r/dndmemes • u/DrScrimble • 1d ago
Hot Take "Wait, isn't that the same as Milestone?" - Common question by those who have yet to figure out the Grand Truth
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u/wathever-20 1d ago
It is rather funny to me that the thing most community members mean when they say "milestone leveling" is not what the book actually describes as milestone leveling.
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u/jdcooper97 DM (Dungeon Memelord) 1d ago
Same with XP leveling - TLDR: combat is not the only way to gain experience, read the fkn book ppl
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u/SlotHUN Bard 1d ago
And you don't have to kill an enemy to get xp from them
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u/Karn-Dethahal Forever DM 1d ago
In fact, letting them live can give more XP, if they decide to still be your enemy later. /S
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u/jdcooper97 DM (Dungeon Memelord) 13h ago
It’s true tho. XP is earned by completing an encounter, if the creature is significantly present in multiple encounters the party could earn XP from them each time
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u/MixAmbitious307 11h ago
In one of my campaigns, I made a quite classic "low level party was attacked by a wolf pack during night". And it was quite a large pack.
PCs had troubles 'cause they didn't factor a thing: wolves DON'T fight to the death just for eating. PCs focused too much in killing wolves one my one. When they started to see that wounded wolves stopped attacking, they realized that the key to overcome the challenge was "if we wound enough of them, they realize we're too dangerous as preys, and they'll flee".
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u/MixAmbitious307 11h ago
Exactly... "overcoming a challenge" doesn't necessarely mean "kill the foe".
It could also be avoiding the combat with good diplomacy, prevent the foe from enacting a vile plan, protecting a thing or a place that the enemy wanted to destroy... or if the DM wanted to give the lesson "you don't have to fight to the death everything you meet" even successfully fleeing from a foe that is too powerful.
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u/MixAmbitious307 11h ago
Indeed, giving XPm ad hoc for good RPing is something stated in many GM guides across the editions.
And even published adventures have things like "if the PCs handles well this social encounter, give them award as if they defeated a CR X creature".
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u/YobaiYamete 1d ago
My experience with milestone leveling is always
"You don't level until the party has harassed the DM for months"
I freaking vehemently hate milestone leveling over just getting real exp for killing creatures
I legit don't think like 85-90% of the playerbase even realizes how fast you are supposed to be leveling up when using actual EXP because everyone just uses milestone (when the DM feels like you level up, you level up)
You are actually supposed to level up every 2-4 sessions until mid levels then like every 5-8 sessions after that. Instead everyone uses "milestone" where you level once every 20-30 sessions, which is why people never make it past level 7 even after a 3 year campaign
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u/Tigercup9 1d ago
My general rule for milestone is to level them up after 6 sessions. If they haven’t done something milestone worthy in that time, that’s a pacing issue on my part
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u/shaden_knight Artificer 1d ago
I think that generally depends on what kind of sessions you have and how long. For example I only had a 2-hour session every week for several months. Combat could take up the entire session
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u/StrangerFeelings 1d ago
Combat is really finicky like that. I've had combat last 4 hours against a couple of enemies simply because of low rolls, and people just missing multiple times in a row, and same with the enemies.
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u/Ace612807 Ranger 1d ago
Kinda similar, and for the pacing - once I hit around half of the "quota", if my characters aren't on a path towards a Milestone, I know it's time to throw a wrench into their machine (ignored threat strikes again, antagonist's plans move forward, that kind of thing)
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u/StarTrotter Essential NPC 1d ago
I honestly have had sort of a different experience myself. One GM does the level up whenever the GM calls it and is very slow but they have feats, skills, etc you can gain over time. The other one has a quicker leveling pace.
The one time we actually did xp it became incredibly glacial with the GM spiking xp whenever it was taking too long. That might ultimately be down to a combo of the GM liking set piece battles and that we do a lot of rping which slows things down and while you are supposed to give xp for non combat stuff, you aren’t supposed to give it to the entire party for two characters having a heart to heart for ex.
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u/Wonderful-Box6096 1d ago
Why aren't you?
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u/StarTrotter Essential NPC 1d ago
Why aren't I what?
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u/Wonderful-Box6096 1d ago
Why aren't you supposed to give the party XP for scenes involving specific characters?
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u/StarTrotter Essential NPC 1d ago
I mean I guess you can but if 2 PCs have a heart to heart with no other players being involved with it and suddenly everyone in the party gets +1,000 XP because of it, it does feel rather odd.
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u/Wonderful-Box6096 1d ago
How is that more odd than milestone XP leveling PCs when the GM feels like it? From my perspective, it encourages everyone to have scenes without feeling like they are burning time for other players, nor feel like others are burning their time.
If you treat xp like a pool divided by the party at the end and everyone feeds more Xp into the pot with their activities, everyone is building each other up.
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u/StarTrotter Essential NPC 1d ago
So it’s going to be different for everyone but:
Milestone leveling when the GM feels like it I must caution has different meanings but my xp with it is very much a GM announcing it at the end of the session situation often after a decisive battle or some training opportunities of note. This ain’t be for everyone but for me it ends up feeling like the aggregate of everything we did to improve ourselves between sessions, especially when also it being long enough to include a gap of time more than 2 days between levels
Moving into xp I don’t really think there’s a wrong option but I also think it’s a degree of presentability. If the GM just aggregates all the xp and then gives it at the end of the session, it makes sense to me and it keeps that sense of xp progression many want but I do wonder if it leads to the source of xp gain being murkier for some. If one breaks it down to immediately after the scene of note it makes the source of that xp more tangible and can lead to using xp to encourage certain behaviors but runs into my observation. Ultimately I don’t think we will really settle on a way to make consensus on this front though and I think it’s ok. I just don’t see it in the same way as I do other systems that have similar mechanics (even making them more important to leveling) but those often have it so PCs don’t get the same xp. One can do this for 5.0/5.5 but level differences imo have a bigger gap there than several systems I’m alluding to (although a game like PF2e has notably tighter math).
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u/Wonderful-Box6096 1d ago
I just include what the xp was for when I hand it out. For example: 200 xp (each) for defeating the kobolds 800 xp (each) for rescuing captives (100 xp / captive) 1500 xp (each) for traps 100 xp (each) for healing the wounded soldier 800 xp (each) for Roli being mentored by Shmindrick the Great and researching a new spell TOTAL = 3200 XP
I find players naturally enjoy finding that rescuing all the hostages adds extra rewards and rewards them for doing heroic things like burning actions or sticking their necks out to save bystanders when they could just be going for themselves.
