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Chapter 3: Level Advancement
Awarding XP
Players gain Experience Points from a variety of related activities, including completing goals, defeating difficult foes, good planning, quick thinking, playing in character, making the game fun for others and concluding adventures. Since the GM can give XP for anything, she can always come up with a reason to reward a group that is playing well. Generally, all Players present should receive the same amount of XP. If someone does some exceptional roleplaying, everyone should enjoy the reward.
The GM decides how much XP is awarded. A good guideline is 50-100 XP per hour of game session. Ultimately the two controlling factors are 1) rewarding good game play, and 2) moderating the rate of advancement. You do not want characters gaining levels every session, especially if your group is able to game regularly. At the same time, Players do not want to go too long between levelling, especially if they are putting a lot of effort into the game.
Notable Exception
There is a general exception to moderating the rate of advancement. Since first level characters have very few Hit Points, it is often desirable for them to get up to level 2 or 3 fairly quickly. It is acceptable and even encouraged for characters to reach level 2 by the end of their first or second session. The GM should, however, make a point of explaining that this beginning XP is overly generous (for survivability purposes), and will be scaled back in future adventurers.
Similar XP information is represented in Chapter 9: Running the Game.
Starting an Advanced Character
It will happen that one Player will need to make a new character after everyone else has. Perhaps the Player is new to the group. If so, great, welcome aboard new Player, you can sit over here. Have you met everyone before? These are the characters that they are playing. It may also be that a character has died and a new character has to be made (see Chapter 9: Combat and Chapter 10: Running the Game for dealing with character death). Or a Player might simply want to make a new character, which is fine as long as this is not overly frequent.
When a player needs to make a new character, but everyone else’s characters is above level 1, the GM should use the following guide lines:
- Do give the character additional XP, so they don't start at level 1.
- A new character probably shouldn’t receive more XP than an old character, unless that old character has been frequently absent.
- Use your best judgement. Note that the game usually runs better when everyone is close in level.
Example: Mitch’s schedule at work has changed and he can now start playing. First, he makes a level 1 character like normal, then asks the GM if he receives any additional XP so his character is not lagging behind. The GM looks at the rest of the character’s XP: Two Players have 5200 XP, another, since she missed one game session, has 4750 XP and the last Player has missed a couple of games, so he has 4250 XP. In this case, about 4000 XP would be appropriate.
Equipment issues for new characters
It is often best to have the player choose equipment as normal for a 1st level character. The GM can upgrade and add a few selections, depending on the situation. The rest can be resolved in-game.
Issues of Training
Let us say that a character reaches a level where they gain a new Skill Category or Magic Spell Category. This game assumes that they do not need special one time training to learn these new Skills or Spells. Any learning done is from adventuring or in between adventures.
It would however be perfectly acceptable to start an adventure with a character learning from a trainer, providing it had something to do with a plot point or hook.
Up Next: Chapter 4: Skills
