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thisisnotthenerd · 3 months

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the ratgrinders' potential levels

cannot believe i was right about the xp reqs. the bad kids & the seven get 'special treatment' (milestone leveling and saving the world), while others have to work with xp. which tells you a lot about why people fled during prompocalypse.

ok getting into the algebra now: the rat grinders have gone into the far haven woods every day for the last two years, for 3 hours after school, and 9 hours/day on weekends. presumably they keep this up during the summer.

they have supposedly defeated 80,000 or more of three types of creatures: rats, spiders, and twig blights. there are some variations to what these could be, so here's a list of what this could encompass, assuming the ratgrinders are not facing creatures over CR 1.

giant rat: CR 1/8, 25 XP

swarm of rats: CR 1/4, 50 XP

giant wolf spider: CR 1/8, 25 XP

swarm of spiders: CR 1/2, 100 XP

giant flying spider: CR 1, 200 XP

giant spider: CR 1, 200 XP

ice spider: CR 1, 200 XP

twig blight: CR 1/8, 25 XP

needle blight: CR 1/4, 50 XP

thorn slinger: CR 1/2, 100 XP

vine blight: CR 1/2, 100 XP

razorvine blight: CR 1, 200 XP

thorny: CR 1: 200 XP

the full list is a little difficult to do calculations on, so let's condense it. assume a quarter of the 80000 creatures were CR 1/8, a quarter were CR 1/4, so on and so forth.

how much xp would they earn? how much would they level for the amount they ground? grinded? for?

critical assumption here: in the games i've played, we've always done milestone or zeroed out xp with each level, i.e. after earning 300 xp to get to level 2, you have to earn 900 xp to get to level 3, not 600. this analysis assumes that you have to earn the next levels xp reqs on top of your current total. i'm including the xp chart here to clarify:

level 1: 0 XP, +2, total 0 XP

level 2: 300 XP, +2, total 300 XP

level 3: 900 XP, +2, total 1200 XP

level 4: 2700 XP, +2, total 3900 XP

level 5: 6500 XP, +3, total 10400 XP

level 6: 14000 XP, +3, total 24400 XP

level 7: 23000 XP, +3, total 47400 XP

level 8: 34000 XP, +3, total 81400 XP

level 9: 48000 XP, +4, total 129400 XP

level 10: 64000 XP, +4, total 193400 XP

level 11: 85000 XP, +4, total 278400 XP

level 12: 100000 XP, +4, total 378400 XP

level 13: 120000 XP, +5, total 498400 XP

level 14: 140000 XP, +5, total 638400 XP

level 15: 165000 XP, +5, total 803400 XP

level 16: 195000 XP, +5, total 998400 XP

level 17: 225000 XP, +6, total 1223400 XP

level 18: 265000 XP, +6, total 1488400 XP

level 19: 305000 XP, +6, total 1793400 XP

level 20: 355000 XP, +6, total 2148400 XP

if we went cumulatively, based on the number of creatures the bad kids have defeated, they'd be getting up there in xp. we know they've had opportunities to defeat creatures outside of the quests that we've seen, given the oneshots. thus, i'm going with the second explanation, because otherwise the ratgrinders would be 19th level, and i don't think they are, because it would make any pvp setups super unbalanced, which are neither fun to play nor watch. this puts them on a little more even ground and emphasizes the amount of work it takes to xp grind to level against milestone leveling.

for the CR 1/8s: assuming roughly 20,000 creatures, they'd get 25 XP per, which means 500,000 xp. that's cumulatively enough to get to level 13, on just those creatures. divided 6 ways, assuming the ratgrinders have 6 members, it's 83,333.33, which is enough to get you to 10th level cumulatively and 8th non cumulatively.

this scales up to the 1/4s, 1/2s and the 1s since the xp gains double for each challenge rating rather than plateauing as they do at higher levels.

for the CR 1/4s: 1,000,000 xp. that's cumulatively enough to get to level 16 on just those creatures. divided 6 ways, assuming the ratgrinders have 6 members, it's 166,666.66, which is enough to get you to 15th level cumulatively and 9th non cumulatively.

for the CR 1/2s: 2,000,000 xp. divided 6 ways, assuming the ratgrinders have 6 members, it's 333,333.33, which is enough to get you to 19th level cumulatively, and 11th level non cumulatively.

and for the 1s, 4,000,000 xp. well over what you'd need to get to level 20, on just the CR 1s. divided 6 ways, assuming the ratgrinders have 6 members, it's 666,666.66, which is well over 20th level cumulatively, and 14th level non cumulatively.

using this estimate and adding all of this up, each member of the ratgrinders would have gathered enough xp to be level 20 cumulatively, and level 17 non cumulatively.

obviously the actual numbers would scale differently; initially, they would likely have to tackle these creatures as a party, but over time would take care of them individually. this is a bunch of kids doing the intro to class assignment for every assignment for two years straight.

level 20 seems extreme for the aguefort adventuring academy; let's scale it down a bit. the creatures specifically mentioned are probably giant rats, giant wolf spiders, and twig blights, based on the descriptions from jawbone.

all of these are CR 1/8, or 25 XP each. 80000 would give an xp total of 2,000,000, which would put each of the ratgrinders at around 11th level, a little higher level than the bad kids at the moment. however, since their fighting prowess scaled up, and they're probably going out in elmville and actively hindering the bad kids in some way, that level is very likely to increase.

what we saw in the episode

now the sticking point is mary ann rolling a 35. we know she got some kind of transmutation buff. a little tricky wording from brennan; fabian had enhance ability on, which is a transmutation spell. he did not say it was enhance ability.

mary ann is a barbarian, so she already gets advantage on athletics if she's raging, which i assume she was. the buff probably wouldn't be something that grants advantage.

assuming the lower estimate of 11th level, mary ann would get a +4 proficiency bonus, and i'm assuming she has 20 in strength, so +5 to her strength based skills, for a total of +9. at the high estimate of level 17, she would have a +6 to her proficiency bonus, which would give her a total of +11 to athletics. this is still not high enough to get a 35, even on a nat 20, which brennan would have declared if he had rolled one. she could conceivably accomplish this with the brawny feat, which allows for expertise in the athletics skill, which would give her a +17, meaning she could hit a 35 on a 18.

or, the buff was something like skill empowerment, which is a 5th level transmutation spell that gives the target expertise in a skill that they already have proficiency in. this spell is available to bards and wizards, among other classes, both of which we presume are in the ratgrinders. ruben could have cast skill empowerment on mary ann and given her bardic inspiration (lower estimate: d10, higher estimate: d12), both of which would have enabled that 35.

judging by the implication that she could not accomplish that feat without some kind of buff, i'm going with the latter explanation.

anyway i did too much math for this to not go in the stats series, or the school series. so this will be added to the spreadsheet later.

i hope this is useful.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #musings on the solisian school district #dimension 20 meta #dungeons and dragons #milestone vs xp leveling #thisisnotthenerd's d20 stats #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #ratgrinders #the bad kids #dnd mechanics #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #d20 spoilers #d20 #d20 fantasy high #the perils of xp leveling

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inspiredrawaw · 3 months

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I love the XP leveling with the rat grinders vs milestone with the bad kids

but I’m also seeing it as learning through school vs learning through experience and I’m so interested to see how they do in a fight with anything that’s not a level 1 monster.

#Fantasy high

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polomz · 3 months

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It’s literally milestone vs xp leveling. Murph and Emily figuring out the grinding joke simultaneously. This season is incredible.

I need them to have a teamfight

#dimension 20 #fhjy

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theaggressivewriter · 2 months

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Elden Ring Pf2e

I often think about the idea of just converting all of Elden Ring into a ttrpg experience, which I'm sure isn't an original idea, but I think about it here and there, but I know doing it requires precision. The game feel of Elden Ring vs a tabletop are very different, and most of the game would be pretty much fan service to Elden Ring fans. Here's how I think I would do it:

I think I'd run it as Milestone, and offering runes as currency. I'm not too sure how to turn Pf2e into a gold=xp system, and just running runes as currency is easier to prep. I think I would have everyone start at level 0, and have the first level be something like defeating the camp at the Gatefront Ruins.

