Leveling Up

Point System

• Completing a challenging situation (combat or non-combat encounter, puzzle, environmental obstacle, etc.) will earn one Point.
• Completing a non-challenging situation may still have in-game rewards (treasure, information, influence, obstacles removed, etc.), but no Point reward.
• Completing a climatic or very difficult encounter may earn two or more Points.
• Significant roleplay may earn one Point.
• Points are accumulated then spent to gain the next Level.

Point cost to gain a Level

• Level 2: 4 Points
• Level 3: 6 Points
• Level 4: 8 Points
• Level 5+: 10 Points per level

Characters of Different Levels

A characters with a level lower than the median party level (i.e. a lower level characters travelling with a majority of higher level characters) will earn Points at a slightly faster rate.

• (Median Party Level)/(Character Level) rounded up, then multiplied by the Points earned.
• Example: A 3rd-level character travelling with a party of mostly 5th level characters will earn Points at a 2-to-1 rate (5/3 = 1.67 rounded up to 2).

Personal Growth

For this homebrew game, each player needs to record one significant moment or trait that has emerged during play for their character at the current Level. This could be a challenge overcome, a roleplay moment with other PCs or NPCs, a humorous encounter where the character’s personality shone, or other moment that helped to define the character. It need not be longer than one or two sentences. This log of significant moments helps to define ongoing character development in a sandbox environment. These moments arise naturally and are often the ones that Players come back to in table-talk. While this is a requirement for a character to gain a Level, picking out such a moment should not be too difficult, and is intended to add fun to the game.

Thoughts on Game Design

This is a system that is a sort of hybrid between Experience Points (XP) and Milestone level progression. The XP system gives you a portioned progression toward a level but no strong indicator how many more encounters/challenges will be needed to reach that level. Additive XP makes relative XP for the same kind of encounters/challenges different (overcoming a similar trap at Level 1 and Level 13 will likely have a vastly different XP award associated with it, though it might have the same relative XP ratio toward the next level (say, 5%). The XP system is generic enough, however, to cover just about any situation — one can award a set or relative amount of XP ad hoc based on any challenge.

The Milestone system has the advantage of progressively moving a character toward the next level but is often tied to specific actions or challenges. If there is a significant challenge that is overcome that is not part of the normal progression, it may be difficult to figure out how to count it toward moving to the next level. Milestones are nice in that they let the Player or DM know what needs to happen to gain a level, but does not adapt to unexpected situations.

This new Point system allows for a milestone-like progression but in a generic way like XP. In a way, it may be likened to an XP-percentage meter. Rather than calculating how much XP is needed, you just figure out what percentage you want to move the character toward the next level. No need for complicated XP calculations. Keeping with how 5e is designed, the first 3 levels pass more quickly, then taper off to a rather steady pace at Level 5. There is a recommended point progression above, but it can be adjusted to the pace of progression a DM would like. 5e combat is tailored to roughly 8 challenging combats per level; add in a couple of significant non-combat challenges and you have the 10 points/level recommended. This also makes for an easy view of progress: Every point is a 10% progression to the next level.