Experience Points

[JimmyPlenty]

How do you all give XP? 60-100 per session as in the book?

or is it per action (gaining gold, killing creatures, plot completion)

or maybe a mix?

How much on average would you say you give a session? (4 hrs play)

[Shostak]

50-100 per adventure, some of which are longer than others. A very long one with good roleplaying could yield more, if the PCs are above 35 points. If the players are eager to see their characters progress, it can be disheartening to have to wait more than three sessions of play to do so.

[Shadekeep]

Besides the blanket XP for the adventure, I tend to dole out little XP bonus for certain events, tasks, or clever player actions. These usually land in the 5-20 XP range and reward individuals who go the extra mile.

[hcobb]

If you want to stick with the gygaxian "That which I kill makes me stronger", then I have my stab of how much XPs to award per victim here: https://www.hcobb.com/tft/firepower.html

[larsdangly]

I give XP based on time played, with two 'gears': fast if a lot went on in a given hour and slow if player's were passive and not making many decisions. I don't draw a distinction between combat vs. non combat time, focusing instead on an overall vibe of activity/danger/interest/accomplishment. As for numbers, I'd say our average session these days is running 1.5-2 hours (to avoid Zoom fatigue), and if they are doing a bunch of stuff in that time window (which they usually do), each character might get 100 XP. After about a year and a half of play under the new rules, surviving and frequently played characters all have 37-38 stat points and a few new talents/spells/staff ST points. They are just now starting to get a bit full of themselves.

[TippetsTX]

My goal with any game I run is to use XP to reward those behaviors that I want to encourage during play. Killing everything in sight is typically NOT one of the things emphasized in my campaigns, nor is the acquisition of wealth which is its own reward. I try to focus more on HOW challenges are overcome so, for example, simply killing a troll might provide 30 or 40 XP, but a creative solution that leads to the troll becoming an ally (unlikely, I'll grant) or somehow defeating itself thru cunning tactics could net the players double or triple that amount of XP.

[Axly Suregrip]

I agree with Shostak that the new XP system is very disheartening.

Compared to old ITL we are now:
- gaining less XP per game/adventurer
- having a XP scale that is MUCH steeper. Gaining attributes at half the rate.
- spending more XP on other aspects. Now you have more to spend XP on, not just attributes. So, in fact you are advancing about one third as fast as with the old ITL.

In old ITL it costs 1000 XP to get to 38 attribute points. If you increased your IQ you can a point towards a spell or talent without having to spend more XP.

In new ITL it costs 2300 XP to get to 38 attribute points. Increasing IQ does nothing for gaining spells or talents. These will cost you an additional 500 to 1500 each! And then there is the Mana staff (200 XP more per point) and lesser wishes (500 XP more).

The whole thing needs to be eased. I understand their argument that they want 40 to feel like a maximum. So, if the scale is to remain, and I get it wishes should not be cheep, but the spells/talents and mana staff should be cheap. It is rediculous that a beginning character is looking at spending 100 to get an attribute but 500 to 1500 for a new talent.

- Mana Staff should be 100 XP per point (not 200).
- Talents/Spells should be 100 XP per point. So 100-300 per talent.
- keep the rest the same.

Until this gets fixed, be generous with granting XP. It's a game so make your players happy.

[hcobb]

Mana staff is the same cost (1XP == 1gold) as one point powerstones, without the daily recharge.

The ability to buy endless talents and spells is a lot cheaper than the old system of having to constantly increase IQ or forget.

The new GM notes suggest several ways to award extra XPs for things other than slaughter.

[Steve Plambeck]

I'd use extreme caution if I were to decrease the cost of Staff Mana. Remember every point of Mana is equivalent to a wizard increasing their ST attribute by 1 (for purposes of spell casting only) under the old rules. Sure the extra "ST" taken as Mana doesn't increase your physical damage capacity, but offensively things are going off the scale when you start seeing 40 "ST" wizards, especially younger starting ones.

As I rewrite my future house rules, I'm decoupling Staff Mana from XP altogether, making wizards learn to increase it in other ways. In part because I hate these "tax shelters" for XP as they just feel gamey, and in particular with Staff Mana storage there are more realistic ways to do it.

For the same reasons I'm not fond of the notion of "buying" talents with XP, much preferring the learning system from original ITL. IQ going up should still increase room for adding spells or talents in my book.

I fully agree though that the new XP table costs are way too steep. Capping PCs at 40 Attribute Points feels like a real downer -- long term characters are desireable, and they deserve a bit more to hope for.

[hcobb]

The new experience system requires a dump stat to in order to have even one superhuman stat. That dump stat is ST and so we are blessed with Mollies.

If you want to allow for Tollenkars in the game you will need to switch from exponential to quadratic XP costs like this:

https://www.hcobb.com/tft/new_spells.html#gameplay