Basing XP on EL

[jodyjohnson]

A related one: XP rewards are based on the CRs of the opponents defeated, not on the ECL of the entire encounter. On the other hand, treasure is based on ECL.

Is this EL (encounter level) instead of ECL (effective character level)?

EL modifies XP from CR through easier than normal circumstances or more difficult circumstances.

 

[Darkness]

Is this EL (encounter level) instead of ECL (effective character level)?

EL modifies XP from CR through easier than normal circumstances or more difficult circumstances.

EL. I was talking about monsters. And no, EL does not modify XP. Rather, difficult (or easy) circumstances modify both EL and XP award. (DMG, p.39)

 

[sfedi]

EL. I was talking about monsters. And no, EL does not modify XP. Rather, difficult (or easy) circumstances modify both EL and XP award. (DMG, p.39)

Which, oddly enough, is almost the same as assigning XP based on EL

 

[Darkness]

No. EL is a number based on the CRs of the creatures in an encounter and further modified by the circumstances. If you're basing XP off of that, you won't necessarily get the intended result.

9 ogres (CR 3) = EL 9. "Significantly less difficult" is -1 EL. So that's EL 8.
Assuming a 9th-level party of 4, the xp award would be 1800/4 = 450 xp per character.

Doing it correctly, on the other hand, leads to the following result:
(9*338*2/3)/4 = 507 xp per character.

Now, we're talking low-CR creatures here so it's not a huge amount of xp. Still, that's a 13% difference. If you often have such a high margin of error, it will certainly have an impact on the advancement of the PCs.

 

[dcollins]

No. EL is a number based on the CRs of the creatures in an encounter and further modified by the circumstances. If you're basing XP off of that, you won't necessarily get the intended result.

I agree with the previous poster, the results are fundamentally the same, subject to interpolations.

Case: 8 ogres (CR 3) versus 9th level party, with a "less difficult" modifier.
By CR: (CR 3) 338 xp x 8 ogres = 2704 x2/3 = 1803 xp.
By EL: (EL 9-1=8) = 1800 xp.

So in this case it's as close as it could possibly be with the XP chart using whole-numbers. It's generally exactly the same when monster numbers are powers of 2 and halfway between (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, etc.) For other numbers like "9" it will stray a little bit, sometimes a few precent up or down.

When I DM, if I have an adventure with EL's listed in advance, I do just award XP by those, since it's a shorter calculation and I know either method is really generating the same numbers, subject to a little rounding error.

 

[Darkness]

I agree with the previous poster

Feel free. It's not a very big House Rule. Me, I'm a math geek. You'll never convince me to accept inaccurate results.

Anyway, let's stop hijacking this thread. If you want to discuss alternative methods for awarding XP, start a new thread in House Rules. This goes for everyone. Thanks.

 

[dcollins]

Feel free. It's not a very big House Rule. Me, I'm a math geek. You'll never convince me to accept inaccurate results.

You'll be hard-pressed to find a bigger "math geek" than myself. And therefore, a highly elegant abstraction trumps some minor differences from measurement error.

Now I'm happy to stop hijacking the thread.

 

[Darkness]

Now I'm happy to stop hijacking the thread.

Eh, I've now split this off from the discussion so knock yourself out, mate.