Does anyone know the rationale why each class had it's own XP progression?
(e.g. the Thief needs 1250 XP to get to second level, but the Mage needs 2500 XP.)

Ediit: Do you see this as a feature or a bug?

It's a balancing mechanism.  Thieves are fairly weak, but level up quickly.  It does have some weird interactions:  low level magic users level slow because magic is difficult, but low level magic users are fairly weak.

Yeah, the idea was as a balancing mechanism. Thing is Gygax was no mathematician, so he didn't quite balance it that well (once you get around mid-level, wizards start leveling faster, of all things).

Quote from: Aglondir;1108823Does anyone know the rationale why each class had it's own XP progression?
(e.g. the Thief needs 1250 XP to get to second level, but the Mage needs 2500 XP.)

Ediit: Do you see this as a feature or a bug?

Feature.  Definitely a feature.  The rationale is simple: different people learn different skills at different rates.

My guess is that, as said, while it's something of a balancing mechanism, it was based on on Chainmail point values that said wizards were more valuable than fighters. In that, a hero was 20 points, a superhero 50 points.  But a Seer, the lowest Wizard in Chainmail was worth 50 points (and the best was 100).

Personally, I think it was a mistake. The thief is just a weak class. Even as it levels, it's still weak. A better thief class in the first place would be more playable and you wouldn't have the problems with different xps messing up multi-classing.

OTOH, in OD&D, the Paladin used the fighter XP table, but was simply better. In AD&D, the Paladin was still better, but at least paid a price for it with slower advancement.  But I think it would have been better served to just make the fighter better in the first place (which actually happened somewhat in UA for AD&D, when weapon specialization was introduced, allowing them (and rangers) to be much better in combat)

But beyond that, as Roger Moore illustrated back in the day in Dragon in a series of articles analyzing class power at various XP totals, the math is really broken.

I think it is a good idea, poorly executed.  It's a pipe dream that every class is going to progress the same, and trying to make them that ways leads to some bad choices in class design.  Yet, you don't need an oddball progression for every class either.  I'd like to see someone try it with maybe three progressions.  Calls them slow, medium, fast.  Then pick one for each class, and design it to be roughly comparable to other classes in the same progression.  Almost as if you took the original fighter, magic user, cleric progressions, cleaned up the math a bit, and then built other classes on that.

Nearest I can tell, in Arneson's Blackmoor, all classes had the same XP chart but earned XP by different methods. Fighters earned XP by killing monsters whereas Wizards earned XP by casting spells. So, even though the charts were the same, their advancement was totally independent. In the playtesting of OD&D, they experimented with XP penalties for more powerful classes or races. For example, a Dwarf character earned 10% less XP to "pay" for his dwarvish powers. Later, this translated into a 10% higher XP table in B/X. While I can understand baking percentage adjustments into the charts, they still had XP bonuses for ability scores so they would have to individually adjust XP awards anyway.

All that being said, I don't see any mechanical advantage of class specific XP tables as you have to adjust the power level of the class to counteract the various tables anyway. Does a Thief advance faster because it's a weak class or is it a weak class because it advances faster?

Overall, I prefer a single XP table as it greatly helps comparing the balance levels between all the classes. I also have used XP bonuses or penalties for races that might be slightly weaker or more powerful than humans.

Well, moving away from D&D a few steps, if I'm pinned down, what I really prefer is a better handling implementation of something similar to the Dragon Quest method.  Different races have an XP multiple on costs.  Since DQ is a hybrid class/skill system (though using different labels), the translation doesn't work exactly.  For D&D, I'd want to reverse engineer it so that the easier classes get a low multiple (1) while the very hardest classes get a higher one.  So same XP chart, but stacking multiples for class, race, and whatever else makes sense.

You are a human thief, +0 multiple.  So x 1 for you.  You are an elven thief.  Elves get +0.5. So you are now x 1.5.  Clerics also get +0.5.  Elven Cleric is x 2.0.  Same idea should work with older multi-classing, too, though you'd need escalating multiples to make the math work.  Annoying to figure, but once you have your multiple, you are set.

Edit:  Ugh, got interrupted mid typing and managed to make the example exactly backwards to my intent.  It's not important enough to fix, since no one is ever going to do it that way, and I think you get the idea.

Variable XP tables guarantee everyone advances separately. The thief gets that 2nd HD and all those other perks from leveling, before the rest of the party, while the fighter lags a few sessions behind. It's about individual vs. group rewards; everyone gets their own moment to shine when they either catch up or pull ahead, instead of everyone doing so in lock-step.

Quote from: Aglondir;1108823Ediit: Do you see this as a feature or a bug?

Neither it just how it is. The only thing I did was to rationalize the progression in my take on the rules.

Clerics start out at 1,500 xp
My Rogue classes range from starting at 1,500 xp to 2,000 xp
My Fighter classes range form starting at 2,000 xp to 2,500 xp.
My Magic User classes range from starting at 2,250 xp to 3,000 xp (Thothian Mage).

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IIRC, 2e DMG had an option where you could build your own class piecemeal, and the selections you made added up to determine the XP cost. If you wanted a bunch of awesome abilities, it cost a lot of XP. If you had few and/or weak abilities, you could advance quickly (assuming you survived). I don't recall how closely it matched up with the XP advancement of the mainstream classes.

It doesn't play quite as swingy as it reads.  The thief and cleric will advance first, of course - which is to everyone's benefit really - but since AD&D awards magic item XP to the character claiming the item that means most fighters will get the first round of magic weapons and the voluminous scrolls most often go to the magic-users.

So in play fighters and magic-users also gain a bit more XP in the early going than clerics and thieves.  But then thieves normally get the 2nd round of magical swords, etc., so they're still advancing to level 3 first 9 times out of 10, and actually lead the party in hit points for a while (unless they roll poorly for new HP).

Of course if DMs get philosophically bothered by not everyone getting the same XP for the same activity, and put their thumbs on the scale to award equal XP to everyone, they're distorting the intended effect in the cause of their personal preferences.

I'd go with bug.  If you're trying to balance the classes in terms of combat ability by having some with smaller hit dice than others, it doesn't make sense to then give that smaller HD more levels.  If Fighters are supposed to be the best at fighting, you shouldn't have a point where a Thief is a better fighter at the same amount of XP.  

Given a choice between balancing the XP charts and trying to balance XP totals, I'd opt for balancing the XP charts.  Knowing that everyone is progressing at the same speed lets you set class abilities to represent the strengths and weaknesses you intend for each class to have more consistently.

Quote from: EOTB;1108972It doesn't play quite as swingy as it reads.  The thief and cleric will advance first, of course - which is to everyone's benefit really - but since AD&D awards magic item XP to the character claiming the item that means most fighters will get the first round of magic weapons and the voluminous scrolls most often go to the magic-users.

We've usually played it BTB which is to divide the treasure into piles of relatively equal value. So, while a Fighter might pick a magic sword, the other characters will be compensated by getting an extra amount of jewels and cash. Effectively making all characters advance at the same rate. (PHB pg 122 option #1)

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1108997We've usually played it BTB which is to divide the treasure into piles of relatively equal value. So, while a Fighter might pick a magic sword, the other characters will be compensated by getting an extra amount of jewels and cash. Effectively making all characters advance at the same rate. (PHB pg 122 option #1)

Sure, players can choose to even it out.  I go by the DMG advice to leave treasure division (and associated XP) solely in the purview of the players.  IME training requirements mean money-treasure can't be weighted too far in any direction without taking up intra-party loans and such, but if the players want to bookkeep that amongst themselves, I'm OK with that too.  

My point was more towards DMs who divide magic item XP equally as a house rule.