There's plenty of items and spells I'd need to homebrew in order to match or at the very least represent things in the game. A lot of the spells in the game I think can be flavored to match the feel and lore of the game itself. The biggest challenge will be how to make items upgradable and scale with the players. I think this can be achieved based on the system from Roll for Combat's monster part system.

SPOILERS FOR ELDEN RING

In terms of the boss fights, I have a lot of them already in mind on how I'd design them. I think I'd like to have Radagon as the be all endgame boss, sitting at 24-25 range and some pretty nasty abilities; some that come to mind include a two action ability to stick a holy bolt into the ground dealing some minor damage, while granting him an extra reaction per turn to sacrifice the bolt when someone gets near and have it explode, or making the three hit hammer slam being a two round activity, first round being three actions against a reflex save, and second round being three actions and a fortitude save. I think I'd make Gideon two or three different spellcasters in a trench coat, giving the players options to get rid of his ability to cast certain spells from certain items (arcane from the staff, divine from the seal). I have some ideas for Maliketh on a concept I've been working on that includes stances that require a creature being prone or standing. I think the boss building aspect is really what makes me want to try this.

I'd of course try my best to prepare different endings of the game, but I think when it comes to running this, I'd need to present the game in a way that is digestible. Elden Ring encourages self driven exploration, and doesn't really hold anyone's hand when it comes to figuring out where to go. I don't think anyone who would play this campaign would be new to the game itself, and that might make this easier to run if anything, it just would provide extra pressure to make sure to get things done right.

#elden ring #fantasy #homebrew #ttrpg #fantasy setting #adventure #pathfinder #pathfinder second edition #pathfinder 2e #ttrpg community #ttrpg design

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camelliagwerm · 9 months

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Leveling?

Leveling: What's your ideal starting party level? What leveling system do you use? What level is your current (or most recent) party?

I personally like to start the party at level 3! I've often found that the first two levels are often a slog to get through, and this way they can all start on a similar playing field by having their subclasses already. As for my current parties:

I'm currently running House of Lament for my standad 5e group as the DM (I'm usually a player), with them about to be level 4 (kenku thief rogue, gnome college of spirits bard).

In the Icewind Dale game where I'm playing my tempest cleric, Hrist (a reborn half-orc), we are only level 2 (truth be told, we haven't played that much of it, which is why we're so low levelled.)

The majority of the games I've played or DM'd for have been milestone based because I've been in a lot of RP-focused games vs. combat. I personally focus on milestone simply because it's easier for me to track. There's only been one XP-based campaign I've been in - when I played Out of the Abyss with my best friend and his mates from university; it was an absolute slog of a dungeon crawl.

D&D asks

#neverwintrians #answered

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jeffs-gamebox · 5 months

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Silly Internet TTRPG Arguments Pt 2: XP vs Milestone.

Another silly TTRPG debate on social media. What's better- Experience Points (XP) or Milestone Leveling? What's on your character sheet?

So, this argument came to X (Twitter) awhile back and I chimed in. That was a mistake. (Lol!) Somehow this ended up being a way more serious debate than any of us anticipated. I’m not going to repeat the entire social media drama here. It’s not worth it. We had people call one another Communist over such a silly thing. Guys, it’s a TTRPG for crying out loud! Presenting: Experience Point…

View On WordPress

#dccrpg #dnd #experiencepoints #rpgblog #rpgblogger #rpgwriter #Shadowdark #ttprgxp #ttrpg #TTRPGblog #TTRPGblogger #ttrpgmilestones #ttrpgwriter

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duwang-but-in-new-england · 1 year

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Ok fine, xp vs milestone in dnd is a valid argument, but like most things in running a game, it comes down to how skilled you are and how committed.

If you want to run an xp game, where the players actions meaningfully affect how powerful they are, then you've gotta give XP for everything. Every god damn thing. The way they roleplay, the way they interact, the little details they put together without hand of God, cool combat moments, narrative arcs being fulfilled. And it's a game mechanic, so expect that mechanic to be GAMED. Players are going to try to do quests in the most convoluted way possible, so that it takes longer, so that they get more xp. They're going to fight every single thing and try to get cool finishing blows so that they get the bonus, they're going to overact so that you give them rp xp. None of these things are bad, but you've got to know they're coming and LEAN INTO THEM. If you want everyone to be roughly as powerful as each other and all level at the same time at a roughly linear rate, do milestone, it's really much simpler. Just make sure whatever you're using is the right fit for your group, don't make people do book keeping just to ultimately say "ok you guys beat the dragon and all level" and don't make one party member 3 levels higher than everyone because they did a backstory quest, a character arc and made peace with their god all in one month. At least not if you don't want that.

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thecreaturecodex · 4 years

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Infernal Duke, Saurafer

Dinosaurs Attack! © The Topps Company Inc. Image accessed on Flickr here

[Monster 1000, everyone! I think! In updating my indices, I found that that’s harder to pin down than I had thought, what with templates, multiple monsters in one entry, and non-monster but game mechanics posts. But I’ll be treating this as Monster 1000 because even if it isn’t officially, it’s darn close.

I figured I would commemorate the milestone with a monster that embodies the Codex somewhat. I’ve been thinking about how to do it for a while (since around monster 900 or so). I was eventually inspired by some of the major themes of the blog. There’s a lot of dinosaurs and a lot of fiends around here. So here’s a patron for them both. The Supreme Monstrosity originally appeared in the Dinosaurs Attack! series of super-violent trading cards (seriously, be aware if you’re going to click through the source link) as the leader of an army of time-displaced, ferociously murderous prehistoric beasts.]

Infernal Duke, Saurafer CR 26 LE Outsider This orange scaled horror is a bipedal reptilian humanoid taller than a giant. Its skull is swollen and features a crown of horns and six eyes. Its arms end in muscular paws, leathery wings grow from its back, and its tail ends in an immense spiked club.

Saurafer Devil Dinosaur, the Supreme Monstrosity Concerns dinosaurs, competitions of strength, savagery Domains Evil, Law, Scalykind, Strength Subdomains Devil, Ferocity, Judgment, Saurian Worshipers evil druids, reptilian humanoids, gladiators Minions fiendish and half-fiend dinosaurs, horned devils, stygionyx Unholy Symbol a fanged maw biting a globe Favored Weapon heavy flail (or natural weapons) Obedience win a competition of strength. If you are alone, spend 1 hour writing an argument about why one individual or creature would win in a fight with another one. Gain a +4 profane bonus on Intimidate checks, and add 4 to the DC needed to successfully intimidate you. Boons 1: rage 1/day; 2: mass bull’s strength 1/day; 3: extended frightful aspect 1/day

Saurafer, the Supreme Monstrosity, is an infernal duke who rules over violent competitions of strength. He is perhaps the physical embodiment of the doctrine of “might makes right”, and seeks forever to test his power against other creatures. His chosen species are dinosaurs, which he sees as emblems of ferocity and power. Saurafer delights in pitting creatures against each other, especially dinosaurs against creatures of other eras and worlds, in order to see who is the superior. He is a sore winner, but an even sorer loser. He despises birds, as they are a reminder that in many worlds, dinosaurs succeeded not by becoming larger and stronger, but smaller and more intelligent.

As to be expected of the patron of savage combat, Saurafer is an absolute terror on the battlefield. He toys with weaker foes, using his fear abilities to send them scattering and then picking them off one by one. Those that resist are blasted with spells and breath weapons. If all else fails, Saurafer flies into a savage rage, which rarely ends until either he or his enemies are slain. Although he delights in one-on-one battles, if he fights multiple foes at once, he evens the odds by summoning devils and dinosaurs to aid him, or even uses animal shapes to turn devils into dinosaurs and improve their melee abilities.

Saurafer stalks the blighted realm of Avernus, single-handedly destroying armies that attempt to make a foothold in Hell and testing the forces of other infernal dukes. He is an example of a malabranche promoted, as he was successful in dragging an entire planet into the clutches of Hell. He hopes to someday repeat this performance, and is looking for ways of summoning and controlling enough dinosaurs at once to invade a whole world. Although he is not terribly intelligent by the standards of the hosts of Hell, he does not tolerate condescension, and is a shrewd judge of character. He has eaten at least one malebranche who did not show him proper respect.

