by Mitchel Emley

XP vs Milestone is a common debate that is had among the table for DM’s and players alike. It can be hard to decide what is the best approach, especially given that not every table is combat focused. In games where the expectation is to reach level 20, something extremely rare, it can be even more difficult to navigate the malaise of XP vs Milestone.

Here are some tips on what to do and how to approach it.

XP Is Great For Lower Levels

Something often agreed upon is that XP leveling can be really fantastic to empower the lower level experience. Players starting at level 1? Consider using XP leveling, as this helps to rapidly push players up the ladder without requiring complex adjustments based on story or roleplay or other nebulous qualities. Given most DND games end before level 10, it also makes it easier on the DM to plan things out. If you know you’re going to only cap at the midpoint, you can build your campaign accordingly as well as anticipate how much XP players will get and thus what levels they should be at for particular encounters. If you know they’ll fight a bronze dragon at level 5, you’ll know exactly what monsters to put along their path to build their XP to that point for the fight.

Milestone Is Fantastic For Roleplay

Conversely, if you have minimal (but impactful) combat, take a look at milestone leveling. This is much less commonly seen around tables but is no less useful compared to XP leveling. Roleplayers especially benefit from this, as it rewards them for thinking outside the box or avoiding combat altogether, whereas with XP it is almost only rewarded for defeating enemies. It’s also useful for high level play, where the XP players get for defeating armies worth of NPCs is miniscule due to the diminishing returns of level 15+. An army of orcs may be terrifying for level 5s, but the level 13 wizard can wipe them out with a flick of the wrist and the XP gain shows. Milestones, therefore, give you greater capacity to address the imbalances inherent in high level gameplay and can build up players in ways that are atypical to the standard D&D experience.

Milestone Is Party Dependent

This ties into the previous point about it being great for roleplayers, but milestone is absolutely dependent on the types of players around the table. If you as the DM have decided that milestone is the approach you want to take, carefully consider the personalities of the players you’ve invited to participate. Murder hobos will obviously not fit in well with this (unless you’re running an evil campaign) but it also may be a poor fit for newer players who expect to gain levels as they defeat foes. If someone is inexperienced in milestone games, be sure to coach them on what to expect and when levels are generally given out. If you’ve set up your game so that the players are gaining levels as they complete plot points, definitely take into account the random variables as discussed in my previous article about how to worldbuild. Don’t punish players by tying the milestones to hyper specific plot points just because they decided to take a left turn.

XP Is Easier To Plan

Thanks to page 84 in the DMG you can swiftly see the XP needed to level and the average adventuring XP gained per day that is suggested. That’s it, you’re done, pack it up and go home! Just plug that number into any fan made calculator for monsters and you’ve just whipped up the necessary baddies to level your party. No further consideration is really needed, it’s just plug and play. You can do stuff on the side, like give them bonus XP for doing something clever like avoiding a trap or deceiving the bad guy. If you’ve got a really simple world and prefer to just let the adventurers run the show, XP is definitely the way to go. Beyond the little bit of math needed and the picking and choosing of the bad guys, there’s not much else that needs special DM attention unlike milestones. Of course, there are hybrid approaches to this such as…

Combine The Two!

A trick I’ve seen some clever DM’s use is to combine the two methods. They’ll calculate all the XP for the entire campaign, add in some buffer, then create an average across all encounters. From there, they reward levels based on when those encounters are cleared, rather than XP per defeated enemy. They’re still technically earning that XP, it just isn’t in the form that they typically would expect. This comes with a few benefits, as it lets you control the mechanisms of XP gain with more granular detail while still rewarding your players behind the scenes for any brilliant actions they come up with. They don’t have to go around killing everything to win fights or gain XP - you’ve already pre-assigned it to that encounter itself. Another neat trick to this is that you can then gauge milestones (XP you’ve pre-plotted out, remember?) based on party resource use and reward them accordingly. Did you throw a silver dragon at them and they talked their way out of the fight? Be generous with that pot of gold XP and hand it out liberally to encourage that behavior! XP and milestone don’t have to be diametrically opposed concepts and can work well to compliment one another when done in clever and subtle ways.

Final Thoughts

A significant amount of this comes down to the DM and how they personally prefer to set up games. I myself prefer milestones, as I feel like it encourages the behaviors that I like to see when at the table. Others who have DMed for me prefer XP, because it's simpler to deal with and doesn’t need any additional mental leg work. Definitely discuss with your players ahead of time as well, and don’t be afraid to be choosy about who you invite to play. This is a long term commitment where players will potentially be gathering for months, so it’s okay to take your time and be deliberate in what you do. Ultimately, the goal is to create a mutually enjoyable experience!

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