Are Red Shirts given experience?

[reapersaurus]

My DM had a combat where he threw in a couple 1st level warriors in as cannon-fodder (hence the Star-Trek Red Shirt reference).

1) Would the 2 1st level warriors affect the effective party-strength calculation?

2) One ran away after the 1st one died on the evil guy's first attack.
Would the one that died get XP for the (one round, for him) encounter?

And in general, how do you handle characters that are not involved in the entire combat?
a) Say that a PC is only involved in the last round of combat.
b) A PC doesn't actually perform an attack action but 1/3 of the rounds in battle.

Thanks for any replies.

 

[Macbrea]

Normally, I don't count those red shirt actually in the combat experience if they would have had no chance of defeating the opponent normally.


In the case of my player characters I count them all equally. If they show up near the end of a combat they still normally expend resources to help the fight.

And the guy that doesn't attack 1/3 of the time is still a resource being used by the party in combat. It is up to them to use their resources to the fullest. Would you penalize a cleric who holds back and heals only when nessessary because the fighter just doesn't seem to get hit? He didn't take any swings in the combat and most rounds just seem to stand next to the fighter waiting for something.

 

[Caliban]

My DM had a combat where he threw in a couple 1st level warriors in as cannon-fodder (hence the Star-Trek Red Shirt reference).

1) Would the 2 1st level warriors affect the effective party-strength calculation?

Since they made the party stronger and assisted in combat, yes.

2) One ran away after the 1st one died on the evil guy's first attack.
Would the one that died get XP for the (one round, for him) encounter?

As long as you participate, you get XP, even if you died.

And in general, how do you handle characters that are not involved in the entire combat?

In general, they get a share if they participated. Minor NPC's generally get half shares, NPC's with PC class levels get full shares if they fully participate.

a) Say that a PC is only involved in the last round of combat.
b) A PC doesn't actually perform an attack action but 1/3 of the rounds in battle.

Thanks for any replies.

In general, PC's are supposed to get a share of XP as long as they are involved in the combat. But the DM can always adjust things based on the actual circumstances. I probably wouldn't give much, if any, XP to someone who only participated in the last round of combat (unless they were very influential in that last round). Also remember that people don't have to be actively attacking or casting spells to be a full participant in the combat.

 

[Dreaddisease]

XP is a DM call in those situations. If there was a drastic effect made by the low level characters then they deserve XP, if not then no.

Here is an example:

In one combat I had the 1st level characters in a major combat with higher(3 8th 1 13th 5 5th) level characters on both sides, but I had the party fighting a group of dire rats summoned by a sorceress. By defeating the dire rats do I give them credit for the 8th level character that ran away or just a general number for what they contributed to the battle? I gave them XP for defeating 3 dire rats.

A DM should have some idea how the XP is going to be distributed before hand.

 

[Numion]

From rules POV I don't really know.

Otherwise I'd like to ask what'd be the benefit of giving some no-name NPCs exp? As a DM I don't really see the point of this extra bookkeeping.

 

[0-hr]

the 1st one died on the evil guy's first attack.

They helped, even if only by absorbing an attack. Therefore they should be included in the experience division.

It seems fairly common for adventures to try and get commoners and such to come along so that they can be "one more target". Reminding the PCs that this will result in their xp being divided by another person is a good way to stop such behavior. Even with the lowering effect on average party level (which always rounds down), this is a great deterent.

 

[0-hr]

I gave them XP for defeating 3 dire rats.

Just to pick some nits, summoned creatures (like these rats) are not worth any experience points. The low level characters in your example should have gotten their fair share of the encounter's xp, based on the CR of the (non-summoned) creatures/NPCs faced.

 

[Sir Hawkeye]

1) Yes, but they have no meaningful effect if you're much more than 3rd level (based on linear power = sqrt(2)^Level or "Doubles every +2")

 

[Moon_Goddess]

From rules POV I don't really know.

Otherwise I'd like to ask what'd be the benefit of giving some no-name NPCs exp? As a DM I don't really see the point of this extra bookkeeping.

The benifit is any XPs you give to the NPCs the PCs don't get,

If the PCs didn't do the fight all by themselves then in my opinion, they don't deserve all the Experience.

 

[Gromm]

They helped, even if only by absorbing an attack. Therefore they should be included in the experience division.

It seems fairly common for adventures to try and get commoners and such to come along so that they can be "one more target". Reminding the PCs that this will result in their xp being divided by another person is a good way to stop such behavior. Even with the lowering effect on average party level (which always rounds down), this is a great deterent.

I use this all the time.
The PCs are helping some village with some problem, then somenoe asks if any of the villagers can help out. At that point someone else in the party says something along the lines of, "And let them take our experience? Screw that we can handle it."

Apparently selfless heroism is rooted in selfish experience gathering. We wont even mention losing shares of treasure if an NPC somehow survives. Its unthinkable.