So i have been struggling with this for a while now, as i play rigth now i give my players 200xp as a base for every session and then i add XP for awsome stuff my players do, like making a elaboret heist on the officers messhall to get ciggarets

How fast do you want their XP totals to climb?

I normally go 500 per chapter.

How fast do you want their XP totals to climb?

I have no ide, its pretty long campain

Long campaign. Any plans for high end enemies like Chaos Marines? I found Chaos Marines were a non-threat after 10, 000xp.

If you plan to keep it low-tier, give them achievement based XP only or they'll get out of hand.

For my players in my first campaign I stuck with the recommended 400 exp per session. It worked pretty well for a game lasting about 11 to 12 sessions and involved fights against the standard human trooper types up to a handful of Dark Eldar at at time. However, the issue I ran into was at the end of the campaign the players were a bit high level to keep going in another campaign that wasn't going to involve a bunch of big nastiness that my players weren't interested in playing against so we had to create new characters and regiment to keep things going.

With the new regiment I've been much stingier with the experience, sure they don't get the cool abilities and their chances of getting the best gear in the game are lower, but at the same time they get to play the sort of campaign they like for much longer before their characters outgrow your standard cultists and heretic troopers being a threat. The most I've ever handed out has been 200 experience at once and that was for a character who put himself in a lot of danger to stop a major cultist breakthrough in the lines, and was severely wounded in the process. I sort of balance it out now with awards and medals that give them bonuses to stats or skills (for example there he got the Medallion Crimson) or one time favors from officers to supply a squad that's making a difference with a special piece of gear to make them more effective. It gives a tangible reward for things their characters have actually done in the game itself as opposed to a flat experience point drop when some characters did a lot of heavy lifting and others were getting points for just showing up.

I wrote about this on a forum I mod just recently. Here are my thoughts:

That really depends on you and your players. For some time i was giving a lot of XP per session but since we playing once a week and roughly 3-4 hours we didn't move much in campaing and after a while i realised that players spend 2 days in camp and earned something like 1k exp. So now i give about 100-300 XP per session so they won't advance so fast. Sometimes i reward the after they complete the mission or after few session when something happened in game world.

I'm personally planning to do achievement based XP in future campaigns after my players became these monstrosities that can bring down a Ghost Ark full of Necron Immortals, or kill a Chaos Space Marine with minimal difficulty.

SgtLazarus .The problem is that even on not so high levels guardsman's are stronger than space marines or some demons. A 5k character build for close combat killed solo dark eldar bloodbride without breaking a sweat. Same happens with other elite enemies. The problem is that from narrative perspective they are still grunts but from gameplay side they can go solo with demons and such with proper build. I think that your idea is good, exp should be based on doing objectives plus something like 50-100 xp for roleplay, not more than 300 per sesion unless you want your average guardsman to brag about how he defeated khorne space marine in close combat month afer he was recruited into guard Hovewer like i said above, depends on players playstyle.

In my case, it depends on my GM style, because if I didn't GM, then they probably wouldn't be playing a game of a Saturday evening lol.

But no, even at 10, 000xp I found that they were challenged by a Chaos Marine. But they absolutely ruined the Warpsmith which kind of made him feel cheap heh. Guess it was just bad encounter structure on my part, that one, though.

I think it depends not only on XP but also on equipment. With power and plasma weapons, 3 players roughly about 4k experience can wreck almost anything. Even with fact that they have to return everything except their standard kit after each mission, occasionaly they have good requsition rolls and that;s when problems start for real. Even CSM can't take melta shot point blank. Also battlefield variables can change much, who ambush who, is there much cover, do enemies hae proper equipment to deal with players etc.

Anyway enough of offtop

It has a lot to do with players, time, equipment, situation, enemies, story. The whole situation. (we are new to only war, and have not learned the best min-maxing) Based on Gear one can do more damage, prevent more damage, accomplish greater feats. Based on expereance one can have greater chances of success, accomplish more difficult tasks, or augment other abilites like damage, armor, ect. Is everything being spent on combat situations then introduce things that are more intelligenced based, or choice making than combat driven. Maybe in the end the guards men should get promoted to more a space marine style fight. Save a planet population, guard rare tech that has malfunctioned and is trying to kill the players.

However, in our last 2 game sessions our mission was to hold ONE corner of a wall from an onslaught of Tyranids. We set up auto-cannons, and had 2 walker style units. Against lowly units we did great, however as soon as larger units showed up in the second game session that is when Everything turned in the Tyranids favor. At the start of this Mission we were @1500 xp. we lost 3 out of 4 auto-cannons. Both walkers exploded, Half the mission ended in failure because a failed shot hit one of two transports and caused it to crash. 1 comrade had his head blown clean off, One squad mate took something like 7 critical damage to the face after getting shot in the head twice in a row (becomeing blinded), my character got shot in the head for 5-6 damage. 2 other pc's were hobble from leg injuries or other. My character's Lasgun could not deal enough damge to hurt one of the flying bugs YET thanks to rightious furry caused to to get stunned and fall to it's death.

Skills, characteristics, talents, traits, & equipment only count for part of your game. weapons can be a double edged and be as much a boon as a curse esp if they explode or cause a chain reaction. When equipment is destroyed you have to fall back to lesser equipement. When characters are too combat based they can fail on social interactions, or if the navigator dies how then will they make it back to base camp should a vox divice become broken and they are out of touch with base camp. If the dice fall unfavorable then you make your players work for their bread & butter (experance). In other words don't just give them a pacman-style game play with enemies they get to chew up. Then at least ad a gm you can say they well earned the awards, xp, gear they got.

