Keep on the Shadowfells, XP/Quests and the new Economy Article (minor spoilers)

[Wraithdrit]

So, I'm running Keep on the Shadowfells at my FLGS (Dragon's Lair, Austin, Tx) this Saturday for my regular group. We made characters and got people together in a town in my campaign setting (which I will be replacing Winterhaven with).

Anyways... as I'm reading through the adventure I see there are three quests that are listed as adventure hooks. The thing is they give a HUGE amount of experience each. Especially if you contrast those with the new economy article.

Quest 1: 1250 xp
Quest 2: 1750 xp
Quest 3: 2000 xp!!!

The first quest can be completed at first level. The other two would require the party to finish the adventure, something they should be doing while third level (according to the module).

So I'm thinking that I'm going to replace the first quest with a 600 xp level 1 major quest reward, and the second one with 2nd level quest rewards (750 xp ea).

Anyways, main point was just to point out that the KotS quest rewards for XP are WAY out of line based on the Economy article

Oh, and just by running some encounter numbers it does not look like dropping the XP quest rewards is going to impact if the players level or not.

- Wraith

P.S. Oh, and of course I have 6 players, not 5. So I have to take that into consideration and start adding mobs into the encounters to get each encounter (obviously balanced for 5 players based on what I'm seeing) up to an appropriate challenge for 6 players. That discussion I'm willing to bring online, but would contain SERIOUS spoilers.

 

[MerricB]

Quest 1: 1250 xp
Quest 2: 1750 xp
Quest 3: 2000 xp!!!

The first quest can be completed at first level. The other two would require the party to finish the adventure, something they should be doing while third level (according to the module).

Just a note as to the quests that take the entire adventure to complete: in essence you have a quest taking levels 1, 2 & 3. So, if you add together the three levels of quest XP you get 1875 xp...

Cheers!

 

[Kwalish Kid]

How is this "(no spoilers)"?

 

[Wraithdrit]

How is this "(no spoilers)"?

There is no discussion of quest content, etc. But obviously you disagree, so I'll change the title.

- Wraith

 

[Wraithdrit]

Just a note as to the quests that take the entire adventure to complete: in essence you have a quest taking levels 1, 2 & 3.

When the characters finish a major quest that they’ve been pursuing for several sessions, divide the XP reward among all the characters who participated in the quest, even those who aren’t present in the particular session when the PCs complete it. That’s only fair—a major quest is like an encounter that stretches over multiple game sessions, and everyone who participates deserves to share in the reward.

So as I see it, a major quest is a reward that covers several sessions of play, and is basically the equivalent in value to killing a solo monster. If you add up all the quest rewards that are listed in the book (three quests) then you get 6000xp!

KotS says (I'm going from memory here so I might be off) that it requires 1000xp to go up to level 2 and 2250 xp to go to level three. This is an equivalent level monster xp value times 10. So to get to level four (which the adventure states should be achievable by the end of the adventure) would by extrapolation take a total of 3750 xp. Level 5 would take another 1750 for a grand total of 5500 xp.

If you clear the adventure you are looking at something like 3900 xp in monster killing reward. If you add to that 1250 xp of quest reward you are at... 5150 xp. A mere 350 from level 5, not just getting to 4th as the adventure seems to imply the players should be at.

If you replace the values from the economy article, then instead you are looking at 2100 xp divided by 5 is 425 per pc, or right about 4325 if you cleared everything. Not all groups kill everything, so that gives enough buffer between 3750 to get most groups all the way to level 4.

Now to be fair, the adventure also doesn't say use all the hooks, it says use as many as you want. I like lots of quests and things to be going on, so I'm just trying to bring the quests in line with the economy article, and allow for all of them to be used, and it not send the characters too high in XP.

- Wraith

 

[Lurker59]

The adventure actually recommends using ONE of the three quests, not all three. They exist so the characters have a reason to go Winterhaven. Obviously a DM is free to use all three if they want. I do agree that the XP rewards seems a little high compared to the DMG table though..