons like role-playing a reckless character, deliberately creating a challenge for yourself, or not wanting to do the 'paperwork'.

I guess this is the purpose of wandering monsters, but either 3.5 doesn't have them, or they're not common enough to make the choice meaningful.

In any case, what do you do when the party has a safe haven to fall back to, such as a town?

It primarily depends on if the "dungeon" has intelligent inhabitants, and how dangerous it is between the dungeon and town, both in the case of monsters and bandits.

My "dungeons" are not frozen in time, things will logcially prgress after the PCs leave, the power vacuum from slain monsters may be filled.  Other monsters may kill weakend ones and take their treasure.  Intelligent ones will certainly prepare for any return by the PCs and bolster their defenses, traps, fake rtreats and ambushes.  Intelligent ones will also now have some knowledge of the weaknesses of the PCs and try to exploit them.  In a world where fire and forget spells are known, intelligent monsters will try to lure PCs in, get them to burn spells on "fake" encounters, wait for the spells to expire then hit them when they are on the way back to town when they are week.  

Hence, against intelligent foes going to rest means that the next time things will be so much harder.

If the PCs do a rinse, repeat, that is, going back and forth more than once.  Bandits (or a greedy dragon in the know) in the area are likely to ambush them next time they leave the dungeon.  Since at this point they will be weak and laden with the treasure.

I'm curious...does anyone else in the group care about this problem?

Quote from: DeadUematsu;339970I'm curious...does anyone else in the group care about this problem?

In Baldur's Gate 1 for the PC, which is the most 2E game I've ever seen, my party led by a wizard took about four times as long as the paladin's party to get anything done.

They leveled a touch faster because of all the random nighttime encounters, but, it just seemed to make sense.

Quote from: Xanther;339912It primarily depends on if the "dungeon" has intelligent inhabitants, and how dangerous it is between the dungeon and town, both in the case of monsters and bandits.

My "dungeons" are not frozen in time, things will logcially prgress after the PCs leave, the power vacuum from slain monsters may be filled.  Other monsters may kill weakend ones and take their treasure.  Intelligent ones will certainly prepare for any return by the PCs and bolster their defenses, traps, fake rtreats and ambushes.  Intelligent ones will also now have some knowledge of the weaknesses of the PCs and try to exploit them.  In a world where fire and forget spells are known, intelligent monsters will try to lure PCs in, get them to burn spells on "fake" encounters, wait for the spells to expire then hit them when they are on the way back to town when they are week.  

Hence, against intelligent foes going to rest means that the next time things will be so much harder.

If the PCs do a rinse, repeat, that is, going back and forth more than once.  Bandits (or a greedy dragon in the know) in the area are likely to ambush them next time they leave the dungeon.  Since at this point they will be weak and laden with the treasure.

Never been a problem.
I didn't answer this at first as it seemed to be system-specific, and I do my own thing.

But much of the logic of the system was bent around time management, such as spellpoint reclamation rules, longitudinal spell effects (the small buffs and such that last hours).  Lower level healing spells have can only be cast a few times a week on people before they lose effectiveness.  And there are no 'magic' shops...it's hard to make magic items...

So all of the above makes my PCs want to get a breather every chance they can.  But I guess I have done the same thing others have mentioned and that Xanther describes so well.  The element of surprise is critical for my PCs.  All three groups are scared to death about losing that, because of past history.  

15-minute day?  Christmas, my newer live group (in their second itereation)has mananged to play through 11 days in 28 sessions.

Quote from: Cranewings;339973In Baldur's Gate 1 for the PC, which is the most 2E game I've ever seen, my party led by a wizard took about four times as long as the paladin's party to get anything done.

They leveled a touch faster because of all the random nighttime encounters, but, it just seemed to make sense.

What?

My question was directed to AoF.

Quote from: Soylent Green;339889I don't know, but perhaps the solution is tinkering with how XP is awarded. So maybe the first combat encounter of the day is worth 1/4 of the notional XP value, the second fight 1/2, the third the correct XP value and any further fight is worth 1.5 the normal XP. That would give cynical players a reason to press on rather resting after ever little scrap.

I have thought about exactly this sort of system, though not quite as steep at the beginning - 50% penalty, normal, normal, 25% bonus, 50% bonus is what I had thought about. And I would press on, so I guess I am a more cynical player than I thought.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;339970I'm curious...does anyone else in the group care about this problem?

I don't know. I'm going to a barbeque with the DM on the weekend. I think he wants to talk about how the campaign's going. This struck me as the main problem, but I wanted to have a solution before I raised it.

