XP: Treasure vs. Monster

In the original books, there's this line:

Gains in experience points will be relative; thus an 8th level Magic-User operating on the 5th dungeon level would be awarded 5/8 experience.

(Men & Magic, p. 18)

 A lot of people ditch the level multiplier completely. Those that don't usually apply it uniformly to both XP for monsters slain and XP for treasure brought home from the adventure, because that's actually what the rules say.

But I'm thinking "Screw it. Reduce monster XP, keep treasure XP unmodified."

It makes treasure way more important. It's already more important than monster XP (about 80% of all XP earned, some people have calculated.) But I say: Let's go farther.

When a starting adventure kills a bunch of goblins and then tells stories about it in the taverns, it sounds impressive. That's where the XP comes from. But when adventurers keep killing goblins, it becomes less and less impressive each time. XP for repeat kills should count less and less, as the local tavern dwellers are going to say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you killed some goblins. We've heard that before."

The easiest way to make repeat kills matter less and less over time is to adjust monster XP based on character level. OK, it might be easier to just keep track of which monsters a character has already slain and not count them again, but that's way more bookkeeping.

I'm thinking maybe a simpler method than multiplying XP by a ratio might be to compare character level to monster level and subtract half the monster XP per level of difference, so that 1st level monsters become worthless when the character is 3rd level, but I'm not sold on that method yet.

Magic Item XP: Yea or Nay?

There’s been a discussion elsewhere on which GMs award experience for magic items. I don’t, unless the item is sold, but I may change that. However, let’s go over what is known in OD&D.

The only place in the LBBs where awarding experience points is discussed is in Men & Magic. There, we see this sentence:

As characters meet monsters in mortal combat and defeat them, and when they obtain various forms of treasure (money, gems, jewelry, magical items, etc.), they gain “experience”.

It goes on to explain that characters get 1 experience point for every gold piece of treasure value, adjusted for how risky it was for the characters to gain the treasure. There is no list of XP awards for magic items, so the conclusion I reach is that the XP value of magic items is equal to the monetary value of the item.

The Greyhawk supplement changes the way experience points are awarded for monsters, but makes no changes for treasure or magic items. The Holmes basic booklet uses different phrasing, but agrees with Men & Magic. It’s not until AD&D that we see lists of XP awards for magic items. Because Holmes basic was edited and altered by Gygax himself, I interpret this as a change in procedure for the AD&D branch, not a clarification of some overlooked rule.

When I GM, I interpret experience points as a form of status combined with self-confidence. Villagers see how much money you bring back from an expedition and hear tales of your exploits, and that increases their opinion of you, which boosts your confidence in your own abilities. So, although I haven’t awarded XP for magic items before, I’m thinking that displaying and using enchanted gear ought to boost your reputation as well. But the award should be much less than if an item is sold.

What I’m thinking now is: the XP award for most items, excluding single-use items like potions and scrolls, should be similar to the XP award for monsters. Use the spell level equivalent for magical effects as the hit dice rating. If there’s a magical bonus, as for weapons and armor, add that to the dice rating. If there are two powers, use the highest power to set the dice rating, then add 50%. If there are three or more powers, double the dice rating.

Since the XP award will probably be pretty low, it’s OK to always award this XP, regardless of whether the player keeps the item or not. If they sell the item, they also get XP for the value of the item.

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Liber Zero Character Advancement GM Reference Pamphlet (PDF)

Here’s another Liber Zero reference sheet in pamphlet format: the Character Advancement GM Reference Sheet. This contains the full version of the XP modifier table and an XP/Hit Dice progression table. It also has guidelines for awarding experience points, optional XP awards for GMs that want to try something other than “kill monsters and take their stuff”, rules for going past Level 11, starting at a higher level, or switching classes, and general advice for the GM about handling experience. That doesn’t mean players can’t look at the pamphlet. though. In fact, the information is arranged so that the most relevant information for players is the first information you see when you open the pamphlet.

The XP modifier table is for my version of bonuses for high primary abilities. What I did, as you may recall, was “zero it out” and precalculate XP for a unit of treasure to eliminate subtraction and percentages to simplify the process. It’s all addition and multiplication. The version in the character card pamphlet was a “basic” version, which assumes all classes advance at the same rate. This expanded table uses a trick to boost the XP bonus for classes that advance faster:

1. Find the range for your primary ability score on the table.
2. Move down four rows if your character is Heroic class (fighter,) or down eight rows if your character is Hybrid class (cleric.)
3. Write the XP Mod in that row on your character card.

