"1 XP per GP of treasure acquired. 100 XP per HD for monsters slain."
- Paraphrased/implied from Dungeons & Dragons, Volume 1: Men & Magic (1974). Explanation below.
"The awarding of experience points is often a matter of discussion, for the referee must make subjective judgments. Rather than the (ridiculous) 100 points per level for slain monsters, use the table below, dividing experience equally among all characters in the party involved".
- Supplement I: Greyhawk (1975).
"The judgment factor is inescapable with respect to weighting experience for the points gained from slaying monsters and/or gaining treasure. You must weigh the level of challenge — be it thinking or fighting — versus the level of experience of the player character(s) who gained it [...].
If a 10th level magic-user were to slay 10 kobolds and take their 1,000 gold pieces, the DM should reduce the award by at least 20-fold."
- Dungeon Masters Guide (1979).
"1 XP per GP of treasure acquired. 100 XP per HD for monsters slain. If the results are different, reduce the larger amount of XP (from monsters or treasure) to match the smaller amount. Divide by PC level."
- Suggested rule. Explanation below.
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The 1 XP per GP of treasure acquired. 100 XP per HD for monsters slain is implied in OD&D in this slightly confusing passage:
Experience Points: Experience points are awarded to players by the referee with appropriate bonuses or penalties for prime requisite scores. As characters meet monsters in mortal combat and defeat them, and when they obtain various forms of treasure (money, gems, jewelry, magical items, etc.), they gain "experience".This adds to their experience point total, gradually moving them upwards through the levels. Gains in experience points will be relative; thus an 8th level Magic-User operating on the 5th dungeon level would be awarded 5/8 experience. Let us assume he gains 7,000 Gold Pieces by defeating a troll (which is a 7th level monster, as it has over 6 hit dice). Had the monster been only a 5th level one experience would be awarded on a 5/8 basis as already stated, but as the monster guarding the treasure was a 7th level one experience would be awarded on a 7/8 basis thus; 7,000 G.P. + 700 for killing the troll = 7,700 divided by 8 = 962.5 x 7 = 6,037.5.Experience points are never awarded above a 1 for 1 basis, so even if a character defeats a higher level monster he will not receive experience points above the total of treasure combined with the monster's kill value. It is also recommended that no more experience points be awarded for any single adventure than will suffice to move the character upwards one level. Thus a "veteran" (1st level) gains what would ordinarily be 5,000 experience points; however, as this would move him upwards two levels, the referee should award only sufficient points to bring him to "warrior" (2nd level), say 3,999 if the character began with 0 experience points.
Supplement I: Greyhawk confirms that this was the rule, and then proceeds to call it "ridiculous" and add fiddlier stuff.
Well, turns out the original rules work surprisingly well in play.
Let's analyze it!
First, we'll just use:
- 100 XP per HD for monsters slain.
- Divided by level.
A fighter must (single -handedly) beat 20 orcs gets to level 2. This is no easy feat, but relatively fast.
[I find that single-handedly defeating 100 or 200 orcs to get to level 2 is an obvious exaggeration and makes almost impossible to make to level 2 if you play exactly by the book IMO].
Forty more orcs will get him to level 3.
To get to level 4, he'll have to face 120 additional orcs.
Level 5, 320 more.
Level 6 requires 800 additional orcs slain, and so on.
So there is a quick (but dangerous) ascent to level 3 and things get slower after that.
Taking down a 10 HD monster is even more dangerous than fighting 10 1 HD monster, so there are no shortcuts there either.
I like it, as levels 3-8 are the best levels to play D&D IMO.
I dislike the byzantine rules for taking dungeon level into account; IMO they're fiddly and unnecessary. I'm not sure if/how it applies to wilderness encounters. I'll skip them for now.
Supplement I: Greyhawk significantly reduces the XP gained from monsters slain, so you have to take most of your XP from treasure. But in AD&D we can see that around 10 HD monsters starting giving an average of... 100 XP per HD, or even more!
But the combination of these rules seem enough to discourage any type of "XP farming", as it would either take too long or be too dangerous (e.g., taking 100 orcs at once).
The other shortcut to advance quickly is getting lots of treasure without opposition. In the DMG, Gygax admits that it is up to the DM to come up with actual XP values based on circumstances, defined very vaguely. In his example, getting 1.000 gold from 10 kobolds will only give you 50 XP... which is similar to the XP you get by defeating the kobolds in the first place!
Notice how easy it would be to say your XP gains are limited both by the HD and GP.
In other words: you get 100 XP per HD for monsters slain/defeated, and 1 XP per GP of treasure acquired, but you limit each amount XP for whichever is worse. You still divide by level.
The idea is that finding treasure without danger or "farming" XP by killing monsters without motive will give you no XP. Well, "NO XP" is probably too harsh, so maybe reduce the XP to 10% of the original value (if the PCs found 10.000 gp lying on the road, there is something wrong with the adventure design...).
Let's try a few examples.
A) You find a troll (700 XP) with 7.000 gold. You get 700 XP for killing the troll, and also 700 XP for the gold (the XP for gold is limited to 7000). Notice the gold is not exactly "wasted"; you got a lot richer!
B) You find a troll with 400 gp of treasure. Now you get 400 XP for the gold but only 400 XP for slaying the troll.
C) You find 10 orcs (1.000 XP total) and they have 3.000 GP. You only get a total of 2.000 XP; 1.000 for the orcs and 1.000 for the gold.
(In all these examples, you can give the PCs a 10% prize for the amount that surpasses the limit; so 630 XP in example A, 30 XP in example B, and 100 XP in example C. This is a bit fiddly but still easy IMO. The important thing is that PCs advance in a speed that suits your group);
Special powers, abilities, etc. I'd just say they add 50% of the XP value to make things easier. Thus, a 10 HD monsters counts as 15 HD with one special power, 20 HD if it has two special powers and so on. I do not think you need a separate system for 6+1 HD monsters. Creatures of 1-1 or 1+1 HD might deserve special treatment depending on which cleave rules you're using, but I won't get into that here.
Treasure protected by traps. There is no easy way here; the DM has to consider how dangerous the trap is, when compared to a monster.
Averaging it all out. You do not have to do the math for each room or encounter. Just average everything out by the end of the day (or by the end of the expedition - AD&D suggests they must take the gold to town to get the XP). So if the PCs face A, B, and C in the same day, they have 2.400 XP from monsters and also 2.400 XP from the 10.400 GP they've acquired. Interestingly, this would be a reason to discourage frequent resting...
Hopefully, this achieves all I wanted from the XP system:
- Simple enough to calculate on the fly without a table or calculator.
- Requires a little less guess-work by the DM.
- Makes PCs level-up in a speed that is more to my liking.
- Very hard to exploit by acquiring treasure without danger or killing monsters for no reason.
Minimalistic addendum! All this exercise is interesting but I wonder if you could just run the game with 1 GP = 1 XP OR 100 XP per HD, whichever is better.
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