This guide establishes the rules and boundaries for character progression in the East Marches and is intended to keep all players on an even footing. As characters in the guild go out on adventures, they gain experience through their actions, their battles, and their discoveries. Rather than deal with the minutiae of thousands experience points, the East Marches will use a credit system to handle leveling up.
Active Characters and Resting Characters
An active character is a character that is participating in an adventure being run by one of the DMs. A resting character is a character who is not participating in an adventure at the current time.
Earning Credits
Earning credits is easy. Participating in and completing an adventure will earn a character one credit.
A character who doesn't participate does still benefit from the success of the overall guild. As such, each character who doesn't participate in an adventure receives half-credit for each adventure that that guild completes.
DMs can specify in advance that an adventure awards half or no credit, should they so choose. This could be done for a session that is more relaxed, RP Heavy, or designed as a test of a game mechanic.
Credits and Leveling
Each credit puts a character closer to leveling up. Once a character earns enough credits to reach the next level, they can cash them in to ascend to the next level. Credit costs of leveling up scales with the level of the character in a 1:1 ratio. As such, a level three character needs to earn three credits to become a fourth level character, who would need to earn four credits to become a fifth level character, and so on.
Cashing In and Storing Credits
When a character earns enough credits to level up, they cash those credits in and the cost of the level is subtracted from their total number of credits. Any remainder carries over as progress towards the next level. A character is under no obligation to cash in their credits at the earliest opportunity and can remain at their current level should they so choose. The credits will continue to build and there is no limit on how many credits a character can earn or store.
Earning Gold and Items
Leveling up isn't the only way to make a character stronger, as you can also augment a character by upgrading their weapons, armor, and other gear. The obvious currency for this is gold, which can be earned by completing adventures. Each adventure has a base gold reward, but characters can also find additional gold during the course of an adventure. Adventurers may also be able to find additional loot during a session: usable weapons, armors, potions, scrolls, and other gear - potentially some magic items.
For simplicity's sake, items earned by characters can be freely traded during the adventure in which they are found. Once the adventure is completed though, any items or gold earned becomes the property of that character. Once back on the airship, players can continue to trade spoils but are encouraged to do so in some sort of transaction - whether it's item for an item or item for gold.
Once again, the success of the overall guild benefits those characters who may not have participated in a successful adventure. For each completed adventure, a resting character earns one quarter of the gold earned by that adventure's highest earning character, rounded down to the nearest 5 (minimum 10 gold).
As an example, four characters complete an adventure and the highest earner earns 112 gold. One quarter of 112 is 28, which rounds down to 25. As a result, all non-participating characters earn 25 gold for the completed adventure.
Resting characters do not earn items or other loot while resting, but can obviously spend any gold earned while resting on new items from the airship's vendors.
Rewards for Dungeon Masters
Not only is DMing a lot of work, but the DMs own characters run the risk of falling behind the more a person DMs. As a result, we've decided to provide some reward for putting in the effort of writing and running an adventure. As such, DMs will earn the following for each adventure they run:
- Full-credit for one of the DM's characters (of their choice) instead of the usual half-credit resting bonus. Any other character(s) earn half-credit as normal.
- Double the amount of the resting gold earned for that adventure for all of the DM's characters.
Purchasing Items between Adventures
The guild's airship is outfitted with its own general goods store, weapons store, and armory. As such, characters can purchase any item listed in the Player's Handbook during downtime. As the guild encounters success, more stores with more powerful wares may pop up on the airship.
Retiring Characters
A player can choose to retire a character at any time and for any reason. A retired character leaves the airship and, as such, earns no further credits or gold as they would if they were a resting adventurer. A character may also be unretired at any time, but does not retroactively earn any missed credits or gold while they were retired.