Special Bonus Award to XP

[GRWelsh]

In the DMG there is a suggested Special Bonus Award of 1000 XP for characters who die and are restored to life, if they didn't die because of poor play (DMG pp. 85-86). The rule seems to mainly be there to help out lower level characters who join a higher level party and die inadvertently because they're along on a dangerous adventure. I like this rule because it helps out low level characters yet doesn't have much effect on high levels.

But I was thinking of adding in another house Special Bonus Award, in general. I don't like first level characters as a player or as a DM. As a player, they're frustrating and/or boring to play -- especially when you roll low hit points, starting money, and as a magic-user, roll lousy starting spells and can only cast 1 spell per day. I've seen too many 1st level characters die from just an unlucky die roll. As a DM, I feel tempted to coddle the party with easy scenarios (which I don't like to do) and/or introduce other house rules to make them more survivable, like giving them maximum hit points at first level, maximum starting gold, letting them pick their starting spells (it usually means sleep), weapon specialization, better ability score rolling methods, etc. But what about just house ruling in a Special Bonus Award for all 1st level player characters? If you play well, participate and role play, and survive the first adventure, you get 1000 XP, in addition to any XP gained from monsters and treasure? Mainly, I'm thinking of starting campaigns when everyone is 1st level.

Is that too easy? Or being too nice? Or, maybe this sort of hand waving of XP by DMs has been happening all along, and I just wasn't aware of it.

I was thinking the only real effect this has is that players aren't stuck at 1st level as long.

[geneweigel]

The 2nd edition system was so frustrating for so long that any freeform xp in that matter is consternating to me even if it is real D&D to the letter.

Its like I'd rather play the fuck out of the new characters then just have "come along on a magical mystery tour/ here is a ton of experience for nothing".

I'd rather focus on the business end of bringing them back alive to get major points at low levels.

[GRWelsh]

But how would that work, exactly? If, as the DM, you focus on the business end of bringing them back alive to get major points at low levels, does that mean helping them find disproportionate amounts of treasure? I mean disproportionate to what is presented in the rules in the way of treasure types.

Also, there's the social dynamic of adults playing (at most) one night every other week ... the "play the hell out of the new characters" days of high school and college are sadly long gone... So, there's that consideration of players possibly being stuck with a 1st level character for months of real time play, if you want to go strictly by the book.

I have to admit when I first saw the 2nd edition "Story Award" XP goal, I thought maybe DM's had already been doing that all along... or, at least hand waving away a lot of the precise XP calculation in favor of rough estimates and a bit of padding (i.e."that was a really tough fight, the players played well... I'm just going to estimate the XP and round up").

Another approach is to simply start everyone at a higher level, like 2nd or above. I think when EGG was running an Yggsburgh playtest, he let everyone start with 4th level characters (that might have been LA, but still). I don't think there is any inconsistency between EGG basically saying don't give away a free lunch on one hand, but on the other saying "I have the idea for an adventure for characters of a certain level, and let's just start there" (DMG, p. 225, Appendix P). I guess an early Special Bonus Award at 1st level is a compromise between starting everyone at 1st level by the book, and just letting them start at 2nd level... So, functionally everyone would just need to earn less XP from monsters and treasure to reach 2nd level: a thief needs 251 XP, a cleric 501 XP, fighter 1,001 XP, magic-user 1,501 XP, etc. It's simply not as long a road to reach 2nd level, but you still have to travel it.

[GRWelsh]

One other thing: a special XP bonus isn't necessarily giving away a ton of experience for nothing... They still have to go on the adventure, and participate in the game... Characters that stay home don't get it! There's always been an abstract quality to XP awards, and perhaps the original system worked best when it was the "all dungeon, all the time" style with an average number of party members of nine or more (which is a perfectly valid style of play). But also, you could see in the DMG how EGG was always tinkering with the concepts of monster XP and 1 g.p. = 1 x.p. and advising it doesn't have to apply equally all the time -- i.e., when the challenge level is low the XP gained from monsters and treasure should be reduced. So, I guess the reverse could apply as well...

[geneweigel]

I'm sorry, I just worded what I meant completely off. DOH!!!

I meant bringing THEM back alive as in the things that go bump in the night THEM them. Sorry.

Just showing up with dead parts is not beneficial to player's minds and it makes the kind of game where thinking ceases i.e. the "room-to-room dungeon trains of the mid-1990's type players who want the dungeon done in one sitting" as it were.

"Bring them back alive" is the key to going up fast at lower levels;:

A) Instant believability. Its real not just some Bob Hope/Danny Kaye/Lou Costello fake hero in town putting on airs if they have some horned asshole on a rope to be ridiculed on the way to the lord's castle. Free shit all over town.

B) Double the experience points for "alive". Defeat and the cash-in are double experience. More money for shit.

