:3.5x Experience Point Methodologies:

   As compared to the standard rules, the experience point table listed below makes it far more difficult for characters to gain levels. In a stereotypical 3.5 campaign, player characters get better at their class skills and abilities (gain levels) primarily through killing monsters, with everyone tending to earn similar (if not identical) amounts of experience. Under 3.5x house rules, characters are rewarded more for role-playing and coming up with good ideas than they are for slaughtering living creatures; there are simply more ways to earn XP. Thus, the required experience for each level is greater.

   For Campaigns in which only the mightiest of heroes ever reach epic levels, the next XP chart keeps increasing the amount of XP required for the next level (whereas the last XP chart places a cap at +50,000 required for the next level). As I write this, I can't decide which one I would rather use as a DM: so I listed both possibilities.

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   This chart was obviously inspired by the Palladium System experience point table, and blends insights from all editions of Dungeons and Dragons (particularly 2nd Edition). It takes some practice to use this chart: the numbers are merely base awards. A really good clever idea might carry a x3 multiplier for example, making the award 300 instead of 100. A case where a PC went out of her way to avoid violence, especially where she took some insults, might carry a similar multiplier, earning her 600 experience points. As I DM, I keep a running listing of XP awards, labeled with particular symbols I have developed over the years. Asterisks represent good role-playing events for example, and I raise them to a power for multipliers. Thus, a really good role-playing moment might be recorded with an asterisk cubed in my notes. I recommend that if you use the methods listed below you develop your own system of symbols to represent each type of award. This way your XP listing becomes a good metagame tool to improve overall game play: you can show it after game sessions so players know what earns them experience points, and it allows for some back and forth communication on a particularly delicate RPG topic. I know that when I feel that my role-playing and good ideas aren’t being rewarded, I tend to get frustrated: the shared fantasy breaks down. If nothing else, using the awards below will encourage more thinking and less hack and slash. Note that if you aren't using "PSPs" for psionics, you might multiply the psionic awards below by 10 in regard to "power points," or simply treat psionic-use awards like spells. Actions by particularly evil characters can reverse the wording below; "engaging in unnecessary violence" would be an award for example.

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   Dice! events are one of the more unusual house rules to derive from my history of gaming. In my gaming groups, when a gamemaster (and only a gamemaster has the right to do this) points at someone and says “dice!” the other players will immediately attempt to be the first person to throw one of their dice (typically the one with the most sides) at the targeted player. This ritual is complex; the gamemaster can also point (even subtly) at the person to be diced, or point and say things like “dice the fuck out of him!” (for example). There are several ways in which a player becomes eligible for a dice event, but the most common way is by making a diceable comment. These kind of comments are usually bad puns, obnoxious jokes, and similar utterances. A legendary diceable comment goes like this: (after the gamemaster described an orchard) “Are they angry grapes?” “Why?” “Then they’d be the grapes of wrath!” Sometimes players purposefully create diceable situations, and since there is a tangible reward for being the first player to hit the targeted player, occasionally a player will make a diceable comment so other players can benefit, thus “Taking one for the team” (see the creative section’s dice! rules here). Gamemasters also blatantly call dice as a means of social control; they usually announce this fact playfully, partly as a means to defuse the situation. A gamemaster might dice someone in this way for acting too much like the gamemaster (by, for example, asking for rolls as a gamemaster might), or for trying to order (or even ask) the gamemaster to do something. Thus, dice! events are a part of the stereotypical player-gamemaster tension idiom (that is fun to act out). When throwing dice, players usually won’t try to harm one another, unless they fell like being jerks at the moment.

   When a dice! event takes place, after the DM targets a player and some other player hits them with a die first, that type of dice is recorded by the DM in the throwing player’s XP listing. Thus, if a player were the first to hit other players when dice! was called two times in a game session, and these dice were a d20 and a d30 respectively, that player would be “awarded” a d20 and a d30 to keep in their “running dice list.” This award does not involve an actual exchange of dice. Whenever a player gains XP, they are allowed to roll all of the dice in their “running dice list.” These die rolls all become bonus experience points. Thus, the player in the example above who earned a d20 and a d30 for their character will roll (at least) a d20 and a d30 each time that character earns XP, and will thus gain from 2-50 extra XP each time. When characters die, their dice lists usually go with them.

   Dice awards to be added to “running dice lists” can also be made by the DM as one more possible asset to award with experience points. I might throw in an extra 2d24 or so each game session to each player character’s running dice pool while DMing to each character participating in the story. Some other wierd house rules in regard to Diceing are listed below...

