[ADnD 2e] What's up with the Second Edition xp charts?

[Lokathor]

I haven't ever looked closely at the charts for anything above 5th level despite owning the book for over a decade, so when I was examining it today as part of a project I'm working on I noticed that some of the numbers are weird. Rather than each class having just more or less to level up based on class power, the amount needed between each level also shifts around.

As a specific example, the Wizard, which starts off slower than the fighter, speeds up right around level 7 or so and at level 12 is an entire level ahead of the wizard before slowing down again and ending up behind the fighter at level 20.

What the fuck?

And for reference in case anyone forgot or doesn't have their books:

Code: Select all

Lvl       Ftr    Rng/Pal        Wiz        Cle        Dru        Rog
1           0          0          0          0          0          0
2       2,000      2,250      2,500      1,500      2,000      1,250
3       4,000      4,500      5,000      3,000      4,000      2,500
4       8,000      9,000     10,000      6,000      7,500      5,000
5      16,000     18,000     20,000     13,000     12,500     10,000
6      32,000     36,000     40,000     27,500     20,000     20,000
7      64,000     75,000     60,000     55,000     35,000     40,000
8     125,000    150,000     90,000    110,000     60,000     70,000
9     250,000    300,000    135,000    225,000     90,000    110,000
10    500,000    600,000    250,000    450,000    125,000    160,000
11    750,000    900,000    375,000    675,000    200,000    220,000
12  1,000,000  1,200,000    750,000    900,000    300,000    440,000
13  1,250,000  1,500,000  1,125,000  1,125,000    750,000    660,000
14  1,500,000  1,800,000  1,500,000  1,350,000  1,500,000    880,000
15  1,750,000  2,100,000  1,875,000  1,575,000  3,000,000  1,100,000
16  2,000,000  2,400,000  2,250,000  1,800,000  3,500,000  1,320,000
17  2,250,000  2,700,000  2,625,000  2,025,000  4,000,000  1,540,000
18  2,500,000  3,000,000  3,000,000  2,250,000  5,000,000  1,760,000
19  2,750,000  3,300,000  3,375,000  2,475,000  5,500,000  1,980,000
20  3,000,000  3,600,000  3,750,000  2,700,000  6,000,000  2,200,000

[Zinegata]

It's a completely arbitrary chart. There's really no sense in it.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The druid vs. cleric is even more egregious. I honestly have no idea why they're so insane. My best guess is a combination of the imagined learning curve of the profession and the imagined power of the abilities gained at any particular level.

[hogarth]

It's purely for historical reasons (Gygax). How he came up with his numbers is a mystery. At least the 2E druid didn't get level 2 spells at level 2...

[Zinegata]

The druid vs. cleric is even more egregious. I honestly have no idea why they're so insane. My best guess is a combination of the imagined learning curve of the profession and the imagined power of the abilities gained at any particular level.

If I recall right, Druids get Arch Druid status when they pay up that insane 3M XP, but it's not really that good of a bump anyway.

I also recall how Baldur's Gate optimizers would take advantage of these funky charts to make the best dual-class combinations.

[Lokathor]

The druid vs. cleric is even more egregious. I honestly have no idea why they're so insane. My best guess is a combination of the imagined learning curve of the profession and the imagined power of the abilities gained at any particular level.

If I recall right, Druids get Arch Druid status when they pay up that insane 3M XP, but it's not really that good of a bump anyway.

I also recall how Baldur's Gate optimizers would take advantage of these funky charts to make the best dual-class combinations.

Yeah that was one of the mods I jumped for when i got BG recently, no XP limits. Then you can just multi/dual however you want and not worry about it.

[CCarter]

What the fuck?

Well here was my theory (for 1st edition). I don't recall offhand if there was any substantial changes in the xp tables between 1st and 2nd. (looking at your numbers I'm suspecting yes, but same principles apply).

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=157424

[PoliteNewb]

I don't recall offhand if there was any substantial changes in the xp tables between 1st and 2nd. (looking at your numbers I'm suspecting yes, but same principles apply).

Very minor differences.

