OD&D’s XP Penalty is Extraneous

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There is a somewhat frustrating rule in OD&D that experience points gained in lower-level dungeons (relative to character level) result in less experience points for characters of higher level. For example, a second-level character who gains XP from a first-level dungeon gets 1/2 the experience points they would have earned from a dungeon of their own level. The reasoning is that this penalizes characters for trying to grind treasure and monsters on lower levels, instead of seeking out a worthier challenge. But this feels like the most complicated approach to balance.

The increasing experience requirements of higher levels already make lower level excursions less valuable than higher level ones. To take a simple case, assume that most monsters on a first-level dungeon have 1 HD and most on a second-level dungeon have 2 HD. These monsters earn 100 or 200 XP respectively, by nature of their HD value.

Consider then a typical character who requires 2,000 XP to advance from first to second level, and then 4,000 XP for third level. Wait a second—that’s not 4,000 new XP but 4,000 total XP (an additional 2,000 XP). At this early stage, before progress requirements become truly exponential, the 1 HD monster truly is as valuable to the second-level character as to the first-level character since to both it results in 5% of the XP necessary to level up. The rule at first glance then really does help balance characters, turning the 1 HD monster into just 50 XP for a second-level character (although, past second level, it becomes extraneous as the 'distance' between XP brackets increases).

However, that would not be necessary at all if the experience requirements were already calibrated with respect to relative value. Rather than a character needing 4,000 total XP to advance (2,000 XP in addition to the 2,000 they already have), they should require 4,000 new XP instead. The effect would be that a 1 HD monster is worth 5% XP for a first-level character and a 2 HD monster would be worth 10% XP, while they would be worth 2.5% and 5% XP respectively for a second-level one.

Alternatives

Below is a possible new scheme for XP, based on the idea that a challenge of some level should result in XP % gained proportional to the level of a given character. Notice how although the early XP brackets do not increase exponentially like in the original rules, the final XP total is still comparable to the total XP of high-level characters in the original rules—if only halved, which is not bad and may even be desirable. As originally, 1 HD earns 100 XP.

Proportional Scheme

Level New XP Total XP
Level 1 0 0
Level 2 2,000 2,000
Level 3 4,000 6,000
Level 4 6,000 12,000
Level 5 8,000 20,000
Level 6 10,000 30,000
Level 7 12,000 42,000
Level 8 14,000 56,000
Level 9 16,000 72,000
Level 10 18,000 90,000

If we wanted to be more radical, we could say that each level requires ten times itself in XP to advance to the next level (e.g. 10 XP to advance from first level to second level) and that 1 HD = 1 XP with treasures being worth 1-10 XP per dungeon level. This would keep things pretty simple, and at the same scale as the above.

Simplified Scheme A

Level New XP Total XP
Level 1 0 0
Level 2 10 10
Level 3 20 30
Level 4 30 60
Level 5 40 100
Level 6 50 150
Level 7 60 210
Level 8 70 280
Level 9 80 360
Level 10 90 450

If you switched so that you needed XP equal to (ten times) the next level to advance, it does not change that much except that it sorta “nerfs” monster XP—for example, a 1 HD monster is now worth 3.3% XP (1/30) instead of 5% XP (1/20) for a second-level character trying to progress towards the third level. There is also the benefit that zeroth-level characters could be said to require 10 XP to become first-level characters. Notice also that fourth-level characters require 100 total XP! Looking at you, W.D.!

Simplified Scheme B

Level New XP Total XP
Level 0 0 0
Level 1 10 10
Level 2 20 30
Level 3 30 60
Level 4 40 100
Level 5 50 150
Level 6 60 210
Level 7 70 280
Level 8 80 360
Level 9 90 450
Level 10 100 550

I don’t know. Any of these three methods seems more intuitive than the RAW. Although the exponential scale seems enticing, if only to stretch out the length of the campaign and represent increasingly powerful characters, the resultant bloat is unappealing to me.

Comments

  1. Jon L.December 14, 2022 at 2:05 AM

    I guess for me, as someone who has never run anything from the old school, I guess I want to know why it matters? Why would you ever be putting something in front of your players if it isn't a good challenge? Would that not just be a waste of time?

    In the context of how I remember reading about how OD&D works, that dungeon levels correspond to the strength of the monsters, why, if you're practicing Gygaxian dungeon ecology, would you not have the monsters (as they move back into dungeon levels after they've been cleared) get stronger over time, not just over dungeon levels?

    I love the actual experience system you've designed. It's so similar to the way PbtA games work, where to level up, you need 7+your current level XP to level up. So to go from 1st to 2nd, it's 8xp. To go from 9th to 10th, it's 16. It's not exponential, but XP isn't just arbitrarily large numbers.

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    Replies
    1. Marcia B.December 14, 2022 at 2:48 PM

      in more old-school (i.e. modern, as opposed to gygaxian play) having less balanced dungeons and monsters has become much more common! that being said, in both old-school and "classic" gygaxian play, environments exist in the world not because they are put in front of players, but because players discover them or revisit them. the assumption of the rule is that there exists a level-one dungeon and that players should be disincentivized from recurrently looting them. although restocking the dungeons with more dangerous monsters is a good and common approach, the rule is just from the standpoint that there still exist "easier" dungeons in the world.

      Delete
  2. kencoDecember 15, 2022 at 3:03 AM

    Nice. I have never used the original rules' XP adjustment for monsters (or is it dungeons?) of lwer level than the character, as it seems far too fiddly. A simple way to deal with the oddity of level 1->2 XP costs being the same as level 2->3 XP costs is to grant new 1st level characters starting XP equal to 1/2 the XP cost for 2nd level, e.g. 1000 XP for a 1st level Fighting Man.

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    Replies
    1. Marcia B.December 20, 2022 at 5:43 AM

      that is a really handy hack! and you're totally right in general, i have seen some rulebooks (errant comes to mind) that intentionally go out of their way to change XP benchmarks so that 1st level characters need less XP than 2nd level ones do :)

      Delete
  3. CanyonDecember 15, 2022 at 11:43 AM

    In your games, do you have a feel for how many sessions it takes the average character to level up?

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    Replies
    1. Marcia B.December 20, 2022 at 5:44 AM

      so i actually tend to play mostly in one-shots! but in the few campaigns i've been in, i think it took maybe 2-4 sessions (maybe once a month?) to level up. which feels nice to me! :)

      Delete
  4. ParticularistDecember 20, 2022 at 10:15 AM

    I agree the bloat seems unpleasant, and your latter simplifications don't take into account XP for treasure. I have been thinking about this problem myself in the process of running my own games derived from OD&D for the past 1 year.

    My own observations are that I don't actually want to penalize the 2nd or 3rd level characters for being in content designed to challenge 1st level characters. The dungeon levels don't even line up perfectly with character levels by-the-book anyway. I think characters can reasonably expect to stay on "level 1" of a megadungeon until 4th character level. I haven't come to any decisions yet, but my inclination is towards penalizing only characters well above the intended level of difficulty. At the moment I've been doubling treasure at each dungeon level, which has been sufficient motivation, but we'll see.

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    Replies
    1. Marcia B.December 20, 2022 at 10:29 AM

      hi! i should've mentioned that in the simplified schemes, i'd use my simplified treasure/xp rule :)

      but also that is totally agreeable! at early levels they are so likely to die and be replaced anyway, so it's not unreasonable to keep the benchmarks at similar amounts!

      Delete

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