Saurafer CR 26 XP 2,457, 600 LE Gargantuan outsider (devil, evil, extraplanar, law) Init +9; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +37, scent, see in darkness, true seeing Aura frightful presence (150 ft., 5d6 rounds, Will DC 34), unholy aura (DC 27) Defense AC 45, touch 15, flat-footed 40 (-4 size, +5 Dex, +4 deflection, +30 natural) hp 555 (30d10+390); regeneration 10 (good and epic or silver and epic) Fort +27, Ref +26, Will +31 DR 20/good and silver; Immune charm and compulsion effects, death effects, fire, poison; Resist acid 30, cold 30; SR 37 Defensive Abilities fire shield, freedom of movement Offense Speed 50 ft., fly 100 ft. (average) Melee bite +42 (2d8+15 plus 2d6 fire and 2d6 acid), 2 claws +41 (2d6+15), gore +41 (2d8+15), tail slap +39 (3d8+22 plus reeling blow) Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft. Special Attacks breath weapon (100 ft. cone, 15d6 acid and 15d6 fire, Ref DC 38, 1d4 rounds), frenzy (75 rounds/day), powerful blows (tail slap), trample (2d6+22 plus 4d6 fire, Ref DC 40) Spell-like Abilities CL 26th, concentration +35 Constant—detect chaos, detect good, fire shield (warm), freedom of movement, speak with animals, true seeing, unholy aura (self only) At will—blasphemy (DC 26), fear (DC 23), flame strike (DC 24), greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. only), mass charm monster (animals only, DC 25), telekinesis (DC 24) 3/day—greater shout (DC 27), quickened mass inflict pain (DC 25), primal regression (DC 26) 1/day—animal shapes, gate (DC 28), meteor swarm (DC 28), summon fiendish dinosaurs, summon (1 devil of CR 20 or lower, 100%, 9th level) Statistics Str 40, Dex 21, Con 36, Int 23, Wis 31, Cha 28 Base Atk +30; CMB +49 (+51 bull rush); CMD 68 (70 vs. bull rush) Feats Blind-fight, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Dazzling Display, Flyby Attack, Great Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Initiative, Intimidating Prowess, Multiattack, Power Attack, Quicken SLA (mass inflict pain), Shatter Defenses, Snatch, Weapon Focus (bite) Skills Acrobatics +29 (+37 when jumping), Climb +39, Fly +26, Handle Animal +36, Intimidate +51, Knowledge (arcana) +30, Knowledge (nature, planes) +33, Perception +37, Sense Motive +37, Spellcraft +30, Stealth +20, Survival +34, Swim +39, Use Magic Device +33 Languages Celestial, Draconic, Infernal, speak with animals, telepathy 300 ft. SQ infernal duke traits Ecology Environment any land or underground (Hell) Organization solitary (unique) Treasure double standard Special Abilities Frenzy (Ex) Saurafer can enter a frenzy, granting him a +4 morale bonus on attack rolls, melee damage rolls and Will saves, as well as 120 temporary hit points. These temporary hit points are lost first when Saurafer takes damage, and disappear when the frenzy ends. While in a frenzy, Saurafer suffers a -2 penalty to Armor Class and cannot use any Dexterity-, Intelligence- or Charisma-based skills, except for Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate and Ride, or any ability that requires patience or concentration (such as using spell-like abilities). Saurafer can end his frenzy as a free action. If he frenzies again within 1 minute, he does not gain temporary hit points again. Treat this as the mighty rage and tireless rage ability of an unchained barbarian. Infernal Duke Traits (Ex/Su) Saurafer is an infernal duke, a powerful unique fiend. He possesses the following traits:

Immunity to charm and compulsion effects, death effects, fire, and poison.

Resistance to acid 30 and cold 30.

Telepathy 300 feet.

Saurafer’s natural weapons, as well as any weapon he wields, are treated as epic, evil and lawful for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Reeling Blow (Ex) A creature struck by Saurafer’s tail slap must succeed a DC 40 Fortitude save or be dazed for 1 round. On a critical hit, creatures that fail this save are instead stunned for 1d4+1 rounds. The save DC is Strength based. Summon Fiendish Dinosaurs (Sp) Once per day as a swift action, Saurafer can summon one or more fiendish dinosaurs with a combined CR of 20 or less. These dinosaurs obey his commands without question and remain for 1 hour or until slain. This is the equivalent of a 9th level spell.

#saurafer #devil #dinosaur #pathfinder 1e #dinosaurs attack

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probablygoodrpgideas · 5 years

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All Variant Rules I could find in the PHB, DMG, and Xanathar’s

Skills with different abilities

A skill can be used with a different ability score, either on occasion, or always (Example: Strength (Intimidation))

Training to gain levels

To level up, you need to spend time and money training (in addition to gaining XP/milestones)

More difficult Identification

Not every magic item can be identified with the identify spell

Mixing Potions

When mixing potions, or drinking a potion while still under the effect of another, something happens (random table)

Scroll Mishaps

When failing to cast a spell from a scroll, something happens (random table)

Wands that don’t recharge

Some wands might not get their charges back at dawn, but they might have more charges in return

Automatic Success

A character with high enough ability scores might automatically succeed on easier ability checks

Players award Inspiration

Players decide when to give out Inspiration instead of the DM

Customizing Ability Scores

More commonly known as “Point buy”

Equipment Sizes

Armor found in the wild might need to be adjusted to fit

Encumbrance

If you carry a lot, your speed is reduced a bit. If you carry way too much, your speed is reduced by a lot

Multiclassing & Feats

Yeah those are technically variant rules

These Variant rules can be found in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything:

Rate of Falling

Basic rules say you fall instantly, but if you so desired, you only fall 500 feet a turn.

Flying Creatures and Falling

A conscious falling creature with a flying speed can reduce the falling damage they take

Waking Someone

Some rules for what kind of sounds can wake up a sleeping creature

Sleeping in Armor

Sleeping in medium or heavy armor lessens your gains from a long rest. You regain fewer hit dice and don’t recover exhaustion.

Going without a Long Rest

If you don’t take long rests, you get exhausted

Tying Knots

To see how good you are at tying (or untying) knots, use Intelligence (Sleight of Hand)

Tool Proficiencies

Xanathar’s Guide presents many additional benefits to having proficiencies with certain tools

Perceiving a caster at work

If a spell requires Material, Somatic, or Verbal components, casting it is noticeable by people around the caster, otherwise it’s not

Identifying a Spell

As an action or reaction to seeing a spell effect or someone casting a spell, you can make an Intelligence (Arcana) check to identify the spell. The DC is 15 + spell level. If the spell is on your class’s spellcasting list, you get advantage (House rule by me: As part of the same reaction, you can counterspell)

Invalid Spell Targets

If a spell targets something it can’t target (Like a fiend with charm person) the spell fails. If the spell requires a save, it appears as if the creature made its safe

These Variant rules can be found in Chapter 9 of the DMG:

Proficiency Die

Instead of having a flat proficiency bonus, you add a die to checks you are proficient with (goes from d4 to d12)

Ability Check proficiency by class

Instead of being proficient in certain skills, you choose an ability (like Strength) to be proficient in. Your class restricts the abilities you can choose from

Background proficiency

Instead of being proficient in certain skills, you apply your proficiency bonus to any check where it makes sense, considering your background

Personality Trait Proficiency

Instead of being proficient in certain skills, you apply your proficiency bonus to any check related to your character’s positive personality traits

Hero Points

Each character has a certain amount of Hero Points that can be used to add a d6 to any attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, or to turn a failed death save into a successful one.

Honor

An additional ability score that measures your devotion to, and understanding of, a code of honor

Sanity

An additional ability score that measures your mental stability

Fear

Being confronted with a threat that you have no hope of overcoming might cause the frightened condition

Horror

Seeing something truly horrifying might cause a short-term or long-term madness (this portrayal of mental health is questionable but that’s a topic for another day)

Healer’s Kit Dependency

You can only spend Hit Dice after a short rest if someone expands a use of a healer’s kit

Healing Surges

A character can, once per short rest, use an action to spend up to half their hit dice. You regain some hit dice after a short rest and all after a long rest.

