D&D 5E XP Multiplier

[TheCosmicKid]

Using the multiplier would also force DMs to use the Encounter Guidelines.

I use the multiplier and I don't use the guidelines. If there are twenty orcs charging the party, it's because it makes sense in the narrative for there to be twenty orcs charging the party -- whether the party can handle twenty orcs in a fight is their problem. But if they do handle it, I think they deserve a bigger reward than if they killed twenty orcs over the course of twenty fights.

Metagaming to maximize XP would be a foreign concept at our table. Just not how we approach this game. Even if it crossed my players' minds, they're acutely aware that their characters can die, and accordingly approach combat with all caution. Dead characters receive zero XP, of course, so kiting all the monsters into one big fight would be considered a colossally stupid idea. And, hey, if they did decide to do it anyway for strategic in-character reasons ("We need to concentrate the orcs and break them in a decisive battle!") and manage to pull it off, then sure, they deserve multiplied XP for that, because that's pretty cool.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

(1) It was waaaaay too much XP. I can handle giving 3rd level PCs 5,000 XP each for winning an insanely difficult fight, but 20,000 XP just seems wrong. It wasn't THAT hard.

I didn't start doing it until higher levels, when I noticed that although bounded accuracy made groups of weak monsters still significant threats, they didn't award nearly as much XP as powerful singletons. Since I want groups of weak monsters to be the norm and powerful singletons to be the exception -- gnolls are common, dragons are rare -- I started using the multiplier so as not to bring advancement to a screeching halt.

(2) It makes it way too important whether the DM chooses to count a string of related interactions as a single encounter with multiple foes, scattered over an area; or a series of separate encounters. Normally it doesn't matter what the DM calls a given encounter as long as it behaves correctly, but this rule had the potential to give players reason to intrude into an area of the DM's responsibility: adventure construction. ("Was that one encounter we just had or five? Did we get the full x4 XP award for everything?")

I use the multiplier only for monsters that the players are actually engaging at the same time, not sequentially. One memorable session, the party fought a huge running battle through a temple against scattered groups of girallons. We never left combat rounds, because the girallons were constantly advancing and retreating, but they weren't ever able to bring their full numbers to bear at once, so I counted it as a group of four, plus a group of six, plus a group of three, plus a group of two (or whatever the count was).

(3) You'd still have to come up with rules for how to treat circumstantial adjustments to difficulty which don't get reflected in the XP budget. The DMG says that if the PCs are all surprised, for instance, you should mentally bump up the difficulty by one level--but that doesn't technically multiply XP any, so you'd still have to wing it if you wanted to grant extra XP for extra difficulty.

That seems like a completely different question. Tactical difficulties like surprise are the characters' own fault. I don't think they should be rewarded for botching a Perception check.

 

[Ancalagon]

I admit it! I was one of those two people!

... and I made that mistake because I don't actually award XP that way, I do it on a "per session" basis with eye-balled adjustments if I felt there was a notable fight or event in a session. I.e., I'm not very familiar with the rules.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

If I want advancement not to come to a screeching halt I can always throw more gnolls at the PCs, or better yet some nice meaty Slaads. Slaads are how I reward my players with beefy, straightforward, high-XP fights that you don't have to feel guilty about, since red and blue slaadi are basically chestburster aliens. A single slaad can produce an infestation of hundreds of red and blue slaads in a matter of only a few months, so I never feel bad about having to explain where all these dozens of slaadi came from.

I use the multiplier only for monsters that the players are actually engaging at the same time, not sequentially... I don't think they should be rewarded for botching a Perception check.

Maybe they shouldn't be rewarded for botching a Perception check, but you're punishing them for casting Wall of Force (to engage two groups separately) or Pass Without Trace (to divide and conquer). Also, the DMG gives other examples of things that can swing difficulty, such as hostile environments where the PCs are taking damage from the environment but the enemy is not. You still haven't made that problem go away.

But hey, whatever works for you. I'm glad you had fun with your Girallon session, but personally I'd have more fun with it just not worrying about the XP multiplier formula and how to count that one Girallon who shows up in multiple combats but keeps running away.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

If I want advancement not to come to a screeching halt I can always throw more gnolls at the PCs...

No, really, the math sucks. You'd need thirty-nine gnolls to equal one hydra. I'm lazy. That seems like a lot of work. I'd rather run just ten gnolls, which is still plenty dangerous, and multiply the XP by four.

