NewJeffCT said:
I'm thoroughly confused on calculating experience, even though I read through the data, I think I'm more confused now after reading it than I was before when people gave me a quick rundown as a player.
I just wanted to make sure I am calculating XP correctly. The party was 3 first level PCs and one 2nd level NPC fighter. The bad guys were 2 human warriors (I believe CR = 1/2 each) and a 3rd level cleric (CR = 3). Does that mean the bad guys were a CR of 4 and would get 1,350 XP?
No, that's not how it works.
1. Divide up the party into groups of different level characters (in your example, this doesn't matter, but at higher levels it will).
2. Add up the number of monster the PCs faced for each CR. For monsters less than 1 CR, add them together, if possible, into groups to get 1 CR monsters.
3. Cross reference the CR of the monsters in question with the level of the characters. If you have characters of different levels, you may need to do this more than one.
4. Multiply the experience point total by the number of monsters of each CR. For example, if you had two CR 1 monsters defeated by 4 1st level characters, you would multiple the "300" entry by two. You may need to do this more than once if you had characters of different levels participating in the encounter.
5. Repeat for each group of monsters by CR.
6. Add up all these subtotals to get a total experience point award for the encounter. You may need to do this more than once if you had characters of different levels participating in the encounter.
7. Divide the total (or totals, if you had character of differing levels participate in the encounter) by the total number of characters who started the encounter (regardless of level, or whether they survived the encounter). For example, three 2nd level characters and one 3rd level character fight an ogre. One of the 2nd level characters dies in the encounter. You still divide the total experience point amount for the encounter by 4.
8. Award the resulting total as experience points. You may end up awarding different totals to different characters if the characters are not all of the same level (higher level characters get less experience for the same encounter under the standard 3.5e experience point system).
So, using your example, you had two CR 1/2 foes, and one CR 3 foe. The PCs and the NPC are all in the early level "sweet spot" where experience points don't adjust between 1st and 3rd level, so you don't need to worry about the level difference. combine the two CR 1/2 foes to make one CR 1 foe. Cross reference 1st level characters with a CR 1 foe (you get 300). Cross reference 1st level characters with a CR 3 foe (you get 900). Add that together to get 1,200 experience points for the encounter. Divide by 4, and you get 300 experience poitns for each character (including the NPC).