Incidentally, in Original and Basic D&D you get most of your XP from treasure, and wandering monsters have far less treasure than 'lairs'. So wandering monsters are almost entirely something to be avoided. I wonder if the change to XP mostly coming from combat, while it makes more sense, is the root of the problem?

Quote from: Age of Fable;340003I don't know. I'm going to a barbeque with the DM on the weekend. I think he wants to talk about how the campaign's going. This struck me as the main problem, but I wanted to have a solution before I raised it.

Incidentally, in Original and Basic D&D you get most of your XP from treasure, and wandering monsters have far less treasure than 'lairs'. So wandering monsters are almost entirely something to be avoided. I wonder if the change to XP mostly coming from combat, while it makes more sense, is the root of the problem?

Interesting observation, although treasure it perhaps a little too narrow, it you perhaps should also have XP for achieving other goals too , but not just grinding on monsters.

I've certainly gained a lot of respect reward systems in the past year. It wasn't that long ago I used to think good roleplaying was reward in itself and that a GM should not need rely on XP "bribes" to keep the players interested. But, especially after my recent Marvel Super Hero game I've come to view the reward system as a very important and subtle aspect of a game. The different ways XP is awarded does influence how the players approach the game.

Well, if they feel like going for short jaunts, and then heading back to a "safe haven", that's something that can make sense. Of course, if they leave the dungeon overnight, in the morning things might be different there; you might have some new monsters coming in, or other forces (cultists, evil adventurers?) taking advantage of the early work the PCs had done.

If they're resting too often in the dungeon itself, then you want to have them face Wandering Monsters regularly.

RPGPundit

Yea, that's another one of my favorite tricks to pull. If the party stays away too long from the dungeon then I've been known to have a NPC party, who are all slightly less experienced, to go in and loot stuff after the PCs have taken out the really dangerous guardians.

Quote from: Age of Fable;340003Incidentally, in Original and Basic D&D you get most of your XP from treasure, and wandering monsters have far less treasure than 'lairs'. So wandering monsters are almost entirely something to be avoided. I wonder if the change to XP mostly coming from combat, while it makes more sense, is the root of the problem?

While it may not be the root of the problem, it is part of the problem.

Originally, 80-90% of a PC's XP came from non-combat activities (getting treasure). This meant the best way to gain experience was to get treasure with as little risk to your party as possible. Combats were risky an tended to inhibit your ability to go on and get more treasure so you either tried to get treasure without fighting or at least by setting things up so your side had as much advantage as possible before fighting. Pressing on for more treasure while wounded did not seem illogical as you could get treasure and its XP without a fight if you put your mind to it.

When the rules changed to where fighting monsters was the way characters earned most of their experience, combat ceased to be optional as fighting things was the best way to get XP. This changed the tone of the game a lot, IMHO.  If combat is the main way to get XP, avoiding it is silly -- and pressing on while wounded isn't very productive as being wounded makes it much harder to get more XP and remain alive to enjoy it.

Quote from: RandallS;340091While it may not be the root of the problem, it is part of the problem.

Originally, 80-90% of a PC's XP came from non-combat activities (getting treasure). This meant the best way to gain experience was to get treasure with as little risk to your party as possible. Combats were risky an tended to inhibit your ability to go on and get more treasure so you either tried to get treasure without fighting or at least by setting things up so your side had as much advantage as possible before fighting. Pressing on for more treasure while wounded did not seem illogical as you could get treasure and its XP without a fight if you put your mind to it.

When the rules changed to where fighting monsters was the way characters earned most of their experience, combat ceased to be optional as fighting things was the best way to get XP. This changed the tone of the game a lot, IMHO.  If combat is the main way to get XP, avoiding it is silly -- and pressing on while wounded isn't very productive as being wounded makes it much harder to get more XP and remain alive to enjoy it.

Think it would be fun to play 3e or pathfinder with the old fashion XP rules?

Tunnels & Trolls does the BEST job with this problem (since the 70s).

Since the Wizard regens 1 Magic Point every 10 minutes, you can always barricade a room and guard the door while the wizard kicks back and repowers.   Then he drops a couple of heal spells and down to the next dungeon level we go!

Quote from: Windjammer;339754I'm currently reading Revenge of the Giants, and it's super nasty from that point of view. As written, it (at times) doesn't grant the PCs an extended rest for 3 encounters, something I consider really brutal.

I recently played 4e with a GM who hated the "15 minute day" from 3e so much that his 4e campaign has a rule that 4 encounters will find your ass whenever you wake up until you go to sleep.

Its even worked into the narrative as the heroes are cursed and hunted by enemies as they try to complete their quest against these enemies.