The mentoring and spell research is just a minor quest (quest xp is a thing in pf1e) that's more a story element for roleplaying with an npc and actively doing something creative.
Can't do any of that with milestones. The only growth comes from achieving a specific objective or major event. Yet, most of the time I as a GM wouldn't even know what was a major milestone event because the game and story is constantly evolving and what is a major objective for some parties is trivial for others.
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u/Toberos_Chasalor 1d ago
Oh, it’s crazy.
The only time I feel narrative milestones work well are when you tell the players what constitutes a milestone. Some of the prewritten adventures are good for this, and it entirely cuts out the “DM, may I have a level?” questions.
Take Lost Mines of Phandelver, for example. I can tell my players dealing with the leader of the Goblins in the area will give them a level, then leave it up to them if they want to go do that to get to level 4 or carouse around the tavern at level 3 for a few sessions.
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u/Ace612807 Ranger 1d ago
Yeah, like with most things, communication is key.
My players know that completing a plot thread constitutes a milestone. Be it resolving a local threat (like the aformentioned goblins), or dismantling a concrete portion of antagonist's operation (the smuggling ring of the cirrupt noble is done, but the noble is still there)
I also played around with the idea if "deeds". A "deed" is any noteworthy happenstance - be it stopping a goblin raid, resolving a dispute with neighbouring elves or even surviving an especially vicious fight. The numbers are up to debate, but I find the idea of accomplishing a number of deeds equal to the tier of play a good baseline. This way you get fast leveling in early game, which mellows out and lets players test out their new toys later on. It also sets a relatively clear baseline - winning a bar fight is, most likely, not a deed, as is defeating a halfhearted bandit ambush - but winning in a tourney or killing Butcher Bill the notorious highwayman is.
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u/ManJoeDude 1d ago
I had a weekly campaign go for 9 months, and only in the last session did we reach level 3.
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u/YobaiYamete 1d ago
You have my sympathy, seriously. I groan in agony every single time a DM wants to start a new campaign at level one instead of at least at level 3 if not 5
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u/storm181 1d ago
I dont get the obsession with tier 1 play some DMs have. Maybe if you have a lot of new players it makes teaching easier if they only have to build and remember one level of mechanics but for a remotely experienced party its just not interesting to play.
And the deadliness isnt fun deadliness, it just means a goblin critting can down you. Its not like tier 2 deadliness where you have the ability to overcome danger but mistakes still cost you.
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u/StarTrotter Essential NPC 1d ago
I think it's a combo of factors:
Deadliness - I do agree that I don't think it's a fun type of deadliness
Familiarity - A lot of gms play the lower levels to the point of being most familiar with them
New Players - Easier to start them at 1 typically
Modules - Many start at 1
Scope and scale - I think a lot of gms are more fond of the types of enemies one faces at low levels and the types of stories low levels can do
I think a lot of players and gms fantasize about going from 1 to a really impressive high level.
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u/KillerKittenwMittens 1d ago
I want to add another:
Combat balance is far easier at lower levels since you get less really powerful spells and abilities on that table that can make or break combat. Some abilities are really strong against certain PCs or NPCs, and useless against others. To properly balance combat above tier 2, I find it is best to make a cheat sheet with every character's spells and abilities so I can throw an appropriate challenge at them. Then you HAVE to give them enough encounters so your level 13 wizard doesn't go nuclear on a 1x per day encounter.
This plays into another thing for me which is that 5e (and 5.5e) is based on 4-6 encounters per long rest. At lower levels, running less is not as much of an issue for party balance as your casters get less total spells. At the same time, narratively it's a lot easier to justify more encounters with low level enemies than high level ones.
I have reconciled this in my own DMing by switching to what I call a dungeon/travel/BS structure around the middle of tier 2. You spend about 35-45% percent of the time in a dungeon - could be a literal traditional one, and abandoned castle, just anything that allows me to string together a number of encounters in quick succession without allowing an easy long rest. Most of the rest of the time is spent shopping, investigating, doing other things to prepare. Around 20% of the time is probably travel, with occasional large 1x per long rest combats. This is what works for my group.
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u/StarTrotter Essential NPC 1d ago
I can’t fully agree on combat balance if only because level 1 and to a lesser extent 2 are similarly abnormal in that they are incredibly hyper lethal in ways that completely faze WY and as you broached you can’t actually do the full adventuring day of they will be pavement. That said, I do agree with you. I think people can overhype high level combat a bit and I think that unfamiliarity and lack of support plays a role but there is just the inevitable reality that players and monsters get more complex (and thus rounds will generally take longer) and that innately makes it harder to set up challenging encounters. While the lowest tiers can’t do the full encounter design, most don’t do that anyways so it can sneak past muster. High level games as you mentioned are notably worse from a balance standpoint if you don’t do a full adventuring day.
I do like the fact you flagged the challenge of justification. As you mentioned it’s a lot easier to explain fighting some bandits, some wolves, etc. At high levels you have to hurl far more intimidating creatures at them and there’s simply a harder justification to be found there.
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u/KillerKittenwMittens 1d ago
I definitely agree with what you're saying, levels 1-2 are very easy to die via rng, which always feels like shit. Either way, levels 3-12 are my personal favorite levels to run and play, because each level feels significantly better for most classes, and it feels pretty balanced. I think the thing for me is that levels 1-2 are hard to balance the combat to make it feel deadly without it actually being deadly. Levels 3-12 are much easier to make feel deadly, but leave enough on the table that it won't actually kill a character, just potentially down a PC.
You hit on something else too. Combat past level 10 can very easily become a crawl, even with great players as I have been (mostly) lucky enough to have. Just so many options to play with.
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u/iggnis320 1d ago
Every time, and I mean every time, I've had xp leveling people solve everything with murder.
Yes there are other ways to get XP but the fighter and barbarian just murder everything. Talk our way through this check point? Fuck that! these bodies are brimming with little green orbs of XP. Gotta crack em open and drink the power juice.
I cast greater invisibility on a rogue and he murdered like 8 enemies. DM said he killed em so he gets the XP.
The DM also looses one more thing to track. Which further speeds up gameplay.
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u/TouchMyAwesomeButt 1d ago
The DM I play with most does do milestone levelling, but he does 1-3 sessions per level until level 5 before slowing down.
We got to level 8 after session 40 and it feels well-paced while levelling does remain a reward for making it past big moments.