The pamphlets for each class will have custom tables that eliminate the need for Step 2.

The original game, of course, has a unique progression table for each class. Some people dump this approach and make all classes progress at the same rate, but this alters the balance between the classes. Boosting the XP bonus for individual classes is sort of an in-between approach: I can use one progression table, but fighters will progress faster than magic-users, and clerics will progress faster than fighters. It duplicates the effects of the original game without copying the mechanics.

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Simplified XP Bonus Table

Who wants an experience point table for Liber Zero?

I’ve tinkered with the earned experience before, especially the bonus for primary ability scores. Because who wants to subtract percentages, really? My solution in the past has been to “zero out” the bonuses: instead of -20% for Fighters with a Strength of 6 or less, give Fighters with average Strength a bonus.

That’s the thinking behind this latest version of the XP Bonus Table, which I had to work on … for reasons. This not only assumes that characters with scores of 3 or 4 get no bonus, it also assumes that there is a unified XP advancement table with the magic-using class as the default. All other classes get a bonus. I also included a tweak to the by-the-book bonuses to make the progression smooth.

The table assumes:

• Standard unit of treasure is 1 coin pouch, or 20 coins. A small bag holds two and a half pouches (50 coins,) while a large sack holds 15 pouches or six bags (300 coins.)
• Monster experience is per person for a team of four or five adventurers. A smaller team earns double XP, while a solo adventurer earns triple XP.
• Adventurers who fight a monster that has fewer hit dice or levels than they do earn half XP and no XP bonus. If the adventurer has twice the hit dice or levels that the monster has, they earn no experience.

The monster XP rules are greatly simplified compared to the by-the-book formula (monster level/character level * base XP.) As a result, sometimes characters will earn a little more XP than in OD&D, but a lot of the times they will earn less.

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Re-Thinking XP and Hit Dice

I did not have any spare writing time this week, so here’s just a quick note about XP. I like using these three XP progressions the best:

Level	Fighter XP	Cleric XP	Thief XP
1	0-1,999	0-1,499	0-999
2	2,000+	1,500+	1,000+
3	4,000+	3,000+	2,000+
4	8,000+	6,000+	4,000+

Now, previously, I figured out that magic-user XP works out to 125% of fighter XP. But I’m tempted to simplify things this way: get rid of the fighter XP column entirely and express all XP in terms of two columns:

Level	XP	Hybrid XP
1	0	0
2	1,000	1,500
3	2,000	3,000
4	4,000	6,000

Basic mundane classes, like thieves, use the main XP column. Heroic mundane classes, like fighters, shift down one row. Those in between, like clerics, shift over one column instead. And full-fledged spell-casters add the two columns.

Hit dice requires a slightly trickier table. Here, each level has two rows. Again, use the hit dice in the main HD column for basic mundane classes, but use the first of the two rows. Shift down one row for heroic mundane classes. Hybrid classes shift over one column. Full-fledged spell-casters use the same HD as basic mundane classes.

Level	HD	Hybrid HD
1	1	1
	1+1
2	1+1	2
	2
3	2	2+1
	3
4	2+1	3+1
	4+1
5	3	4
	5
6	3+1	4+1
	6
7	4	5+1
	7+1
8	4+1	6
	8
9	5	7
	9
10	5+1	7+1
	10+1

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Materialistic Spell Points: XP Follow-Up

I have a reader question to answer and some details to add to the post on materialistic spell points (powering spells with actual physical objects called "spell balls" that magicians make as part of their spell prep, instead of memorizing spells.)

First the question. Christian Kolbe asked:

Are the gp spent on mana balls also converted to XP? It is just a different way to look at investment/spending of XP. You might even reduce the XP required to level since they have to invest XP in each spell.

I gather here that you are using an "XP for gold spent" rule. That's a house rule that has been floating around on the net for a while, although I'm not sure how common it is. I've never ran or played in a game with that rule, myself. It's always been "XP for gold brought back from an adventure" for me. If you use that rule, or any house rule that does away with XP entirely, you aren't investing XP in any spells, so changes to the XP required to level up wouldn't be appropriate.