Quote from: Cranewings;340121Think it would be fun to play 3e or pathfinder with the old fashion XP rules?

I'd have a problem with it. It would mean that only rich people could have any degree of skill. I'm not even thrilled about the wealth guidelines for 3e, but the old rules would demand that characters become rich in order to level up. I don't like that. I like the idea that some high-level characters can be in dire financial straits, and not because they lost 100,000 gp.

Being high-level should not always mean you're automatically rich or were previously rich. I mean, yeah...I love treasure, but I prefer the rules allowing the option of either poverty or riches, without having to do crazy mental gymnastics to make it work in the game.

In most rules and campaigns, you had to give up your treasure to turn it into xp. So high-level characters weren't rich, they'd just had a lot of money pass through their hands ;)

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;340172In most rules and campaigns, you had to give up your treasure to turn it into xp. So high-level characters weren't rich, they'd just had a lot of money pass through their hands ;)

Most of the D&D campaigns I encountered, that was only true for magic items. Gaining cash (but only cash) got you XP, per the letter of the rules.

Quote from: Cranewings;340121Think it would be fun to play 3e or pathfinder with the old fashion XP rules?

I don't see why not. You would have top rethink some of the campaign design if your campaign is designed around the wealth "limits" described in the 3.x rules, however.  I always thought they were a dumb idea to begin with, but given how the 3.x rules seem to assume that characters will have certain types of magic items at certain levels, I can understand why the designers thought them a good idea.

(I probably would still not enjoy such a campaign as the combats that do happen would still be too tactical and far too time-consuming for me, but my chance of playing for more than one session before I got bored from those long combats would be much higher. LOL.)

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;340172In most rules and campaigns, you had to give up your treasure to turn it into xp. So high-level characters weren't rich, they'd just had a lot of money pass through their hands ;)

I still have an issue with that, because you absolutely had to have been rich at some point. That should not be a necessity to achieve real skill. I understand the reasoning behind it, and it can sometimes be fun, but I'd prefer if it wasn't the default rule in AD&D and whatnot. :cool:

I don't think you can say "I was rich at some point" because you had treasure you gave up within a day for xp and magical stuff. It's like saying that the restaurant owner "earned $20,000" because that's what was in the cash register on Saturday night... before he paid $5,000 in wages, $5,000 in food costs, $3,000 in utilities, set aside $2,000 for rent, and...

When you say "rich", generally you mean that the person has a lot of disposable income. In old school D&D - or Traveller, for that matter - adventurers didn't, it was all spent before it was earned.

The money for xp thing doesn't work for me for 3 reasons.

i) Worlds with no or very little money can not exisit. So A jungly tarzan type game where there is wealth and you clear ancient temples and the like but don't then find a sack of treasure don't work (tarzan still 1st level then?)

ii) I hate the training mechanic. The idea that a 9th level fighter can wander into a town and find a guy to train them is a stretch but it you then add that they have to pay 20,000gp which is enough to buy the whole tow.. the whole economy just makes no sense.

iii) You have to jiggle the value of the xp based on the monsters. If I recall you don't dso this in AD&D but you do adjust for relative levels of the group (sorry its been a while since i used this xp model .... like 28 years). Anyway if you follwo the logic of the effect then killing a goblin and finding 20,000gp teaches you more than killing 40 goblins and finding 200pg ...why?

In AD&D1e, the xp were the same for the monster regardless of relative levels.

The xp from the treasure associated with the monster varied according to relative strengths as judged by the GM, however. So you'd get less xp for 20,000GP from a goblin than 20,000GP from a dragon. It says,

   "For example, if a 10th level magic-user takes 1,000 g.p. from 10 kobolds, the relative strengths are about 20 to 1 in favor of the magic-user."

Thus, the magic-user would get only 1,000/20 = 50xp from that treasure.

It goes on to say that yes, xp from treasure makes no sense, and that more realistically mages would study, fighters would tilt at lists, and so on - but that would be boring.

It's traditionally rationalised as blowing through money after an adventure, Conan-style. Part of experience is fame for generosity and wasteful spending :D

Anyway, smaller monsters would tend to have less treasure - why would a single goblin have 20,000GP? But even if they did, what it came down to was that to go up a level, a character had to have either one or two very challenging encounters, or lots and lots of easy ones. That 10th level magic-user's not racing up levels knocking over 10 kobolds at once.

There was a mechanic encouraging roleplaying. The GM would rate each player on their roleplaying, the emphasis in the text was on class - the fighters should fight, the thieves should look for traps, etc. That is, everyone should contribute their character's particular skills to the benefit of the group. You got a rating of 1-4, and that was how many weeks it took you to go up a level.

