A DM's judgment...

[Trainz]

In our last game...

We are 3 level 15 PC's and encountered a single Cloud Giant (much lower CR than us). Normally we would have made Giant-Kebab of him and not received much XP for the fight. Fine.

However, we encountered the beast in a weird room that suppressed all magic. No casting, all our items non-functional. Of course that also suppressed what magical powers the beast had.

The fight was very tough, it cost us much resources, we were all under 20 HP's (I was at -7 hit points myself) when we finally slew the beast. It was a fun fight, don't get me wrong.

However, he decided to give us the same XP as if we encountered the beast under normal circumstances. Is it me or was he wrong ?

 

[Drakmar]

personally.. I would have awarded you more XP.. but he is not wrong is awarding you what you like. If everybody in the party feels cheated.. tell the DM. (in as nice a way as possible).. but otherwise.. I would just accept it and not brew over it. that can lead only to trouble.

 

[caudor]

I'll just tell you what I would do; hopefully the info will be helpful. You mentioned the encounter was 'fun', so it sounds like the DM is doing a good job.

All things considered, I would just trust that the DM is awarding XP fairly and let it go. There may be something behind the scenes..some unknown factor that mitigated the award. That's it.

If you notice a pattern over a few sessions that doesn't sit well with you, just have a friendly conversation with your DM in private and talk about it. Be positive and let him know you enjoy the game, but didn't understand a certain aspect. I'm sure he'll welcome constructive feedback regarding his/her campaign.

Good luck in your gaming.

 

[Piratecat]

I think that players micromanaging XP is a lousy idea. Your xp is what your DM gives you, and you have to trust him to be fair. The total amount doesn't matter, so long as no one player gets preferential treatment.

I'd let it go, and never worry about it again.

 

[Oogar]

He is the DM, he can't be wrong

However, the DMG suggests that encounters be modified for experience depending on environment. Fighting a red dragon in a volcano just might be worth an extra 20-30% due to the conditions. But the DM does not HAVE to do this.

Try to understand his reasons. Some of the better modules I have seen, even list what bonus each encounter should be figured at. If the fight is harder then it needs to be because the Players did something silly, well, that is another matter entirely. If you could have moved back out of the room, well, that may have been your fault for fighting in the bad room. He may also have just made a mistake, and did not think about it the way you do.

I have a player who occasionally asks if I under rewarded for a given encounter. It is not so much because he wants another 10%+ xp (I think) so much as he wants to make sure I gave what I felt was fair.

In the end, it is his decision, but there is a precident for what you are asking about.

 

[Jaxom]

Cloud Giant CR 11 in a situation that makes him just about as tough as the PC's seems to me in need of a modification in the encounter level.

If I was running I would be happy to have provided such a challenge, but also noticing that the characters only defeated the creature after they got beaten up pretty bad I think I would have looked at the following adjustments.

Based on what you've provided I take it that the XP handed out to each character was around 375. In the DMG pg 167 are some guidlines for modifying encounter levels. If I were to believe the EL was twice as difficult I could double the XP by a +2 to the EL making it an EL of 13.
I would probably bump the encounter to EL 14 giving each PC 1,000 XP. I sometimes will ask the group if they feel the encounter was tougher than that. I take it you didn't use up any magical resources since they were supressed, so it just came down to hit points. So the question I would discuss with the group would be the following;

Why do you feel the encounter with the Cloud Giant should be more than a modified EL of 14? I wouldn't go above an EL 15 which would then be 1,500 XP.

 

[Jaxom]

I also want to agree that the DM doesn't have to modify the encounter level. As stated above it could have been that your party was able to retreat from that particular room and maybe confront the Giant later. There may be other reasons as well.

 

[Trainz]

Well, we were magically transported to a room where the giant was, and could only pop back where we were after the beast was dead, so retreat wasn't an option.

And as for spell expanditure, after the fight was done and we were transported back, we spent quite a few cures.

And he quite often does that kind of thing he NEVER adjusts encounter XP reward based on difficulty or environment, but will sometimes not give XP at all if we fought one in which there was no risk at all for the party. I agree with that one, but I was wondering about consistency on both ends of the scale.

 

[Fenes 2]

I must confess that I cannot understand how one can worry about such a thing. What does it matter if you get 375 xp or 1000 xp for an encounter? IMHO, the only thing that matters is whether or not you had fun.

IMC, we don't deal out exp, we just level up when the group feels like it, and before that, when we started 3E, the DM just dealt out the amount of xp he saw fit for any adventure, he did not calculate CRs and encounters.

 

[Drawmack]

I'm wondering why you even know how much XP he handed out for that given encounter. My PCs get a lump sum XP at the end of the session and they are asked if they felt they did anything rp wise that I forgot to tally. I don't even wanna hear about combat in this.