For GMs using "XP for gold spent", however, it depends on what counts as "spending gold". If it doesn't matter what the gold is spent on, then paying for ingredients to make spell balls gets you XP, the same as paying for anything else would. You wouldn't want to reduce the XP required for an M-U's next level, in that case, because the M-U isn't being penalized for prepping spells instead of spending cash on booze.

But if I recall correctly, Dave Arneson's original pre-D&D rule was that characters had to spend their treasure on non-adventuring items: hobbies, property and property upgrades, social events, anything other than gear you bring into the dungeon. Several of the house rules I've seen for "XP for gold spent" go this route, such as the various carousing tables. In those cases, paying to prep your spells would reduce your potential XP and theoretical slow your advancement, so it might be better to adjust XP requirements for levels.

Fortunately, I made the cost per spell ball 100 gp, which would be 100 xp, and if you only spend one day prepping spells before an adventure, the xp invested would be 100  * your level per adventure. You'd have to gauge how many adventures it takes to get to the next level, and that is going to vary from GM to GM, so maybe a better way would be to give magicians an XP bonus per spell prepped.

... Or just make an exception and allow gold spent on spells to count towards XP. That's probably smarter, since the rules as I wrote them allows magicians to overstock on spell balls or avoid paying for ingredients entirely. If magicians get XP for prepping spells, a player could opt to not spend any money at all, but just gather ingredients and make spell balls all year instead of going on adventures.

That leads in to some other things I wanted to say about spell balls, but I'll save that for another post.

Upkeep vs. Taxes

There's a forum discussion o  support and upkeep costs (1% of experience) and what it covers: Housing? Food? Equipment maintenance? Taxes? A mix of two or more? Everyone has a different approach. I think I want it to be part taxes, part housing, household supplies, and household servants. But I've come up with some rules for the latter.

The size of your household, in rooms, equals half your level, round down, max four rooms. At first level, you are sharing a room with someone in a boarding house or inn. You get one good meal a day included, and a storage chest with key. Higher levels mean a private room or small house, stocked with food,

You have one and a half household servants per room, round down. These are housekeepers, maids,  and other lowly types. At 1st level (zero servants,) you don't have personal servants, but the head of the household has servants who clean your room, change bedding, and the like,

At higher levels, these costs include restocking supplies for the household, like wood for the fire, candles for lighting, a well-stocked larder, and so on. It doesn't include anything to take on an expedition. You can raid your household fo save a few bucks, but then there should be loyalty checks to see if the house staff reacts badly to you taking all the food and expecting them to make do with scraps, or taking all the candles and leaving them in the dark.

For now, I'm assuming half your upkeep costs is household, half is taxes. You can cut your costs in half and only pay your taxes, if you want to camp in the woods and scrounge for food, You can pay lower household costs based on a lower class level, which will get you a reaction penalty from some people (not living up to your status.) You can pay living expenses and try to skip the taxes, which runs the risk of legal trouble: 5+ on 1d6 (check weekly) means you escape the tax collector. Paying taxes at a lower level gives a +1 on the escape roll per two levels: if you are 6th level and pay taxes as if you were 4th level, for example, you get a +2 on the roll, which gives you a 2 in 6 chance of escaping the tax collector. (Yes, this means that a Lord who hasn't built a stronghold yet and pays taxes as if he were only 8th level gets away scot free, while a 2nd level fighter who pays half his taxes has a 4 in 6 chance of getting caught. The rich are lucky jerks like that.)

Immediate Rewards

JB had a post a couple days ago about Chuck E. Cheese... and also the banality of saving up experience points for some eventual reward. But what he may not have noticed is that his post is an indirect argument in favor of XP for treasure.

Consider this: if you only get XP for killing monsters, or perhaps also for solving puzzles and "good roleplaying", you get no immediate benefit, other than the good feeling you'd get at a job well done. But when you get XP for treasure, you are also getting the treasure itself. Treasure thus has both a long-term benefit (increase in level) and an immediate benefit (spend it on better stuff.)

You could, of course, ditch the XP part, if that really wasn't your thing. But ditching the treasure part is a bad move.

XP for Poor Man's Identify

In the post on XP for magic items, I suggested that the reward should be low and should also be awarded for other items as well, just to keep players on their toes. But I wasn't really sure what to use to rate the value of non-magical items. You can't use monetary value, because that's already part of the game; you get XP for your profit from the sale of items brought back from the expedition.

