D&D Next - 5e Discussion

Idea: extra XP triggers

There are plenty of grumbles about experience points only being awarded for killing things, and the rules for arbitrarily giving out more for completing tasks are pretty vague. Does anyone have any suggestions to improve this other than "just use milestones"?

I'm tempted to borrow some ideas from PBtA/BitD and give everyone some per-session XP triggers, e.g.

• The barbarian solved a problem with violence or intimidation
• The wizard pursued their magical studies
• The character struggled with their Flaw
• The character acted in a way that lived up to their Ideal

QoL: PCs can choose to permanently drop down the initiative order

I believe this was just a thing you could do in older editions but there are no rules for it in 5e. Sometimes going first doesn't work well for teamwork (e.g. your Shield Master going directly before the enemy so they get up after each shove before anyone can attack them while they're prone), so letting you drop down the order can help without giving you a freebie (i.e. the enemy might get an extra go against you). I've not encountered any problems with this yet!