--Fighters were slightly faster in 2nd edition to 1st.
--Paladins were considerably faster (in 2E vs. 1E) at higher levels (above 8th, 1E Paladins needed 350K per level, while 2E only need 300K...so each level is cumulatively 50K cheaper).
--Wizards are identical, but Illusionists (from 1E) advanced faster (at higher levels, a lot faster).
--Clerics were identical, as were Druids (but in 1E they couldn't go past 14th, and in 2E they can).
--Thieves were identical.
--Monks and Assassins weren't in 2E, so no comparison.
--Bards were batshit crazy in 1E, so no point comparing to 2E Bards.

In general, the basic rule was to roughly double every level until 9th or so, after which you advanced by a fixed amount. The main problem was classes like the Wizard and Druid, who didn't stick to this formula and thus got RAPID advancement at the mid levels (6th to 9th)...so Wizards go from being behind the Fighter to a whole level ahead, and Druids end up 2 levels ahead of Fighters and Clerics by 11th.

So yeah, the tables were basically entirely arbitrary. My personal guess is that Wizard and Druid were the favorite classes of Gygax and some of his cronies, so they ended up better...same as 3E, from what I hear.

Also, Druid spell progression was crazygonuts in 1E...everybody else got roughly a new spell level every odd...so 1st spells at First, 2nd spells at Third, and 3rd spells at Fifth. Druids got 2nd at Second, and 3rd at Third.
Compared to Clerics, druids got:
2nd 1 level early
3rd 2 levels early
4th 1 level early
5th and 6th at the same level (but remember, Druids were hitting 11th level and 6th spells at 200K XP...whereas Clerics were hitting 9th and 5th spells at 225K XP)
7th FOUR levels early

I guess Druids have always been a big favorite of the designers.

[Lokathor]

Very interesting.

Anyways I was playing Baulder's Gate the other day and realized that even as you go up in 2e the kinds of adventures you have don't meaningfully change as much as they do in 3e, which is a real barrier for high level play in 3e. So I set about exploring the possibility of 2e being converted to a d20-like system, and with a dash of more modern game design being put in here or there, you know.

So far just the Intro page and Stats section. I'm going to work on races and classes and I might be done with most of those by the end of the week.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11833524/Fantas ... 202.35.pdf

Current big changes from 2e:
`Exceptional Strength is a Warrior class feature regardless of your strength score, and strengths above 18 have been adjusted to scale properly without 18/00 in there and such.
`Spell failure for clerics has currently been taken out, because it only applied to clerics with 9 through 12 wis anyways, so it was a dumb edge case rule.

[CCarter]

Thanks PoliteNewb. Yes, interesting.


BTW, I think there are already a few AD&D variants with d20 additive core mechanics out there.

Chris Perkins' "AD&D 3E" is one such (free rpg-
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/dnd3e/cnc ... kmaterials ), or there's "Castles and Crusades" though that one has a $ cost (I have only heard of this one, not read it).

[Username17]

Wow, I'm 11 pages in to Chris Perkin's AD&D 3, and I am reminded how much I fucking hate Chris Perkins. Tables of allowed classes by race? Top Heavy and non-linear ability bonus charts? Tables that don't do anything at all (Racial Ability Score Limits, I'm looking at you)? What the fuck? Chris Perkins is not a visionary, and he has no idea why any of the things in AD&D worked at the time or what things were genuinely bad ideas.

Skipping ahead, he has unique class advancement charts, 2/3 BAB progressions, and wildly unbalanced races. Holy crap that's bad.

There were many things that 3E D&D went in the wrong direction with. There are many things they did incompletely or with bad accompanying mathematics. But that doesn't mean that XP tables were ever a good idea.

As things advance, we get a more unified vision of what the word "Level" means. For all 4e's numerous faults, they were off to a rockin start when they made a universal character growth chart, set monster level to the level you're supposed to fight them, and defined a 5th level spell as "a spell you get when you hit 5th level." Setting the clock back on those advances just shows that you don't know what a good mechanic looks or sounds like.

-Username17

[Lokathor]

BTW, I think there are already a few AD&D variants with d20 additive core mechanics out there.

Chris Perkins' "AD&D 3E" is one such (free rpg-
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/dnd3e/cnc ... kmaterials ), or there's "Castles and Crusades" though that one has a $ cost (I have only heard of this one, not read it).

