House Rule Review #2: Experience Points

Update 10/2/2016: Added subsections on monsters with fractional CRs, monsters whose CR is less than APL − 8, and an alternate method for awarding XP for parties with mixed character levels. Also fixed Table 1 so it includes XP values for every relative CR covered by Table 2.

This is the second in a series of posts analyzing some house rules for d20 fantasy gaming that I wrote and later abandoned. The planned scope of the series was initially four posts, then was reduced to three. Now it may prove a little more open ended, since I've found a more recent copy of the house rules in question, which is giving me more food for thought.

The first post in this series, on character creation and point-buy systems, can be found here.

All text after the first paragraph under the heading "My New Solution" is open gaming content under the terms of the OGL.

Eternally escalating experience point totals have been one of the annoyances, albeit a minor one, of D&D and its offshoots for a long time. In any game where characters could advance to 20th level or beyond, XP totals could add up into hundreds of thousands, or even millions. Of course, these numbers aren't as big a problem today, particularly for players, because every cell phone has a calculator. However, it can be an inconvenience for GMs designing encounters in PFRPG, since they have to sometimes add and compare these large values, and could have to do this for every encounter in an adventure.

My Old Solution

In my old abandoned house rules, I actually tried to make a more systematized version of an optional approach to leveling up in D&D 4e. That approach had the DM give the PCs another level after about 10 appropriately challenging encounters. Easy encounters (as defined by the DM) would count as only half an encounter, while hard ones could count as two or three. However, there were no concrete rules for how to value encounters, and I wondered if a more rigorous version of this alternate rule could be used in PFRPG.

I started with the PRD Encounter Design chart and assigned a "challenge point" or "encounter point" value to each difficulty.* An encounter with a challenge rating equal to the average party level minus one had a value of half a point, while an encounter with CR equal to the APL +3 was worth three points. This system was simple, but it didn't match the proportions of encounter math in PFRPG very well. This was another of the problems that led me to abandon the house rules.

However, another concept that sprang from this system has lived on in my d20 heartbreaker project, and it's a concept that I think is worthwhile. What if, instead of a giant table listing different XP requirements for each level, there was just one XP value for advancing to whatever the next level was, whether it was 2nd or 20th?

*I switched back and forth between these terms throughout the manuscript, and never did a thorough find/replace to settle on one.

My New Solution

Introducing Rollover XP. The version presented here is not as simple and elegant as the one in my PFRPG houserules or the one in my unfinished d20 heartbreaker, but it uses numbers and methods that are more familiar to the average Pathfinder GM.

This system uses Fast, Medium, and Slow experience tracks like the standard system given in the PRD. However, it takes a constant amount of XP to gain each new level. This amount is equal to the number of XP needed to advance from 1st to 2nd level under the standard rules: 1,300 per level for the Fast track; 2,000 for the Medium track, and 3,000 for the Slow track.

And now for the feature that gives this system its name: the rollover. Instead of keeping track of an ever increasing running total of XP earned throughout their character's career, a player only needs to keep track of the XP earned during the current level. When the character earns enough XP to advance to the next level, the XP total is set to zero + the difference between earned XP and the amount needed to advance. For example, if Althar the Ranger is playing in a Medium track campaign and has 2,050 XP, he advances to the next level (whatever level it is) and his player resets his XP total to 50.

Monster XP Values and Encounter Design

To make this system work, monster XP must be calculated differently from the standard encounter design rules. In the standard rules, a monster's XP value is a constant number based on its CR. In the Rollover XP system, that value changes based on the difference between the monster's CR and the PCs' APL. Table 1 gives the XP values for monsters based on that difference. It covers relative CRs ranging from eight below the APL to three above it and gives values for both total XP and individual XP.

Table 1: Monster XP Values

Monster CR vs. APL	Total XP	Individual XP (1-3 Players)	Individual XP (4-5 Players)	Individual XP (6+ Players)
APL − 8	25	10	5	5
APL − 7	35	10	10	5
APL − 6	50	15	15	10
APL − 5	65	20	15	25
APL − 4	100	35	25	15
APL − 3	135	45	35	25
APL − 2	200	65	50	35
APL − 1	300	100	75	50
APL	400	135	100	65
APL + 1	600	200	150	100
APL + 2	800	265	200	135
APL + 3	1,200	400	300	200
APL + 4	1,600	535	400	265

To design an encounter under this system, follow these steps:

1. Determine APL. Use the method from the standard rules, but do not adjust the APL by the number of PCs. That adjustment will be factored in as part of Step 2.
2. Determine CR. To find the proper CR for the encounter, decide how difficult you want the encounter to be for the PCs, and then consult Table 2. Find the column with the number of players in your group. Then look up the desired encounter difficulty to find the appropriate CR.
3. Determine XP Budget. Look up the XP budget for the encounter CR under the Total XP award column in Table 1. Even if you are using individual XP awards in your actual game, you should use the Total XP values to build encounters because those numbers are more mathematically consistent than the ones for Individual XP.
4. Choose Monsters. Choose any number of monsters whose XP values on Table 1 add up to the encounter's XP budget, based on their CRs relative to the APL.

