D&D 5E Downtime XP farming with animate dead or conjuration spells

[Lakesidefantasy]

It would be fun (not) to require such a player to do this away from the gaming table, and require them to run each battle, roll every die, record video as proof they did, then post it on YouTube for review. Afterward, I'd give them the experience points.

In the meantime, the rest of us would have fun playing Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[snickersnax]

It would be fun (not) to require such a player to do this away from the gaming table, and require them to run each battle, roll every die, record video as proof they did, then post it on YouTube for review. Afterward, I'd give them the experience points.

In the meantime, the rest of us would have fun playing Dungeons and Dragons.

I am actually contemplating the concept as a world building/adventure idea, and I want to make sure I'm not creating a monster by putting the idea in my players heads that I regret later.

 

[Oofta]

As others have stated, no. Just no. If you just want to level PCs without actually playing the game, just do it.

 

[cmad1977]

No
I’d think seriously about booting any player who seriously suggested this idea.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I don't like the idea that the inhabitants of the game world know the rules of D&D.

Also I consider XP, if I use it at all, to only apply to PCs.

 

[Lanefan]

I generally have it that summoned things count, for xp purposes, as part of the summoner. Thus, killing things you've summoned yourself really is a waste of time, and killing things others have summoned doesn't help much unless-until you finish off the summoner as well. All done specifically to prevent abuses like those you mention.

 

[snickersnax]

I don't like the idea that the inhabitants of the game world know the rules of D&D.

It boggles my mind that the inhabitants of a world would not be putting in at least some effort to understand their world. I mean they must know something right? bigger swords do more damage? Fireball has more killing power than firebolt? I can't make a potion of invisibility unless I can cast invisibility? Adventuring makes you better at what you do?

 

[5ekyu]

To me, this could be a great "off-screen training" narrative (aka danger room) to show the training side of advancing thru experience. This scene could be used in games where you use the optional training costs/downtime requirements.

I could even see this as a downtime training time that does gain some xp if you award xp for downtime activities. Dont use the critter xp, just the downtime xp rate.

This could even be a training class, where a conjurer or necromancer uses summoned/animated as fodder against rookies in training up them for combat.

There are a lot of reasonable ways this scene can be reasonable in a setting, but not as a constant xp generator.

 

[snickersnax]

I generally have it that summoned things count, for xp purposes, as part of the summoner. Thus, killing things you've summoned yourself really is a waste of time, and killing things others have summoned doesn't help much unless-until you finish off the summoner as well. All done specifically to prevent abuses like those you mention.

So no xp for killing summoned Tiamat

 

[Doug McCrae]

It boggles my mind that the inhabitants of a world would not be putting in at least some effort to understand their world.

People always try to understand the world they live in. But the rules of D&D aren't necessarily the same as the rules of the game world. In my view, they're the rules of the game we're playing but only have a fairly loose connection to the game world, which, apart from magic, operates under much the same physical laws as our own.

bigger swords do more damage?

In our own world I'm not sure that bigger swords do in fact do more damage.