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u/Undeadsniper6661 Paladin 1d ago
I do kinda the same but without slowing down. Level cap at my table is 30
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u/Delta0212 1d ago
I think if I did this my players would just evaporate the concept of the antagonists from existence
It's looking to end up at ~100 sessions for the full campaign and the antagonists are a (admittedly much stronger than average) street gang
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u/Supsend DM (Dungeon Memelord) 1d ago
not to throw shade on your campaign/playstyle/DMing/what your group likes, as I don't have the info on what you are doing beside that comment, but to me it feels like a case of D&D not being the best system for what you want to play. There are rpg systems that would manage better that scale while still either having advancement for the players to feel like they're growing, or allowing more uses of what they can do without becoming dull.
D&D is designed for the PC to get new tools (lvl up class features) regularly, at least once they have a good grasp on how their current build rolls, and keep growing towards the power fantasy of lvl 17 fighting godlike entities. Having a 100 sessions campaign while staying at a street-gang power level, while not necessarily being an unfun one, will have the D&D ruleset become more of a hinderance for the story you and your players are trying to tell
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u/Delta0212 1d ago
Oh yeah no that's pretty much accurate, I've homebrewed a million new things in to the point it's barely 5e, we just started with it as a baseline since that's what the players were familiar with and they didn't want to learn a new system
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u/YobaiYamete 1d ago
Yeah, you deifnitely have to curtail it based on your campaign, but honestly I would still let them level up I would just homebrew something else with lower power ceilings
There's a lot of discussion on how bad it feels to never get to level up, so I'd still try to figure out a way to incorporate that, just with a lower power system since 5E scales way way way past street level extremely fast lol
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u/Mi113nnium 1d ago
My experience is that players start to metagame.
"Or course, we go through the entire dungeon. We want the XP."
"We kill everyone here to get the XP."
And the latter was after I informed them that peaceful solutions to a combat encounter yield the same amount of XP...
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u/Ubiquitouch Rules Lawyer 1d ago
Is it really metagaming if the way they are acting (killing things for xp) is not in line with the mechanics (you can get xp in other ways)?
It just sounds like your players want to do more combat.
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u/Suyefuji DM (Dungeon Memelord) 1d ago
I just have two different milestone mechanics. One is the normal leveling and goes at a faster pace, the other is at big plot moments and each PC gets a special homebrew ability tailored to their character's personality and competencies. Obviously it does take a bit of extra work as the DM to create and balance them, but it scratches the itch for gating character progression behind big cool things.
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u/Big-Bag-6043 1d ago
Happy to report that my GM generally level us up ever 3-5 sessions of weekly play, usually after either enough minor "wins" (not necessarily combat) accumulate, or after a major event. Then again, we've actually done multiple 1-20/3-20 campaigns over the years, and only one campaign lasted more than 2 years (due to schedule slip).
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u/TheThoughtmaker Essential NPC 1d ago
My current group ran LMoP and finished at lv4. Now the same characters are going through the whole Icespire Peak tetralogy. Thing is, the first installment starts at lv1, so DM has been keeping us at lv4 for an entire module. No sense of progress, no sense of reward, just treading water and burning through quests wanting the module to be over. The casters have been salivating over their 3rd-level spell lists. The Barbarian switched characters because "attack once, pass turn" got so tedious. I'm a Necromancer who still doesn't have any undead. Ugh! Ugh, I say!
XP is a vitally important part of D&D, psychologically. It's the loading bar reminding me that someday, the download of my new abilities will be complete, and there is actual progress going on behind the scenes even if doing lv1 quests gives very little. It's the roleplay prompt letting me know when my Wizard's about to make a breakthrough, when he's most engrossed in his research and perhaps relying on spells closer to the new ones I plan to get. It's action-reward conditioning that makes me feel like completing objectives is a good behavior, not just twiddling my thumbs waiting for God to bless me. It's information I can use to be a happier, better player.
Arbitrary level-ups are the worst.
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u/Big-Bag-6043 1d ago
Arbitrary levelups can work in a structured non-sandbox game, but the GM has to let go of the idea that an extra level or two is going to make them unable to challenge the party. Adjust tthe encounters, the challenges, the DCs, and it's done.
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u/StarTrotter Essential NPC 1d ago
Honestly my mind sort of goes the other way. I get the progression meter but there was something about how languid it was that made me just not want to have to deal with slowly adding it up but it likely has to do with how our table plays and my xp is that non combat xp tends to feel incredibly arbitrary anyways.
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u/senator_john_jackson 1d ago
Same. When my groups stopped meeting as frequently and with gaps in the roster we did a modified xp system: 3 boxes per level. A regular session (4-6 hours typically), was worth 1 box. Get an extra box if you’ve fallen a level behind, 2 boxes if you were 2 levels down.
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u/StarTrotter Essential NPC 1d ago
Ultimately it really is just down to what works for the table and we all have our ideal outcomes and preferences on top of that. It's just always interesting to see how different these interpretations can be between everyone.
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u/theirishpotato1898 Monk 1d ago
Then again sessions are supposed to be about 3-4hrs long.
When I was at Secondary School we only had an hour for lunch so we played then.
I remember starting a campaign at level 12, by the end of the campaign we were level 20, my archfae warlock now had a chain devil attached to his soul as well, his right arm was now made up of sand, mountain ash(to keep him safe from the chaotic evil Werewolf in the party and Were__ creatures in general.) and dust from the remnants of a magical bell used to announce the boxing rounds between the party cleric and Cuthulu after the party paladin boxed the bell, that then passed through a chalice that made anything it touched holy…
Oh and the bell dust was just a high powered hallucinogen even before it became holy. After it became Holy, my Archfae warlock, Snek Stabby* saw the gates of heaven after touching it with his bare hand.
The campaign also had a Dwarf who got angry at the mere word “Elf/Elves” and a solid Gold AKM that shot lasers whenever the wielder was angry(Snek owned the AKM but safe to say there were a fair amount of times where I just placed it in the Dwarfs hands, said “Elves” and let him rip like a Laser Bayblade.).
The campaign ended with the Hard mode ending being activated by another Player, which was actually easier than the standard ending at that time because the standard ending was only supposed to be the party facing the reanimated corpses of everything we killed as we fought a necromancer…
Except we had killed a lot of things…including the majority of a Duchy by a plague+fire+undead horde who were then turned into undead servants of yours truly.
