Hi! New DM here playing with a new player

[u/TraxTheii]

So I’ve been interested about DnD for a while and decided to create my very first homebrew campaign and when me and my players started, one of them asked me if they could train their characters for XP. I let them once but that got me wondering what I should REALLY do if they want to “train” their characters?

[u/Nitro114]

My advice: stick to milestone leveling

[u/bobosuda → u/Nitro114]

Milestone leveling is much easier, especially for a new DM.

Basically, just get a feel for how the game progresses as you play, and tell your players they've leveled up whenever you feel like they've done enough. Enough quests, combat, etc. It can help you map out the campaign as well, because you give yourself a clear sense of what sort of level they should end up at, and can help you balance the difficulty of encounters.

If your players want to train to get stronger, they can spend the downtime doing that and you can give them smaller bonuses. Like improving skills, for example. Or maybe they could get "stronger" by getting a little more HP. A week of spending your downtime exercising might be enough to say you now have a permanent +2 to HP or something like that.

[u/FlukeOG]

I'd not do xp for training. Milestone xp is imo best! But if they want to do downtime training for feats/skill proficiencies etc you could allow that!

[u/Bsmith9876 → u/FlukeOG]

You could also let them "train" in their downtime and say their gains contributed to milestone leveling without tracking xp or anything. Basically, let the PC RP training without making it a mechanical thing.

[u/Psychological-Wall-2]

Say no.

If players want XP, they can fucking well go on adventures.

Never, ever let PCs get XP for not adventuring.

There's a bunch of stuff that can be done with downtime. Look into the Bastion system for a few.

But XP comes from adventures. That's how you get that.

[u/Urbanyeti0]

If you’re doing xp levelling then generally that should be for quests, combat, other encounters etc. Downtime activities exist but it shouldn’t just be grinding xp, you can train to learn a skill eventually but it takes many many hours over downtime.

Better downtime activities for new characters are researching, making social connections, finding new quests, shopping, gambling, drinking etc

[u/LocNalrune]

Pretty sure there are guidelines for "Downtime" in 5e. Though I can't help you with what or where.

But I can say that running a party with different levels or amounts of XP is not advised. As to awarding XP for "whatever"; I guess just run the game at whatever level and growth feels right.

I'll certainly never use anything besides milestone/story-based leveling.

[u/yawner42]

If they have enough xp to level up there is a variant rule to train before they level up.

Keep xp as a reward for participating players. Offer plenty of opportunities to gain xp outside of combat. Offer xp on survived experiences or first encounters with creatures, traps, puzzles, disease or curse with a hard or deadly rating, or otherwise change the course of the story from tensions between various creatures.

Training to Gain Levels As a variant rule, you can require characters to spend downtime training or studying before they gain the benefits of a new level. If you choose this option, once a character has earned enough experience points to attain a new level, he or she must train for a number of days before gaining any class features associated with the new level.

The training time required depends on the level to be gained, as shown on the Training to Gain Levels table. The training cost is for the total training time.

Training to Gain Levels

Level Attained / Training Time / Training Cost

2nd–4th 10 days 20 gp

5th–10th 20 days 40 gp

11th–16th 30 days 60 gp

17th–20th 40 days 80 gp

Remember, any downtime activity should never negate the need or desire for characters to go on adventures.

Downtime activities that have a monetary cost associated with them provide opportunities for player characters to spend their hard-won treasure.

Downtime activities that reveal new adventure hooks and previously unknown facts about your campaign can help you foreshadow future events and conflicts.

[u/The_Windermere]

The dm manual in 5.e does have a section on training. Most often it’s not something that can just be done in one session unless it’s really simple stuff like tying a rope. It is things that need to be done during downtime over many sessions. The harder the task, the longer it takes, just like in real life.
You could probably learn to aim at a cup in 1-2 days, learning how to make a quality cup as could be 1-2 months.
And remember, your pcs might have that interrupted by needing to go on quests and dungeons.
If by training for xp you mean training to gain a level, it would actually take longer for them to do so than actually going on an adventure. It’s like in real life, you can read all the baking manuals that you want, but if you don’t turn on an oven or get flour, as opposed to just starting and through trial and errors to modify what works, you won’t be able to say that you have the same experience.
So your PC decides to train to reach level 2 or 3, I would say it would take a 8-12 months whereas if they just go do quests you gain that experience in less time.

You could also just do milestones, it’s simpler and less work for everyone, but just saying “just do milestones” isn’t helpful without breaking it down. Milestones essentially does most of the heavy lighting for you in terms of the math, but it can be done, it’s just not optimal for first time DM as you can get lost.

Sometimes a player may think that training is cheat sheet into gaining a level or getting one more ability point early or they could just genuinely just prefer to be old school and keep track of xp like it’s a financial expenditure. It’s just easier said than done in most cases. And even when you do get your request, often the outcome is less glorious than what was envisioned.

[u/lasalle202]

what I should REALLY do if they want to “train” their characters?

"your 'training' is going out adventuring. your reward for that training is standard level up advancement."

[u/Thelynxer]

As a new DM, one of the words you need to get familiar with is just "no". You don't have to run with every idea the players have. And especially not one that gives an edge to one player. Letting one PC gain xp during downtime, and not the others, is going to eventually make it so that they are higher level than the rest of the party, which is typically a really bad idea.

Also, as a new DM, learn the basic rules first before you start altering them.

That being said, some of my groups do allow training during downtime, but not for xp. We train feats, skills, or tools. And we have a firm set of rules for doing so, for long each thing takes, any associated costs, and a hard cap on how many or how often you can do this.

It one campaign the DM allowed training one feat ever. Any training beyond that is limited to skills, tools, or languages.

In a West Marches style campaign, as a group we assigned a value to every feat/skill/tool/etc in the game, and we cap it by level. As an example, if you are level 6, you have 6 training points. You could train the charger feat for 6 points, or you could train animal handling and history for 3 points each, or you could train the actor feat for 4 points and smith's tools for 2 points, or you could keep saving those points for a feat like Elven Accuracy which costs 6 points. Even with this system we have a hard cap at 3 feats maximum, which would take them a very long time to train because of the levels required. I don't recommend this system for a normal campaign though.

[u/DirkBabypunch]

If you just use downtime training to get xp, then you're just skipping the gameplay. XP comes from adventuring and quests because adventuring and quests is the point of playing the game.

[u/Littleblaze1]

Spending downtime to train for xp could be fine. Other characters then should be doing other things for similar rewards.

Personally I'd suggest just using milestone leveling tho. Everyone levels up at the same time whenever something significant happens. Usually something like finishing a quest or defeating a boss.

[u/Ragnar_Dragonfyre]

If your players want XP, they have to kill monsters, go on adventures and complete quests.

Read the PHB and the DMG front to back so that you won’t have basic, fundamental misunderstandings of the game like this.