D&D 5E Why do we award Encounter XP instead of Adjusted XP?

[el-remmen]

Until I saw this thread right now I didn't know I was supposed to do anything but add up the monsters' XP values and divide them by the number of characters!

I am assuming this is why the slow progression of my game felt right, which surprised me!

I do usually grant a 5% to 20% "story award" for the total based on different goals set for the adventure.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not equaling challenging with regard to how much damage and resources the party uses. The 5 foes will do more damage and require more resources to take out. The 1 foe will do a lot of damage to one or two PCs, but will be gang tackled and taken out fairly quick because of action economy, 5 turns vs. 1 turn.

One single target spell can end or nearly end the fight against the single foe.

On the flip side, 5 weaker foes can be removed with 1 fireball, where the 1 guy is not going to be worth using the spell on or be taken out by it if you do. You need different tactics is all.

 

[Maxperson]

Hey, I see you’re new to the forums. Welcome! For future reference, it’s a good idea to check the date on a post before responding to it. While the subject of how to award XP is certainly still a relevant one, this specific conversation has been dormant for 6 years.

Yeah. Second time this week that a thread necro got me

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah. Second time this week that a thread necro got me

Happens to us all. But any time I see a thread pop up asking a straightforward rules question, it’s a red flag for me. Most of that stuff has been discussed ad nauseum by now.

 

[Charlaquin]

Until I saw this thread right now I didn't know I was supposed to do anything but add up the monsters' XP values and divide them by the number of characters!

I am assuming this is why the slow progression of my game felt right, which surprised me!

I do usually grant a 5% to 20% "story award" for the total based on different goals set for the adventure.

You’re awarding the correct amount of XP, you just might be making some encounters harder than the rules anticipate. Basically, the number of monsters in a fight applies a multiplier to the XP total for the purpose of determining the encounter’s difficulty. But the amount of XP actually awarded is still supposed to be the total XP for the monsters, divided by the number of players. I believe the thinking is, if you kill 10 orcs, you should get 10 orcs worth of XP, whether you killed them all in one big fight, or one at a time. But clearly fighting them all at once would be harder, so as a DM you should take that into account when designing your encounters. If you want to.