What the fuck is this shit? I don't even. Arbitrarium that's hard to learn is not what I want, I want arbitrarium that's easy to learn.

Some of those weird 2e things I was going to dump, some of them I was going to keep just for shits and giggles and because the target audience for a game like this doesn't take the game too seriously in the first place. I'd rather make it similar enough to past editions that converting a ODnD/ADnD/ADnD2e monster or adventure is almost no work at all; 'cause I'm cool and all, but I'm seriously just one guy here and I've got lots of things to do so even a partial conversion of like 1000 pages of core books is still a lot of work to put in for a product that no one will ever take seriously.

A quick list of all the things that, off the top of my head, I currently plan to either change or specifically to not change just from flipping through my 2e PHB:

• Exceptional Strength is available to all warriors at any strength, it's just a thing they have like how thieves have move silently.
• Wisdom is now Willpower, because it sounds better and crap.
• No divine spell failure for lower willpower.
• Classes come in four groups and you can't multiclass between two classes in the same group.
• Random hitpoints in, separate XP charts stay, you still stop gaining hit dice after 10th level (but everyone gets 10, not some at 9 and some at 10).
• Need to fix the wizard and druid chart so that they stay consistent.
• Dual Classing and Multi-Classing are still in, though maybe all races can do both options (though not at the same time obviously).
• Non-Human level limits are out.
• Humans get +10% EXP as their racial power.
• Alignment is out
• some sort of skill system is in, but it'll probably be just as arbitrary as any other sort of thing in terms of what's a skill and how much ground a skill covers. Characters will be able to get skill points even without having to level up.
• Ascending AC and Saving Throws.
• No more weapon speed crap.
• GP recovered = XP is in, cause that's awesome.

Also honestly I hate that "old dnd book" style of text/charts/formatting. It makes my eyes burn.

EDIT: also, fuck chris perkins for not even publishing his own crap under the OGL properly.

[PoliteNewb]

I'm about 60 pages in writing my d20 AD&D fantasy heartbreaker. I started with a fairly simple port of AD&D playstyle, but then I started trying to fix everything that was wrong with d20 AND AD&D, and now I'm mired in shit. I have hopes of getting it all straightened out eventually, though.

Seriously though, Frank is right...there is so much crap AD&D did wrong, and some kind of pseudo-luddite "turn back the clock" approach to game design is not helpful, or desirable.

Lokathor, 2 comments on your design.

1.) Open multiclassing and generic advancement is one of the best innovations to come out of 3E, and IMO everything possible should be done to keep it. AD&D multiclassing worked...kinda. Dual-classing just flat DID NOT WORK.
Granted, 3E's multiclassing actually blows in application, because a Ftr3/Wiz3 is not worth a Wiz6 (or even a Ftr6, depending on whether you let fighters have nice things). But that can be fixed...and probably should be. A system where you decide what each level is as you take it is the ideal.

My current thought is to actually give XP bonuses for multiclassing...because you're diversifying (not stacking) your levels, you advance faster so you don't fall behind the power curve. Would something like this work:?

Subtract your highest class level from your character level; +20% x the difference.

2.) GP = XP needs to die in a fire. Wealth should be decoupled from power as much as possible, and that includes levels.

[CatharzGodfoot]

This might be crazy, but I'd just roll multi-classing and dual-classing into one. At any level, you can start advancing levels of a second class; you have to advance it up to the level of your original class, and then you advance the two in parallel. 3 class multis can go fuck themselves.

[mean_liar]

I always thought the XP progressions did a decent job of addressing multiclassing. If A and B had the same XP totals but B was a Fighter/Cleric, then that meant B was probably only 1 or 2 levels lower in their classes than A.

[Username17]

Thinking back to 2e AD&D is hard, because I abandoned it back in the early 90s. But I think that 3e did go in the wrong direction on a bunch of things, even though - and this cannot be said enough - it was overall a tremendous advance.

• 3e took hit point inflation too far, or at least didn't make damage grow fast enough to make that work (4e is even worse about this).
• Wealth By Level + Diablo items was a bad idea all the time (4e is even worse about this).
• Skill Points were a worse implementation than 2E AD&D Secondary Skills. Weird, but true. (4e's skill system had promise, but fucked everything up in a different way).
• Monsters became too complicated (4e partially fixed this problem, but only at the cost of removing all flavor and description)
• Number inflation went too far and broke the RNG (4e is actually even worse about this)

There are lots of places in the game where you could totally go a different direction and have that be fine.

