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How do you deal with players requiring different amounts of xp to level or gaining xp at different rates (skill uses, role playing, good plans, etc)? I have a small group (2 players) in a heroes unlimited games. 1 player is playing a magic hero and the other one is playing a mega hero. The magic hero player already gained enough xp to level to level 2 but the mega hero is not not even half way to the 5k required for level 2. Unfortunately the mega hero is more combat orientated with few useful skills outside of combat and the magic hero player tends to be the idea man of the duo (which is partially why he's gaining xp faster).

That's a viable part of the game. Some characters advance faster than others. The mega hero is frontloaded with more raw power than the magic hero, so he advances slower to allow the other to 'catch up' in overall power by gaining levels. I'm not sure what the problem is. Let the mage gain his level. He will likely be several levels ahead of the mega hero before long, but that's not a bad thing.

I don't deal with it at all.
I let people level up at the speed they level up at.
The entire point of the different XP tables is that some classes are, in theory, more powerful or what ever and thus should require more XP to level up because they get more out of each level in game terms.
In my opinion if I simply award levels and not XP then it punishes the characters who take the classes that have the lower XP tables just as much as it cheats the characters with the higher ones... after all, when your character takes a ton of XP to level up you feel a sense of accomplishment when you make that milestone.

If one person is running way ahead on XP due to ideas or what ever though...
I tend to start awarding XP based on individual baselines.
Thus the super smart out of the box thinking 38 year old intelligence analyst playing the tactical genius is going to have to come up with a much better plan to get the "clever plan" XP than the 14 year old high school student who is playing an IQ 11 football jock who just got mutant powers. I judge each person according to their abilities.
I find that this encourages people to 'stay in character' by allowing someone to get points for playing 'smart' and coming up with clever ideas... even if they are playing a character that isn't smart and clever. They get credit for coming up with things that are, in character, smart and clever from the point of view of the person playing them.
Sort of like the Batman Cartoon where the villains are all sharing the stories of how they "almost got Batman"... Joker, Riddler, Poison Ivy, I don't recall exactly who but its not important... they each have a complex tale of how they almost outwitted him...
Then Killer Crocs turn comes up and he says "I lured him to the junk yard... and then I hit him with a rock."
"A ROCK?"
"Well, it was a big rock"

I was thinking the same thing

I don't see the point in pretending that the experience charts are anything other than arbitrary piles of numbers serving as useless page filler. There is clearly no formula for deriving the per level requirements. One would be better served with a simple indicator of relative speed in leveling, applied to how quickly a given table wants characters to level. If, for example, a vagabond is 1.0, a rogue scientist might be 1.5, while a LLW is a 2.0, and a mega hero or dragon is a 3 or 4. This eliminates failure nodes like allowing petty GMs to hold court and endlessly rate the perceived merits of characters' actions.

Curbludgeon wrote:I don't see the point in pretending that the experience charts are anything other than arbitrary piles of numbers serving as useless page filler. There is clearly no formula for deriving the per level requirements. One would be better served with a simple indicator of relative speed in leveling, applied to how quickly a given table wants characters to level. If, for example, a vagabond is 1.0, a rogue scientist might be 1.5, while a LLW is a 2.0, and a mega hero or dragon is a 3 or 4. This eliminates failure nodes like allowing petty GMs to hold court and endlessly rate the perceived merits of characters' actions.

If your GM is petty, you already failed.
And if your GM isn't then it doesn't really matter how the system is set up now does it?

The idea that we should replace one more or less arbitrary system with another equally arbitrary system because some people have issues with a small subset of bad GMs seems to me like a non-starter though.

Especially since while there is no hard and fast formula the tables do tend to follow some themes and you can get a pretty good feel for what the 'offiical' view of a classes power level is by the XP chart it has.

I'm still not seeing the reason for the objection. More powerful classes take longer to level than less powerful classes. How is this bad?

I agree that more powerful classes should require more xp to level. I wasn't debating that issue. I was just wondering how other gms dealt with; for example, 1 player gaining xp (skill uses when necessary, good ideas/plans, etc) faster than other players. In some ways the xp system penalizes players who happens to pick skills that are only useful a few times, not as good at coming up with good ideas like other players, and happens to choose a class that requires massive amounts of xp to level. If I was that player and I saw other players leveling 2 or 3 times faster than me and eventually surpassing me in power, etc I may end up not enjoying playing. Personally as a gm when I'm rewarding the xp and i'm seeing that one player is barely gaining xp despite playing their character to the best of their ability I feel like i'm a bad gm. I noticed that the xp system in Palladium rewards some players over others where as; for example, d&d rewards the group as a whole.

cbrekkas wrote:I agree that more powerful classes should require more xp to level. I wasn't debating that issue. I was just wondering how other gms dealt with; for example, 1 player gaining xp (skill uses when necessary, good ideas/plans, etc) faster than other players. In some ways the xp system penalizes players who happens to pick skills that are only useful a few times, not as good at coming up with good ideas like other players, and happens to choose a class that requires massive amounts of xp to level. If I was that player and I saw other players leveling 2 or 3 times faster than me and eventually surpassing me in power, etc I may end up not enjoying playing. Personally as a gm when I'm rewarding the xp and i'm seeing that one player is barely gaining xp despite playing their character to the best of their ability I feel like i'm a bad gm. I noticed that the xp system in Palladium rewards some players over others where as; for example, d&d rewards the group as a whole.

Ah, I see the issue behind the question now, and it's a good question.
I would say two things that might help:
First, take Eliakon's suggestion and adjust the award based on how the player performs. That way, the guy with a constant stream of ideas gets less xp the more ideas he has, unless they are above and beyond. It's not punitive, but rather a raise of the bar based on demonstrated ability.
Second, recognize that Palladium uses a very subjective set of guidelines for awarding xp that is designed to give GMs an idea of ways they can reward player involvement in the story. Where D&D gives uniform die cast participation trophies just for showing up, Palladium only awards you if you contribute meaningfully to the shared gaming experience. So, use the xp tables as your guide, and award things that you feel are worthwhile contributions, even if they are not specifically listed.

Thanks that helps.

cbrekkas wrote:Thanks that helps.

You're welcome. That's why we are here. Sometimes the perspective of the community is necessary to interpret the rules and we are all happy to do our part.

Father Goose wrote:I'm still not seeing the reason for the objection. More powerful classes take longer to level than less powerful classes. How is this bad?

If it were a static amount of XP for enemies I would understand it, but since the "threat level" is already relative to the player, shouldn't a major threat to a dragon (say an adult dragon) and a major threat to a vagabond (say a hatchling dragon) both be equally growthsome to their % improvement?

Axelmania wrote:

Father Goose wrote:I'm still not seeing the reason for the objection. More powerful classes take longer to level than less powerful classes. How is this bad?

If it were a static amount of XP for enemies I would understand it, but since the "threat level" is already relative to the player, shouldn't a major threat to a dragon (say an adult dragon) and a major threat to a vagabond (say a hatchling dragon) both be equally growthsome to their % improvement?

No, because characters who start off more powerful, like the Dragon Hatchling and the Mega-Hero, have to work harder to improve compared who start with less power.

The "working harder" would already be reflected in needing to defeat stronger foes to qualify as certain challenge tiers.

cbrekkas wrote:How do you deal with players requiring different amounts of xp to level or gaining xp at different rates (skill uses, role playing, good plans, etc)?

What's there to deal with?
Different characters level at different rates, and different players are better at getting XP than others.