Spending XP

I love the idea of XP as a currency. Love the idea that you can buy rerolls or enhanced effects or even entirely new connections by spending it. But often, no matter how good the things you can buy may be, players hesitate to spend it.

Numenera allows you to spend XP in amounts of 1, 2, 3, and 4, each having a different effect. Gonna go over them and we’re going to see exactly where the problem lies in XP spending in Numenera.

• 1 XP (Immediate term): Reroll one of your own rolls or one of your ally’s rolls. GM doesn’t roll in this system. Useful for turning a 1 into literally anything else, or if you just need to succeed on a roll. An XP can also be used on a Player Intrusion - something in the environment that turns the current challenge or encounter more in your favor.
• 2 XP (Short-to-Medium Term): A temporary or niche skill. Examples given in the book are “Oh the locks in this building are similar to ones you picked growing up, so you gain ‘Picking the Citadel Locks’” and “You spent so much time climbing here that you have a skill for climbing this specific mountain range”. Can also be used to gain temporary powers/magic/abilities too, with GM approval.
• 3 XP (Long term): This is how you codify story things into mechanical things. You could join the Artificer guild narratively, but to (really start to get benefits of being a member, like some of the stuff they keep secret, you’d need to spend the XP. Can also be used to craft an artifact of some persuasion.
• 4XP (Permanent): Take one of the Advancements - Get 4 points to spend on your stat pools, increase Might, Speed, or Intellect Edge by 1, Increase your Effort score by 1, Learn a new skill or improve an Inability, or take one of the “Other options” which improve your healing rate, learn a move from your core class that you are eligible to learn, and so on. Each advancement can be taken once per tier, and once you take 4 of them, you level up.

Sure, 1, 2, and 3 XP things are useful, but why not save up to 4? You get an immediate benefit, plus becomes 25% closer to going up a tier every time. It doesn’t matter that there’s only 6 tiers in Numenera. It doesn’t matter that the power curve is way flatter, so the gap between Tier 2 and 4 isn’t that big. Going Up A Level always feels like the Best Choice.

Looking at Armour Astir, you can use 6 Spotlight to take an Advance. Cool, great. You get those from failing rolls and some downtime activities. But getting a 7-9 on Weather the Storm, and then the GM chooses the “Burn a point of Spotlight to take dramatic action”, as the mixed success, I bet that sucks! To it’s credit, Armour Astir has a few different ways to gain Advancements, which is cool.

Dungeons and Dragons had historically had you spend XP to make magic items and potions, because characters were have thought to cycle in and out so the level difference wasn’t such a huge deal. What’s it matter if you go from Level 6 to 5 making a cool cloak when two members of your party are rolling in at level 3?

I really wish I had an answer to this. It feels bad for players to cost themselves progression, because “new level new stuff” is such a powerful motivator. It’s such a cool concept that you can spend this resource you earned and stored to do something neat, but if a player would “fall behind” the rest of the group who hoarded for level ups, how will they feel? Will they feel like they can still contribute? So what if that reroll let them crit, and their new secret org gave them backup, if now they’re a level back and the level appropriate enemy is keyed to the higher levelled party members?