But porphyre77 left a comment that gave me an idea:

I could maybe give some XP for magical objects that are identifies "the hard way" i-e tested by the characters. 

Suppose you did this: every unsold item gives a flat XP reward of 100 XP per dungeon level, as long as it is used or displayed in a character's lair. If sold, deduct this value from the price received for net experience gained. If used before the character returns from the adventure (trial and error identification,) double the reward if the item is magical and not cursed. Thus, by taking a risk, players might get more XP -- or nothing at all.

XP for Magic Items

There's been some forum discussion of experience awards for magic items. OD&D doesn't include this by default; AD&D does.

I prefer the OD&D way. It seems to be a better fit with the way XP already works -- XP for things you get rid of, like treasure and monsters, but not for allies and charmed creatures -- but also avoids the question of when XP are awarded. When the item is found? Identified? Used? If you award XP when the item is identified, what happens in cases of partial identification?

If you do award XP for the item itself, I think you should include non-magical unique items that are also worth XP, to keep the players guessing. And keep the amount low... Very low, like 100 XP to 500 XP, with some kind of overlap.

Concealed XP

For a good long while, I've been pondering an idea that would "conceal" the experience point system, apparently eliminating it (but secretly keeping it.) The idea is based around the fact that most experience comes from treasure, so cumulative experience points are, effectively, cumulative wealth... and since weekly expenses/taxes are based on 1% of experience, we could actually build something around that. The table would look something like:

Fighter Level		Weekly Expenses
1		10
2		30
3		60
4		120
5		240

This is based on the midpoint between the experience needed for the current level and the experience needed for the next level, divided by 100. Every time you go on an adventure and return successfully, you add 1 to your weekly expenses: when your expenses meet the amount listed for the next level, you gain a level. Thus, your level is based on your perceived wealth + your perceived adventurousness.

This approach does leave the door open for "cheating" (spending more than needed to trick people into thinking you are more successful than you really are.) This would work something like carousing rules, with a reaction roll every time you spend money equal to the expenses for the next level; on a Good result, your current expenses go up by 1. Spending double on one party/project gets a +2 increase, triple gets a +3, and so on. There would, of course, be drawbacks for a Bad or Very Bad reaction, and bonus effects for a Very Good reaction, but I haven't decided on those just yet. If you brag about monsters slain on your last expedition, for every monster of equal or higher level slain, you earn a +1 bonus to expenses if the reaction roll is a success.

It's something I want to think about some more, but I think it has potential.

Troll Questions: XP

Another post on the top ten troll questions. This time, I'm tossing in the "bonus question".

(9). XP for gold, or XP for objectives (thieves disarming traps, etc...)?

XP for gold, definitely. XP for objectives? Not so much, although if an objective can be given a hit dice or monetary value, certainly.

I have suggested in the past that generic plans can be given XP ratings equal to 10 x the ability score relevant to carrying out the plan. However, I'm thinking now that I wouldn't want to apply that to every little task. "Oh, you picked a common house lock? Good for you. No, it's not worth any XP."

I've mentioned before that I don't see "level" as a knowledge or skill rating, but as a reputation and confidence rating. You earn experience by doing things that people talk about. Bringing back scads of treasure definitely counts. Picking one lock doesn't. Crossing the Horrible Desert? Well, yeah, that seems more reasonable; worth at least 10 x Con. Maybe also 10 x Int, if word gets out you did it because of your phenomenal knowledge about deserts. Disabling a well-known trap or opening a legendary lock should be worth experience, too. People talked about Alexander the Great undoing the Gordian Knot, so it must have been worth some experience points.

Bonus Question: Unified XP level tables or individual XP level tables for each class?

Individual XP tables, although I would only need four tables. Maybe only three; I've been considering merging the thief and cleric tables. Any other class is really just a variant of Fighter, Magic-User, or Thief, or a hybrid of two of those, so just use the appropriate table, or the one with the slowest advancement, for hybrids.

Troll Questions: Level Limits

Another post on the top ten troll questions.

(4). Demi-human level limits?

I'm in favor of them. A flat Level 8 limit for any non-human of any class except Thief and its variants. Short races reduce max level as a Fighter proportional to height. Honestly, why do people object to this? If unlimited level advancement is important to you, don't pick a demi-human class that has a level limit. If being an elf or dwarf is more important to you, do that instead, and deal with the level limits.

