We played with the Deck of Many Things last night and a character drew the card that gives you 50000 XP. The character was 14 and the XP amount was enough for him to gain the next two levels. 15 and 16. Is there a rule in 3.5 to not let that happen? I remember reading somewhere that an encounter can only give you enough XP to gain a level and you stop at 1 XP before the level after that. Can someone guide me to that rule if it exists?
P.S. I know that playing with the Deck of Many Things is a bad idea generally, but this was the session that ended a long going campaign and the players actually wanted to do that.
P.S.2 I am treating the gain of the XP by the card as an encounter.
Best Answer
As Ceribia referenced, RAW does not allow this. However, in this case I would consider it for four reasons.
First, the Deck of Many Things is an artifact. Artifacts generally give the big flaming middle finger to RAW. It is what they are there for, to bend or break the rules in epic, awesome, or sometimes silly ways.
Second, even up to level 24, 50K XP is always going to be enough to jump (at least) two levels. The writers must have known this, and the general expectation is that characters stop at level 20, there must be a reason they put it at 50K instead of just saying gain a level (unless it carried over from an older version and they weren't paying attention).
Third, drawing from the Deck is a big risk. They took it, and that player got lucky. Stripping off somewhere between 42 and 70 percent of the benefit (depending on how much XP the player had before the draw) seems unfair.
Four, you said the campaign is ending. Unless you meant that differently, that means the characters are retiring. So does it really matter what level they are at?
That said, if the campaign was continuing, I might negotiate with the player. Because having one player two levels higher than the rest of the party can cause any number of issues. Jealousy, encounter balance, etc.