[Conan] the XP system

[Nyarlathotep5150]

I don't actually have a question about the conan XP system, as the game really didn't have one. I'm just wondering if anyone out there worked has up a system for how to give out XP?

 

[Boneguard]

Some follow the D&D 3rd edition system.

Other goes more loosely giving new level as often as they want...usually between 2 adventure to simulate downtime.

 

[Supplement Four]

If you look at some of the bigger published adventures, like Trial of Blood and Betrayer of Asgard, those come with XP suggestions at the end of each adventure chapter.

What I use is this (and, it seems to fit the game well) rule of thumb: An average character going through his normal duties--not doing anything extraordinary--will gain about 1000 XP per year just doing his job.

Thus, a 1st level Soldier will become a 2nd level Soldier in about a year. It takes about two years for a 2nd Soldier to reach 3rd level, and so on.

You'll have to adjust based on circumstances, of course. A Soldier manning the garrison in Tarantia, dealing with drunks and theives will probably go up 1000 XP per year. But the Soldier that is doing guard duty at one of the forts in the Westermark will most likely have accelerated experience "out on the front", so to speak.

So, you'll have to gauge it.

How does this encounter stack up to what a normal character faces in an entire year?

The GM in Conan has a lot of leeway, too, in the pace of advancement. Most Conan GMs I've seen here on the forum seem to advance the lower levels quickly then back off and make advancement slower, spending a lot of time in the 4-10 range.

Looking at the XP delved out in the author seems to agree with my assessment of XP. A Conan character should advance slower than a 3.5 E D&D character. Remember, 3.5 E D&D doesn't have a level cap--Conan does.

XP given in both adventures runs from 25 points to 250 points, depending on what was accomplished. And--that's for an entire section of the game that is normal "adventure" length.

Note that the awards are pretty stingy. You don't see a lot of 500 point awards.

In D&D 3.5E, a character could easily go up 2-3 levels in a 1st level adventure. In Conan, a character may play 1-2 adventures of the same length in order to advance 1 level.

You've got to eyeball it, and use your own judgement. But, these notes should give you a pretty good idea of what to award. Your story goals should help you dictate the XP, too.

Take a look at the top of page 12 of your 2E Conan rulebook. There, it gives you a rundown on what a "level" in Conan should represent. Among other things, there it says that characters 12th level or higher are exceedingly rare--these are legendary figures whose deeds will be remembered for generations to come.

This means that 90% of the NPCs the players meet will be in the 1-10 range. Your game should be set around that.

And, unless you want your players to run super-human, legendary figures (and, that's fine if you do), then you'll want to keep your PCs in the 1-10 range for as long as possible, knowing that at the end of your campaign, they'll be reaching legendary status at level 12, 15, or even 20.

Looking at XP this way, players might be able to generally judge the level of an NPC by his age. It's not as simple as that--as people advance at different rates due to their circumstances, and not all people start a career at the same age (a barkeep might be classifed as a 1st level thief at age 40, for example).

But, as a very rough rule of thumb...

A 1st level character is probably about 15 or 16 years old.

A 2nd level character is probably about 16-18 years old.

A 3rd level character would be about 18-21 years old.

A 4th level character would be in the 21-25 range.

And, so on.

If the players see a 35 year old Soldier in a tavern, chances are the guy is not a 1st level character. In fact, one can guess his level by working backwards: He probably started his career at 15, and he's got 20 years experience. At the 1000 XP average per year, he'll have around 20,000 XP, which makes him a 6th level character.

Again, remember, this is a very rough estimate, but a handy one, especially if the PCs are very low level. The Soldier could have seen a lot of experience in the Pictish Wilderness--enough to make him an 8th level character (in which the estimate would be off a bit). Or, maybe he is a 6th level character, but not a 6th level Soldier. Maybe he's a 4th Soldier, 2nd Barbarian.

There are lots of possiblities, but the players should have an idea of what they're up against based on age (and other factors--as in how the character is dressed, what equipment he has, etc).

The biggest thing to remember about the Conan RPG is that the level cap exists. You can't draw generalizations like this in 3.5E D&D because there is no level cap. But, when one exists, a character level starts to mean something, because you've got a starting and ending point.

I'll stop now....I think I've probably said more than you want t read. :wink:

 

[Nyarlathotep5150]

Some follow the D&D 3rd edition system.

I wouldn't want to do this. My Conan games don't shy away from violence (infact they're extremely violent), but making the sole (or even the major) source of advancement based on the number of enemies they kill, just gives the players incentive to mass murder. Just look at the way D&D devolves into a hackfest.
On the flip side of that, many Conan adventures revolve around mass battles. So giving XP per creature killed is unmanageable when the PC's are dropping hundreds (or even thousands) of enemies in the last scene of the adventure.
Besides, reverse engineering Challenge Ratings for the monsters would be a pain.

If you look at some of the bigger published adventures, like Trial of Blood and Betrayer of Asgard, those come with XP suggestions at the end of each adventure chapter.

I have Trial of Blood and yes those guides are really good for rewarding the group for advancing the story. I was hoping, maybe, someone had worked up a good rule of thumb for those types of rewards in home games. Sort of a, "For minor quest related acheivements, a character of X-level, should get roughly Y-XP", thing. I don't have access to Betrayer of Asgard so I only have one data point to go on for the calculations.

Cause I find that having no system for awarding XP devolves into uncontrolled chaos more often than not. And all I've had to go on so far is the old Star Wars d20 system of giving out XP based on adventure length. Which I've never liked, because it doesn't reward the PC's for anything they actually accomplish.