Slow Natural Healing

You don’t regain hit points after a long rest, but you can spend hit dice.

Epic Heroism

A short rest is 5 minutes and a long rest is 1 hour.

Gritty Realism

A short rest is 8 hours and a long rest is 7 days.

Plot Points

Players gain “Plot Points” they can use to influence the plot in ways usually reserved for the dm

Initiative Score

Instead of rolling for initiative, you use a passive Initiative score

Side initiative

Instead of each creature rolling for initiative separately, each side rolls a d20 and then everyone on the same side goes in whatever order they choose.

Speed Factor

Roll Initiative each turn, modified by whatever action you want to take this turn (Personally not recommended, just use Greyhawk Initiative instead)

Climb onto a bigger creature

You can climb onto a bigger creature using a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your target’s Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. End climb with a Strength (Athletics) check contested by a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check

Disarm

Make an attack roll contested by Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) to disarm someone of something they’re holding

Mark

When you hit a creature with a melee attack, you can mark them. You get advantage on opportunity attacks against them and opportunity attacks don’t need your reaction (still only 1/turn and only when you can take a reaction)

Overrun

Strength (Athletics) vs Strength (Athletics) to move through a hostile creature’s space. Advantage if you’re bigger, disadvantage if you’re smaller

Shove Aside

Shove can be used to shove the target to a different space within your reach. If you do, you get advantage on your check

Tumble

Dexterity (Acrobatics) vs Dexterity (Acrobatics) to move through a hostile creature’s space

Hitting Cover

If a ranged attack misses because of cover, it hits the cover instead (only if it hits the cover’s AC)

Cleaving through Creatures

If you kill a creature in a single hit, excess damage can hit another creature within reach

Injuries

If you take a lot of damage or get critically hit, you can suffer a lingering injury.

Massive Damage

If a creature loses more than half its hit points at once, something bad could happen to it.

Morale

A rule to determine when an enemy might flee/surrender

Spell Points

Instead of Spell Slots, you have Spell Points. Higher spells require more points to cast.

#long post

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thisisnotthenerd · 3 months

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follow up to the rat grinders' leveling post: the bad kids if they did xp leveling.

the rat grinders' leveling post

now that we know what level the ratgrinders could potentially be, let's look at the bad kids.

using milestone leveling, they are level 10 right now. i want to know how that compares to the xp they would have earned.

not all of the creatures they have defeated have been standard monsters from the monster manual, so some of these are going to be guesswork and estimations.

obviously there are some split scenarios; they're not always together during battles, some of them are buffing and achieving other objectives.

this breakdown is going to go battle by battle, for the sake of simplicity, with everyone splitting the xp 6 ways, no matter who killed the target. also i'm going to find xp levels for their humanoid adversaries that they've killed, because they presumably get something for them. also they killed ragh, but revivified him; do they still get xp from his death?

freshman year:

corn cuties + corn blob + doreen:

this encounter works with a spawn point and boss monster; 14 corn cuties are spawned, and seven are killed before riz goes up the corn blob's butthole and shoots the parchment. doreen is killed by adaine, and riz shoots the paper out of the corn blob.

the corn cuties have <9 hp, and based on their damage output, i'd rate them a CR 1/4, so 50 XP each, for a total of 350 gained across the party.

doreen has <11 hp, and based on her damage output, i'd rate her a CR 1/2, given that she has multiple damage options that took several of the bad kids out at 1st level. 100 XP to adaine, but for the encounter it's distributed across the party

corn blob: based on the way it behaves, i would consider it similar to a glabbagool, with pseudopods and engulfing attacks, as well as self-healing. for the sake of the encounter the win condition was not hit point sink but rather getting rid of the enchantment on it. CR 2, so 450 XP.

total XP count: 900 XP, divided by six is 150 each.

johnny spells & the tiefling greasers:

this encounter was a combination of hit point sink and car chase; they killed several by sending them offroad.

one of the greasers died after taking 10 + 3d6 damage, so i'm assuming they probably have anywhere from 20-25 hp. damage output is usually 6-8, which to me says 2d6. so i'd call them CR 1, or 200 each, for a total of 1200.

johnny spells takes 15 + 11 damage before he dies. his damage output is higher than his fellow greasers and he has other spellcasting prowess, so i'd call him CR 2, for a total of 450.

total XP count: 1650 XP, divided by six is 275

the black pit undead:

a little more complex, because the win condition is fleeing from the encounter, so i'm estimating for the big three 'villains' of this encounter and then adding a multiplier for the encounter as a whole.

dj brainzz & the zombies: standard zombies are CR 1/4 (50 XP), and assuming a total of 10 or so, that's 500 from the zombies. from dj brainzz, i'd say something like CR 3 (700), given the abilities he uses, but with hp nerfed to fit the encounter.

sasha, lord of whispers & the vampires: vampire spawn are CR 5 (1800 XP), and 2 had a significant effect, but i'd say that since they aren't technically defeated, i'd half the xp gain (1800 XP)

jawbone & the werewolves: werewolves are individually CR 3 (700 XP) and there were 2 that had a significant effect, but again, none were killed, so we halve that number again (700XP)

total XP count: 3700 XP, divided by six is ~616 each

dwarf skaters + golem:

again a separate win condition; the dwarves run instead of being defeated after fig releases gorthalax. so again, estimates with a multiplier

torek and the dwarves: torek is at least 5th level, since she can cast spirit guardians, so i'd put her at a CR 2 (450 XP). i counted 5 other dwarves, who'd be CR 1/2 each, for a total of 500 XP. totaled it's 950.

crush is like a huge stone golem (CR 10), but is nerfed by the half-pipe, so i'm applying a .66 multiplier, which comes out to 3933 XP.

total XP count: 4883 XP, divided by six is 813 each.

bloodrush skeletons + ragh + daybreak + owlbear:

they got the orb and chest figured out and somehow also made this a hit point sink.

skeletons: individually are CR 1/4, or 50 XP each, but there are 10 or so of them, so i'm applying a 1.5 multiplier to the total, which results in 750 XP

owlbear: pretty standard; CR 3 for a total of 700 XP

ragh: i'd pretty comfortably put him at CR 5, for a total of 1800 XP. they get XP for ragh because they killed him.

daybreak: i'd put him at like a CR 9, based on his use of indomitable and number of attacks, so a total of 5000 XP.

total XP count: 8250 XP, divided by six is 1375 each

aelwyn and her elementals:

smaller split to figure out this time; just aelwyn and her elementals.

elementals: all CR 5 (1800 XP). i think i counted 8: air (2), fire (2), water, earth, slime, and shadow, so that totals to 14400

aelwyn: she casts time stop with aguefort's watch, not from her own magic. i'd put her at like 14th level, and thus CR 9 (5000 XP). they get the full amount because they do defeat her--she doesn't flee or get fled from.

total XP count: 19400 XP, or 3233 each

biz + the arcade ghosts:

a couple of objectives here--getting the girls out, avoiding the traps, and questioning biz, so this split will also consider the arcade traps as part of the cr of the encounter.

ghosts: CR 4 (1100 XP) individually. assumming there's 10 of them, that's 11000 XP right there.

traps: save dc is probably 15, which would set up the games to dole out anywhere from 1800 to 2900 XP. i'm leaning towards the low end, just to contextualize biz. 4 successful captures and releases, so 7200 from the games.

biz is doing a bunch of complex enchantments and summonings. I would set him equal to aelwyn and thus CR 9 (5000 XP).

total XP count: 23200 XP, or 3866 each

the harvestmen:

we don't have a technical count for most of these, so it's going in as a general number for the party, given what they gave up to be at prom and save their families.

fabian gets a little extra for killing bill; i would estimate that bill is CR 10 minimum, so fabian gets 5900 from killing him, even though he didn't do the deed fully.

total XP count: 10000 XP, or 1666 each

kalvaxus, penelope & dayne:

simple splits here; ragh is not being included because he was pretty easily convinced to be an ally.

dayne: i'm using daybreak's stats to put him at a CR 9 (5000 XP)

penelope: high level spellcaster like aelwyn, so she's also a CR 9 (5000 XP)

kalvaxus: adult red dragon. CR 17, 18000 XP

total XP count: 28000 XP, or 4666 each

freshman year total:

99983 as a group, based on these statistics

16663 for each individual. so if the bad kids were running on xp, they'd only have gotten to level 6 cumulatively, and level 5 non cumulatively.

we can probably assume that they receive some xp while attending the AAA to make up the difference; otherwise the school wouldn't really serve a mechanical purpose in this scenario

oneshots: i know not all of them were there for all of these. i am sticking to the 6-way split, because i can assume the missing members would have made it up somehow.

occularia:

she's a beholder. CR 13 (10000 XP)

5 party fouls:

there are 5 of them: the gorgon of shade, minotaur of stunts, centaur of sloppiness, harpy of songs, and sphinx of solitude.

gorgon: CR 5, 1800 XP

minotaur: CR 3, 700 XP

centaur: CR 2, 450 XP

harpy: CR 1, 200 XP

sphinx: CR 11, 7200 XP. i'm going to half that because she got done in by a pun.

oneshots total: 16750 total, or 2791 each.

the going total is then 116733, split into 19455 each. so the bad kids would be around level 6, cumulatively and non cumulatively.

sophomore year:

i know there are hirelings this season. i am maintaining the 6-split because it's easier. this will mostly be addressed by only covering the creatures that the bad kids themselves face.

cambion, barlguras, vrocks:

we're dealing with a couple things here: fig and riz are separated and the party is split. the demons have reinforcements.

cambion: 1 of them. CR 5, 1800 XP

barlgura: total of 8, 6 killed. CR 5, 1800 XP. total of 10800 XP.

vrocks: 2 of them. CR 6, 2300 XP. total of 4600 XP

total XP count: 17200 XP, or 2866 each.

whitclaw + pirates + elves + air elemental:

i am not counting fabian's first attempt, because he doesn't really accomplish anything.

mindflayers: 8 of them. CR 7, 2900 XP each. i'm halving this number because while they get some hits in, i don't think they kill all of them. 11600 total.

elves + elemental: 4 CR 9 spellcasters (20000) plus the elemental (1800). 21800 total, halved because they do not defeat the elves. 10900 total.

whitclaw: i'd put him at around CR 11 (7200 XP), since this includes his magic items and specialized skills

total XP count: 29700 XP, or 4950 each

fire elementals, tree constructs, kir & angwyn:

fire elementals: 3 of them, CR 5, 1800 each. total of 5400

tree constructs: using tree blight stats, with 4 constructs. CR 7, 2900 XP. 11600 total

kir & angwyn: 2 CR 9 spellcasters (10000). i'm giving full value for these because they get them pretty well.

total XP count: 27000 XP, or 4500 each

tiefling greasers + alastair ash + penelope + daybreak + dayne + harvestmen(4) in hell:

a little bit different to how they were freshman year--some of these have stayed the same while others have gone up.

tieflings: i'd say CR 3 (700 XP), but there are 8 of them. so i'm adding a multiplier of 1.33, for a total of 7448 XP.

penelope: still a CR 9 spellcaster based on the spells used, but i'd bump up to 11 given the difference in spell use and damage output. total of 7200 XP.

dayne: still CR 9. 5000 XP.

harvestmen: based on my freshman year estimate, i'd put them at CR 4, or 1100 XP. 4400 XP total.

daybreak: daybreak has changed, now having legendary actions to command his 'troops'. CR 13, 10000 XP total.

total XP count: 34048 XP, or 5674 each

nightmare forest:

similar to family in flames, i'm giving a general estimate for xp gains from the nightmare forest.

total XP count: 30000 XP, 5000 each

angwyn abernant:

this one is exclusive to adaine, because she did execute a fully separate kill beyond what she faced in the forest. angwyn is a CR 9 spellcaster, and thus adaine has 5000 xp extra, much like fabian got from killing bill at the end of freshman year.

nightmare king possession + court of elders + transubstantions + kalina + arianwen:

nightmare king possessed hirelings: i'm going to estimate CR 8 for each of them, so 3900 each, for a total of 11700. XP gained from dispelling the possession.

court of elders: i'm going to estimate that all of the court of elders are at least CR 10, with the centaur and wood elf at CR 10, treant and sprite at CR 11, and the unicorn at CR 12. total of 34600

transubstantiations: this is things like dispelling the dragon madness, cutting down the tree for the broomstick, etc. if you take the tree's hp at around 200 iirc, each transubstantiation is a CR 9 task, for a total of 15000 XP earned.

kalina: she has six attacks, and a variety of intensive illusion magic. she's also prevalent throughout the season in a lot of very complex ways. i'd put her at around CR 18, because even though she's a transubstantiation, she's remarkably difficult to defeat. 20000 XP from kalina

arianwen: high level spellcaster, given that she can power word kill. i'd put her at 18th level, and thus a CR 13, for a total of 10000 XP

resurrecting and naming a deity goes so far beyond the scope of XP that i wouldn't even know how to count it. also the bad kids never technically attack the nightmare king, so the xp would go to gorthalax, who actually attacked. i'm not counting the nightmare king.

total XP count: 91300 XP, or 15216 each.

sophomore year total: 229248 XP, or 38,208 each

going total is 345981, or 57663 each. for cumulative, that works for level 9, for non-cumulative, it's level 7.

night yorb quest:

yorbies: the bad kids have technically unknown amount of yorbies, assume several hundred total. in the fight we saw, they fought ~15 or so grunts. assuming they're around CR 3, that's 700 per. 10500 XP in this fight alone (1750 each), 70000+ XP (11666 each)outside of this particular battle.

the night yorb: in a logical progression from what the bad kids have faced, i'm making the night yorb CR 19, worth 22000 XP (3666 each).

total XP count: 102500 XP, or 17083 each.

The Bad Kids' cumulative total of XP prior to the start of their junior year: 448481, or 74746 each. cumulatively around 10th level, non-cumulatively around 7th.

by comparison, if we use my estimate of 2000000 XP for the rat grinders, they're looking at 333333 each, which is 19th level cumulatively, and 11th non-cumulatively.

now, if we assume an xp model, the 'special treatment' that would enable the bad kids to be almost level with the rat grinders is counting the bad kids cumulatively, and the rat grinders non-cumulatively.

from the perspective of arthur aguefort, this makes sense. he doesn't even like the bad kids; however, they are going out and following his method of adventuring--popping off and saving the world, sometimes from problems you've caused. meanwhile, the rat grinders are devastating the local ecosystem every day for 3 hours a day on weekdays, and 9 hours/day on weekends.

also this scaling speaks to the fact that continually grinding on the beginner level creatures has diminishing returns--always doing the easy thing is not going to help you progress; challenging your limits will.

i hope this is also useful.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #dimension 20 meta #thisisnotthenerd's d20 stats #musings on the solisian school district #milestone vs xp leveling #the bad kids #fantasy high #fantasy high sophomore year #fantasy high oneshots #fantasy high junior year #rat grinders #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #fantasy high spoilers #d20 fhjy #d20 spoilers #long post #the perils of xp leveling

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jd-ddopes · 4 years

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Player Questionnaire

Feel free to use/change this for your needs. Testing it out and it, so far, has helped people really dig into their character’s mentality and background more than usual. Also would be interested to see tumblr’s fill this out just for fun. Player Name: Interests In Game rate 1(low) - 5(high) below Difficulty level : Roleplaying : Character world knowledge : Dungeon Delving With Traps and Monsters : Exploration : Political Intrigue and Social Subterfuge : Noir-Like Mysteries With Dames to Die for : Quest to Save the World from Evil : How Big Should the Stakes Be if you fail? : Build a Castle/ Run an Empire / Get a Following : Accumulate Wealth/Power : A VS B Wacky Zany Adventures VS Dark and Serious Episodic VS Arc-Based Given XP VS Milestone Leveling Open world VS Streamlined story Things to avoid? (gore, dead children, sexy time) Some other interest I haven’t considered? Player Name: Character Name: Race: Class: Background: Why did your character start adventuring? What does your character hope to accomplish by adventuring?What are some things your character would like to learn? How large was the community your character grew up in? Does your character have family ties? What season was your character born in? Was your character born under any omen? Does your character have a love interest? Does your character have any affiliation/guild/business/govenment ties? Does your character know any other PC’s? What are 1-5 things your character hates? What are 1-5 things your character fears? Could anybody have a grudge against your character? Does your character have any secrets (that they would keep from other PC’s)? Does your character have any defining specifics that could pertain to a story? What is the ideal death for your character?

