Session Experience

There a few main drivers for session-based experience. The first being to allow sessions without combat to have just as much of an impact as those that are combat heavy. The second is to allow a DM to hand out experience at the immediate end of a session without needing to know how much each creature defeated is worth or determining how much experience to give for political maneuvering. The final driver for this method is to reduce the amounts of experience to more managable amounts.

Gaining Experience

At the end of each session the DM will give an amount of experience based on the events of the session and the average level of the characters. Add the given experience to the amount your character started the session at and use the following table to determine when a character gains a level.

Experience Table

Level Required Experience 1st 0 2nd 5 3rd 10 4th 20 5th 30 6th 45 7th 65 8th 85 9th 105 10th 125 11th 150 12th 180 13th 210 14th 245 15th 280 16th 315 17th 355 18th 395 19th 435 20th 475

Handing Out Experience

At the end of the session the DM should give each character present the same amount of experience points based on the average party level and how much progress was made during the session. If more progress was made then anticipated or the party overcame a major goal an additional point of experience can be given out. If little to no progress was made towards a goal one less experience can be given.

An example would be a level 5 party would normally earn 4 experience points each for a session where they explored the local lair of a kobold clan or tracked down an antidote for a local debilitating disease. They might also only earn 3 experience points for a session where they spent most of the time haggling with local merchants and carousing about town trying to find more work. On the flipside of that they might earn 5 experience points for defeating a great beast that had being causing great trouble for the hamlet or overthrowing the local baron.

Additionally the amount given can be adjusted by one to allow for slower or faster leveling. Use the following table to determine the amount of experience to give.

Average Party Level Low Average High 1 - 3 2 3 4 4 - 6 3 4 5 7 - 9 4 5 6 10-12 5 6 7 13-15 6 7 8 16-19 7 8 9