I think a expotential expericence level in order to level up are a better choice. Either that or that the level of experience decides how much experience a certain creature is worth (the two alternative being pretty much the same thing in the end).

Imagine for example that you set out early and manages to kill a couple of dragons and you level up quickly and becomes known across the land as the dragon killer. Now a tiger is not going to present much of a challange for you, neither will you gain fame for killing one, even if you never met one before.

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Original post by gamegod3001 Morrowind's sytem of leveling in concept is one of the best, and killing 500 rats being equal to killing 1 dragon (though they are invincible) is realistic. Everytime you successfully swing a sword it's level increases and the higher the swords level the less hits it takes to kill a rat or dragon. Eventuly killing a rat takes oen hit and you don't level fast from that well a dragon might take a few more.

Realistically, killing 500 rats is NOT equal to killing 1 dragon.


I look at it this way. I kill a rat, I get N XP. Once I kill the next rat, I will already have more exp than when I killed the first, so I receive N - M XP for killing the second rat. Even less for the third, and less again for the fourth. Basically, you can kill an infinite amount of rats before they together equal a dragon.

I've designed combat systems on two very different muds, but I made the same conclusion. You cannot have a system where the monsters have *hard* (static) XP. Each monster needs to yield a different amount of xp for each killer. You can have a base value for each monster, though. Either a simple number, 1-100 for instance, and calculate the difference between this value and some value of its killer and then multiply with some factor, or a xp ceiling from which you simply subtract characteristics from the killer.

If you have a party-based RPG, you can always go easy on yourself, and just use the middle-value of all the characters,
instead of giving out individual exp for each party member.

If you compare experience with how well you use the sword, you can imagine that after the first rat, you feel damn good. But, after 300 rats, there simply isnt much left to learn about chopping rats to pieces. IE: No more (or insignificant) exp.

My 2cc, anyways.