Experience and Rewards
Experience and rewards are here for groups that want advancement to be tracked by play rather than handled purely by story beats. The suggested method is still milestone leveling. If a major arc is finished, a personal goal is resolved, a faction changes because of the party, or the story reaches a place where new power makes sense, leveling the party is clean and usually better.
Experience points are for groups that want a visible track. They are useful when the campaign is more open, when characters can choose between many jobs, or when the table wants advancement to come from accumulated danger and effort.
Starting Gold
Starting gold is the amount of gold a character should have when beginning play at that HD. This assumes the character is starting with appropriate equipment rather than having earned every coin through play.
| HD | Starting Gold |
|---|---|
| 1 | 65 gp |
| 2 | 180 gp |
| 3 | 540 gp |
| 4 | 1,080 gp |
| 5 | 1,800 gp |
| 6 | 2,600 gp |
| 7 | 3,800 gp |
| 8 | 5,400 gp |
| 9 | 7,200 gp |
| 10 | 9,800 gp |
| 11 | 13,200 gp |
| 12 | 17,600 gp |
| 13 | 22,200 gp |
| 14 | 30,000 gp |
| 15 | 40,000 gp |
| 16 | 52,000 gp |
| 17 | 68,000 gp |
| 18 | 88,000 gp |
| 19 | 116,000 gp |
| 20 | 152,000 gp |
Experience to Level
The progression chart already lists cumulative XP. The amount needed to gain the next HD is simple:
XP to next HD: Current HD x 1,000
For example, going from HD 5 to HD 6 takes 5,000 XP. Going from HD 12 to HD 13 takes 12,000 XP.
Standard Advancement Rate
A standard encounter should award about one fifth of the XP needed to reach the next HD.
Standard Encounter XP: Current HD x 200 per character
This means about five standard encounters advances a character by one HD. This is not meant to force every campaign into five fights per level. It is just the baseline that other rewards can be built from.
Story awards, discoveries, solved problems, social victories, dangerous travel, and major objectives can all award XP as if they were encounters.
Difficulty Level
Difficulty Level, or DL, is the rough challenge rating of an enemy or encounter. It is not a perfect formula. It is a way to communicate how dangerous something is expected to be.
A DL 5 sapient NPC is a character-like creature built at about HD 5 with the same kind of equipment a player character would have at that point.
A standard DL 5 encounter for an HD 5 party is a number of enemy NPCs equal to the number of player characters - 2. Minimum one enemy.
This same logic can be used at other levels. A standard DL 10 encounter for an HD 10 party would be character-like enemies with appropriate gear, with the number of enemies equal to the number of player characters - 2.
This assumes sapient enemies with gear, tactics, and options similar to player characters. Animals, monsters, undead, constructs, and strange creatures must still be built and checked. Monster math will get its own rules later.
Encounter Difficulty
Use this table when deciding how much XP an encounter is worth.
| Difficulty | XP Multiplier | Use When |
|---|---|---|
| Trivial | 0 | The encounter cannot meaningfully threaten the party |
| Light | x0.5 | The enemies are below the party or badly outnumbered |
| Standard | x1 | The encounter matches the baseline DL and enemy count |
| Hard | x1.5 | The enemies are stronger, better positioned, or slightly more numerous |
| Severe | x2 | The encounter is likely to down characters if handled poorly |
| Deadly | x3 | The encounter can kill characters even if they make reasonable choices |
The Definition Master should set the difficulty after looking at the whole situation. Terrain, surprise, preparation, resources already spent, enemy intelligence, and escape routes all matter.
Enhanced Difficulty Level
Some monsters are not just stronger. They get more turns.
A creature with two turns per round should be marked as Enhanced DL 2, written as EDL 2. A creature with three turns per round should be marked as Enhanced DL 3.
For encounter building, an EDL 2 creature counts as two creatures of its DL. An EDL 3 creature counts as three creatures of its DL.
For XP, an enhanced creature should also increase the encounter difficulty by at least one step. A monster that gets two or three turns per round changes the action economy and should be treated as more dangerous than its numbers alone suggest.
Example: One DL 10 EDL 2 monster counts roughly like two DL 10 enemies. If it also has strong defenses, area control, or good terrain, the encounter may be Hard or Severe even before adding other enemies.
Awarding XP
XP is awarded to each character who participated in the encounter or objective. Participation does not always mean dealing damage. Scouting, healing, negotiating, disabling traps, carrying the wounded, and solving the actual problem all count.
If the party avoids an encounter through good planning, stealth, diplomacy, or clever use of resources, they should usually receive the XP for that encounter. The point is overcoming the problem, not making sure everything dies.
If the party creates a problem and then defeats it for no meaningful gain, the Definition Master does not need to award XP.
Treasure from Encounters
Starting gold and earned treasure are not the same thing. A character who starts at HD 10 simply receives appropriate gear. A character who plays from HD 9 to HD 10 will spend money, use consumables, miss some loot, sell things below full value, pay for services, and find rewards that are useful but not perfectly efficient.
Because of this, encounter-based campaigns should award more total treasure than the difference between starting gold values.
As a default, each HD should offer about 150% of the difference between the current starting gold and the next starting gold. This is the reward budget for that HD. If the group levels after about five standard encounters, the average reward per standard encounter should be about one fifth of that budget.
These numbers are per character. For a group reward, multiply by the number of player characters.
| Current HD | Reward Budget to Next HD | Average per Standard Encounter |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 150 gp | 30 gp |
| 2 | 550 gp | 110 gp |
| 3 | 800 gp | 160 gp |
| 4 | 1,100 gp | 220 gp |
| 5 | 1,200 gp | 240 gp |
| 6 | 1,800 gp | 360 gp |
| 7 | 2,400 gp | 480 gp |
| 8 | 2,700 gp | 540 gp |
| 9 | 3,900 gp | 780 gp |
| 10 | 5,100 gp | 1,020 gp |
| 11 | 6,600 gp | 1,320 gp |
| 12 | 6,900 gp | 1,380 gp |
| 13 | 11,700 gp | 2,340 gp |
| 14 | 15,000 gp | 3,000 gp |
| 15 | 18,000 gp | 3,600 gp |
| 16 | 24,000 gp | 4,800 gp |
| 17 | 30,000 gp | 6,000 gp |
| 18 | 42,000 gp | 8,400 gp |
| 19 | 54,000 gp | 10,800 gp |
Treasure can be coins, gems, trade goods, useful equipment, magical items, favors with clear value, land rights, rare materials, or anything else the party can actually use or convert.
Enemy gear counts as treasure if the party can recover and sell or use it. Bonded gear, broken gear, cursed objects that cannot be sold, and equipment that only exists as part of a monster usually should not count at full value.
Land, workshops, civic rights, and other productive assets use the broader assumptions in Setting Economics. These rewards can be worth far more than personal gear while still being difficult to sell, divide, move, or convert into adventuring equipment.
Milestone Rewards
If using milestone leveling, still watch the starting gold table. Characters should not be wildly below expected wealth unless the campaign is deliberately about scarcity.
When the party levels by milestone, the Definition Master should make sure rewards, recovered equipment, favors, and opportunities keep them close to the starting gold value for their new HD.