I’m thinking about switching to DW from DnD Next and it all looks ok for me aside one thing – gaining XP and…

I’m thinking about switching to DW from DnD Next and it all looks ok for me aside one thing – gaining XP and…

I’m thinking about switching to DW from DnD Next and it all looks ok for me aside one thing – gaining XP and levelling. In DW it seems it is very fast compared to DnD (especially with old school XP values). Characters get XP mar every time they roll on 6-, right? So actually they are on 2nd level after longer fight? (7 + lvl XP to achieve new lvl?). It seems like I don’t get something here and I’d like to hear what it is.

30 thoughts on “I’m thinking about switching to DW from DnD Next and it all looks ok for me aside one thing – gaining XP and…”

  5. It’s kinda quick at the beginning, but slows down the longer the game goes on. In my first 2 hour session, I had two of the four players level with the other two close behind. However after they increased stats and started to streamline their rolling, less failures happened, really curbing their exp growth

  6. Daniele Di Rubbo Iacopo Benigni Nikitas Thlimmenos Tim Franzke know far more than me on the topic.

    In general, I’d say that the second level is attainable in a couple of sessions, with the progression becoming slower after that. it seems unlikely that a single fight could be enough to make a level, not even a very big one. 

    Also, consider that there are other ways to get XP: see the end of session move! If I remember correctly, at the end of the session characters gain 1 XP for each one of these conditions they have satisfied:

    – resolved a Bond with a party member 

    – discovered something important about the world

    – defeated an important enemy

    – looted some wonderful treasure

    – acted according to their alignment (as per character sheet)

  7. What Alberto (and all the others) said. Obviously, each time you gain a level you should increase a stat. When you do that, failing become less and less probable, and you need more and more XP to gain the next level.

    Generally though, DW isn’t really about making XP and gaining levels; it’s about the story and that’s not a catch-phrase!

  8. Jacek Brzezowski I also thought that leveling would be too quick, then I actually ran a game and found out it wasn’t. There was a lot about DW that I expected to need a adjustment based only on a read, however actual play changed my opinion – DW works fine right out of the “box”.

  10. It is also easy to adjust XP to taste, but for me that means making it faster! My suggestion is to play the game as written and try to decouple assumptions about how things ought to work, because it will be weird and different but it works exactly as it is supposed to.

  12. I found it was usually about the rate of once per session, faster than other people have said here, although as a GM I like handing out XP so I might have been encouraging moves and being particularly lenient on interpretation of end of session XP gains.

    As Jason Morningstar says though, its not necessarily a bad thing to level fast. In fact I really don’t understand the aversion to it many traditional D&D players have, but to each their own.

  13. Michael Walsh Have you played any older DnD? For most of the games leveling up was actually hard work and very anticipated moment. With DW it seems it just happens somewhere in the background. Yes, I know I need just to playtest it for myself but this is really a game changer and it makes me think how it will turn out to be successor of classic fantasy DnD games in terms of fun aspect. We already had two sessions with DnD Next and my group is almost in 2nd level so this will be changing a lot.

     I also wonder (keeping in mind all above) how well are classic DnD modules adapted under DW.  I would think that adventures ment for characters to progress let’s say from level 1 to 3 would make characters progress a lot faster and on higher levels on the other side slower?

  14. Jacek Brzezowski TBH that usually put me off playing them. I’ve just started a game of PF with a friend as GM, so we’ll see, but yeah I’ve always thought the idea that advancement should be slow for the sake of being slow as boring.

    Also, since levelisn’t such a huge factor in your ability to handle danger, it doesn’t really matter what level the module is designed for before its converted for DW.

  15. Jacek Brzezowski no, really, Dungeon World does not work in that way. The amount of PX you get is not related to the adventure, in classic terms. You get XP for what you do, not for what you encounter.

  18. I’ve run Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and In Search of the Unknown in DW. They both work fine.

    Unlike older editions of D&D, levels in DW don’t “mean” as much: they don’t directly increase your power (for the most part), they just give you one more option. HP don’t go up and there’s no such thing as ThAC0, so the only time your character gets directly better is when the one stat point you have to spend every level nudges a stat up one category (or if you put it in Constitution and get one extra HP).

  19. HPs don’t go up? Well, I have missed that one and I LOVE IT. I hate DnD concept of HPs growing so fast. That said – levels really don’t seem much a problem for me. Thank you all. I’m sold on that one 😀

  22. Yeah HP, “skills”, damage, armor, none of that goes up (except in cases where you select for it to). In general a level 1 character is mostly as competent as a level 10 one.

  24. Our group switched from Next and hasn’t looked back.

    We finished off Caves of Chaos in DW after having started it in Next. Here’s what I can tell you; my players were much more interested in playing after the switch, and LOVED being asked questions.

  26. At the last EtrusCon, in Italy, a friend of mine gave me his copy of The Keep on the Borderlands as a gift. Maybe, if I’ll have time, I’m going to make a DW conversion for that module. But, for now, it’s only a good intention.

  29. DW does tend to level faster than, say, Next. That’s by design. It also caps out earlier, at level 10, also by design.

    The thing that people don’t always catch is that getting enough XP for 11th level doesn’t end the game, it just shifts it. You move to a new class, or take an apprentice, or whatever. The world keeps moving. Sure you may have a new character, but the same world keeps spinning and you keep delving into it. I’m completely biased, but I love playing this way. It means that I get to try more things, see the world in more ways, and keep playing new fresh characters.

    In my experience you’ve got 20+ sessions in the normal play to 10th level, too, so it’s not like it’s that fast. You’ll get a good long game out of your first character (if they survive that long) and then get to try something new.

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