In the previous Howling Tower, we discussed what are hit points? The natural follow on is—what in heck are experience points, anyway?

Experience points (XP) are, I think, easier to understand than hit points. That’s because XP are obviously artificial, abstract, and unreal. Hit points can be confusing because they seem to represent something tangible, something we actually could measure in real life if we knew exactly where to place the yardstick.

Not so with experience points. The closest parallel might be school grades or test scores. But the flaws in that analogy are so obvious it isn’t worth lingering on. Experience points don’t correspond to anything in real life.

Learning by Doing

Except that, intuitively, we also grasp that XP does correspond to something we all understand well—the familiar process of learning through experience. People don’t accumulate points and “level up” when the total reaches a predetermined number. But we do learn in increments. Whether we’re trying to master sports or music or writing or roleplaying or just being a good friend, there’s a reason why parents and teachers tell us over and over that practice makes perfect.

Experience points represent that learning process. Our make-believe heroes and adventurers become better heroes and adventurers through practice, by going on adventures. We could shrug our shoulders and leave it at that if we were the sort who are satisfied with easy answers, but we’re not.

Git Gud

The mechanical, rules-based benefits of gaining a level in the Tales of the Valiant RPG are obvious: deadlier ways to wield weapons, more powerful spells, better understanding of locks and traps, dodging and defending more effectively, becoming able to withstand more misfortune. Our character gains a few more hit points, a +1 to proficiencies, a new spell slot, or some other specialized ability that improves our dice-rolling odds and lets us bend the rules a bit in our favor.

The not-so-obvious element is that experience points also represent the adventurer’s growing understanding of the world and its threats. 

The typical fantasy campaign setting is nothing like the 21st-century world most of us inhabit. Danger is everywhere. The supernatural is as ever-present as the natural, and both are deadly. Monsters are real, and many of them are in a constant state of warfare against humanity and civilization. Bandits, raiders, invaders, bloodthirsty monsters, despots, mortal and immortal conquerors, and ravenous undead are not fairy tales or rare and distant issues for someone else. They’re regular, recurring problems for everyone.

Experience points and the level increases and power boosts they bring are a concrete gauge of characters becoming more adept at surviving in a dangerous world.

Monsters Use Low Blows

Which leads us to the real point of this essay: a fantasy world is a dangerous place, for two reasons. First is that it’s full of monsters, villains, and supernatural forces seeking to spread death, destruction, and evil in general. Second, and more important, is evil doesn’t fight fair. Evil doesn’t hold back when it has the stronger hand, it doesn’t offer mercy after a victory, it doesn’t stand and fight when it has the weaker hand. Most of all, it doesn’t seek even matches in the interest of good sportsmanship.

That’s why risk in Tales of the Valiant shouldn’t always be carefully matched by the GM against character abilities. Besides being cartoonishly unrealistic, doing that makes PC advancement pointless. Gaining new levels becomes all about the buzz from acquiring new superpowers instead of about being able to more safely navigate the high risk of adventuring—because in such a game, the risk is not, in fact, high. It’s carefully controlled, like on a rollercoaster or a carnival haunted house, to create the illusion of danger where none exists.

For low-level PCs, an encounter with almost anything can be deadly. As PCs gain levels, they have more encounters with weaker foes because they’ve become more powerful. The pitfall GMs can fall into is believing that easy wins should be the norm, with an occasional climactic boss fight to give the players a mild scare.

Here’s why that’s an unforced error. If characters are never confronted by foes much stronger than themselves—if they only ever face fights where the odds are in their favor—then level advancement becomes meaningless.

For Example . . .

Consider this hypothetical example. Our GM comes up with what they consider to be a perfect low-level encounter. A 1st-level fighter needs to roll 12 or better to hit the foe, and must hit it twice to kill it. The foe needs to roll 15 or better to hit the fighter, and needs on average three hits to knock the fighter down to 0. In that contest, the fighter is likely to take enough damage for things to be exciting but also is likely to survive and win unless their luck turns very, very bad.

When the fighter reaches 6th level, they have a higher attack bonus, better armor, more potent weapons, and more hit points. So do the fighter’s enemies. Our GM again comes up with what they consider a perfect mid-level encounter. After accounting for all the new bonuses and abilities, the fighter now needs to roll 12 or better to hit the foe, and must hit it twice to kill it. The foe needs to roll 15 or better to hit the fighter, and needs on average three hits to knock the fighter down to 0.

Wait . . . what?

Statistically, they’re the same fight. The trappings and the tactics might be slightly different, but the wristage (dice rolling) is the same. If this is the pattern for the campaign, the world is not a dynamic and dangerous place. It’s predictable and cartoonish, and players will notice either consciously or subconsciously.

As fledgling characters grow into powerful heroes, their power has meaning only if it’s put to the test. “With great power comes great responsibility”—and also great risk and even greater challenges.

It’s common for low-level characters to lose more than half their hit points to a single attack from a monster. A wallop like that sends a clear signal that continuing this fight might be a bad idea. Getting your nose bloodied, retreating, regrouping, and coming up with a better plan is part of the adventuring life. Those high-risk situations should not stop happening just because PCs get stronger. If anything, they should happen more often, because PCs have more resources to help them survive and also have better ways to escape.

As characters become more dangerous, the situations they confront must do the same, but more so. The reward for great power is not easy victory, but greater glory!