• Multiclassing only kinda works in 3e, just as it only kinda worked in AD&D. But honestly, while you could make a system where a Fighter 3 / Rogue 3 was a 6th level character (with ability accumulation) or a 3rd level character (with ability selection), the 2nd edition system where they tried to get you to accept a Fighter 3 / Thief 3 as a 4th level character is bullshit.
• You could go go with prestige classes or with a classplosion or with kits. I honestly don't even care, so long as you pick something and stick with it.

But there are a lot of things that were non-negotiably advances. If you try to regress any of these, I will find a way to punch you in the dick with my mind:

• Open race/class combinations.
• Standardized Save Types.
• Attack Bonuses versus AC as a TN.
• Universal "Roll High" action resolution.
• Abandoning "Mother May I" item creation.
• Standardized XP chart
• Getting rid of fractional stat points.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

My DM for the AD&D sessions decided everyone uses the Fighter chart.

The campaigns ended around level 6-10 so we didn't see the worst of class disparity.

[Lokathor]

[*] 3e took hit point inflation too far, or at least didn't make damage grow fast enough to make that work (4e is even worse about this).

Not doing this.

[*] Wealth By Level + Diablo items was a bad idea all the time (4e is even worse about this).

Not doing this.

[*] Skill Points were a worse implementation than 2E AD&D Secondary Skills. Weird, but true. (4e's skill system had promise, but fucked everything up in a different way).

Was gonna do something like this, and honestly just bullshit the whole section and give everyone 4 skill points per level and not even worry about it being potentially horrible. Happen to have a better plan?

[*] Monsters became too complicated (4e partially fixed this problem, but only at the cost of removing all flavor and description)

Not doing this.

[*] Number inflation went too far and broke the RNG (4e is actually even worse about this)

Not doing this.

[*] Multiclassing only kinda works in 3e, just as it only kinda worked in AD&D. But honestly, while you could make a system where a Fighter 3 / Rogue 3 was a 6th level character (with ability accumulation) or a 3rd level character (with ability selection), the 2nd edition system where they tried to get you to accept a Fighter 3 / Thief 3 as a 4th level character is bullshit.

but, but, but.... yeah alright that's a fair assessment I guess.

[*] You could go go with prestige classes or with a classplosion or with kits. I honestly don't even care, so long as you pick something and stick with it.

Augh, so much work. Yeah probably gonna end up with minor classplosion type results.

But there are a lot of things that were non-negotiably advances. If you try to regress any of these, I will find a way to punch you in the dick with my mind:

oh no! but i like my dick!

[*] Open race/class combinations.

In.

[*] Standardized Save Types.

Not in, but at least saves are all bonuses that you add to a d20 to get to a DC, that's better right?

[*] Attack Bonuses versus AC as a TN.

In.

[*] Universal "Roll High" action resolution.

First thing to go in.

[*] Abandoning "Mother May I" item creation.

Yeah whatever. That's like high level crap no one really cares about because it's not dungeon crawling. But okay.

[*] Standardized XP chart

Probably gonna go with Pathfinder on this one and have 2 or 3 charts and say "pick one to use in your game".

[*] Getting rid of fractional stat points.

Warriors get "Exceptional Strength" which is a big fat bonus to all the strength related bonuses, but they get it regardless of what strength they're at, and when they go up in strength that doesn't affect their exceptional strength rating (10/63 just becomes 11/63 and no complex bullshit).

[Username17]

Warriors get "Exceptional Strength" which is a big fat bonus to all the strength related bonuses, but they get it regardless of what strength they're at, and when they go up in strength that doesn't affect their exceptional strength rating (10/63 just becomes 11/63 and no complex bullshit).

That is stupid and clunky. Seriously, you're giving a class feature that is a bonus to the strength bonus but isn't a bonus to strength? What the fuck is the point of that?

Not in, but at least saves are all bonuses that you add to a d20 to get to a DC, that's better right?

If you ask anyone to make a save versus Rods/Staves, I will punch you in the dick with psychic powers that I will spontaneously manifest for this righteous purpose.