• If a player who gets diced catches any dice thrown at her, she earns two times the usual dice award. Thus, if she caught a d30 the DM would award her 2d30 to put in her dice pool the next time XP was awarded. The rules for this are identical to those of kickball or dodge ball, and seem to reflect a longing for older times among players. Anyway, a player who has their thrown die caught is “out.” The DM will usually threaten players that being “out” matters in some way, but actually it seldom does. Occasionally, I’ll subtract the same kind of die thrown from an “out” player’s dice list, but very rarely.
• In the past players have tried to throw dice with non-numeric characters, like d30’s with letters on each face or the roman-replica die. In these cases I have tried to think of a scientific physical constant to use as inspiration for the experience point value of the rolled die.

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   In 3.5x House Rules, the DM records a lot of information while the game progresses. She makes note of individual experience awards using either a system of symbols or actual numbers, she records dice! events (denoted with entries like “[d20]” in her notes), and she records a few other bits of information, all of which are listed below…

• As a DM, I keep a special “DMing page” where I list each character’s name, their alignment, AC, hit points, perceptual characteristics (do they have darkvision? Good hearing?), and any personality characteristics relevant to how that player character will be role-played (so I can better evaluate that performance). To the right of each entry in my notebook, I leave a wide open blanc area for that character’s earned experience (usually denoted with my special symbols) and dice notes. I refer to each of these entries as an “XP entry.”
• Under each XP entry I have a place where I record the damage that character takes since I gave experience points last. This number is used to calculate how many toughness points that character earns. The basic rule is this: a character earns one d4 standard toughness point for every X points of damage he takes, where X is equal to the sum of their maximum hit die rolls divided by 2. Thus, a level one fighter (d10 hit dice) earns one toughness point for every 5 damage taken, while a level 6 sorcerer, level 2 bard earns one toughness point for every 18 points of damage taken. Alternatively, you might award one toughness point each time a character survives a critical hit, or each time a character takes an arbitrary amount of damage. In the past I have used 6, 8, or 10 hit points as this value.
• I also keep a running listing of the natural 1’s and natural 20’s each character rolls somewhere under each “XP entry”. The reason for this relates to how I use the luck stat. Characters can apply their luck stat’s bonus (or avoid it’s penalty) to saving throws if they pass a DC 10 luck check. This DC increases +1 for every natural 1 rolled, and decreases -1 for every natural 20 rolled since XP was last given. Additionally, the DC is at a +1 for every time the character tries (successfully or not) to apply their luck bonus to saving throws (since XP was last given), so I record these in this list as well. Rolling the maximum-best on a non-damage, non-d20 die roll (like rolling 100 on d100 where this is a good thing) results in a “20” entry in this list, and the reverse is true. Thus, a 2nd Edition style ability check on d20, where the result was a 20 (the worst possible) would result in a “1” entry in the 20/1 list the DM keeps. Any character with more 20s than 1s in this record when XP is given receives a bonus 2d6 stat points in luck per extra 20 entry. Particularly evil Dungeon masters might apply the reverse: applying 2d6 negative stat points in a character’s luck stat for each 1 entry that exceeds 20 entries in a character’s 20/1 listing. The 20/1 list is started fresh with no entries after XP is given out.
• The awarding of character points is a function of good role-playing. The method I use is simple: Each “Exceptional role-playing event” as per the XP listing up above usually earns a character one character point when XP is given out.
• Stat points are earned as a function of total experience points earned. The amount of experience points required to earn a stat point is a function of character level (before XP is awarded), using the chart below. After level 7 experience point awards are divided by 500 to determine the number of stat points earned along with XP. By level 12 using these rules, a PC can expect to earn approximately 777.5 stat points, for seven total possible stat increases.

• The awarding of fate points and conditional fate points is a qualitative and subjective process. There is nothing to rely on except a DM’s memory of the game sessions leading up to the XP award. I suggest awarding at least one conditional point per character each time XP is given out, based on things the characters did in the game. If, for example, someone survived a particularly gruesome critical hit, you might give that player a conditional fate point to do the same again, or a conditional d12 toughness point useable for critical hits. These kinds of points give a unique flavor to campaigns which use them.
• A partial list of all the kinds of things a DM can give out in addition to and complementing XP includes: dice to place in “running dice lists”, special points (fate, conditional fate, character, toughness, and stat points), bonuses to saving throws in particular contexts, an extra hit point, a bonus to AC in particular contexts, a base move bonus, damage reduction against particular attack forms, bonus skill points: the sky is the limit, and players will appreciate awards which relate to in-game events. For example: after one particular battle in which a character named Sindar was attacked perhaps 100 times by giants wielding long spears (who nearly always missed), I gave Sindar a permanent +1 AC bonus versus long spears when XP was awarded.

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