[Scott]

I wouldn't add much. If you're writing your adventures you can control the length of time you want them at 1st level. The rate of advancement, amount of treasure handed out, and the training rules are tied together pretty closely. You need to give out a real hoard now and then to advance at the expected rate, but then you need the training rules to keep them from having too much resources.
I'm still purging the stingy 2E mentality from my games. My players have probably spent too much times at 1st level because I was too worried about giving too much money away, but I was skewing the treasure/XP/training equation.
By the book, you figure at best the PCs will need 1,500 GP each for training once the hit the 2nd level xp requirements. Plus they should have some left over. For a party of 5, that's about 10,000 GPs in treasure. That's also 10,000 XPs. That's going to level most single class PCs.
In my opinion, two sessions is enough time at 1st level. Try to write an adventure that the PCs, and hopefully I will be one of them, could finish in two sessions. At the end of session two they meet their Lareth, and collect the boss loot, and the surviving single class PCs should level.
Raise dead probably shouldn't be an option at low levels. Unless it's a reward, since spending that much gold will affect how much the PCs have left to train.

[GRWelsh]

"I thought that Weigel kid was full of shit, until he brought back that horned cave demon!"

[foster1941]

There's definitely a difference between new players encountering the game for the first time and veteran players starting new 1st level characters. For the former you want to take everything pretty slowly because it's a learning experience and everything is fresh and even simple things have big impact. But with veteran players, they've already done all of that, probably several times over, so the priority should instead be on leveling up as quickly as possible. One of the best ways to do that, I think, is to mix in some higher level characters (preferably other players with existing higher-level PCs, but higher-level NPCs, a la Elmo and Otis, if necessary), not to overshadow the new characters or reduce them to being sidekicks, but to give them enough extra "oomph" that they can take on more challenge (and recover more treasure) so that they can pass through those first couple levels quickly - in ~2 sessions rather than 5 or 6.

[GRWelsh]

After some reflection I think a special bonus award to XP, if used to augment monster and treasure XP, is probably best kept behind the DM's screen as "DM's fiat" rather than just saying "Here's 1000 XP to start you off with."

Thanks for the ideas, guys. I agree 2 sessions is about long enough to spend at 1st level. I don't mind giving out treasure, but I have always disliked the training rules. In my mind, training is what you get before 1st level, and adventuring is the "school of hard knocks" where you get the real experience! I can't wrap my head around always needing training in order to improve certain basic skills and general toughness, like fighting ability, hit points, etc. I can imagine seeking out a famous swordmaster to learn certain techniques, or a magic-user learning a forbidden style of magic, stuff like that -- but I would think those would be exceptional cases with specific in-game advantages (like weapon specialization, or access to spells unique to the DM's campaign).

If OD&D didn't have training rules, and EGG didn't use training rules, and the majority of XP characters got in those games was from treasure (moreso than monsters), what happened to all the money characters accrued in those campaigns? Were those characters just super-rich? Sometimes while reading the DMG, I get the impression EGG was tackling an issue of characters having too much money, and addressing that in AD&D, and hence you have the training rules (DMG p. 86), the 'spendthrift' rule of 100 gp/level/month (DMG p. 25), and taxes and tolls (DMG p. 88).

Could this also be what led to the Greyhawk toll-collectors at elf-gate, dwarf-gate and ogre-gate?

[Scott]

Don't consider it "training". Consider it 'accumulated expenses', or something. Maintainace or whatever. That way the built in formula will still function, and you won't have to fuss around with alternatives and house rules.

[geneweigel]

I think the canary in the coal mine is the drow as a character race. People already had races ripped right out of the hardcovers, modules and especially DRAGON mags. The drow, a race with built-in magic better than a magic item, making it into UNEARTHED ARCANA (1985) was not accepted with fear by anyone that I knew. It was just more common cloth. Around the time the drow were out in UA someone asked me if they could use STAR FRONTIERS races and I made a series of notes including the Saurians from DRAG #103 (NOV 1985) it was basically:

STR/STA = STR/CON
DEX/RS = DEX
INT/LOG = WIS/INT
PER/LDR = CHA

5% = 1 point

So those Saurians had +2 STR +2 CON -2 INT

But that was the mentality at the time so shit like the drow, two-fisted dralasites and vulcans with combat ending nerve pinches for humanoids were no big whoop at the time as long as the treasure kept coming. All combat needed treasure, all game sessions needed magic items. I don't remember anybody looking for magic items at a shop until the 2E days when they deleted the treasure charts. I was rolling it out dry for at least a year before I started auditing the Second Edition books for bugs. The whole Lorraine Williams hate isn't a matter of taste it was real.

Chewie... we're home. Sorry. Just kidding!

Seriously, D&D is relatively simple the xp equals gold so all transactions are in gold. The prices for equipment in the PHB are for a high rolling town so you're not getting campaign money on bringing back sundry knick knacks to sell at a character flea market. Heck I've sat in a campaign in 1995 where this actually happened. I sat through years of churningly bad campaigns like that, seeking companionship mostly, even if the fare was mostly crap played by good people at least they were into something that I enjoyed somewhat. The biggest flaw of the bad ones was lack of tools and too much talk to cover up functionality. I'm not saying every character should find the One Ring on every outing but maybe they can find a Ring of Invisibility (or even a lesser mod with a timer) in the lair of a fog giant that seems to have no exit.