Can you earn experience points for your comrades?

[GMMichael]

One of my ideas for a future...erm...house rule is that PCs can earn XP based on what their fellow party members do. The idea being that if you're the expert at something in your party, your party does that thing better with you in it. It also motivates (hopefully) PCs to help their comrades be better at that thing.

So if you are, say, the party thief, you get XP when you steal stuff and when your comrades (successfully) steal stuff.

Is this a workable idea?

How do you feel about earning XP for your comrades?

 

[Sunseeker]

Group XP is totally the best thing since forever. Like, I don't think sliced bread can top group XP.

 

[iserith]

What do PCs get XP for currently in your games? What counts as individual XP and what is shared? And which game are you playing?

 

[5ekyu]

Well, different systems have different Xp rules so, without some idea of what the base Xp rules are - no idea how this house rule applies.

Going on the assumption that you gain Xp default for actions you participate in -

If the thief helped them with the mission - say with planning or gear - even if he wasn't there, then yeah - share of Xp.

if the thief did nothing to actually help with the mission but just wants Xp because he is a thief and they stole, thats not so obvious and i would say "no".

However, if the thief has a goal of "promoting more thievery" or "undermining merchant mercer" and he convinces the party into stealing from one of Mercer's Caravan shipments - then even if he did not participate in the event itself or its planning, he still gets Xp for advancing his goal of "undermining mercer" and its possible for that award to be based on the amount that was taken - much like the active stealers might be rewarded.

i am mostly a fan of event and objective based XP somewhat like milestone XP and personal objective Xp etc *if* one is using Xp.

However, i am more just a "session based advancement" GM than anything else because i do not see a benefit in linking "advancement" to "story" and let character objectives and success/fail play out in the game world itself. "undermining mercer" or "Stealing stuff" should IMO have sufficient rewards or results in game to warrant their efforts and not need some out-of-game advancement mechanic tied in with them that can add a "inconsistency" or "skew" to the in-play decisions.

 

[Jhaelen]

Group XP is totally the best thing since forever. Like, I don't think sliced bread can top group XP.

You know what can top group xp? Stopping to track xp!

 

[Sunseeker]

You know what can top group xp? Stopping to track xp!

I don't. But that doesn't mean every table I play at does it that way.

 

[GMMichael]

What do PCs get XP for currently in your games? What counts as individual XP and what is shared? And which game are you playing?

- Currently, I don't use XP. I like to award levels after each act.
- The OP question would not use shared XP. Basically, each PC would earn XP based on accomplishments, but who keeps those XP would be determined by party role.
- Universal question, but I guess we can refer to XP as "points which are earned for in-game activities and determine a character's level."

If the thief helped them with the mission - say with planning or gear - even if he wasn't there, then yeah - share of Xp.

if the thief did nothing to actually help with the mission but just wants Xp because he is a thief and they stole, thats not so obvious and i would say "no".

However, if the thief has a goal of "promoting more thievery" or "undermining merchant mercer" and he convinces the party into stealing from one of Mercer's Caravan shipments - then even if he did not participate in the event itself or its planning, he still gets Xp for advancing his goal of "undermining mercer" and its possible for that award to be based on the amount that was taken - much like the active stealers might be rewarded. . .

However, i am more just a "session based advancement" GM than anything else because i do not see a benefit in linking "advancement" to "story" and let character objectives and success/fail play out in the game world itself. "undermining mercer" or "Stealing stuff" should IMO have sufficient rewards or results in game to warrant their efforts and not need some out-of-game advancement mechanic tied in with them that can add a "inconsistency" or "skew" to the in-play decisions.

Re your first couple points: I would probably use a multiplier so that the thief would get the most points for the activities in which he participated, and lesser amounts for the thievery that the rest of the party did.

 

[iserith]

- Currently, I don't use XP. I like to award levels after each act.
- The OP question would not use shared XP. Basically, each PC would earn XP based on accomplishments, but who keeps those XP would be determined by party role.
- Universal question, but I guess we can refer to XP as "points which are earned for in-game activities and determine a character's level."