(we are new to only war, and have not learned the best min-maxing)

This made me throw up in my mouth, then on my dog. Min-Maxing should be death penalty worthy.

Bleak, I am not really understanding the point of your post. OP wanted to know how much XP people are generally handing out, but the majority of your post seems to be covering a very general idea of how the game works through the personal lens of your playing group.

First of all, gear and experience don't necessarily go hand-in-hand in OW so, I am curious why that is focused on so much in your response. I think what the original intent of the post was trying to accomplish was to get a very general idea as to how much XP is awarded by various GMs in various situations.

I think the two things that should be considered are game type: PbP or sit down group. Sit down groups are easier to handle as at the end of the session a chunk of XP can be handed out for a session well/poorly played based on objectives achieved/accomplished and role playing - as well as PC ingenuity and thinking outside of the box.

I covered PbP in an earlier post.

I also have to disagree with Felismachina; yes goo equipment handles situations better or easier, but only if the combat situation remains static. A plasma gun doesn't mean squat if the PCs fail their silent move tests and walk right into an ambush with overlapping fields of fire and saturation coverage from enemy ordnance. I recently had my group attempt to infiltrate a base via underground tunnels and a random encounter had one of my guys throw a krak grenade. Well, the enemy in the base ended up hearing that and sent a squad down to investigate. The team then failed silent move rolls and awareness to spot the ambush. They were wounded heavily and the ensuing firefight allowed the remainder of the enemies to set up a well difficult ambush utilizing cover, higher ground, and established kill zones.

In other words, just having good equipment doesn't mean jack if the PC can't establish who or where the enemy is before they start lighting him/her up.

Using the guidelines of Final Testament I usually dole out 250xp per session, assuming all objectives where completed (-50xp per failed one). At the end of a story arc I could give out a good 1000xp or more depending on how successful they were.

Already my PCs are getting **** good at what they do, so you might even do less than that and still keep the ball rolling.

I usually do the recommended 400 XP per 4 hours of play (so about one session). Though for my current campaign, if the players aren't roleplaying or start to metagame, they instantly lose half of that.

My players like to try and meta, but also hate when people meta so it is difficult to combat.

When I ran a game with that method of XP awarding, the players got to ludicrous heights of power in little to no time at all. I tend to do achievement based XP now, based on Deathwatch's mechanics. Guardsmen get scary at 10, 000xp. Even 7, 500xp+

After passing 5k XP you cant speak of Guardsmen anymore. Depending on the Build even 2.5k XP can unleash some serious power.

That is simply the problem of the system. It tries to tell you that you are still Guardsmen where you have in fact become something like an Astartes shredding killing machine.

So even with 100-200 XP per 3-4h Session you will reach the point where the theme is somewhat broken and you have a party of some serious lunatics that have grown strong enough to make the complete First and Only look like noobs.

For Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Deathwatch this makes somewhat sense for those are about institutions that have a complete unlimited and unpredictable power potential.

As for the Guard your PC-Sarge might evolve into a living Saint that steps out of the Trench and singlehandedly kills 10 Khorne Berserkers with just above 5k XP - no Problem at all.

You sooner or later have to make peace with that.

I just build the NPCs as if they were comradeless PCs. Watch the serious hurt that follows.

I never seem to have a problem with players becoming too powerful, as the GM has quite a few tools that can negate that. Beating your Chaos Space Marine boss? Not a problem, throw a whole squad waiting in ambush for the players. Gunning down Orks left and right? Not when they face three whole squads of Nobs and a Squiggoth.

The books are full of incredibly powerful and dangerous foes, and when my players get too powerful, I set them up against more powerful foes, and in greater numbers. They may be able to kill a Dark Eldar Incubus, but what happens when they enter a dark room where five of them have been waiting?

Even though the power curve is ludicrous, PCs are still only base human beings. They won't last forever.

So your solution is just to pit regular Guardsmen against "Elite" Troops again and again.

This is very much what I said. It breaks the theme for they stop to be mere Guardsmen at that point they have to be challenged for their Melee Brawler is capable to kill 3 Chaos Marines in the blink of an eye.

Of course there are ways to challenge them, but at that point they are heroes fighting other heroes.

I'm not sure why this is a problem. It's that or gun them down through liberal use of the Formations mechanic.

So your solution is just to pit regular Guardsmen against "Elite" Troops again and again.

This is very much what I said. It breaks the theme for they stop to be mere Guardsmen at that point they have to be challenged for their Melee Brawler is capable to kill 3 Chaos Marines in the blink of an eye.

Of course there are ways to challenge them, but at that point they are heroes fighting other heroes.

I'm not sure why this is a problem. It's that or gun them down through liberal use of the Formations mechanic.

This works too, if you don't like the idea of them fighting elites all the time. They may be able to fight off a few Chaos Space Marines, but how well do they fare against two platoons of Severan Dominate troops and a Leman Russ tank?

This works too, if you don't like the idea of them fighting elites all the time. They may be able to fight off a few Chaos Space Marines, but how well do they fare against two platoons of Severan Dominate troops and a Leman Russ tank?

With the right build/preperation these are still a joke against decent PCs.

Idk. I had a party that managed to kill a Warpsmith in Terminator Armour with little difficulty, but when faced with 65 Severan Dominate footsoldiers armed with 14 special weapons between the lot of them, they were overwhelmed and captured.