Then there are quest rewards. One major quest reward gives XP equal to that for one encounter. It's pretty easy to say that each adventure gives one of those.
Let's not forget skill challenges. They grant XP just like an encounter.
So if a DM wanted to level up the party rather quickly, it wouldn't be hard for him to design adventures for that. Let's say he wants to use the 5-step method, which actually has four legit encounters since the last step is the "aftermath". It might run thusly:
- Recieve a Quest in town - eventually grants XP for one encounter.
- The PC:s find their way to the dungeon through the wilderness - skill challenge, XP for one encounter.
- Entrance and First Rooms - one skill challenge, two normal-level fights. XP for three encounters.
- Setback - major fight. XP for one-and-a-half encounters.
- The PC:s work to mitigate the setback and get back in gear to take on the final fight. Skill challenge, XP for one encounter.
- Climax fight - major fight. XP for one-and-a-half encounter.
- Cleanup - skill challenge as the PC:s investigate what to do next. XP for one encounter.
- Total: XP for ten encounters.
There you go, new level after only four fights (and you can make that three by turning one of the normal-level fights into one more skill challenge in a puzzle-heavy dungeon). Who said D&D was only about fighting?
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5 comments:
Who said it was only about levelling, either ;-)
True that, but levelling was a goal in this case. After running an adventure as a DM, I find myself wanting to level up the PC:s so I and they both get access to higher-level stuff.
Oddly, I'm not nearly as impatient as a player.
I'm a little free-flowing with my adventure setup. However when it comes to my characters leveling up at the end of certain story arcs, I tend to fall flat because of it. I'm constantly boosting quest exp to round out that ending of each major adventure with a little level 'ding!' for the characters.
Maybe having a more structured progression of encounters/quest rewards is a good way to go. I'll have to mull over this, but I like the idea you have here.
I've almost completely dumped the use of XPs for leveling purposes (they're still valuable for designing encounterss) in my 4E game because I kept finding myself falling in to the "okay, they need 3 more encounters to get to level x, so I need to pack those in somehow" mode of design and was really hobbling me creatively. I also realized that the idea that the game was based around "encounters" was the core problem I had with the system because it lead the game to feel like a MMO with monster spawns and a linear string of events.
What I've started doing now is planning out meaningful, exciting encounters (whether combat, a skill challenge, or a trap) that I throw at the PCs. These only occur where they add to the story, rather than functioning as the story. Thus, we might only have 3 or 4 combat encounters (many of which can be circumvented in other ways if the PCs opt to) in an entire adventure, coupled with maybe 2-3 non-combat encounters (as defined by the rules). As a result, I've given up tracking XPs and are simply awarding a new XP level at the end of each adventure. The result is a lot less bean-counting or worrying about packing in enough XPs, but still maintains a rather "realistic" growth curve.
I realize that none of this is really revolutionary, but I've found that giving up worrying about counting XPs and basing adventures around hitting a certain encounter # has really made 4E a lot more interesting game for me to GM and moved it away from feeling like the board/MMO game so many people like to whine about.
Thanks for the structure! It seems quite useful while still maintaining the building tension of storytelling. Of course, using it for every level would get predictable if you're not really really good, but it's a great template! Consider me following this blog!
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