How to use MILESTONE leveling in Dungeons and Dragons 

MAJOR CORRECTION: I said in this video that in previous editions, XP was awarded only for combat, but that is absolutely WRONG! Combat was ONE way to get XP, but as far back as AD&D 2, non-combat XP was a thing. Not only that, but it was being awarded equally to everyone who participated, not just to the person who got the takedown. Again, major mistake on my part. While I couldn't find RP XP in first edition of AD&D (it might be there, I just couldn't find it), the text DOES make a point of saying that resolving a fight without combat can still lead to XP being awarded. Sorry about these glaring errors! I did this video entirely unscripted, since it was a fairly simple topic, but that meant that I didn't do my usual research process. I was basically running off my own received-wisdom, which turned out to be nonsense. Hopefully the bulk of the video is still useful and of interest.

My favorite system is the milestone version of The Black Sword Hack. You level up with "stories." You need to complete a number of stories equal to your level to level up. For longer plot lines I use chapters.

My man. I needed this. I am literally preping a campaign rn, and I want to do milestone leveling, and omg, this is so useful

You deserve more cred. All your work is to chock full of incredibly useful insight. Just subscribed on Patreon and loving the content in there as well, gave me so many good ideas for upcoming campaign. I am a first time DM and am gonna be running Lost Mine of Phandelver for some buddies, the opening has the party traveling from Neverwinter to Phandalin and I think I'm gonna use the Of Bards and Bandits encounter as an opener to flesh out the travel component a bit more -- very cool encounter concept and I think will be good for illustrating the danger of the world. Anyway thanks a bunch, keep creating!

You just keep hitting it out of the park, my guy! I honestly used milestone just to avoid the crunchiness of XP (and basically needing to hand-wave XP for anything but combat). My party leveled up quick from 1 to 2 and 3, but even with weekly games I needed to slow down the leveling process to match story beats. Though I've started with 2 very popular modules, I've added enough of my own side adventures for the players' backstories that I'm beginning to worry I've added too much. Still, as long as they're having fun, we should be fine.

It's late for me being in Australia so i can't think of anything particularly witty to add to this conversation, but as someone who got thrusted into the forever dm role rather quickly in my dnd journey, these tips are valued and honestly this channel is so underrated. Thanks mate

That's super interesting! I'm planning to do a campaign with friend but didn't know how to manage the milestone thing. It helps a lot, thanks!

Napoleonic-era fantasy with animal people in the skies sounds AWESOME!

Milestones are a great way to plan out a campaign, not just for events, but also to do the most with the time you have. For example, say you want the campaign to last 1 year of meeting every two weeks, and to end at level 13 (the goal might be for a caster or two to get Plane Shift to go fight the final boss). That's 26 sessions to go from level 1 to level 13, with at least a session or two at level 13. Call that 24 sessions to rise 12 levels. That probably means gaining a level ever session for the first 3-4 levels, and then maybe 2 sessions per level after that. Pretty fast, and it tells you how fast the campaign needs to feel -- every couple of sessions there should be a revelation, an encounter with a significant enemy perhaps, or reaching a major NPC and learning something, or revealing something about one of the party members' personal journey. On the other hand, say you're running a weekly game for 6 months, but only want to reach level 5 before breaking off to play something else. That's 24 sessions to rise 4 levels. You might imagine that as a couple of sessions at level 1, a couple at level 2, and then 6-7 sessions at levels 3, 4, and adventuring at level 5. That's going to feel like a much slower advancement. it also informs the tone of the game: lower level througout, probably with more investigation and being more careful with resources. The DM can still seed in personal revelations about the party members, but they won't necessarily be tied to milestones. Small events will have more time to breathe if planned in this manner. So milestone leveling is a fantastic way to set some of the tone and pacing of a campaign before the DM has even decided on a final boss. Tell the players how long the campaign's planned to go and what level they should expect to reach at the endpoint, and it's powerful way to set expectations.

Short and concise.. thank you

Thank you so much for the great content and advice!

