So as I have been asked about the XP system a couple of times of late let me put the guidelines out here for you all.

I set up a chart showing the XP needed for the various levels here already but how its awarded is something that might be of interest.

First of all DCC doesn’t hand out XP purely for combat or for treasure discovery. Instead it bases Xp awards on the comparative challenge to the Players on a per encounter basis. All that is required is that a player participate in an encounter in a meaningful way for them to get the same reward as anyone else. In practice its kinda hard NOT to get some xp each encounter this way, you’d have to actively be trying to avoid all contact with the Monster or other challenge to get nothing at all.

Encounter Challenges come in five basic types:

Trivial: This is an encounter where there is at most only a small chance of a party member taking damage, or needing to expend some kind of resource (money, spells etc) to achieve it. Generally these encounters award 0 or maybe 1 Xp

Easy: There is a chance that a party member could take notable harm here or have to expend some effort to overcome them. But the chance of a fatality is still low. These encounters generate 1 -2 Xp to all participants

Normal: The party members involved will know they are in a fight here or have to expend some brainpower or effort to overcome. A moderate chance exists that somebody could die if you screw things up or get unlucky. Typically these get you 2 – 3 Xp

Challenging: Chances of death or significant loss of another kind are high here. A fatality is not guaranteed but folks will get hurt badly if you mess up or the other Guys get lucky. 3-4 Xp each.

Heroic: To overcome this; somebody is going to have to dance with death here if you are to escape let alone prevail… 4 – 6 Xp each.

Now a single room in a dungeon is not necessarily an encounter of course. It can be and sometimes an encounter can migrate in status as you go through it. For example a simple encounter could jump two steps if the Rogue fails to Kill that guard and he summons help when you were hoping for stealth…

In the last session I judged that despite the fact you’d be coming one at a time getting the drop on a Villain about to ravage a prisoner was likely an easy challenge unless either his dice were real good or your were real rubbish. So Tem, Felix & Phaedra all got 1 Xp from that alone. had the passage leading there had a trap or alarm to overcome that might have bumped it up a grade at least.

Likewise although there was no combat, Jospeh, Mogdar & Arvid had to make multiple skill checks to discover the concealed passage into the complex. As it happened all that happened was Arvid slipped and got a bit wet. But in theory they could have dropped into the water and drowned if the dice had gone against them so a 1xp Award for a trivial- easy “encounter” was justified. Had a random Lizard man patrol poped up while they were on the rope line then that woulda jumped it to a Normal or even Challenging encounter right away, as they would have been fighting at a disadvantage.

Naturally good role playing and playing one character traits Class and Alignment will always garner a point or two along the way as you would expect.

Gaining Luck is explicitly linked to playing your alignment. So neutrals need to alternate between something that could be considered planned and acts of spontaneity. Lawfuls should plan and think ahead, Chaotic.. Well you get it. Occasional spur of the moment acts (good or evil) will keep you on track there 🙂 Generally at the end of any story arc (Mini scenario) there will be a point or two of luck to all survivors in any case.