Not Just Low Levels, All Levels, Part 1: Training

The B/X, BECMI, 2e, WotC-D&D people who learned the game, learned to operate almost to instinct. It's how rules-light games can get away with being so full of omission - It's assumed that someone has the internal information of D&D enough to fill in the ugly additional text of defining how common activities that happen in most games like charging, firing an arrow at the ogre fighting your friend, what happens to your potions when you get hit by a fireball, and how to level. 

[EDIT: There is an optional rule in 2e for training, much more diminished, but that's a whole nest of how experience is rewarded in that system by default, which I don't wish to explore here.]

Of course, not all oranges are created as apples, so often you see principles of a one fruit applied to the other. Apple juice isn't all that bad, but I'm sure orange pie might suck.

Training is one of those rules that isn't explored in those other editions, among other problems with fulfilling the 'Not Just Low Levels, All Levels' of Fantasy Adventure Gaming that I'll make every attempt to get to, with detail, in another blog post.

XP for Gold is the Cart, But What Tows It?

Training is an economic beast of burden that helps drive the game beyond 'this the dungeon, you want to play tonight since you drove over here, so say yes to doing it or go home'. If XP for Gold is the cart that drives old school gaming, and Fantasy Adventure Gaming is a long road, then there are horses that need to pull that cart on a long road. 

We strive to offer a game where wealth can be built, but money always matters. It keeps adventurers hungry, which keeps the cart moving until such a level that expenses of strongholds and magical research alone can take over. Otherwise, you will end up floating towards a game of cash in, but very little cash out once you get to the mid levels. From about level 4 to 8, a lot of money can be gathered up and not spent.

I can't wait to give this to someone else!

Training doesn't show much of it's benefit before level 5 to the game economy overall. In fact, during the first four levels, it's expected that some training will be provided as a service or XP gains will get caught in the pipes until such a time that the party can afford it. This means lost XP or this means sprinkling a few services/items throughout your campaign to let some of the air out. That depends on how much you want to facilitate advancement in your game. Personally, I live for the mid-high levels. We all have done so many low-level jaunts that it's just less exciting at this point, to me. It's still great gaming for the most part, but it's not a place my groups want to linger. 

And by the way, that's another decision point added to the game. The group might all be ready to level due to experience requirements, but they can only facilitate three people leveling up. Who should it be? How does the party best benefit from that? Who is in the most danger of hitting an XP cap where it's lost? 

Oh God, Math Again?

There's math behind the economy of the Fantasy Adventure Game. First, lets look at  what a few commonly agreed upon adventures reward with. I already know what the ratio is from playing the game, but I think it's worth spending a little time to take reward structures out of the equation. Whether or not a party survives or finds every last room is irrelevant, since we're really looking for a ratio here.

Starting with T1 - The Village of Hommlet. I went through just the Ruins of the Moathouse and just wanted to confirm some rough numbers. I left out some copper and silver for sure and the potential of any random encounter. About 34K xp in the moathouse, over 27k of it gp. 11k magic items for a total of 45k xp potential, unless magic items are sold, then gold is higher. 60%. Much higher when magic items are sold instead of kept.

In WG4 - Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, I used the main complex without random encounters. That has ballpark 170,000 xp. Over  roughly 142,000 is gp. Only 26k of it is monster xp. That comes out to 83% or so gold ratio.

Given my own experience and looking at other modules along the same lines, but not exhaustively cataloging each one (and I'm not doing that, I'm only verifying a conservative ballpark here), I think we can safely say that at least 60% of experience points come from money. But what about magic items?

One of the more interesting decision points is what to do with looted magical items. When you're level 1, but can sell a Ring of Protection +1 for 10k gp, that's a temptation. That's training cost and xp for everyone and it's 1 more AC and saves for a character. You want both, but what's better long term? What's better short term?

When you get to mid-levels, you ARE going to find items that you don't want to use. A sword +1 isn't going to replace your Flametongue, but can someone else use it? Should you save it for Henchmen? Or is that 2,000 gp more preferable. What about your fifth dagger +1? Or that Military Pick that nobody wants to take the weapon proficiency on? 

I can comfortably say, with experience, that in AD&D you can assume, at least, an extra 5% minimum for gp income just from magic items. Sometimes that Robe of Useful Items is more useful as 15k gp. More realistically, it's about 10-11% but we're only trying to make a point here. A point, by the way, that doesn't apply to most other systems. 

With Money Being 65% of XP on Average, What Does That Mean?

An average 4th level party will need about 39,000 xp. An extremely conservative estimate will be about 25,000 gp income earned to get to that point. Armor/hirelings/living expenses will be about 3,200 gp on the high end (I am being very liberal with expenses here), barring any exception of a major expense. Training for five level 4's is 22,500 gp. 

With training, this part is a small deficit in the parties finances, someone might have to wait a session so they can find more treasure, a magic item may need to be sold, or a service performed. Without training to get there, they are sitting on 22,500 gp at level 4. About 195,000 gp at level 7. A 7th level group that has gone through training will have about 58,000 gp with a 52,500 bill for training at the next level looming and much more of a reason to drop thousands of raise dead and restoration.  Not to mention any Stronghold and research fees that are sure to come. 

The Scale of Income and Expense

Adventures are nice and hungry. How exciting is it to find a 5,000 gp gem for the group, at the level 4 or 7 range, that has training costs vs ones who do not? For adventure games, it's about the long term and for people who aren't used to playing for the long term, there's some habits that could be learned.

 How big of an impact is a 4,500 gp Raise Dead when you have 100k laying around? How big of a deal is a 70,000 gp restoration bill when that decision is almost every cent you have, or just a quarter of it?

These aren't really the kinds of things that make themselves apparent by just playing through B2.

With roughly 60% of the xp coming from wealth, more when (not if) magic items are sold, if not training then there's probably a more preferable way to offset the fact that after expenses a reasonably well-played level 7 party will just have about 200k gold laying around after hirelings and living expenses. 

And since each player should have multiple characters, what is the impact for them having access to the pool of such vast income? What is the impact of having no resources to draw from and needing to also make their own. 

Alternatives

If you're playing to run the expanse of all levels, you should have a way to account for that beyond the relatively minor living expenses. Melans system of dividing by 5, then blowing it (basically wasting it) for 5x xp is one of the better alternatives with some in world accounting (like how much are clerical services, surely not the same). Basically, anything around the carousing rules is pretty good if you can account for the windfall of xp on the front end or back end like Melan does. I believe this to be the best alternative.

The silver standard is another one that multiplies in-world costs effectively by 5. You can apply this same principle to any game where the default xp currency is diminished. There will be decisions on what costs "the same as gp, but make it sp". That's for for you to figure out, or find someone who's done it successfully. I'm not that guy.

Whatever you do, as with all Fantasy Adventure Gaming endeavors, don't just think about the now, think about the future of the campaign.

Final Thoughts on Training

There is a converse to the complete training rules, which is the ratings, which is something I don't do. It's hard to quantify and nail down. We could attempt to add some real metrics, and I think there are some exception ones, but that is a whole other topic. As written, I don't subscribe to it. But as an idea, I think there's something there. If nothing else, there may be a way to mental gymnastics your way into not having to require services for your trainers.

Also I never mentioned this above, but your adventurers may not have a trainer available. That can also create decision points. The Monk may have to pilgrimage to the monastery, the magic-user might need to go to the big city to introducing himself to an esoteric order, etc. World building stuff. 

But there is another push for training, which is required downtime which adds it's own elements of the games. Time matters and training helps move that in the direction of world events, dungeon restocking, encouraging the play of other characters, etc. But that's another blog post for another day.