#d&d #DM #dming #DnD DM #dm life #dm help #dm stuff #d&d 5e #dungeons & dragons #Dungeons and Dragons #dungeon master #5e #dnd #DnD 5e #tabletop #tabletop gaming #Tabletop RPG #rpg

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hopefullygoodrpgideas · 6 years

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Hey remember the paladins post I made a few weeks ago (probably not, it was too much of a wall of text)? I want to try doing something like that again because I think it’s a generally useful thing. So, tell me what you think of milestone based leveling VS leveling at XP thresholds VS spending XP on upgrading stats whenever you have enough. Then I’ll make a post in a few days about why people do and don’t like each one. Which could be interesting if it turns out that everyone reading this only plays D&D and has never heard of the third one but still.

#part of the reason that I like this sort of thing is #other than outsourcing content #it lets me get a better idea of what my audience things about things and make better content as a result.

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swloading374 · 2 years

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Mass Effect 2 Phalanx Vs Carnifex

$50 SPENT

Mass Effect 2 Phalanx Vs Carnifex 2

Mass Effect 2 Carnifex Vs Phalanx

Mass Effect 2 Predator Vs Carnifex

Phalanx does more base damage but Carnifex fires nearly twice as fast. I get a more visceral feeling from unloading lead into things so I prefer the Carnifex, especially with upgrades. I understand the Carnifex has three times the clip size, but the refire is too slow to justify its lack of damage. It needs a bump in base damage to make it possible to kill red bars in 2 headshots to make it viable. These hard hitting accurate midrange pistols have been my favorite weapons in ME and I'd like to see them get some love.

The next milestone includes $30 more, bringing the grand total spent up to $50. Of the 15 Spectre Packs purchased during this phase, you’ll notice a ton of duplicates, especially a lot of Drell Vanguards.

Each time you obtain a duplicate weapon, that specific gun is leveled up by one point (two if it’s a default option). You can level any weapon up to 10, and there are well over 20 to unlock.

CHARACTERS

Turian Sentinel

Drell Vanguard

Krogan Sentinel

Drell Vanguard x4

Turian Sentinel

Male Human Adept x2

Female Human Adept

WEAPONS

Assault Rifles M-8 Avenger V Geth Pulse Rifle II Assault Rifle Stability Damper II

Heavy Pistols Arc Pistol I M-6 Carnifex III Pistol Piercing Mod II

Shotguns M-27 Scimitar I Geth Plasma Shotgun II M-23 Katana III Shotgun High Caliber Barrel III

Sniper Rifles M-98 Widow V M-92 Mantis III Sniper Rifle Piercing Mod II

Submachine Guns M-4 Shuriken IV SMG Heat Sink II SMG Scope I SMG High Caliber Barrel I

Bonus

Cobra Missile Launcher Capacity +1

Ops Survival Pack Capacity +1

Reset Powers

CONCLUSION

Although there were some good finds, overall that felt like another $30 down the drain. Even with all the rare character cards, our class levels hadn’t changed much, and we were still missing a few specific races:

Adept – 5 (missing Drell)

Sodier – 5 (missing Turian)

Engineer – 7

Sentinel – 7

Infiltrator – 5 (missing Quarian)

Vanguard – 12 (missing Asari)

$100 SPENT

$50 down, $50 to go. The following is a list of all of my unlocked content after the full $100 was spent. That’s 50 Spectre Packs or 3,000,000 Credits.

CHARACTERS

Note that the entire second $50 didn’t yield a single new character, leaving me with four empty slots on my class-select screen. XP also came to a crawl. I was hoping to get a character pretty close to level 20 without having to play a single match, but the highest I got was 12.

Adept – 9 (missing Drell)

Soldier – 7 (missing Turian)

Engineer – 12

Sentinel – 11

Infiltrator – 7 (missing Quarian)

Vanguard – 12 (missing Asari)

WEAPONS

At $80 in, I unlocked the M-99 Saber, my first “N7” class weapon. Although I ended with plenty of options to choose from, the Geth Plasma Shotgun remained my go-to weapon, especially without the M-13 Raptor in my inventory. I was still missing lots of mods, and the ones I did have were not leveled up by much.

Assault Rifle M-8 Avenger V Geth Pulse Rifle III M-96 Mattock I M-15 Vindicator II M-99 Saber I M-76 Revenant II M-37 Falcon I Assault Rifle Stability Damper II Assault Rifle Magazine Upgrade I Assault Rifle Piercing Mod I Assault Rifle Precision Scope III

Heavy Pistols M-5 Phalanx I Arc Pistol II M-3 Predator V M-6 Carnifex V Pistol Piercing Mod V Pistol Magazine Upgrade I Pistol High-Caliber Barrel II Pistol Score I

Shotguns M-23 Katana III Geth Plasma Shotgun VI M-27 Scimitar II M-300 Claymore II Shotgun Spare Thermal Clip I Shotgun Shredder Mod I Shotgun Blade Attachment II Shotgun High Caliber Barrel III Shotgun Smart Choke II

Sniper M-92 Mantis VII M-29 Incisor IV M-98 Widox IX Sniper Rifle Spare Thermal Clip I Sniper Rifle Piercing Mod IV Sniper Rifle Enhanced Scope I

Submachine Guns M-25 Hornet II M-4 Shuriken VI M-9 Tempest II SMG Ultralight Materials III SMG Magazine Upgrade V SMG High Caliber Barrel I SMG Heat Sink II SMG Scope I

SUPPLIES

Supplies are special one-use items that are automatically equipped to the D-pad and available in every mission. I didn’t keep track of them until the very end since they’re not that important, and you get a ton of them. But the final tally is below.

Cobra Missile Launcher – 64

Thermal Clip Pack – 73

Medi-Gel – 54

Ops Survival Pack – 85

The Medi-Gel definitely comes in handy as it allows you to revive yourself, and the Cobra Missile Launcher is vital for instantly taking down minibosses such as Atlas mechs. Somewhere along the way I picked up two missile capacity increases, meaning I can now storm into each battle with four missiles. On Bronze difficulty, there are usually only four Atlus mechs total, which makes surviving all 11 waves a breeze.

CONCLUSION

Had I not stolen the $100 out of GamesBeat editor-in-chief Dan Hsu’s wallet, I’d be feeling pretty gypped right now. After 50 packs of the best Mass Effect 3 multiplayer has to offer, I still don’t have a single level 10 weapon, I don’t even have all of the available characters (which there aren’t that many to begin with), and I didn’t pick up any of my favorite weapons from the campaign.

Mass Effect 2 Phalanx Vs Carnifex 2

Worse yet, I can’t imagine sinking the 40 hours of total playtime that it would take to build up 3,000,000 Credits, only to end up with such a mixed bag. XP comes very quickly through actually playing the game, but Mass Effect 3 is quite stingy when it comes to Credits. I think a better price point for the packs would have been 5,000, 15,000, and 30,000, rather than 5,000, 20,000, and 60,000.

Mass Effect 2 Carnifex Vs Phalanx

I’m sure there will be those who purchase just a couple packs and get some awesome stuff, while others will go on to have worse luck than I did. That’s the problem with gambling. But according to our little test, the odds are stacked against you in Mass Effect 3.

Mass Effect 2 Predator Vs Carnifex

GamesBeat Gift Guides:Everything we recommend this holiday season

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chrome-ovum · 5 years

Text

Is milestone leveling the participation medal of RPGs?

@BozShulun on twitter posted a question on twitter that I found interesting, "Is milestone leveling the participation medal of RPGs?" My immediate thought was that no, they're not, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to dig into that question, and dig into what an answer to that would entail. I realized my answer relied on how milestone levels and participation medals are defined in their respective social and game contexts. My answer is D&D-centric because that's my main area of interest. To answer the question, I need to talk about what a participation medal is, and then look at what leveling in D&D is, and then finally what milestone leveling is and how it relates to these other ideas.

