Experience

XP in Oath-Bound is awarded by the GM at the end of the session in The Rutter — the structured ceremony that closes every session. It is not accumulated by formula and is not tied to kills, treasure, or any prescribed activity. The award is made honestly, transparently, and collaboratively, based on the GM’s assessment of what the session established about the character and their development.

The vanilla AD&D level structure remains intact underneath. A character does not level up — they arrive at a point where they are functioning at a new level, because the fiction and the GM’s assessment have established that they are. The level is a recognition of what the character has become, not a mechanical event triggered by a number.

Prime requisite XP bonuses do not apply. There are no class-specific XP tables to consult. There is no threshold to hit. There is just The Rutter, a GM with good judgment, and a table that has been watching the character develop.

This is not a less rigorous system than the PHB’s. It is a more honest one. The XP formula was never doing what it claimed to do — every table mutated it, every GM overrode it. Oath-Bound simply acknowledges this and gives the GM’s judgment better tools to work with.

The Rutter — CRM