It seems like a lot of work for no upside to me. I'm pro-XP in most campaigns (not all) and, in the campaigns where I use XP, it's all shared.

It's also not clear to me what kind of behavior you're trying to incentivize with this method.

 

[MarkB]

- Currently, I don't use XP. I like to award levels after each act.
- The OP question would not use shared XP. Basically, each PC would earn XP based on accomplishments, but who keeps those XP would be determined by party role.
- Universal question, but I guess we can refer to XP as "points which are earned for in-game activities and determine a character's level."


Re your first couple points: I would probably use a multiplier so that the thief would get the most points for the activities in which he participated, and lesser amounts for the thievery that the rest of the party did.

That's an awful lot of adjudication and judgement-calling for the purpose of deciding who gets to level up. It sounds custom-made to cause arguments at the table, and even when employed with complete fairness and transparency, its effect will be to create level disparities based upon the group's current activities. E.g. if their current mission involves a lot of investigation and infiltration, and not much actual combat, the rogue is going to be steaming ahead of the fighter.

And how do you prevent it from becoming a vicious circle? The lowest-level character in the group is inevitably going to be the one least able to contribute effectively, so the group will naturally gravitate away from relying upon that character's skillset, and when forced to do so they will achieve lower levels of success and thus earn fewer XPs. Meanwhile the highest-level character will have a breeze dealing with problems matching his skillset, and may in fact be the MVP even when tackling problems he's less than perfectly suited to, simply due to having a higher general competency level. The natural tendency will be for level gaps to widen as the campaign continues.

 

[GMMichael]

... where I use XP, it's all shared.

It's also not clear to me what kind of behavior you're trying to incentivize with this method.

What is shared XP? Each encounter is worth N XP, and that amount gets divided evenly amongst PCs?

The effect I'm going after is that PCs get XP for accomplishing class goals, but because other party members can earn you XP for accomplishing your class goals, you have an incentive to help them be better at it.

That's an awful lot of adjudication and judgement-calling for the purpose of deciding who gets to level up. It sounds custom-made to cause arguments at the table, and even when employed with complete fairness and transparency, its effect will be to create level disparities based upon the group's current activities. E.g. if their current mission involves a lot of investigation and infiltration, and not much actual combat, the rogue is going to be steaming ahead of the fighter.

You're right about the judgment calls, so a sturdy framework would be needed for determining what is and what isn't worth a point. But now you have me thinking that PCs could distribute their own XP to others...

And how do you prevent it from becoming a vicious circle? The lowest-level character in the group is inevitably going to be the one least able to contribute effectively, so the group will naturally gravitate away from relying upon that character's skillset, and when forced to do so they will achieve lower levels of success and thus earn fewer XPs. Meanwhile the highest-level character will have a breeze dealing with problems matching his skillset, and may in fact be the MVP even when tackling problems he's less than perfectly suited to, simply due to having a higher general competency level. The natural tendency will be for level gaps to widen as the campaign continues.

The XP-from-comrades feature might mitigate the problems that the lowest-level character might have. If you (somehow) suck at the one thing you're supposed to do well, then you have even more reason to get the rest of the party involved, helping you out.

Sure, the MVP could be better, mathematically, than the FNG. But it's not a problem if they have different class goals.

For example, Mister-Victory-Person is the party paladin. Paladins earn XP for protecting the weak. Fairy-Nighting-Gale is the party bard, who earns XP for entertaining/drawing attention. Since MVP is good at everything, he can save the orphans by drawing the dragon's attention away from them, and possibly get better dice-results than FNG. But this earns him primary XPs for saving the orphans, and zero XPs for drawing the dragon's attention, since it's not his class goal. FNG gets secondary XPs for MVP's attention-drawing based on the idea (or fact) that he suggested the diversion to MVP, lent direct help to MVP to make him more distracting, or in some other way helped him to get the dragon's attention.

So even if the FNG can't survive a dragon diversion, because he's the lowest level character, he still gets XP if the hardier party members pursue his class goal. Which...helps him to catch up?