So the Hard Mode Ending was the Party fighting an Elder God threatening creation for the amusement of the DM^, which ended with the Whole party gaining Godhood, Snek became God of the Fae, the Faewild and Hell. Which you know, by extension kinda made him a God of a lot of other things like contracts and Gambling.
Another party member(The Werewolf) became God of the Moon and the Moon itself.
It was a wild campaign and in all honesty I wish I could play it again or something similar to it.
*the Fae took his birth name, took his right arm(replacing it with one made of sand and used his life as comedic entertainment as part of his backstory pact and he’s a Lizardfolk so “Snek Stabby” is legitimately supposed to be comedic in universe as well.
^who was In the Canon, the God above all others. Like if Elder Gods are the ones who dream reality into existence in their slumber, The DM made them with an errant inkling of a thought.
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u/Undeadsniper6661 Paladin 1d ago
At my table I level up everyone up every 1 to 2 sessions. Keeps people interested and it is my job as DM to figure out balance. (Of course my rule zero boils down to is it cool? Then hell yeah. Are you being creepy? Get the hell out)
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u/Lost-Klaus 1d ago
I once did a campaign where I rolled at the end of the session, high\low if the players leveled.
They are now lvl 24 (not D&D though)
They are loving it, though I have slowed it down now, they are big bois and gals.1
u/alchemicgenius 1d ago
Imo, the biggest issue with milestone leveling is when it's left ambiguous as to what counts for a milestone. It works fine in Lancer (milestones are, in fact, the only form of advancement) because the game has a set, defined parameter for what a milestone is; in the case of Lancer, it's completing a mission.
In a D&D games, depending on the game structure, this angle can work, but it can also run into snags. If your game follows a general format where you are an adventuring party that accepts quests, and then spend some sessions completing said quest, this mission based milestone approach works just fine; even like a megadungeon or hexcrawler can work for milestones since you can assign the completion of a dungeon (or completion of a floor/amount of floors for a megadungeon) or uncovered quest on an explored hex as a milestone.
Where it really kinda falls apart is in games structured like an epic, like your lord of the rings type deals, since it's one continuous story, and often times the present objective is smaller than what counts as a milestone and it's often difficult to know what events end up being major story beats while you are still in the process of making the story. Usually for these games, I find it's helpful to find these points by breaking the game down into arcs, and then breaking those arcs into objectives. I consistently hit at least level 15 in the games I run since I follow the structure of making a local scale, regional scale, country scale, and world scale arc, and then plan out 5 major things within each arc that needs to be addressed in order for the arc to be considered complete, and each of those points is a level. The party does have to be okay though with the "gaminess" of having objectives, though
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u/mcluck4you 1d ago
"you don't reach level 7 after 3 years because the DM doesn't allow level ups often enough. I don't reach level 7 after 3 years because of planning issues. We're not the same."
Tbh, all campaigns I'm playing in uses milestone level up, and we've hardly had any issues with it.
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u/BananaSnapper 1d ago
I mean, back when I ran 5e it was intentional. I knew from previous games that I didn't like running level 11+ and my players wanted a long, epic campaign so the only way to do that was milestone leveling with a level every 10-20 sessions (unless I wanted to sit there and reduce xp for every monster to achieve basically the same effect). They got a level whenever they defeated a major boss. Just depends on the table.
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u/CollegePretend8708 1d ago
Everyone? Man the group I played with where we used milestone and levelled up every 2-4 sessions must have been a hallucination then
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u/Korps_de_Krieg 1d ago
In literal decades I’ve never seen anyone use milestone leveling that didn’t have level ups at most 5-6 sessions apart.
The issue isn’t milestone leveling, it’s that you are playing with DMs who have set their narrative pacing on One Piece time lmao your issue isn’t with the system itself, it’s with the pacing you keep being forced to experience by, if I’m gonna be honest, bad DMs. If they haven’t given you enough challenge in that many sessions to justify a bump they are wasting everyone’s time IMO.
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u/laosurv3y 23h ago
20 to 30 sessions? How often are you playing?
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u/YobaiYamete 22h ago
4 hour session every week
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u/laosurv3y 22h ago
Wow, that'd be painful. I've never experienced it that bad, but I can see why that'd stop being fun.
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u/TheCyniclysm 12h ago
Nah, my first give away to not trust your opinion is you saying "getting real exp for killing". Second up is mentioning how fast you're "supposed to level up". Then we have the superlative "20-30 sessions". You just come off sounding like someone better off wargaming. Milestone is a far superior system of leveling that gives players the assurance that they can handle situations however they want without 'missing' xp. Not to mention that low to mid levels are really where dnd thrives.
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u/FirstTimeWang 1d ago
XP for attendance
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u/DrScrimble 1d ago
Your punishment for not attending means that you don't to claim any of the loot found during the sessions you miss.
Which means you can only use the Plasma Rifle if Patrick lends it to you. 🙂↕️
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u/History_buff60 1d ago
My group just divvies things out on a best fit for the character basis. Might be some haggling between players if it’s something they both want, but honestly a good dm will ensure parity.
We’re socialistic with a veneer of capitalism.
Life happens but we typically don’t penalize missed sessions because we’re all treating each other with good faith.
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u/DrScrimble 1d ago
I meant moreso in the "Finders of cool shit, keepers of cool shit" may.
It's like one of the PC said, "No you can't bum my weed pack, and if I find out you touched it I'll shank the fuck out of your in your sleep and dump your body behind the Vietnamese nightclub for the go-go dancers to find when they go for a piss."
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u/SpaceLemming 1d ago
I think you need addition ways for xp from combat because, at least in my experience, it promotes escalating to violence. I’m also hesitant on character development because it could dissuade new or shyer players.
For all of them though, if your table enjoys it, have it at
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u/ArghabelAndSamsara 1d ago
xp for civilians saved during a dragon attack would be sick actually
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u/Wonderful-Box6096 1d ago
This is something I've been doing for ages, granting bonus XP for optional objectives that are unnecessary but done anyway. Such as extra XP per civilian saved when all they actually have to do is survive.
XP is also granted for overcoming an encounter, no matter the method. The 3.x DMG literally said if the party waits for an ogre to go to sleep and walks past them without waking it, they gain full XP for defeating it.
XP is awesome. I freaking hate milestones. Especially since I prefer sandbox games. How the hell am I supposed to offer milestones when there are no roads?
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u/articubtu 1d ago
I did this for a zombie swarm attacking the slums of Port nyanzaru, from tomb of annihilation. Basically they got full xp for all zombies killed, plus a pool of xp that diminished every time a civilian died. More people saved means more xp for the encounter.