Probably gonna go with Pathfinder on this one and have 2 or 3 charts and say "pick one to use in your game".

This is dumb. The Pathfinder solution is crappy. Yes, people want to advance at different rates for different games. The solution is to give out XP at different rates, not to hold XP awards static and vary the number of XP people need to advance. You want people to know how much an XP is worth and you want people to be able to gain system mastery to the point of being able to reproduce the advancement chart from memory.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

[*] Skill Points were a worse implementation than 2E AD&D Secondary Skills. Weird, but true. (4e's skill system had promise, but fucked everything up in a different way).

Was gonna do something like this, and honestly just bullshit the whole section and give everyone 4 skill points per level and not even worry about it being potentially horrible. Happen to have a better plan?

Yeah, just give people secondary skills (gambler, miner, teamster, etc). Spot and Listen should not be things that a character can fall behind on, and class exclusive skills should just be class abilities.

[Koumei]

Why the hate for race-class restrictions, Frank? I can only approve of anything that tells dorfs and halflings to go die in a fire.

[Lokathor]

That is stupid and clunky. Seriously, you're giving a class feature that is a bonus to the strength bonus but isn't a bonus to strength? What the fuck is the point of that?

eh.... yeah alright none of that then. It seemed like a good idea at 3am!

If you ask anyone to make a save versus Rods/Staves, I will punch you in the dick with psychic powers that I will spontaneously manifest for this righteous purpose.

D:

I thought we'd all agreed long ago that Fort/Ref/Will was a horrible save split system. If not them, then what would be the categories?

I do like all saves being against a fixed DC though, and all saves just becoming easier for everyone all the time as you level up. It's not even fair, and it's not really sane, but that's one thing that I do like about 2e.

This is dumb. The Pathfinder solution is crappy. Yes, people want to advance at different rates for different games. The solution is to give out XP at different rates, not to hold XP awards static and vary the number of XP people need to advance. You want people to know how much an XP is worth and you want people to be able to gain system mastery to the point of being able to reproduce the advancement chart from memory.

Yeah alright, I'll just use the Warrior chart then. It's the easiest to make sense of.

Yeah, just give people secondary skills (gambler, miner, teamster, etc). Spot and Listen should not be things that a character can fall behind on, and class exclusive skills should just be class abilities.

Remember that a skill check is an extension of a stat check, and that a stat check is 1d20+Stat. Not Stat Modifier, Stat itself. If it's unopposed then you need to get 21+ for a success. Most situations are considered normal enough to fall within the "use + or - 2" rule. Opposed checks are a roll off instead of just targeting 21. So, if you "fall behind" on spot by like 3 points or whatever it doesn't even matter a huge deal because your base value is your full [Willpower or Intelligence or Constitution I dunno which] and that's like 10 or 12 just walking out the door.

Edit: I want to reiterate that the hope was to come up with a functional system that can use 1e/2e monsters and adventures right out of the book or with minimal conversion. The player side of things can be all different, but hopefully old modules and stuff will still be functional under the new system.

[Quantumboost]

Why the hate for race-class restrictions, Frank? I can only approve of anything that tells dorfs and halflings to go die in a fire.

People would still be dwarfs and halflings, it just means that the people who wanted to play dwarves would end up going SUPER SCOTTISH STEREOTYPE and your Kender ratios would skyrocket. This is not a good thing.

If you want to tell people who want to play those to go die in a fire, just do that. That will actually accomplish the goal, rather than having tremendous collateral damage all over the place and making the problem even worse.

[Zinegata]

I always thought the XP progressions did a decent job of addressing multiclassing. If A and B had the same XP totals but B was a Fighter/Cleric, then that meant B was probably only 1 or 2 levels lower in their classes than A.

I kinda get what you're saying. It is a bit weird that in 3E, it takes an equal amount of XP to make a Level 5 Wizard and a Fighter 2/Wizard 3 multiclasser, but the latter is seriously shafted because he can't cast level 3 spells.

It gets even worse at higher levels, as losing spellcaster levels really hurt.

OTOH, one could also blame the 3.X imbalance between casters and non-casters.

[JonSetanta]

We should really have one save type and add the various stats to that when needed and I'm not even going to care, internet dickpunch, etc.