Table 2: Encounter Design

Difficulty	CR (1-3 Players)	CR (4-5 Players)	CR (6+ Players)
Easy	APL − 2	APL − 1	APL
Average	APL − 1	APL	APL + 1
Challenging	APL	APL + 1	APL + 2
Hard	APL + 1	APL + 2	APL + 3
Epic	APL + 2	APL + 3	APL + 4

Example

Jill wants to build an encounter for her party of six 5th-level characters. She consults Table 2 and finds that an average encounter for a party of six or more players is equal to APL + 1. Thus, she needs a CR 6 encounter. Looking at Table 1, she sees that she has 600 XP to spend on this encounter. She could use one CR 6 (APL +1) monster to fill the entire budget at once, or she could use any combination of multiple monsters whose XP award adds up to 600. She decides on a two-monster encounter, using a troll (CR 5, equal to APL; 400 XP) and an ogre (CR 3, APL − 2; 200 XP).

Creatures With Fractional CRs

To use a creature with a fractional CR, find the difference between CR 1 and the APL, and use Table 1 to find the appropriate XP value. This XP value applies to a number of the creatures equal to the denominator of its fractional CR (two for a CR 1/2 creature, three for a CR 1/3 creature, etc.). If you want more creatures than that number, use the CR Equivalencies table from the standard rules to find the appropriate XP value.

For example, Jill wants her six 5th-level PCs to be attacked by orcs (CR 1/3) in an easy (CR 5) encounter. CR 1 is four below the APL of 5, so three orcs are worth 100 points. Because she wants the entire encounter to consist of regular orc warriors whose leader isn't around, she consults the CR Equivalencies table from the PRD and finds that four creatures combine to make one creature of four times one creature's CR. Since each "creature" in this situation is three orcs, it takes 12 orcs to fill out the encounter.

Using Weaker Creatures

If you want to use creatures whose CR is less than the APL − 8, use the CR Equivalencies table mentioned above to find a number of creatures of an appropriate CR that is covered by Table 1. If the creatures are extremely weak, you may have to chain together multiple uses of the CR Equivalencies table to find the desired number of creatures.

For example, if Jill's PCs have advanced to 10th level and she wants to create an average (CR 11 for Jill's six-person party) encounter involving bugbears (CR 2), she would look on the CR Equivalencies table and find that two bugbears are equivalent to a CR 3 monster (APL − 8 in this case), and the table covers up to 16 bugbears at CR 9 (APL − 2). Jill could fill an entire average encounter for this group (CR 11) with bugbears by using 32 bugbears (CR 9 + 2 = CR 11; 16 bugbears × 2 = 32 bugbears), or use that number of bugbears as part of a more difficult encounter.

Optional XP Award Method

This system can make it impossible for PCs who are behind the APL to catch up, except in groups where different players often miss sessions for different reasons. Therefore, if the PCs are not all the same level, you may want to use the following method instead of the one in the standard rules.

This alternate method has one version when using Total XP and another when using Individual XP. If you are using Total XP for experience awards, look up the amount of XP for the encounter CR in relation to each character's total level, not the APL. Then give each player the Total XP award for his or her level divided by the number of party members.

For example, if a party consisting of four 5th-level characters and one 4th-level character (for an APL of 5) defeats a CR 5 encounter, the GM gives the four 5th level characters 80 XP each for the encounter (400 XP for a CR = character level encounter, divided by five party members). The lone 4th level character gets 120 XP (600 for a CR = character level + 1 encounter, divided by five party members).

The Individual XP method is easier. First, find the row in Table 1 corresponding to the encounter CR in relation to the character's total level. Then, give the character the Individual XP award for the number of characters in the party. For the party above, the four 5th-level characters would get 100 XP each, while the one 4th-level character gets 150 XP.