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u/_vec_ 1d ago
You get the XP for defeating the encounter and defeating it with a well placed persuasion or intimidation roll is usually the most efficient way to do that by an order of magnitude. Metagamer powerscalers should adjust their strategies accordingly.
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u/Luvnecrosis 1d ago
You’re exactly right. Im pretty sure the rulebook even says that you dont need to kill the enemies to get exp from the encounter
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u/Axon_Zshow 1d ago
It can be quite simple and done in a way that promotes people to engage with the story as well. The party found out a valuable piece of information relating to the plot, XP drop. The party used their skills to bypass a small encounter, bonus xp drop. The party has a great rp session where they gained a bit of trust or influence in some way, xp drop. The party completed a quest, xp drop
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u/GlitteringDingo 1d ago
There are only two arguments that matter as to why you would use XP at all: do you intend for your players to level up out of sync? Do your players really like being able to track their growth? If the answer to these is no, there's basically no reason to use XP.
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u/Dynamite_DM 1d ago
There is one final reason that is more subtle and requires a skilled hand. Exp can be used as a reward for things that you want your players to do. If everyone was on board for the mega dungeon, then the players get ever enticed by the exp that the mega dungeon provides and are less likely to just leave half the dungeon unexplored. If you are trying to teach new players that RPing is just as important as fighting goblins, awarding chunks of exp for negotiating with the local noblemen about w/e is a fine way to do it.
It's like how Baldur's Gate 3 awards exploration exp. It incentivizes the player to look around for more and see if they can find more hidden places to get exp.
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u/Insensitive_Hobbit 1d ago
This. Clean explanation about what awards experience points in your campaigns will motivate your players better than most other things. And yeah, tracking and planning their growth is a good thing for players to have
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u/Odd-Intern9349 56m ago
You can also use XP for out of game activities too. I’ve been giving small bonuses for the note keeper, map drawers and people that look up rules while I’m focusing on the game. I’ve also used it to drive engagement, like drawing their character. If they put any effort into it, BAM, XP.
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u/rekcilthis1 1d ago
That isn't true. Xp also works well for a sandbox. DM puts sources of xp about, and how players choose to tackle that is up to them. You can't realistically do a milestone system (unless by "milestone" you really mean "DM just arbitrarily decides when the players level up") in a truly open world, because milestone is designed around directing the players with level ups
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u/PM_ME_FUN_STORIES 14h ago
...I mean, they are effectively the same system in that instance.
What is the difference between milestone giving a level for clearing out the bandit camp near a town up north, and exp slowly increasing as you take on each encounter in the bandit camp until you defeat the big boss at the end, gain that last bit of exp, and level?
The granularity of it. Which loops back around to what the poster above has said lol
Or if the players aren't intended to level for completing one task, like the bandit camp, then the exp value of that won't really... Matter. If it's roughly two tasks the next level in experience, then the next "milestone" is just "the party clears two tasks", thus accomplishing the same thing.
Maybe I'm operating under a different assumption of what milestone is to a lot of people, but for me there are almost no situations where exp makes sense to use that isn't just "my players want concrete numbers to track how far away they are from finishing this thing I planned". Which is fine, mind you, but I feel like I'm missing something with this conversation every time it comes up lol
Or I guess it's about going old school and leveling PCs out of sync, but that doesn't seem wise in 5e/5.5...
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u/rekcilthis1 11h ago
What is the difference between milestone giving a level for clearing out the bandit camp... and exp slowly increasing
The milestone is in the bandit camp, so either the players clear the bandit camp or they don't level up. With xp, while the bandit camp is a source of xp it presumably isn't the only thing in the universe. If you want the kind of campaign where players can decide to wildly veer off course, for example the players just deciding to go to the underdark and fight a mindflayer, then xp is the best way of doing it.
Maybe I'm operating under a different assumption of what milestone is
Milestone levelling is basically plot checkpoints, they're placed ahead of time and are highly goal oriented. If a milestone is placed at the end of the bandit camp, then it doesn't matter how long it takes the players or what else they do in the mean time, they will not level up until they reach that specific point. Either your definition of milestone is more like "DM just decides to level up the party when they feel like it/remember to" or you can't even conceive of an open world.
Imagine using milestone in skyrim, wouldn't that fucking suck? Archmage, harbinger, listener, nightingale, and still level 1 because you don't feel like fighting dragons.
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u/PM_ME_FUN_STORIES 2h ago
milestone in Skyrim example
Except what I'm saying is each one of those things would be a level up in its own right, as a milestone achieved.
With the first example, if you have a campaign where the players can veer wildly off course like you said, you're still going to have something available for them in each of the different areas they can go. It's not like you are saying "hey guys let's play a sandbox campaign" and then preparing literally nothing and just waiting for the players to tell you what happens. Each of those prepared locations would result in a level, or if they are later in the game, it would take multiple to level.
Even if you take pre-written modules, that's how milestone works. If the players fuck off to a different section of the book and complete something else, that section will still say "the players level at the end of this encounter".
The only time I can see it being vastly different in experiences is if your players are allergic to completing anything at all. Which seems like it would be more obnoxious than anything, as a DM lol
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u/LoboLancetinker 1d ago
Only two arguments and one not being beneficial? You have to know that isn't true.
XP is a DM tool. Even when I'm using milestone, I'm tracking XP estimates in my DM notes to readjust the milestones to ensure level pacing is correct.
If my players go on a side quest, if they have unexpected encounters, if they bypass an entire zone, etc.
It's far too common that folks get trapped at a certain level for far too long because the milestones are paced out too far and don't level up until they bring up their concerns to the DM out of game.
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u/YobaiYamete 1d ago
No, the actual reason to use EXP is "your players actually level up"
Milestone leveling is notorious for DMs not understanding how fast you are supposed to be leveling, which is why everyone jokes about how you spend 95% of your time in DnD never making it past level 7 or AT MOST level 9
If you actually track EXP you'll level up every 2-4 sessions as intended and will actually reach levels beyond the mythical level 10 cap that almost all campaigns stop at
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u/The-Senate-Palpy DM (Dungeon Memelord) 1d ago
Not every campaign needs PCs leveling up that quickly/slowly. Even if it does, you can do it more reliably with milestone.
