Do you have to level up...

[Inconsequenti-AL]

...when you have enough XP?

Could you just decide to wait for some reason?

Came up on another thread and inquiring minds need to know!

 

[Plane Sailing]

No, not in my opinion. After all, you might be saving up the xps to create a huge magic item or ring of wishes or something.

As a player in a SW game my 2nd level soldier got enough xps for 3rd level but held off for another two adventures because he wanted to meet that mysterious old guy in the desert and chat to him about some stuff, know what I mean?

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I can't think of any reason that you HAVE to level up, it's one of those things that I imagine is so implicit in the rules that no-one's ever bothered to write rules about it.

What reason could you have for waiting, anyway?

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

What reason could you have for waiting, anyway?

Plane Sailing came up with a good one above your post...


The original reason was: it came up in another thread about Detect Evil. Someone pointed out the strength of your evil aura is related to your level and not the 'evilness' of your deeds.

It was pointed out that a particularly metagamish villan might deliberately delay leveling so it'd be harder to catch them! So I was wondering if someone could use that (rather extreme!) method of avoiding detection.

If they did get caught they could try asking for a 'diablo style' insta-leveling for the inevitable fight?

 

[irdeggman]

The only requirement is that you can only go up 1 level at a time. So sometime before gaining enough exp to go to the next level the character has to level up.

I can really think of no reason not to level up as quickly as possible though. Too many things get lost by not gaining abilities when going up, spellcaster don't gain any new spells (either higher level or additional spells), bonuses don't increas (BAB, saves, etc), hit points don't increase, etc.

 

[UltimaGabe]

You can choose not to level up whenever you want. In fact, they specifically mention it in the DMG. They state that you cannot make magical items that would reduce your XP totals lower than the minimum for your level- so, basically, you can't go down a level from making magical items- but they state you can choose to use your experience for making magical items rather than leveling up.

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to save your XP.

 

[jgsugden]

I do not see this covered in the rules. As such, I believe it will be a DM decision.

I would recommend that the DM allow a player not to advance, but I strongly encourage them to treat them as if they had advanced for experience purposes. Otherwise, under the 3.5 experience system that awards more experience to individual characters that are lower level than their allies, you could end up with one PC that leaps ahead of the other PCs after lagging behind by a few levels.

I also would not allow a PC to be more than 1 level behind. Delay is fine, but I see a few possible problems/abuses for a PC that puts off advancing so that he can gain the first few levels in a prestige class all at once ...

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Good point about gaining more exp when of lower level. In 3.0, it wouldn't have made a difference, but in 3.5, a 4th level character will get more XP than the 5th level characters when the party defeats a particular threat.

AR

 

[Planesdragon]

I would recommend that the DM allow a player not to advance, but I strongly encourage them to treat them as if they had advanced for experience purposes. Otherwise, under the 3.5 experience system that awards more experience to individual characters that are lower level than their allies, you could end up with one PC that leaps ahead of the other PCs after lagging behind by a few levels.

That shouldn't be that much of a problem. If a character with a lot of extra XP dies, they lose their entire extra store when they lose a level upon ressurection.

 

[Stalker0]

The only clause I know of is that you can spend new xp to craft items instead of using it to gain a level.