But... Just because dwarves are normally limited to 6th level as a Fighter doesn't mean that a player can't find a way to push beyond that limit. Instead of bitching about the rules, make that your character's quest: "I want to be a respected dwarven lord and start a barony, exactly like a human lord." OK, find a way.

Financial Ruin

I'm a firm believer in sticking as close as possible to the "XP for monetary value and monster hit dice" model as possible. But, of course, that model is way more flexible than some believe. Here's an idea that might make sense in some campaigns: if you are running a heavy-intrigue game and players get the idea to ruin an NPC financially, they earn XP for the value of what the NPC lost, or some portion of that value, whether the PCs personally acquire the loot or merely route it elsewhere. Publicly embarrass a noblewoman (at the request of her rival) by dumping pig's blood on her at the ball? You earn a couple hundred XP, for half the value of the dress she wore. Reveal the secret sins of the local curate, to get him defrocked and his holdings taken away, and you earn maybe half the value of the holdings (and his eternal enmity.)

It works also for a raiding expedition. If you are hired to provoke the neighboring kingdom by looting and pillaging border villages, you get full value for treasure retrieved and half value for property destroyed.

The act has to be intentional though; no "Oops, we misfired the Fireball and set fire to the lord's mansion. Do we get XP?"

The Least Dissociated Mechanic

Kind of another take on the discussion of experience points...

Experience points are the least dissociated mechanic in the book.

Look at ability scores. Strength, Intelligence, etc. refer to things in the game, but what does "1 Strength point" mean? Nothing in the game world, at least in any version of TSR D&D I'm familiar with. In AD&D and Greyhawk supplement, individual points mean nothing; only certain point thresholds change carrying capacity or increase damage. And in the LBBs, there's no correspondence between 1 point of any ability and anything in the game world.

Same with hit dice and hit points. Sure, for monsters, hit dice are a rough guide to the size of the creature, but there's no correspondence between specific size ranges and specific hit dice, and there are several exceptions. It's notably more dissociated when talking about player characters.

I've seen houserules that equate 1 Strength point to 1 stone carrying capacity, or that try to interpret hit points or damage in-game, instead of as some kind of abstraction of luck. But by the book, stripped down to the barest level, they are abstractions.

Not experience points, though. 1 gp = 1 xp. We all know the formula. Experience points, even stripped of the "reputation" interpretation I use, have a literal representation in the game world. Your cumulative experience points are an estimate of your cumulative wealth. A character in the world can't say "I bet that warrior has Strength 15," but the same character could certainly say "I bet that warrior has brought back about 10,000 gold pieces worth of treasure over the years. I think I'll charge him 100 gp in taxes."

XP: Does It Have to Be Dissociated?

OK, Charles and I got into a bit of a discussion on the post about taxing 1% of experience points. Part of this is my fault, because although I've discussed my views of experience points and level here from time to time, I haven't tried to unify them all. But we do seem to have gotten into an impasse because Charles sees experience points as dissociated from anything in-game, and therefore any mechanics based on experience points *must* also be dissociated, even if the GM using them doesn't agree that experience points are dissociated.

So, must they be?

Obviously, experience points have a meta-game function of acting like a score. But does this mean that you are not allowed to associate that meta-game mechanic with something in-game?

In my case, I see experience points as reputation, earned partially from bragging about the monsters you've slain, but mostly from flashing around lots of treasure in town. This is why you don't earn experience points for treasure you don't bring back to town. It's also why you earn experience points for treasure in the first place. Level is, in turn, the confidence in your own abilities you gain from all the people talking about you as if you were the Big Cheese. You get a little bit better, just because you *think* you are a bad-ass.

I've slowly become more firm in that position.

First, it was just the difference in the way I handled level drain: you lose a level (confidence,) but not reputation (experience points,) so once you've "gotten back on the horse" (went on another adventure,) you can get your confidence back.

Then, it was explaining why you get an experience bonus or penalty for low or high ability scores: people in town find the supposed exploits of a scrawny fighter a little harder to believe than a burly fighter's exploits, so you have to work harder. This made me long for the return of the secondary and tertiary experience adjustments, which fell by the wayside very early: you used to get a smaller boost as a Fighter if you had a high Intelligence and Wisdom, too.