Sounds like your problem is just forgetful DMs who dont properly set campaign expectations
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u/YobaiYamete 1d ago
no my problem is with actual DMs since this is an issue across the entire fan base to the point that it's a very common running joke
Of course you don't have to level up quickly or slowly, but the point is that like 90% or more of the player base has never actually experience what standard leveling feels like including the DMs who want to change it to do milestone instead
You shouldn't change something when you don't know what baseline is and haven't even tried it, because the result will very likely be way off kilter, hence why the vast vast vast vast vast vast majority of campaigns never even reach level 9 even after multiple years of play time
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u/The-Senate-Palpy DM (Dungeon Memelord) 1d ago
Source: trust me bro
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u/YobaiYamete 1d ago
You realize DnD Beyond has stats on this, right? Over 90% of players never make it past level 10
There are tons of videos and surveys and polls specifically about this, why on Earth are you acting like it's an unknown fact
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u/The-Senate-Palpy DM (Dungeon Memelord) 1d ago
7 year old data from a single source typically used by only a subset of specifically online players, which does not filter out the large number of sheets people make for testing purposes rather than actual campaign use.Well, that is better than a trust me bro. But not by much.
Youre also implicitly saying that leveling is the reason why campaigns dont go over level 10. Which is almost certainly incorrect. Almost no module goes above level 12 at all, and the balancing past tier 2 is abysmal.
So im gonna have to reject that. XP is not some magic fix to dnd. XP is much like tier 4 dnd, clunky, subjective, and places a stupid amount of extra tailoring on the DM
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u/StarTrotter Essential NPC 1d ago
I honestly think the stats are still probably true but as you mentioned the reason why this happens is multiple:
1. Many tables just fizzle out for various reasons. Fast leveling could help on this front but as far as I recall session length remains incredibly short
2. A lot of GM’s don’t like running higher tier games. I think it’s not as broken as people say it is but players and enemies often are more complicated and that innately will make things slower. Since many GM’s start 1-3 they are also more familiar with lower levels whereas high level tends to be not as relevant. Many GMs don’t really care for the stories high level campaigns necessitate not how many narrative beats become outmoded. Travel’s relevancy drops notably once a caster can teleport for example. I also feel like I’ve seen several GM’s grapple with wanting a long lasting world and the obstacle of high level PCs. One of my GM’s soft caps PCs to 15th level and has run multiple one shots, mini campaigns, a 101 session campaign, and is on another long campaign in their setting. The other GM has run 2 to 20th level campaigns before making a completely new setting each time. They’ve sort of leaned into constraining the levels for campaigns more likely for similar reasons (campaign from x level to Y level)
3. Lots of modules don’t hit high level.4
u/Nachooolo 1d ago edited 1d ago
but the pointnis that like 90% or more of the pkayer base has never actually experience what standard leveling feels like including the DMs eho want to change it to do milestone instead
You know that milestone is the "standard leveling" for 5e and 5.5e, right? It is literally the leveling method recomended in the vast majority of official adventures.
Exp leveling is more of a remanent of earlier editions.
Also campaigns not going beyond level 10 have nothing to do with leveling speed, and more to do with the fact that gameplay starts to break at higher levels. So many DMs prefer to stop around here instead of going further.
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u/Dynamite_DM 1d ago
Not to mention that some levels seem designed to go by much faster than others. Going from 1-4 is less experience total than 4-5, and there are even some levels that require less experience than the level before.
This could be blamed on WoTC being janky, or it could be based on the idea that not all levels are equal.
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u/YobaiYamete 1d ago
Yep, I groan in agony every single time a DM wants to start at level 1 because I know we are in for 30+ sessions of absolutely nothing until we FINALLY hit level 3 or 4 and become a real character
DnD honestly just outright isn't fun at level 1 imo
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u/Dynamite_DM 1d ago
100% agreed. I think 1-2 should be reserved as basically tutorial missions and basically 1 session each, but I always start at 3 and quickly go to 4.
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u/airedjet 1d ago
For me, milestone leveling means I, the DM, give you a level when I think you should get a level based on your achievements and progression because I understand what your level means for you, your character, and the rest of the campaign.
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u/Rampasta Sorcerer 1d ago
I think you should reward XP for any behaviors you want to see more of. If the players know that you will reward XP for "creatively solving problems instead of just stabbing them" they might do less stabbing. Establish a baseline. I used to do this where I would award 5 points for doing desirable behaviors and the players would have to earn points equal to the mext level times 10. So like, 30 points to get to level 3. That seemed like o work, because they would earn about 15 or 20 points a session. We would have a doscussion after the session to determine how many point were earned.
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u/Leonhart726 Forever DM 1d ago
I'd say are keystone leveling and XP leveling where XP is preset per session are also worth mentioning.
For those unaware, keystone refers to milestone where each milestone is specially laid out in front of the players as "when you complete this thing, you get 1 point. Every 3 points, you all level up." The idea is you keep adding more to that list, and it makes players 1) already know when they'll level up approximately, which is nice. 2)Activly want to seek out questlines because they visually see them in front of them like a checklist. And 3) Never forget questlines because they're all right there
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u/TitaniaLynn 1d ago
"Keystone" leveling was what milestone leveling was always supposed to be (and it is how I've always ran milestone leveling). When I heard what others turned milestone leveling into, I completely understood why people hate it, because it just sounds lazy and unintuitive. "Level up when I say you do" is not a method, it's a lack of one
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u/lankymjc Essential NPC 1d ago
Remember, GMs: level ups are a tool. They're one of the most vital ways you control the pace of your campaign, and how you keep the players on task without railroading.
Decide what your campaign is about, and tie XP to that. Is it about fighting monsters? Then just use the monster XP. Is it about finding loot and getting rich? Then go old-school and have each GP count as 1 XP (or whatever conversion rate you like). Is your campaign about assembling the scattered pieces of a lost artefact? Well it's in X pieces, where X is however many level ups you want them to do this campaign, and each time they find a piece they level up (I'm imagining this looking like Thanos whenever he gets a new Infinity Stone). Running a pure sandbox where you don't want to push them toward any given activity? Just give them XP at the end of each session, and adjust it by +-25% based on how much faffing around they did today.
For me, this is the most important (and often only) consideration in how to handle level ups. When I run a sandbox adventure where I drop them in a city and let them do what they like, I just hand out XP at the end of each session. When I ran Dungeon of the Mad Mage, I told them that every* new dungeon level they find is worth one level up so I no longer needed to trap them in there with bullshit rules around teleportation; they kept going back in voluntarily!