Of course you had to pay for each week (1,500GP per current level), so that poor roleplayers, it'd cost their characters four times as much to go up a level as excellent roleplayers' characters.

Like hit points, it sounds really stupid, but it tends to work alright in play.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;340412You got a rating of 1-4, and that was how many weeks it took you to go up a level.

Of course you had to pay for each week (1,500GP per current level), so that poor roleplayers, it'd cost their characters four times as much to go up a level as excellent roleplayers' characters.

Like hit points, it sounds really stupid, but it tends to work alright in play.

Well that exact quantity was totally stupid at low levels – even a perfectly roleplayed thief would have to sit around on his hands until more gold came his way so that he could buy his second level. And a character that didn't make the grade was really screwed plus stuck with maybe four hit points until he could scrounge up 3000 gold pieces or whatever.

The general idea has merit, and works better at level 5 or 6+ when PCs have magic items to sell and a reason to get rid of them, but the specifics were a mess, so IME that was one of the most-skipped parts of the DMG, running about even with the weaponless combat rules.

Quote from: Imp;340415Well that exact quantity was totally stupid at low levels – even a perfectly roleplayed thief would have to sit around on his hands until more gold came his way so that he could buy his second level. And a character that didn't make the grade was really screwed plus stuck with maybe four hit points until he could scrounge up 3000 gold pieces or whatever.

The general idea has merit, and works better at level 5 or 6+ when PCs have magic items to sell and a reason to get rid of them, but the specifics were a mess, so IME that was one of the most-skipped parts of the DMG, running about even with the weaponless combat rules.

It doesn't have any merit. It is at best a crude mechanic for awarding roleplaying but basically it's just a money sink to make sure that your 4th level character doesn't just retire, buy a house and a dozen concubines.

I favour xp for achieving objectives. I used to track xp precisely (probably something I saw in an old dragon magazine or something) each spell cast each trap bested, each foe defeated... a pain to track. So now its all done on objectives. Rescuing the pincess is worth 2000 xp shared out between the PCs that do it. Killing the dragon maybe 2000 more. In my Amber games I even let PCs set their own objectives (which have to include overcoming risk).

Generally, the gp rewards in D&D were such that the characters continued to spend out most of their fortune until mid-expert levels; and then they got strongholds, which cost them money again, so it was only really at about Companion levels that they really started to be "rich" in the "vast treasury" sense.

Which to me makes good sense.  I don't buy the idea of a dirt-poor 30th level Wizard.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Imp;340415Well that exact quantity was totally stupid at low levels – even a perfectly roleplayed thief would have to sit around on his hands until more gold came his way so that he could buy his second level.

You must have had stingy GMs. When I most recently ran an AD&D1e game, the 1st level (bar one standoffish 2nd level MU) PCs slew a basilisk, and its randomly-rolled treasure was easily 1,500GP per PC.

I am not, however, convinced that this was actually a problem for you, either. Whenever gamers sit down and chat about games, all sorts of questions come up. Some come from playing the rules, and some come from reading the rules. Some stuff looks brilliant on paper but is a mess in play, and vice versa.

Paying for training and the training taking longer for characters with poor players, in combination with randomly-rolled treasure, this worked alright. And xp for treasure relative to the challenge of the encounter, so that you could get xp for being smart not just fighting, this worked alright, too. Not brilliantly, but it worked.

The real problem was simply that poorly-roleplayed characters took longer to level up than well-roleplayed ones, and since, Gygax told us, a meaningful campaign can not be had if detailed time records are not kept, the one-week trained PCs might wander off on another adventure while the four-week trained PCs are still training... and be back ready for their next level by the time the poorly-played character has even finished last level's training! And so they get left behind in every sense of the phrase.

Something which, like the advice about the "blue bolt from the heavens" or penalising (appropriately) the Charisma of the characters of annoying players, makes sense in the context in which it was written: Gygax's basement games with a dozen or so players... you'd be looking for excuses to chuck some of them out and leave them out of the action, too.

When you have just 3-5, not so great. Who wants to sit and watch the rest of the group have an adventure while you're training?

As Kyle pointed out, the 'GP = exp' rule was a rule that sounds kind of dumb when you hear it, but did ok when played.

It was also put into place to move the levelling along.

I agree with JibbaJibba that I always hated it, and even when I played D&D, I never used it.  but when I dissected other games, I understood why it it was there.  Gygax layered his rule creation based on what he wanted to get out of it at the time.  Splitting exp up for adventures was put into place to keep the group at about the same power base no matter the different player abilities at a a table.  The training per week rule was put into action to further allow the GM the ability to determine who was ready to play and to penalize bad play.