Then, I started speculating about adjusting earned experience downwards if you don't have any proof of beating a monster. There's a chance that you won't earn experience, unless there's proof, and your Charisma can affect your chances of convincing townies. I even threw in a chance to get half XP for monsters you *pretend* to slay. This led, naturally, to bards draining levels through satire, to reflect a loss of reputation.

It all falls apart if you don't accept the idea of experience points as reputation, of course. If you treat XP as just a score, or if you interpret them as actual learned knowledge, my interpretation won't work for you. But I think under my interpretation, experience points *are* an associated mechanic; they *do* represent something in the game world, and the local authorities could charge you higher taxes because they think you have more money take.

The Means Do Not Justify the Ends

... They justify themselves.

I meant to comment on this post on Roger's Roles, Rules, and Rolls about the way experience awards changed over time. I've always disliked the change, but Roger's made it clear what's wrong with them in a way that I couldn't put into words: the "new experience awards" focus on rewarding the means of success, as opposed to rewarding success. You don't get a reward for solving a problem; you get a reward for behaving the way the GM wants you to behave.

The way I see it, if a magic-user picks up a dagger and starts slaying monsters instead of casting spells, that's not "bad role-playing". That's like adding your own challenge to the game. It's like when someone offers to play ping pong with one hand tied behind their back, or if they play Nethack under a self-imposed restriction like "Vegetarian" or "Pacifist". You shouldn't penalize someone for making their character more interesting.

That's actually the rationale behind the experience penalties for low prime ability scores. (Something else that disappeared with later editions...) I know a lot of people think it should be the other way around, that you should earn *more* experience for playing a Fighter with Strength 3. But, since Strength originally had no quantifiable effect on gameplay, the experience penalty is there to reflect the fact that you are trying to play against type: you are choosing to play a weakling warrior, or a dumb magician, for the challenge.

Losing Levels Locally

When writing up the short rules about levels and experience points, I mentioned that levels can go up and down, but XP can only go up. That was meant to refer to how I handle level drain from undead, but it made me think about something else. I've said several times that I interpret level as a combination of confidence and reputation... but that raises the question "what happens when you piss off the locals and your reputation is shot to hell?"

Why, handle it like level drain. Your level goes down. You don't forget anything, because levels aren't memory. But you're too flustered to operate at maximum effectiveness, and you can't regain all your luck (hit points.)

To regain a level of lost reputation, you need to go on an adventure locally and earn at least 1 XP. If you've lost several levels, maybe by committing multiple catastrophic blunders, you need to slowly regain your reputation, one adventure at a time. Your successful deeds eventually wipes that condescending smirk off the faces of those judgmental townies.

This also opens the door for bards or character assassins satirizing your exploits and deliberately ruining your reputation as a sort of level drain attack. Although unlike the undead, a bard can't completely destroy you; you will always be at least 1st level. In fact, I think a satire or character assassination should be limited as to how many levels below your max it can drop you. But I'll deal with that some other time.

The XP Rules

For the record, the thoughts from the previous post about excess experience points translate into these short rules:

1. Level can increase or decrease, but XP never decreases. Total XP indicates maximum level you can advance to.
2. You can only advance a level when you return from an expedition to town or home base.
3. You can only advance one level per expedition, even if your XP total indicates you could advance more.
4. You can advance a level after any expedition, no matter how trivial, as long as you earn at least 1 XP and your total XP indicates you should be a higher level.

I might add one or two rules, but they cover some other ideas I haven't even addressed yet.

A Thought About Excess XP

I don't recall anything in the OD&D books that mentions what happens when you gain enough experience to increase two or more levels, instead of just one. I know in AD&D, you only get enough XP to increase one level, plus one point shy of the next level; anything above that is excess XP and is lost. I referred to the AD&D version when I came up with the house rule that level drain does not decrease experience points, and you can regain one lost level by going on an adventure and earning at least one point, which assumes that the "you only gain one level per adventure" rule is in effect.

But now I'm thinking: why not expand that rule? You still only earn one level at most per adventure. But forget the bit about losing excess XP, You earn what you earn, and your XP never decreases. If a 1st level thief somehow earns 5,000 XP, the thief goes up to 2nd level, but after two more adventures worth at least 1 XP, the thief will be 4th level.