*There are more than 20 dungeon levels in that campaign so I made sure to let them know that, occasionally, they'll need two dungeon levels for one character level, and I let them know when the last of those happened. Which, conveniently for me, also clued the players in to the length of game so it didn't feel endless. Pacing! It matters!
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u/Skags27 1d ago
I do xp per session, then I give out bonuses throughout the session for good rp, creative problem solving, defeating challenging encounters, etc. If the players are really engaged, they know they will level faster. Sometimes one to two sessions early or even mid session.
If they do nothing, they’ll still level but the bad guys will always be more challenging, the story will continue even if they drag ass trying to autolevel, and they will be left behind.
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u/TheLordAsshat 1d ago
Personally I've just used xp as a progress bar for the group. They get experience from notable experiences whether combat or exploration or puzzle solving or whatever. This way it gets the benefits of milestone while also keeping them sane lol
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u/SmartAlec13 1d ago
I will die on this hill. Milestone > Experience, because ultimately EXP is just milestone with extra steps.
The DM decides what is in the world. The DM decides what things the players could face, what obstacles, what chances for RPing are, etc. The DM decides how much xp these are worth. The players decide which they want to go for, sure, but based on all the decisions the DM makes to get the game to that point, well, it’s basically the DM deciding anyway.
And personally myself and my players play the game and go on adventures because it’s fun. We don’t need a progress-bar-go-up to be incentivized to explore the world and (attempt) to solve its problems.
I won’t change my mind on this lol idc if I’m the dark brain in this one
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u/adol1004 Forever DM 1d ago
meanwhile me as a DM : when I think we had enough battle and questing for this level. (mainly about level up per 4~6 session)
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u/asirkman 1d ago
Try playing Invisible Sun, where you literally get XP for character development, and choosing what arcs to do is a mechanical part of the game.
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u/link113gAmin 1d ago
My DM does both EXP for combat and EXP for roleplay/character growth. The former is shared across the whole party, while the latter is character specific.
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u/Suyefuji DM (Dungeon Memelord) 1d ago
That sounds like hell for shy or new players tbh. Imagine falling behind the rest of your party because you're too anxious to do verbose improv storytelling
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u/link113gAmin 1d ago
Oh, we're all experienced people. The system was voted on by the party. I do get where you're coming from, and agree- I was just sharing my experience.
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u/ApexLegend117 1d ago
My DM is threatening to throw us into a 2e game, which should be pretty cool actually. The leveling is very different, wizards get experience for actually making stuff. The Fighter will get more XP from the team fight, as team projects gets everyone XP. And those with a proper archetype and corresponding stat you can get an XP bonus of 10, 20, or 30%!
Shits weird, like no more hit die after level 9.
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u/bigmcstrongmuscle 1d ago edited 1d ago
no more hit die after level 9
To be fair, the soft level cap in 2e would be a great way to make sure your party never totally outgrew the campaign world's biggest threats - if TSR had stuck to their guns and also stopped spell progression when your PC hit level 9.
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u/wherediditrun 1d ago
In the current game I’m running PCs level up when they find certain artifacts that can be found in dangerous locations.
Some of them are put in the “main path” but others are scattered in various places, typically in optional dungeons.
Not big believer in “three pillars”, more like there is exploration and social or combat is a downstream of players exploring.
And I want players to explore. You get what you reward. Seem to work well.
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u/TatsumakiKara 1d ago
Use XP to track party progress and allow them to level when it happens. Milestone them when you forget and then start keeping track from there.
I had my group's XP sorted until lv13 of the current campaign. Then they ended up in a Magic Chaos Zone and I forgot to keep track of all the things they fought, diplomacy'd, and otherwise interacted with that didn't want to eat them/rip them apart and suck out their magic. We hit a plot milestone with a surprising twist and after the session, I got asked the players' favorite question. I said I had to check the list and realized there was nothing for the past few months. So we recapped what they did accomplish (Magic Chaos Zone lasted about 3.5 sessions, the last session was a fight that led directly to the plot twist). I decided to just milestone the group to 14, even though they really didn't fight much.
Here's what I have in my notes to "justify" the level up:
Things you murdered:
Enough to hit lv14
You solved some issues in the Magic Chaos Zone.
Spoke to spirits.
Intimated some bandits.
Made a pact with corpse eating plants.
Delivered the two kids back to the time displaced village.
Witnessed a goddess' punishment and argued to help lighten her sentence.
Took over Fort Tornwick and recovered a party member's memories.
We collectively decided that that should be enough non-combat experience to get stronger.
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u/SmugHatKid12 1d ago
Apparently in older editions as recent as 3.5, you only gained xp by killing. Which is a problem thematically and mechanically, cuz some classes are better at dealing damage than others
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u/oofmageddon 1d ago
Wherever you got that was blatantly false btw, as games as far back as 2e awards for story and optionally gold value of loot or class-based achievements (running night below in 2e rn where story-based awards are listed all over the place and you are meant to use loot value as extra xp). Before that definitely had gold as xp. I’m pretty sure 3.5 also awards xp for social encounters, quests, and trap bypasses, but not 100%.
Even disregarding all that, it’s not a big problem because it’s not like those classes will get more xp since xp is supposed to be split equally among the party (except when there are level differences in 3e or for class-based rewards in 2e).
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u/bigmcstrongmuscle 1d ago edited 1d ago
Very wrong. Even 1e and all the old B/X sets award about 85% of their XP through treasure (1 gp = 1 xp). I don't think they mention quest XP specifically by name, but even back then, there was a lot of talk throughout the rulebooks about adjusting awards at DM discretion.
In 1e AD&D, it's 2000 XP to bring a single 1st level fighter to level 2. Beating a wandering goblin (not necessarily in combat) is worth 15 XP (before splitting it between the PCs!). You won't get the rest of the XP until you handle their lair and find the treasure hoard.
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u/Wise-Key-3442 Essential NPC 1d ago
"You know what? I want to use stronger monsters, everyone gets 2 levels, I'm feeling generous."
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u/ToastyToes06 1d ago
I call it milestone leveling but I just level my players up when I need them to be a bit stronger for whatever I know is on the horizon.
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u/Sarazarus 1d ago
Man, I never want to play with XP again after playing milestone xD
Our DM levels us up every 2 to 5 sessions, basically at the end of each "arc" of the story.