Benefits of Rollover XP

The Rollover XP system offers more than just smaller XP budgets for high-level encounter design. Because the number of XP required to advance is the same for any level on a given XP track, Rollover XP allows a group to smoothly switch between XP tracks in the middle of a campaign. Thus, a GM who likes to get players through the first couple of levels quickly could decide to use Fast advancement for Levels 1-3 and Medium advancement for the rest of the campaign. Or a GM whose group prefers mid-level play could use Medium advancement until 5th level, and then switch to Slow advancement. Other GMs or groups could combine both these approaches, or use other complex sequences of advancement rate shifts over 20 levels.

I feel that this new level of flexibility is the major benefit of Rollover XP. While the standard PFRPG rules do a good thing by giving groups multiple explicit, defined rates of advancement, this advancement system gives PFRPG GMs total flexibility in determining how fast they want the PCs to advance.

RPG Review: Romance of the Perilous Land

Trollish Delver Games has published a new OSR game called Romance of the Perilous Land as a pay-what-you-want PDF.  I decided to download it, and tip Trollish Delver a buck, because of its promise to recreate the world of British folklore, as opposed to the generic fantasy setting presented by all the various editions of D&D. In this setting, magic is rare and wondrous and subtle (no Olde Magick Shoppes or fireball-slinging archmages) and monsters are unique and terrifying creatures. I immediately thought that this game could be tweaked to model a number of low-magic, high-wonder settings that have never worked well with D&D as written. The game mostly delivers on its promise, though it would take a lot of work to adapt it to Middle Earth.

Character Creation and Options

Like all the old D&D editions and the OSR games inspired by them, RotPL relies on random attribute generation. The only option given in the rulebook is 3d6 in order, but any experienced GM can substitute their own favorite methods. I would personally recommend steering clear of high-powered methods like 4d6-drop-the-lowest, because characters get increases to their attributes several times during their careers, and there's a risk that many tasks related to their best attribute could become impossible to fail. However, allowing some freedom in arranging the stats is probably a good idea if your players are experienced or have definite ideas about what they want to play.

The biggest departure from other OSR games is that there are only five attributes, not the six everyone's familiar with. They are Might, Reflex, Endurance, Mind, and Charisma. Might, Reflex, and Endurance are the equivalents of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution respectively. Charisma is exactly what you would expect it to be, and Mind is Intelligence and Wisdom rolled into one stat.

After rolling your attributes, you choose your class. There are no races in RotPL; nor are there BD&D-style racial classes. All PCs are assumed to be human, probably because races like elves and dwarves are so rare in the default setting that they would be deemed monstrous by humans who ran into them. There are six classes: knight, ranger, thief, cunning folk, barbarian, and bard.

Of these six classes, the knight is the closest to the traditional fighter, but it has more defensive abilities than that old archetype usually does. The ranger, thief, barbarian, and bard are about what an experienced D&D player would expect them to be, but the text takes more pains to explain that thieves are not necessarily bad people. In fact, Robin Hood is the only named iconic example of a thief. Cunning folk are the only spellcasters in the game, and their spell selection looks more like a cleric's list than a wizard's because of the subtlety of magic in this game. However, the spellcasting mechanic is much more flexible than standard Vancian magic.

In addition to a hit die and armor and weapon proficiency, each class gives the character three skills, which can be used to give a bonus to any die roll that the GM decides is related to the skill.

After choosing a class, you can pick a background if you want. Each background gives the character two more skills and some free starting equipment. Five backgrounds are given: artisan, outlaw, priest, seafarer, and aristocrat. Personally, I would have liked to see more backgrounds, and I plan to add a few if I ever run this game.

Finally, you buy your character's equipment. This works like it does in most old-school or OSR games. You get 3d6 x 10 gold pieces to spend and a list of equipment and prices to part you from that gold. The encumbrance system is innovative, though. Instead of having a weight allowance, each character can carry a certain number of items, with heavy armor and weapons counting as two items each. Some equipment, like sacks and backpacks, allows you to carry extra items.

Task Resolution

One of the best things about RotPL is that every action that requires a die roll uses the same kind of roll. This isn't anything earth-shattering for people used to systems like GURPS, Basic Roleplaying, or the d20 System, but it's not necessarily a given in the OSR. 

The success or failure of any action is determined by a d20 roll-under check against a target number. That is, the roll is a success if it is equal to or lower than the target number. For PCs, the target number is always one of their five attributes. If the action is opposed by another creature, the opponent's level or hit dice is subtracted from the target number. For faceless NPCs and monsters, a single target number for every action it takes is given in its monster entry. Though the formula for the target number is never explicitly spelled out, it's easy to deduce it by looking at the stat blocks. Like D&D 5e, RotPL uses advantage and disadvantage, which have the player roll an extra die and take the higher or lower of the two results, instead of bonuses and penalties to the die roll.

