Conditions necessary for PC's to "level up"

[tetramorph]

I was reading the fishing and hunting thread and Bartholmew Quarrels's recent post in that thread got me thinking:

How do you folks handling leveling-up in scenarios where PCs never come back to a "home base."

I think an unwritten precedent, ruling-style or play assumption I have picked up on from the guys I play with (and I see I am simply perpetuating this) is that no one gets awarded XP until the PCs are "safe": back at the town, village, inn, tavern, whatever.

I would like to be free of this. But still have some logic to it. What to do?

[finarvyn]

I look for any time they take a rest or reach a safe point such as a town where they can rest up without danger of being ambushed. If they've earned the XP, I like to allow them to level-up ASAP where possible.

[scottanderson]

Find a master, pay for training, spend 1d6 weeks, then get the bennies.

[bestialwarlust]

I tend to gloss over it and usually just allow leveling up during downtime. But I also don't give xp for treasure and monster kills either  

[Admin Pete]

Well first of all there is no "training" in my OD&D, that is a concept that came along later and I could never wrap my mind around it. The "training" is on the job as the PCs adventure. For instance I assume that magic-users have been studying for years and that they already have most of their spells they just need to increase their power and control to the point where they can use more powerful magic.

Nowadays we play about 4-5 hours once per month so if they have earned the XPs they need they level up between game sessions and I don't worry about what was going on when we ended the game for the session. Bitd when we played 10-14 hours twice per week when players were ready to level, I as the ref would look for a good "pause" point, award XP, apply any level-ups that resulted and then "resume" the game.

[makofan]

I do it pretty much the same way as The Perilous Dreamer

[Necromancer]

I'd say during down time, between adventures or when there's a natural break.

[Crimhthan The Great]

Any pause in the action can be used to allow PCs to level up.

[tetramorph]

I guess what I am getting at is that in the way we've usually played we don't get to "lvl up" until the treasure is secured.

So, in a dungeon, we have to get it back to town and "bank" it.

But in an endless wilderness hex crawl, what counts as "safety" for treasure?

[makofan]

Good question! In my Verbosh campaign, they had a few encounters along the road from place A to place B. Since B is a substantial village and fort, and they are regrouping and recruiting, I am going to award xp. I tend to be a bit lax these days.

[The Archivist]

Any break in the action works for me.

[merctime]

I personally enjoy verbiage that Waysoftheearth has used to describe my take on this. Note: I can't recall if it's in the Delving Deeper book itself or in some of his house rules I shamelessly ripped off from him politely borrowed from his online posts.

He states leveling up must occur at a safe-haven, outside of the dungeon or wild wilderness, that players may enjoy uninterrupted rest for their characters or reasonable facsimile thereof.

I'm paraphrasing him above; This is not a faithful quote, but I hope it gets the point across and it's how I do it.

[hengest]

May 2, 2015 15:38:44 GMT -5 merctime said:

I personally enjoy verbiage that Waysoftheearth has used to describe my take on this. Note: I can't recall if it's in the Delving Deeper book itself or in some of his house rules I shamelessly ripped off from him politely borrowed from his online posts.

He states leveling up must occur at a safe-haven, outside of the dungeon or wild wilderness, that players may enjoy uninterrupted rest for their characters or reasonable facsimile thereof.

I'm paraphrasing him above; This is not a faithful quote, but I hope it gets the point across and it's how I do it.

I think I'll do more or less this.  Uninterrupted rest at some kind of safe haven.  Serious breathing room.  No training with some master.  

(Although I do like the idea that advancement has a treasure cost that should in some way be meaningful in the world...)

Advancement is important, it makes people feel like they're going somewhere, like there's some "personal" reward to their character for doing all this (more power, more ability to seek still more power).  But at the same time, I'm not at all certain that I want to focus on power in quite the same way.  I'm struggling with this at the moment.  

I want advancement and am comfortable with a level system.  I think I can figure out how to award XP, not only for treasure.  But I want a balance between player-skill exploration and problem solving and character-power stuff.  So I'm not sure I want to focus the players on advancement at all.  

[solfe]

I know this thread is old, but I have two ways of hand out experience: at the end of the session and immediately. The reward at the end of the session is plain, jane normal. However for immediate awards for good ideas and good role play, I have a stack of index cards with predetermined amounts. 50, 100, 200, 250, and so on. Players can tabulate those any time they are not under threat of combat. If that tiny amount of experience pushes them to the next level, they immediately get all of there HP, abilities and spells.

The times where this actually occurs is pretty infrequent, but its cinematic when it does. One moment they are being driven off by raiders or monsters and take cover. The next moment they swing better, have more hit points and so on. Since the chance of this happening to more than one character is pretty low, usually it's the big darn rescue moment where one person gets a burst of energy and rallies the troops or makes the getaway easier.

Only once did I have it happen to the entire party. They were being hunted down one minute and round after round, they suddenly leveled and kicked butt for the win. That took a combination of events to happen. The party was scattered all over the place trying to escape a castle and each player had a series of good ideas to warrant the immediate award. My personal favor action was a magic user hiding behind a display of suits of armor and pushing them onto enemies. Another character threw a rock in a well and when a guard came to look, the character threw him in. When the second guard arrived to investigate, he got thrown in the well, too. Later the guards were rescued and turned into hirelings.

[moose]

I add XP as it is earned and allow leveling up during time between XP earning events, whether or not you are in town.

[mao]

Jul 24, 2021 22:51:46 GMT -5 moose said:

I add XP as it is earned and allow leveling up during time between XP earning events, whether or not you are in town.

I agree completely . I have never liked the idea of having to do training or any other stuff to go up levels, it happens when it happens.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Jul 29, 2021 8:33:16 GMT -5 mao said:

Jul 24, 2021 22:51:46 GMT -5 moose said:

I add XP as it is earned and allow leveling up during time between XP earning events, whether or not you are in town.

I agree completely . I have never liked the idea of having to do training or any other stuff to go up levels, it happens when it happens.

I never like the training thing from later versions, I always viewed training as two things, one is on the job as you go. Adventurer level because they are continually having adventures way beyond what is normal and this enhanced action ongoing it what causes the leveling up. Also one part of it is that fighter on down time are constantly sparring with each other. That is why some soldiers and officers are way better with weapons, all the sparring causes the best to rise above the average and below average.

[hengest]

solfe's system sounds pretty fun, I wouldn't mind playing in a game like that.

I also like The Perilous Dreamer's idea that training and so on is already more or less accounted for by the nature of their activities. I'm sure there are different ways to play this and it can work great, but the idea of formal training between adventures kind of breaks the whole picture for me.

[The Semi-Retired Gamer]

I always assumed the training happened "off camera", during down time, rest periods, etc. I never really gave much thought about it. I seem to recall we fell in the habit of keeping a running total and either doing any level advancement at the end of the current session or the beginning of the next session.  I have no particular cool insights to add on this one.