To start with, I need to identify the context for participation medals, or participation trophies, which is competition. An idealized competition is used to find who is best at a combination of practiced skill and natural talent. The content of the competition is the performance by players at a measurable task or set of tasks. The person or team that performs best wins the competition, and is recognized with social favor for this accomplishment. Losing a competition does not garner the same social recognition. The presence or absence of this favor is further equated with a competitor feeling good about their identity for winning or feeling bad about their identity for losing.

There's yet another equation between being a winner and being a good person, based on the idea of merit. A person is thought to win because they have better habits or are even intrinsically better. In contrast, being a loser means you are a bad person. This distinguishing between good and bad identities through merit is why social favor is attributed to winning and social disfavor is attributed to losing. There are further connections to be made about functionalism and community but that goes beyond the scope of this essay.

Participation trophies (participation medals) are introduced into this relationship in part to assuage the ego of competitors that lose, and in part to recognize their effort even in spite of their failure at a primary performance objective. Recognizing effort promotes engagement and improvement and is overall a better value for long-term performance and achievement.

A reaction to this is that recognition of effort is not worthwhile, that effort should instead be assumed and expected, that effort itself is not worthy of praise, and that recognition of effort is detrimental to a competitor's progress, that feeling bad is essential to the process of losing, that feeling bad for losing in part creates a motivation to win, and that participation trophies interfere with all these aspects of competition. From this point of view, participation trophies are even a form of insult, a kind of booby prize, and a condescending expression of "at least you tried (but you failed, you loser)."

This reaction is part of a popular but often uninformed or underinformed discourse about the role of participation trophies in sports and other competitive endeavors of young children. OP in this reddit thread describes the arguments about competition and recognition of effort vs. recognition of winning.