For that matter, what is up with every good D20 game forgetting to add an XP system?

 

[rabindranath72]

You might want to have a look at the guidelines in d20 Call of Cthulhu.

 

[Ichabod]

Figure out how long you want the campaign to last in terms of number of sessions. Figure out what level you want characters to be at the end of the campaign. Take the former, take one minus the latter, divide the first by the second to get how many sessions per level. Have the characters level about that number of sessions.

On average, I think our main campaign levels about every 3.5 sessions, currently about 17th level. To finish it up at 20th level, we are leveling more about every 1.5 sessions these days. Our new campaign, the GM wants to keep the characters at lower levels, maybe capping around 8th level or so. We've played twice and are still 1st level in the new campaign.

 

[Supplement Four]

For that matter, what is up with every good D20 game forgetting to add an XP system?

You're looking for a regimented system, and I think what the Conan game is trying to do is be flexible for a GM's tastes and requirements.

If you want a regimented, tit-for-tat system, then design one. There's good advice in the posts immediately above this one.

As I said, in my own campaign, my "system" is to consider that an average person will gain about 1000 XP in a game year when doing an average job. I weigh the enounters my PCs have against this rough rule of thumb.

For example, the PCs in my campaign are all Cimmerian Barbarians (my campaign is very story driven). Using the rule of thumb above, an average barbarian in the clan will earn about 1000 XP a year doing his normal duties--the occasional fight or raid across the border, hunting, fishing, scouting, weapon making, etc.

And, I also weight he XP vs the story (if the PCs do something that has little impact on the story, they'll get less XP than if they did something heroic that pushes the story forward).



A couple of examples of how XP will change, depending on the circumstances (and, I believe that this is the sort of thing intended by the game rather than a regimented system as in 3.5E D&D).



Example 1

The PCs go hunting. This has little to do with the main story--just something the PCs wanted to do, and I, as GM, am trying to keep them obliged and involved in the game.

So, we play out a hunting encounter, and the PCs run into a pack of wolves. A fight ensues. The PCs are victorious.

I may give out 25 or 50--maybe 75 XP--depending on the danger of the episode. If it wasn't very dangerous, and the PCs easily took out the wolves, then the award is 25 XP. If it was an average fight, they'll get 50 XP each. If the PCs were out matched (as with 1st or low level characters), then I might award 75 XP.



Example 2

The encounter is the exact same. The PCs go hunting and run into some wolves. But, during the fight, one of the PCs acts extremely heroically and saves the other PCs. Then, the player of that PC takes one of the wolf hides, cures it, and and uses his skill to make it a kilt for himself. The other players start calling him "Caelis Wolf-Killer".

Well, OK, now....although it didn't start out that way, the encounter now is starting to have an impact on the story. Maybe one of the other PCs--one that got mauled, now has a phobia of wolves now that he role plays into his character--but, being a Cimmerian, this is not something he wants the other PCs to know.

With the one encounter, we've started creating something, story-wise. The "character" of the characters is being built.

This is worth more XP. We're impacting the story.

I'd give each PC 100 XP for this encounter (or, I might give the ones affected, story-wise, 100 XP, and only 25-50 XP for those for which it was an average, everyday encounter).



Example 3

This is the same scenario, except that part of my adventure plot inolves the wolves. Wolves have been harrassing the clan's mountain goats. The PC's know this, and when they run into the wolf pack on the hunting expedition, I'll watch, as GM, how the players react to this.

If they move in the direction that benefits the story (that is--to move to eradicate the problem the clan is having by killing the wolves), then the encounter is worth even more XP. I might award 150-250 XP, depending on it all plays out.



Example 4

Again, we're looking at the exact same scenario: The PCs go hunting and run into a pack of wolves. But, from a story perspective, I've been building up this one particular wolf that the PCs have come across a coupple of times. He's a big sucker, with a white streak of fur running down his snout on an otherwise totally black fur covered body. This wolf is called "one eye" because he's missing an eye that was scratched out in some previous fight.

And...one of the babes of the clan went missing, and then was found, dead, mauled by a wolf, just last week. The clan suspect it was old one eye.


If this happens during the PC's hunting trip, then we've got a major story point being addressed. Maybe, as GM, I've set up how killing this wolf will trigger later story events (a Hyperborean Witchman, hiding out in the foothills of the Eiglophians, has been using his magic on this wolf to see out of its eyes--and is doing so when the PCs kill one eye and his pack), then I might go over the 250 XP mark that I use as a usual max for encounters. I might award 300, or even 500 XP for the encounter, depending on how important I thought it was to my over all story.

Remember, 500 XP is about the same amount of experience a person gets with an entire half year of normal encounters--awarded from one encounter! So, if you award that much, make sure the encounter was something amazing, revealing new insights about the story or the characters.





Do you see what I mean? I, personally, think the Conan game works better like this (as I think it was intended) than by having a regimented XP system where the combat with the pack of wolves is worth the same amount of XP no matter the other circumstances.

Get yourself a good rule of thumb, and then apply it to the game, adjusting it depending on what happens in the game.

In all four examples above, the same PCs meet up with the same pack of wolves, but the circumstaces become different quickly, changing the value of the encounter.

In short: The GM should judge how valuable an encounter is to the entire game.





EDIT: The XP awards in Betrayer are about the same as you see in Trial of Blood.

 

[Phobos]

My system is to use a guide based on merits, like good interpretation, interest in historic background, give good ideas to solve problems, valor, generosity with fellow PCs and NPCs, etc... It allows them to achieve between 200 to 1000 xP per session.