Maybe they shouldn't be rewarded for botching a Perception check, but you're punishing them for casting Wall of Force (to engage two groups separately) or Pass Without Trace (to divide and conquer).

No, that would still get the modifier, because the "default" fight would be against all the monsters, and the players are defeating them in detail through their own deliberate actions.

Also, the DMG gives other examples of things that can swing difficulty, such as hostile environments where the PCs are taking damage from the environment but the enemy is not. You still haven't made that problem go away.

Eyeball the damage it deals and score it like an appropriate monster. Some of our most outstanding encounters haven't involved monsters at all. Descending a high-avalanche-risk mountainside is plenty tense even when there's no other creatures for miles.

But hey, whatever works for you. I'm glad you had fun with your Girallon session, but personally I'd have more fun with it just not worrying about the XP multiplier formula and how to count that one Girallon who shows up in multiple combats but keeps running away.

That one girallon actually got away clean in the end, so it was a moot point.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

No, really, the math sucks. You'd need thirty-nine gnolls to equal one hydra. I'm lazy. That seems like a lot of work. I'd rather run just ten gnolls, which is still plenty dangerous, and multiply the XP by four.

Or 80% of a flind. Thirty-nine gnolls and a flind sounds like a fun encounter for a mid-level party to me! And then after that, a light refresher course of two Blue Slaads mounted on Wooly Mammoths, whooping war cries and mimicking barbarians.

They will hit 8th level in no time at all.

P.S. Oh yes, if I want to award bonus XP I just give the gnolls a treasure cache. XP-for-treasure is alive and well in the form of XP-for-spending-treasure-offscreen on your Bonds, Flaws, and Ideals.

 

[jaelis]

I think the reasoning for not including the multiplier in the XP award is that XP should represent what you accomplished, not how hard or easy you manage to make it. If a stealthy party kills 40 goblins one at a time, they have accomplished the same as a brute force party that killed all 40 in one combat. So they get the same XP reward.

I think that using quest rewards works out similarly... you get the same XP for defeating the goblin army, it doesn't matter how you achieve that.

 

[CapnZapp]

In a different thread two people wanted to "correct" a calculation of awarded xp of mine, by pointing out the xp multiplier from the table in the DMG on page 82. Then others chimed in, pointing out that those multipliers were only for calculating encounter difficulty, not for awarding xp. That evoked two questions in me:

1. How many people are using that multiplier for awarded xp?
2. And wouldn't that actually be the better way?

If we say that 6 goblins in a pack are twice as difficult than 6 single goblins in a row, wouldn't it be only logical to give more xp for the harder encounter?

No, not unless you want to actively encourage hack and slash. (If you don't get more xp per "danger molecule" if you play smart and lure out one goblin at a time, why bother?)

Either answer is fine, just as long as you don't pretend one is more "logical" than the other

 

[mflayermonk]

In a different thread two people wanted to "correct" a calculation of awarded xp of mine, by pointing out the xp multiplier from the table in the DMG on page 82. Then others chimed in, pointing out that those multipliers were only for calculating encounter difficulty, not for awarding xp. That evoked two questions in me:

1. How many people are using that multiplier for awarded xp?
2. And wouldn't that actually be the better way?

If we say that 6 goblins in a pack are twice as difficult than 6 single goblins in a row, wouldn't it be only logical to give more xp for the harder encounter?

To throw another wrinkle in here, the encounter design rules say don't calculate xp for monsters that don't pose a challenge. So 20-30 goblins vs level 10 PCs can be excluded from your encounter difficulty xp calculations.

 

[CapnZapp]

To throw another wrinkle in here, the encounter design rules say don't calculate xp for monsters that don't pose a challenge. So 20-30 goblins vs level 10 PCs can be excluded from your encounter difficulty xp calculations.

Yes, but note that the intended meaning of "don't pose a challenge" might differ from a common-sense reading.

For instance, I would definitely award xp for ten goblins wiped out by a Fireball even if that happened before the goblins got to take their first action, since expending a level 3 spell slot is a non-trivial resource expenditure.

I would read that clause to mean "if the monsters didn't meaningfully impact the encounter, award no xp".

Ten goblins that stand to one side, uselessly shooting arrows at the tank and missing every shot, doesn't pose a challenge. Ten goblins that didn't make a single character take an action she wouldn't have taken if the goblins weren't there does not pose a challenge. Ten goblins taken out by the same series of actions that wiped out their Giant overlords at no extra cost in time or actions does not pose a challenge.