In combat, PCs make attack rolls against either their Might (for melee attacks) or Reflex (for ranged attacks) . Monsters make attack rolls against their target number. Since all attack rolls are opposed, they are modified by the target's level (for characters) or hit dice (for monsters). Initiative is determined much like in the Cypher System, with PCs rolling to determine whether they act before or after their opponents. However, in this game, the target number is the character's Reflex score instead of a property of the opponents. Like Castles and Crusades and D&D 5e, RotPL has saving throws for each attribute. These saving throws are rolled against the relevant attribute minus the adversary's level or hit dice if the attack comes from a creature.

Unlike in many old-school and OSR games, casting a spell requires a roll from the casting character. A cunning folk who wants to cast a spell rolls against their Mind score minus the spell's level. If the roll succeeds, the spell takes effect and the caster loses its cost in spell points. If the roll fails, the spell fizzles and the caster loses half its cost in spell points. If the spell was of a higher level than the caster (yes, casting such spells is an option in this game), there's a chance of something bad happening on a failed roll. Spells of the same level can also cost a different number of points to cast, allowing some balance between strong and weak spells of the same level.

Other Combat Rules

The rules as written for the length of rounds are confusing and imply that rounds can have different lengths based on the number of combatants. I would suggest using standard six-second rounds instead.

The rules for movement and combat ranges echo 13th Age and the Cypher System, with three ranges: close (<5 feet), near (5-25 feet), and far (>25 feet). A character can move one range step per turn (for example, far to near), though the rules don't specify whether or not the character can also attack that turn. If you are using a grid, a character can move 20 feet per turn.

Armor works differently than in other OSR games. Instead of making you harder to hit, armor absorbs a certain amount of damage. This is not the amount it absorbs per round, but the total amount of damage it can absorb. Regaining armor points takes an hour of rest, presumably spent repairing the armor and shields. And the number of armor points mundane equipment gives you is in the single digits. Thus, low-level combat looks deadlier in RotPL than in most OSR games, and magic items that grant extra armor points are incredibly valuable.

Overall Impression

Romance of the Perilous Land is an ambitious game. Its goals make it my kind of OSR product: one that tries not just to clone an old ruleset, but to redefine old rules for new kinds of settings with different default assumptions.

Overall, there is a lot of promise in this game. It offers the possibility of exploring a lower-magic world than that offered by standard D&D (particularly from 3rd Edition on). It would take quite a bit of houseruling to make it fit Middle Earth, but it could probably be done. However, the system's greatest potential lies in allowing GMs to create fantasy settings without fireball-slinging wizards while still using a relatively simple ruleset. 

There are also elements that could be mined for use in other games. With a little tweaking, many of this game's classes could be used as OSR low-magic versions of AD&D standards like the ranger and bard. The magic system could probably be adapted for other OSR games, and well-thought-out point values could correct for the fact that sleep is so much more powerful than magic missile at low levels in standard D&D-like games.

The major weaknesses of this product are the ambiguity of some rules and the relative lack of GM guidance on creating adventures.

The very first version of D&D suffered from similar rules ambiguities. These were probably caused by a combination of the novelty of the RPG genre, Gary Gygax burning a lot of midnight oil while writing the rules, and Gygax assuming that he was writing for seasoned wargamers who shared certain understandings and conventions of gaming with him. I worry that one of the flaws of the OSR is a tendency to fetishize ambiguity as a feature, not a bug, with the idea that the rules don't have to be clear because everybody's free to change them or make up their own. I'm not sure if RotPL's ambiguities come from deadline pressure or from the latter cause, but a GM has to put in some work determining what interpretation of the rules works best for his or her game.

While the book includes material about the default setting and a lot of text about what makes an RotPL campaign different from a standard fantasy RPG campaign, there's not much material about how to design adventures around these assumptions. If the PCs aren't going to find a lot of magical treasure, how do they become invested in the adventure? How rare should magic items be? Should the PCs find a magic sword once every 5-6 adventures, or only once in the whole campaign? These questions can be easily answered by GMs who are used to more narrative-based campaigns, but what about those who have eaten, slept, and breathed the traditional dungeon crawl for years (probably a substantial part of the target audience)? Those GMs may need a helping hand.

Despite these reservations, I still find Romance of the Perilous Land well worth downloading, especially at the PWYW price. For GMs willing to put extra thought into designing adventures and making the rules work for their group and game, it offers a different kind of fantasy game than what many of us are used to and perhaps bored with.