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.

[ParadoxGames]

This hilarious meme was produced by PeterDiscord on the TFT Discord group, using a quote I typed in conversation (the second frame).

https://i.imgflip.com/2xafxp.jpg

[Steve Plambeck]

Purely for the heck of it, what might it look like if the cost of Attribute Points was (roughly) midway between original ITL and Legacy ITL? Well it could look something like this:

AP# / XP cost / Cumulative cost
33rd / 100 / 100
34th / 200 / 300
35th / 300 / 600
36th / 400 / 1,000
37th / 500 / 1,500
38th / 600 / 2,100
39th / 700 / 2,800
40th / 800 / 3,600
41st / 900 / 4,500
42nd / 1,000 / 5,500

Here it's only 3,600 XP to reach 40 points, a little more than double the original ITL cost and a little less than half the Legacy cost.

[JohnPaulB]

A 32 attribute point character (say ST10, DX11, IQ11) has 11 points worth of talents.
Lets say the player is looking for a Ranger type (ITL p 13).
Now lets say that I’m not looking for Tarzan or Indiana Jones with Stats in the teens.
I would like to play a slightly above attribute beginning hero and I want them to have their appropriate talents as suggested in Ranger type.

Now if that character wanted to invest in Talents at 500XP a whack (or double that for more expensive talents), then he would be vastly inferior to his brethren party members who are bouncing up the attribute path. They are at 35 Attributes when he still hasn’t bought one thing.

Sure you say, well he too should be buying Attributes first. But if you want to run a low attribute character, you are stuck.

I propose a slight change to the following line in
Learning New Spells and Talents (ITL p 45) which says
Each new spell or talent learned costs 500XP – or 1,000 for talents marked (2) in the listing, and so on. As when your character was created, spells cost triple for a non-wizard, and talents cost double for a wizard.

The new line would say
At 34th or lower Attributes:
Each new talent learned costs 250XP – or 500 for talents marked (2) in the listing, and so on. As when your character was created, spells cost triple for a non-wizard, and talents cost double for a wizard.
At 35th or higher Attributes: Revert to original XP costs for talents.
THIS IS BASICALLY MAKING TALENTS COST HALF IF BELOW ATTRIBUTES 35.

[Note: I have not included spells in the above change because I haven’t evaluated how that would affect things.]

With the above alteration, the Ranger would be able to show some gains comparable to his Attribute Hungry mates, but still keep his slightly superior generic character stats.