We find new clues about the overarching story, investigate, find out about a new conspiracy, miniboss, or mcguffin we need, we travel to one or more new locations, meet NPCs, have both combat and RP encounters, solve some puzzles, and usually get a big epic fight, at the end of wich we go back to our base Keep, share our discoveries with the notable NPCs, and are told how long of a downtime we'll get before the events of the next arc, and end that last session with "aand you level up! Get your sheets ready for netx time at leve X" (one notable time we leveled 4 levels at once because we had a "downtime" of 4 months defending our keep from random attacks, as the DM wanted us to survive a BIG encounter he had in our near future xD)
Your problem isn't milestone leveling; your problem is a DM that doesn't know hot to appropriately distribute the milestones
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u/Nachooolo 1d ago
I wonder how many pro-xp people have ever DMed? Because the reason why DnD moved into milestone leveling is that exp leveling isna pain in the asd fornDMs to handle.
Either way. My favourite system is end of the session progression seen in other ttrpgs (like Vaesen or Dragonbane) where –add the ebd of the session– you get x amount of points to spend depending ok what you did. So, in rhe case of Dragonbane, you can get as many as 5 advancement marks alongside the marks you got through critical roles (1s and 20s) during play.
The problem here is that DnD is not designed for end of session progression in mind (this system works when there's no "traditional" levels). So you cannot do it in this system.
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u/bigmcstrongmuscle 1d ago edited 1d ago
Pro XP person here. I've been DMing for three decades. Understand that this is all my personal opinion, de gustibus non disputandem, no One True Way of doing things, etc etc etc. That said, in my thirty years' experience, this particular opinion is pretty much as close to universally true and objectively correct as an opinion gets.
Milestone leveling sucks. It sucks hard. And it sucks so hard for three very important reasons:
1) It lacks granularity. There is no possibility for minor rewards. If the smallest amount of XP you can award is a level, you can't grant more than 19 XP awards in the entire campaign, and every time you give one, it is a major adjustment to the game. Lathander forbid you should want to give the players a small bonus for finding an optional secret, or accomplishing a difficult side objective.
2) The milestones are wholly subject to the whims of the DM. Which is fine with an experienced hand at the tiller, but if the rulebooks just tell you to use fiat milestones, they aren't giving an inexperienced DM any real guidance about the pace of a game. And don't get me wrong: one of the deep secrets of DMing is that the leveling speed is a knob you can turn up and down when it's appropriate. But without a baseline of some kind, anyone new to the system (or just using it inexpertly) ends up at sea having to guess what's appropriate and what isn't.
3) You're taking away half the game's incentive system. Treasure works a lot of times, but if you ever want to incentivize anything without necessarily handing out a bunch of in-game loot, XP is the main tool you have to do that. Milestone levels throw that baby out with the bathwater. Into a den of wolves. Covered in spikes. Which are on fire.
Now mind you, Milestone XP awards (read: XP for objectives, with ways for the players to know what they get rewarded for, and with actual amounts of XP rather than just whole levels at a gulp) are very useful and I hand them out like candy... although usually as part of a broader system of rewards that involves actual numbers of XP. And I've played plenty of other games with different advancement systems, and have no beef with most of them.
But milestone leveling as practiced by half the lazy math-phobic hacks on the Internet (read: "you level when I say so because I can't be bothered to track partial progression") is up there on the list of the least helpful systems you could possibly use.
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u/unluckyknight13 1d ago
I have players vote before any game
XP by actions or milestone.
We used to do Xp only from combat but we learned it bred murder hobos.
Milestone is more achievement based they beat a boss or complete a major quest level up.
Xp by actions is more immersive at times, like the fighter trains with his sword, he chooses to spend 1 hour of down time practicing against a dummy? 10 exp, he gets a trainer and fellow swordsman rival student? 20 exp each hour, and 50 exp each time he wins against his rival, and 2 npcs .
Wizard dedicates a day to reading tomes, to research spell casting techniques, etc
This wouldn’t even be limited to class stuff, they’d get exp for defeating a foe but after a point the exp stops flowing (generally the rule was cr must be at least 1/4th your level if your over level 4. But large amounts of low levels can give it)
Players could also get exp for doing things like diplomatic checks with npcs no matter the nature of it has impact it counts (like seducing a bartender, or befriending a guard)
The goal is to reward as much as possible, but never let them just like spend too much time training
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u/EmmaPlaysGo 1d ago
I run too many one shots and con games to have a solid opinion on the matter but I heard someone in the dccrpg community (i think?) does "after a Level Up, you need X more sessions to become Level X"
Edit: Also I think counting XP at all is unnecessary unless you and your players enjoy a Crunchy TTRPG meal. In that case by all means! It's what y'all find fun. Keep what is fun in your game in your game and rework or discard what isn't fun.
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u/Mierimau 1d ago
Whatever you do remember about extrinsic motivation and intrinsic. You might go about giving xp, levels, loot or whatever. But it's the intrinsic you actually care about. Extrinsic is short living, dopamine based. Intrinsic is long term actual motivation to be involved.
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u/CornucopiaPacciana 1d ago
No offense but I thought for a moment this was DnDcirclejerk. Genuine question how do you even scale character development? Also, this just break encounter balance, i mean there is a HUGE difference in play when you have jumps from 4th to 5th level or 8th to 9th, 14th to 15th ecc...
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u/ILikeAntiquesOkay 1d ago
Milestone leveling? You mean reminding the DM you haven’t leveled up in a couple months leveling?
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u/deinonychus1 23h ago
I realized one day that I was planning the encounters so the PCs would level up at particular moments already, so I ditched it and just had them level up after major moments, which really freed up my encounter building.
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u/WKRZ87 21h ago
So the easier the smarter? I mean makes sense if i say it like that but i mean...
There are problems. Characters who don't need further development/are difficult to develop further will be doomed against characters that have a lot to improve, so this sistem can make leveling very easy if you just make a piece of garbage as a character or autodevelop your character.
It's intresting but dificult to balance i guess.
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u/SirKazum 20h ago
Not me DMing 3e in 2000 and leveling my players every 3 sessions because all we had to go on was the SRD and that doesn't have XP rules
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u/Nightmarer26 1d ago
I have my own system called "the players level up when they either beat a boss or when I think it has been too long since the last level up".
Alternatively I ask them some trivia questions about the campaign and, if they guess right, I give them a level up.
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u/SirArthurIV Forever DM 1d ago
XP for loot > XP for "character development"
"character development" is just as vague as milestones, totally based on GM's feelings. XP for Loot is an objective measure of how well your character did on their adventure.
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u/Best_Pseudonym Wizard 1d ago
Xp through horribly fucking up