Pathfinder and 3.5: XP costs replaced with GP costs

[RatElemental]

I believe I was saying that system abuse to get infinite anything isn't more difficult in 3.5 because it uses XP than it is in pathfinder (that uses gp), it just requires jumping through a few more hoops.

As an example of this, there's the old nipple clamp of exquisite pain + symbol of pain + distilled joy combo.

[False God]

As an example of this, there's the old nipple clamp of exquisite pain + symbol of pain + distilled joy combo.

Honestly I don't think I'd throw a fuss if my players had to do some BDSM to get infinite anything.

[Aotrs Commander]

Sounds like you're making mountains out of molehills. Maybe don't calculate it by hand if it takes so long, use the d20srd or donjon encounter calculator, and have it done in 20 seconds, and if taking 2 seconds to write down 3-4 digits on their character sheet is too much effort for your players.... It's a matter of seconds, not minutes, and definitely not five to ten minutes.

Well, assuming that you can use those offline, because I don't have a mobile and can't access the net through my tablet down the club, same applies - it means the tablet has to be taken and set up and used and arsed about with (because it means either adding the mouse or fighting with the touch-screen...

There is still literally no point in doing it, since no-one has cared about the XP totals - for ANY game we've run, D&D or otherwise - for a good decade-and-a-half, because it functionally adds nothing to the game other than a track for the DM to tell the players when to level up (and to gauge encounter modification for the module/adventure path when writing it), even when 3.0 made the bad decision to try and make it. (Hell, I notice later PF APs just flat tell you when to level-up for them as can't be arsed with XP entirely.)

Run party-xp all you want, I'm not against party-wide xp gains regardless of the circumstances, but it's not something I would want to run, especially since it clashes with my tangible xp notion, your character doesn't grow from things they weren't involved in, but you do you.

And what I'm saying is, when you are dealing with a group of players who median age is one year shy of forty and over, who have (young) families, commitments and/or health issues, you don't have the option NOT to do it that way, even if you wanted to, because you cannot garentee that you will have all of the same players making week to week, nor even to the one-day sessions you run four times a year. So you either have to never play more than, like, maybe once or twice a year (at irregular intervals when you can actually get the correct players all to turn up) or live with the fact that you have to run sessions without all the players, probably more often that not.

[Zombimode]

Well, assuming that you can use those offline, because I don't have a mobile and can't access the net through my tablet down the club, same applies - it means the tablet has to be taken and set up and used and arsed about with (because it means either adding the mouse or fighting with the touch-screen..

Why would you want to calculate XP rewards during the gaming session? It's not like you level up during session.

I mean if you really don't like typing values into a form and pressing a button I could see why you would avoid the Encounter Calculator. But hard to use or time consuming it isn't.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Why would you want to calculate XP rewards during the gaming session? It's not like you level up during session.

I mean if you really don't like typing values into a form and pressing a button I could see why you would avoid the Encounter Calculator. But hard to use or time consuming it isn't.

You can calculate the XP rewards when you build the encounter. Or just eyeball them, it's not like it breaks anything if the players don't get the exact XP RAW says they should.

That said i can understand Aotrs Commander's position. If nobody bothers using anything that costs XP there's no point tracking them, no matter how little work it is.
And if removing XP costs means your players actually use things that would normally cost XP instead of avoiding them like the plague it'll probably even improve your gaming experience.

That's highly group dependant of course.
My group rather like using spells like Limited Wish or crafting and i consider the XP cost an important balancing factor for those.
You could accomplish something similar with a gold cost, but i like the fluff of XP better and - at least in my experience - players are more conservative with things that cost XP instead of money.
It also has the side effect of being a nice little handicap for spellcasters (who are often leveling up a little behind the mundanes in our games).

[Calthropstu]

I have always done this at my taes. The xp cost crap makes zero sense to me. It never caused problems for me.

[Aotrs Commander]

Why would you want to calculate XP rewards during the gaming session? It's not like you level up during session.

I don't. I go home, bring up the spread sheet on which I have already worked out the estimated XP for the adventure path (while doing the significant modications required for seven PCs), and just copy lines from "estimated" to "actual" and job done. (And then maybe send an email around to say they levelled up, and even that really just specifically for that one player who likes to do it mid-week.)

My point is, that is absolutely all the input/output XP needs. The players don't need (or want) to know what the XP totals are or have to write them down, and to do that, you'd have to do it in-session. (They don't have their character sheets for a start (nor would they want to have to remember to bring it with them every week); except for the one player that likes to keep a copy, who just leaves a periodically-updated copy for the odd occasion he's not there.)



(For the day quests, we don't even do that, the DM just decides when we level up - when a given party of characters (given what we have in rotation) only sees play once or twice in maybe 12-18 months, you'd never get anywhere otherwise.)



I don't bother with the encounter calculator, actually, I eyeball it the same way I've always done, which I carried on doing after the first time I generated a 3.5 encounter and realised what a complete waste of space EL was.

(Actually, once we've finished the current APs, we'll likely be moving over the PF XP system, as most of the AP for future use will be PF rather that 3.5 mechanically, so it makes sense; but I've only ever used CR as solely "how much XP do they get" anyway.)

[Endarire]

As someone who dislikes expansive components for crafting (at least in terms of EXP) and casting/manifesting (G/EXP costs), as GM I let players choose between paying EXP or paying more money to get the item/spell/power. Infinity Engine games never had monetary/EXP costs for spells, and I never heard anyone complain about those, but I also know that was a modified 2E D&D ruleset for a specific video game instead of trying to anticipate everything a player would do with component-free wishes.

For limited wish, and psionics in general, I preferred the EXP cost since it made the spell and powers more usable. Still, there are plenty of overcosted abilities, and, in general, abilities with expensive components are those.

[Coidzor]

It's hard for me to say. I sort of have a love-hate relationship with both XP costs and with replacing XP costs with increased gold costs.

Then there are times where either can just be janky as heck, or where I disagree with the fundamental idea of the gate-keeping that they wanted to do in the first place by having the extra cost.

[Crake]

My point is, that is absolutely all the input/output XP needs. The players don't need (or want) to know what the XP totals are or have to write them down, and to do that, you'd have to do it in-session. (They don't have their character sheets for a start (nor would they want to have to remember to bring it with them every week); except for the one player that likes to keep a copy, who just leaves a periodically-updated copy for the odd occasion he's not there.)

Well, that's not correct. You as the DM get to decide how often players get xp. The default assumption in the DMG is that xp is awarded either at the end of the session, or the start of the next session, and that same default assumption assumes XP costs, so you're just straight up incorrect on what you're saying there.

[Powerdork]

I'd like to point everyone to the Experience Rewards section of the Dungeon Master's Guide (page 36), which offers this definitive statement:

When the party defeats monsters, you award the characters experience points (XP).

It then suggests, in another paragraph, things you might choose to do to make it easier:

You may wish to award experience points at the end of a session to enable players to advance their characters in level if they have enough experience points. Alternatively, you may wish to give out XP awards at the beginning of the game session following the one in which the characters earned it. This gives you time between sessions to use these rules and determine the experience award.

Meanwhile, over in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (page 399):

Although you can award experience points as soon as a challenge is overcome, this can quickly disrupt the flow of game play. It’s easier to simply award experience points at the end of a game session—that way, if a character earns enough XP to gain a level, he won’t disrupt the game while he levels up his character. He can instead take the time between game sessions to do that.

Those are the basic stances offered as guidance to everyone who decides to run one of these games using the core set of books.