I dare say, I shall yoink this with great haste *twirls my short mustache*

the greatest stache of all time 😎

I level my players up right before the end of each chapter, this way, they get a new level and new abilities right before they fight the boss of that chapter.

I just had an idea. What if there are 19 magic stones in the world and the campaign is centered around finding them for some reason and every time the players find one they level up? Is that boring?

Yeah, I'm all in on milestones. I write my campaigns in chapters, and the end of a chapter is a natural place to level. Every now and again there'll be a long chapter, in which case I'll sneak a level up in the middle somewhere. The players are making all the big decisions about where to go and what to do, but I still have a few set-piece encounters to walk them into, and I generally tie a level up to one of those.

I started with milestone but the module i used didn't make it work so i swapped to xp and enjoyed it more. Im using a milestone in waterdeep dragon hiest and my players spent months in level 2

I find milestone makes players too goal-oriented. They no longer stop to smell the roses, and instead ignore or trample them to get where they're going. I'm currently playing Shadowdark, and I'm loving the treasure-for-XP system. It encourages the players to take the time to explore, and gives them XP no matter how they find the treasure. Kill the monster and loot its corpse? XP. Talk the monster into giving you the treasure? XP. Sneak past the monster, and steal the treasure from under its nose? XP.

I play it by ear. They get the xp of combat but I also reward really good role playing and ingenious ways of tackling situations. One of my groups have their characters at third level and they just had their first fight. They are female human Ranger, a female Drow Rogue and a male human Sorcerer who has a code against killing (except for extreme self defense) and they playing in the Saltmarsh adventure.

Hi! Just wanted to say that I discovered this channel about two months ago, and you were one of the reasons that pushed me in proposing myself as the next DM for my D&D group: imma start in a couple of months! About this I wanted to ask if you could make like a "how to handle problematic players" video. I love those guys, sometimes things slips out of hands...in particular with one player that LOVES to make "pain in the ass for the party" characters. That can be funny sometimes, but on the long run it can be unbearable...do you have any tips? I'd love to hear your opinion! Thanks a lot, I love this channel and this community PS: English is not my language so I apologize in advance for my bad writing😢

milestone leveling is easy... earn enough XP and you level-up. the level the player is hoping to achieve is the milestone. upon achieving the desired level - you've successfully achieved your milestone!

thank you!

XP in 1e and other early editions was a serious problem for most of us. You only got xp for the damage you did and the monsters you killed, as well as the treasure you collected. Calculating all that was a major chore for DM's, and it excluded most of the other contributions pc's, especially non-martials, could make. And even then, there were many proposals for alternate systems, in Dragon magazine or the like, but until later editions, nothing was official. Our group had some accommodations which seemed to be standard, but they were still secondary to the main method. And the only "official" RP XP I'm familiar with were basically getting the same amount as killing the monsters but for avoiding combat and getting past them some other way. Idk of anything in the books that says otherwise. Part of Gygax's limited imagination (initially at least) said that people would only want to play Human Fighters so everything else was irrelevant, and that this was also an excellent way to keep magic-user power in check.

Can't be arsed with xp. I've enough to do. They level up after a number of adventures equal to their tier.

Magic Item Idea: An amulet that every time they level up, allows the player to add 1 point to a stat of their choosing, but it can't be their highest stat. What stat do you increase? The max is 20.

I'm team milestone

So, how do you deal with spell that use xp?

By using milestone, players dont really earn level ups. Its GM Fiat by design. Its when the GM decides to level you up. If the group do the story, everyone get to level up. You dont have to even show up consistently. XP leveling gives you a lot of power of encouraging and discouraging behavior. You can give XP for anything. Not just combat. Crafting, exploration, social encounters, or anything can grant xp. It takes work, but xp is a very powerful tool in your GM tool belt.

The predictability of milestone is why i don't like it. Instead i do xp but give xp for RP too. This way there is a chance for the PCs to run into a baddie they really shouldn't fight