When is an encounter 'beat'?

[Hellefire]

So, I've been gaming for 27 years, but only for a month with 3/3.5 edition. My players all want to play it, so I'm trying to give it a fair shake. Learning the rules and how things are moderated, etc. I came upon a situation that I'm not sure how the 'official' 3.5E rules would deal, and still working on how I am going to deal with it.

It's basically a question of encounters, and how they are 'overcome'. Encounters are overcome (and thus considered for XP) if the characters handle them and continue to their objective right?

So, for example, a group is progressing through a dungeon, with the objective of killing the BBEG at the end. They go through a room with some undead. They do their thing (kill some, turn some, etc, etc). Now, some of the undead were turned and ran away - they weren't destroyed. Does the encounter still count for full XP if the objective was just to get through the room? Or is the EL reduced to the number that were destroyed?

Same scenario - say the players return a year later and face the same undead they turned last time. If they got XP for them the first time, do they get XP for dealing with them again?

Now, in my head, it seems liek they should get full XP for dealing with the encounter above. Also, if they return a year later and do it again, it's a whole new encounter, and they should get XP again.

But what if its a month later? A week later? The next day? The next hour? If they go turn the same undead day after day, do they get new XP day after day? Wheres the line?

I'm mostly trying to figure out the 'official' answers to these questions, but also a bit trying to figure out how I'm personally going to deal with it.

Thanks,
Aaron

 

[IamTheTest]

I give the party full XP if I feel they adequately dealt with the situation at hand. If you were to only give XP for killing creatures youd be hampering the plausibility of other solutions, ie the rogue sneaking past, the cleric turning undead, the bard sweet talking his way past guards... My advice is to use your judgement.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Good old DM's discretion wasn't edited out of the rules when they updated to 3e.

Do what you think is right.

Here's what I do:
If they chase away enemies, they get full XP. Should they encounter the same enemies again at a later time - back to full power (HP, spells, whatever) and have to fight them again, they'll get full XP again.

If they try to exploit it by chasing someone around, expecting to get XP each time they chase him out of sight and hunt down again, they get the Colossal Red Dragon (and a great choice to make many many XP.)

 

[Merkuri]

Think of it this way. If you have a recurring villan and the players encounter and "beat" (but not kill) him five times, do they get XP all five times? Of course! My rule would be that if the undead you turned the day before are at full strength and you have to beat them again that you should get XP for them again. If they have been crippled somehow, or made easier to beat, then that XP would be less or possibly missing.

However, do not let your players "farm" these undead, coming back each day and turning them for the same XP. Use your own discretion to determine if they're abusing the system. D&D is not a MMORPG where you can camp in a certain location and wait for monsters to spawn. If you find your players playing this way make up a rule to stop them doing it. Like, for example, if you have what amounts to the same exact fight with the same exact enemy and you beat it the same exact way you can only learn from it so many times. Thus, after your third time beating those same undead with that same turn undead ability you can no longer gain XP from those particular undead with the turn undead ability.

This will probably be less of a problem with inteligent enemies, as they will probably adapt to the party's tactics, forcing them to fight differently. This, IMO, is perfectly acceptable because it's not the same fight.

 

[Piratecat]

My friend, don't stress about it. Give them half xp if they just chase them away, and full xp if they kill them. Mind you, this is coming from the guy who has eliminated all normal xp from his game because it's too finicky to calculate - so take it with a grain of salt.

(Additional note for Hellefire - stupid scanner not scanning right! I can always mail you those things if you need them sooner. Meanwhile, I'll troubleshoot.)

 

[Hellefire]

Pc

Thanks PC, that would be great! At aaronblairak at yahoo dot co dot uk, or geddak at gmail dot com.

I started 3.5e by using XP I thought was roughly fair. More recently, in an effort to check out the 'formal' rules, I have been doing full XP calculations as noted in the DMG 3.5. And it turns out to be in the same ball-park, so that is good.

The undead thing came about because my players are investigating an undead dungeon. Due to their in-experience with gaming, and my in-experience with 3.5e, it has taken a few sessions to get through the dungeon. They generally return to base during the night, and return the next day to explore more of the dungeon. This means they end up encountering some of the undead they had encountered the day before. Truly, it does take some of their resources to re-deal with the undead, so I think they should receive some XP for them. I am just trying to decide how much - and, again, am trying to learn the official rules for such things in 3.5.

Thanks for the input!
Aaron

 

[Evilhalfling]

when you realize its one gone mad cat.

Yes! thats right.

or did you not want the Korouac answer?

 

[Janx]

Generally, you get XP for defeating your enemies that were a threat. (carefully worded there)

"Defeating your enemies" usually means killing, driving off, or subduing. Basically, the party didn't run away or die.

"were a threat" means they were not so weak as to not actually be a threat. 1 1st leve goblin to a 10th level party is NOT A THREAT. The XP tables reflect this.

Thus, if the party killed some, turned some, made some run away, the defeated the encounter and get the XP.

If they come back the next day, and face the remaining bad guys, well, there's fewer of them, less of a threat. Do the math.

If they come back a year later, and 5 levels higher, well, now the party level is much higher than before, versus the now lower EL, once again, do the math.

If they face Room 1 with 10 zombies and "defeat it" and face Room 2 with 5 zombies and defeat it, how is that any different from facing the same remaining zombies in room 1 again? It's not. Just do the math on the encounter and let the system take care of it.

 

[Delta]

It's basically a question of encounters, and how they are 'overcome'. Encounters are overcome (and thus considered for XP) if the characters handle them and continue to their objective right?

Maybe, maybe not. Read carefully in the DMG and you'll see it says: definitely if a monster is defeated or a trap disarmed. Other times are DM judgement calls.

I only award a unit of XP once for any given enemy. If he runs away, 1/2 XP. If he's killed next time, the remaining 1/2 XP.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

An encounter with hostile opponents is beaten when the opponents are rendered incapable of impeding the players, or unwilling to do the same. Such ways that this can be acheived are as follows.

- Death of the hostiles
- Forcing the hostiles to retreat
- Making the hostiles harmless
- Using diplomacy or intimidate to make the hostiles no longer hostile

Most of the time, its one of the first two options that will end the encounter. But the other two bear some further description.

Rendering the hostile enemies harmless does not happen too often, but there are ways to do it. Putting a wall spell or other physical obstacle between the would be hostile and yourself will end up doing this. The opponent still wants to inflict bodily harm upon you, but since he cannot, he is essentially thwarted. You would want to consider using only half experience for this sort of solution. This sort of solution may end up just delaying the problem for a while. I would consider giving half XP if the opponent is not fully deterred from fighting the opponent.

Using diplomacy or intimidate to get the opponent to no longer be hostile is another matter. This may be worth full experience if you do the diplomatic thing. Talkikng a hostile down into becoming no longer hostile ought to be worth plenty of experience, simply because its harder. Diplomacy requires the DM be co-operative, so use your own judgement. Intimidation is a temporary fix, but there is no harm in letting it work for half XP or less.

My rule of thumb: If the PC's come up with a solution that leaves the hostiles still wanting to kill the players, go for half XP or less.

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