With respect to that discourse, I disagree with the reactive viewpoint, and I think participation trophies, or rather the formalized recognition of effort, are worthwhile when applied in the correct context for affirming better long-term values in children. I think the reward for participation must also only be given when genuine participation and effort have been demonstrated by the competitor. It should not be given carelessly, without regard for the behavior of the competitor, or else it fails to function according to its best purpose. Careless or automatic awarding of a participation trophy shows a misunderstanding of its better intent and meaning.

~~~

Now that I've expressed what I think a participation trophy is, I'll examine how that relates to D&D. The specific part of D&D that I need to address here are in-game rewards related to player character leveling, what the increase of those levels means, and what the game texts describe as being worthy of rewards. I'll examine the various D&D games more or less in the order of their publishing.

OD&D, the Basic D&D games (Holmes, B/X, BECMI), and AD&D 1e are presented as strategic challenge games that can be won. Success is measured in a variety of ways, but the primary quantified measure is experience points (XP), which are awarded predominantly for taking treasure from a hostile environment, and to a lesser extent for defeating or overcoming foes. For this essay I'm referring to these games as "challenge D&D."

These strategic challenge games are generally not played by very young children, and these games were designed before the preceding arguments about effort and values surrounding competition became common. From the preceding arguments, if a child is carefully playing a strategic challenge game, I think it would be fair to give recognition to that effort to promote long-term values in the same way that participation trophies are given in context of sports.

When we look at D&D in the form of 2e, 3.PF, 13a, and 5e, the fundamental nature of the game is not the same as it was in earlier editions. These later games are about simulating heroic adventures. Winning and losing may be described in the texts directly and in discourse surrounding these games as both not the goal of play and not even possible! For this essay I'm referring to these games as "simulation D&D."

The increase of a character's level in challenge D&D is a reward for reaching a threshold of success as measured by accumulated XP. An increase in level also slowly but steadily grants access to a succession of new modes of challenging play. Continued success allows the game to progress from dungeon crawling, to wilderness adventures, to settlement and colonization. These changes in the mode of play work to keep the game fresh over a long period of time, and tie into the intended power fantasy of the player. This progression is earned through careful, successful play. Success and progression are not guaranteed or automatic.

XP is tracked for individual characters in challenge D&D. This individual tracking is important for many reasons. Character attrition can be high at very low levels, so those characters with more XP may be more strategically valuable to protect. Characters of different classes have different thresholds for when they are eligible to gain a new level. Characters may split treasure taken unevenly, which results in corresponding uneven awards of XP. The expected ethos of players and the ethos of Gygax in particular is more libertarian (or classically liberal) and individualistic, and that corresponds with an idea of ownership over personal achievement signified by XP. This ethos is further entwined with the progression of play from raiding to settlement as it reflects the narrative of progression of liberal capitalism.

In a way similar to how people are thought of in liberalism, player characters in challenge D&D are assumed to be atomic. They are not members of fixed parties, but instead are more akin to avatars or puppets, ready to be used with any other player character. Level disparity between player characters is not seen as an insurmountable problem in challenge D&D. The XP charts and games are overall structured such that a low-level character can accompany a higher-level character, and the low-level character benefits much more from a modest success than the higher-level character because of the vaguely geometric increase in XP thresholds at early levels. This is one reason why there is often an explicit rule against gaining more than one level per session or outing. It's an assumed part of play that higher-level characters can and will take lower-level characters under their wing, and that lower-level characters can quickly catch up if played carefully.

The increase of a character's level in simulation D&D, in contrast to challenge D&D, is instead loosely related to notions of narrative progress and exploration of character and setting in a more literary sense, even though the rules of these games are not about story per se. Taking treasure and competition are no longer the fundamental focus of the game. While simulation D&D borrows much of its rule systems from challenge D&D, these repurposed rules do not always fit well to the changed purpose of play. The experience point system in particular can be observed changing in the texts and in reports of application.

In the 1e DMG, some suggestions can be found for hastening or delaying the gaining of levels based on player performance aside from taking treasure and defeating foes. Gygax there makes suggestions about playing a character according to their class description. 2e, the nearest relative to 1e, adopts the experience point system from 1e, but more strongly suggests awarding these points for player behaviors other than taking treasure and defeating foes. The 2e DMG elaborates on this in its 8th chapter, making many suggestions about what phenomena could result in the DM awarding XP to a player's character. It suggests awarding XP for players that contribute to the fun of a session, including a warning against bad behavior (here we can see in an official text an unfortunate seed of the idea that the DM can use an in-game penalty to punish an out-of-game action by the player). It also has a small but explicit section titled "Story Goals," where it suggests awarding XP for meeting these goals. This DMG has a table that explicitly identifies roleplaying as something that can be rewarded with XP. With regard to class, it also has a chart showing suggested XP awards for in-game character actions that are appropriate for the character's class. For example, a Wizard might be awarded the XP value of a potion brewed. The awarding of XP for treasure is itself reduced to a function of the Rogue classes. This major change in what qualifies for the awarding of XP matches up with the larger trend of that time where competitive game designs that stayed close to wargaming roots started falling out of fashion while games that talked about story and scenario came into fashion. Toward the late 80s and through the 90s, the common discourse about XP matched what we find in the 2e DMG: XP should be awarded for fulfilling a wider range of scenario objectives ("completing a quest," roleplaying, etc.), and also that XP can be awarded for player behaviors external to the game. Players could be rewarded with XP in exchange for regular attendance, providing food and drink, and contributing money to a pool used to buy RPG books. Likewise, it was often suggested that player behavior outside of the game could be penalized through punishment in the game. This latter idea became a sort of horrid discourse that has been hashed out for decades, and is now more commonly rejected.

2e's insistence that the game can be about more than competition and strategic challenge, and that XP can be awarded for a larger variety of phenomena, also ties into the idea that player characters are no longer atomic. They are now members of teams called adventuring parties, and they are more like literary characters than mere playing pieces. Player characters are no longer assumed by default to be portable. A character that's permitted at one DM's table may simply be disallowed at another DM's table. While that was true before, it became truer, more expected, in the 2e era. If the story of a game is more than a raw collection of events uninformed by narrative structures ("the story is what happened," in other words there's no structure of events and change of character in relation to conflict in the style we might identify in a movie or novel), it might make less sense to think that a character can be ripped away from one story and inserted into another, simply for the sake of the player's convenience, or the player's notion of ownership over their character. From the perspective of XP, the reasons the XP was awarded by one DM may not be recognized by another. One DM might award XP only for story, while another DM might be using 2e rules to play a 1e-style challenge game, and finds XP awarded for story goals to be nonsense. The awarding of XP in 2e is increasingly arbitrary, and the purpose of the game is broadened to the point where people might drift the game to do anything and be anything.

3e, 3.5e, and PF, which I abbreviate as 3.PF, is a massive overhaul of late 2e developments. One of the key design ideas in these texts is to unify the disparate ad-hoc systems that resulted from the earlier Arneson/Gygax collaboration. Here we find that the XP charts for classes have been collapsed down to a single chart for all characters, in an effort to create a universal meaning for character level across all classes (whether that effort failed or succeeded might be best informed by interminable arguments over class tier rankings). 3.PF adopts most of the big ideas of 2e, including the idea that a player character is a member of a party, and that XP can be awarded for things like story goals and roleplaying. XP for treasure has been totally removed here, in favor of the structured awarding of XP primarily for defeating foes, whereas the awarding of XP for story goals and roleplaying continues to be as nebulous as it was in 2e. Which of these, defeating foes or story, are more important is left up to the DM as a tool to drift the game into encouraging a desired priority of play.

Individual rewards are comparatively deemphasized in 3.PF, and it's far more common for each player character to be awarded the same amount of XP as each other player character for each session. This is further encouraged by the unified XP chart because it is combined with a comparative growing disparity in power of player characters per level advanced. In other words, there is less of a difference between a level 1 fighter and a level 9 fighter in 1e than there is between a level 1 fighter and a level 9 fighter in 3.PF. This comes about from systemic differences in scaling and an increase in complexity of player characters in 3.PF compared to earlier editions. A character that is a few levels lower than the rest of the party is playable, but the player will be more keenly aware of the difference. The consequence of this is that in actual play, most groups settle on keeping all player characters at the same level or nearly the same level, and level disparity between player characters in the same party is no longer expected.

The consequence of all the changes in 3.PF is that tracking XP totals of individual characters, or tracking XP at all, becomes largely irrelevant. The highly granular and individual accumulation of XP in challenge D&D is not encouraged by these systems. 3e and 3.5e have a small exception in the form of repurposing XP as a currency to spend for the creation of magic items, but PF does not adopt this. This exception seldom has an appreciable impact in any case. Because individual XP totals become far less meaningful, DMs of these games will often refuse to track them, or will even pretend to track them for the sake of the players that want to maintain an illusion of carrying on a tradition of earlier games. Gaining levels in that context is instead a wholly arbitrary function of the DM.

Following 3.PF, 4e presents itself as less interested in strict simulation than 3.PF. More emphasis is placed on supporting and refining the team vs. team cooperative play that was centered in 3.PF, and specifically presenting it in the form of a tactical challenge game. The overall structure of 4e is clearly derived from the 3.PF family of games, especially late 3.5e. 4e too retains the notion of XP, but again like 3.PF, XP are practically irrelevant in this system insofar as their relation to player characters gaining levels. Instead, the best use of XP in 4e is as a rating system for monsters, in the style of war games giving each type of unit a point cost. Playing off of 3.PF's framework of encounters, 4e introduced the idea of tracking a number of encounters as the primary method of setting a pace for the game. Each two consecutive encounters that are completed without an extended rest count as reaching a milestone, which allows the player characters to regain or attain the use of certain abilities. This acts as an incentive to avoid taking an extended rest that will restore resources lost to attrition. About four encounters or two milestones are roughly the recommended length between extended rests. Taking an extended rest early is comparable to retreating from a larger ongoing conflict.

Like 3.PF, 4e suggests awarding XP for defeating foes along with some underdeveloped alternatives. While 4e's text suggests that accumulated XP is what determines an increase in a player character's level, in practice it's more common to set an arbitrary number of encounters as the general framework of play. These encounters can be linked to story-sensitive consequences for taking an extended rest early, so that a meta-challenge of shepherding resources can be created. In any case, gaining levels over time is practically assured, in contrast to challenge D&D. That means the motive given for players is in the narrative, and the events of the narrative are a consequence of tactically challenging teamwork, which is the mechanical center of play.

While 13a does not share 4e's focus on tactical challenge, it takes 4e's encounter-centric pacing design a step farther and makes the association between the encounter framework and story into an explicit relationship with the idea of a campaign loss. If the party takes a full heal-up (the equivalent of an extended rest) before completing four consecutive encounters, they suffer a campaign loss, which is an undesirable story outcome. In both 4e and 13a, these sets of encounters, in practice if not in the text, are used to determine when, but not if, the player characters advance in level. 13a also explicitly rejects the use and tracking of XP. Player characters gaining levels is purely a function of completing a number of full heal-ups. A key distinction here is that while these games encourage success in combat, and can tie this to story outcomes, these successes or failures are not further tied to whether the player characters gain levels. Gaining levels has the effect of maintaining a gradual introduction of mechanical novelty, just like 3.PF, but is not itself a reward dependent on player input. The cycle of player behavior and reward for that behavior is instead displaced into the narrative side of the game.

5e, the most recent official edition of the game, is practically a rephrasing of 3.PF. The text approaches XP in the same way as 3.PF. In actual play, XP is practically ignored by most people in the same way as 3.PF. If levels are awarded instead of being part of an expected pace, they are still arbitrary, in the same way as 3.PF. 5e presents no firm rules or guidelines for awarding XP, when or how characters should level, or much of anything else, instead choosing simply to describe the variety of practices that grew out of earlier simulation D&D games. It also describes in vaguer terms the milestones of 4e, but fuses these with story beats instead of encounter pacing.

Paced or arbitrary level increases, which can be thought of generally as milestone leveling or narrative-arc leveling, which is shared formally or informally among 3e, 3.5e, PF, 4e, 13a, and 5e, are very clearly not a reward in the manner that level increases are a reward in challenge D&D. Milestone leveling punctuates story, and it introduces novelty, and that novelty is pleasurable, but it is not itself a reward. In context of the earlier arguments about competition and participation trophies, milestone levels are also not a recognition of effort. In comparison, a participation trophy as a recognition of effort can be withheld from a competitor that does not make an effort, whereas there is no analogous or corresponding lack to be identified in the context of these post-challenge D&D games. Player attendance, good or bad player behavior, contributions or lack of contributions made by players outside of the game or within the game, have no intrinsic relationship to milestone leveling. A player that misses a few sessions of play will likely expect that their character is still involved in the party's story, and that their character will still be the same level as the other characters. This is further supported by these game texts because they generally do not tolerate well, or are not built with the assumption of, a significant level disparity among player characters.

If it is framed in an honest manner, then milestone leveling, unlike a participation trophy, is arbitrary, automatic, or artistic. It can be artistic in the sense that a DM can make a choice to punctuate a story with the player characters each gaining a level, but that is not the same thing as a reward for winning at a competition or putting effort into competing. Contrary to what we might expect, that milestone level could be used to punctuate a narrative setback: the player characters increase their individual power, but it may have come at the expense of a community they failed to protect, or some other scenario where they chose personal ambition over service or responsibility or compassion.

Despite this, milestone leveling could be framed as if it were a reward, and in that case it can likewise be compared to a participation trophy awarded as an automatic entitlement that does not truly recognize genuine effort, but in both cases, the level and the trophy are being framed and given in a kind of fraudulent manner. Larger social forces may be at play outside and surrounding the immediate context of organized sports played by children, which drive the fraudulent awarding of participation trophies, even when a child does not show effort. Similarly, a DM may be pretending to track XP to appease players that have an errant desire to uphold a tradition they do not understand, and consequently that DM may frame milestone levels as if they were instead awarded based on accumulated XP.

Contrary to my initial reaction, I now think the answer to the original question, "Is milestone leveling the participation medal of RPGs?" depends on how honest we are about what milestone leveling is, how we communicate it, whether we're honest about what we're doing, and likewise whether we interpret participation medals, or trophies, as honest recognitions of effort, or fraudulent, ego-driven trinkets. If we can be honest about everything, then no, milestone leveling and participation trophies are not the same at all, but if we're dishonest about what these are, then yes, they may come to resemble each other.

#mine

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