Cohorts and experience

[Taluron]

Urgh!!
I know there have been several discussions on how to calc the party experience when there are cohorts on these boards.
I know I've seen a detailed example somewhere.
But I can't find any of them. Can someone help me out please and direct me to such. Thanks.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Opinions vary widely, so I expect this thread to soon turn into a stealth "house rules" thread. But the core rules are:

(A) The cohort possibly makes a slight change to the average party level.
(B) NPC's, including the cohort, get a half share of experience.

Also, the DMG lists a "simplified" way to figure a "half share" which is not actually a half share and which, in my opinion, fails to be simple. That way is this: figure the NPC's share as if he were going to get as much as anybody else. Then give him only half of that and divide the other half up among everybody else.

This will case the cohort to slip behind the rest of the party in experience level, which many people have a problem with, but not as much as you might think.

 

[Taluron]

[bump]
Anybody???

 

[Li Shenron]

Also, the DMG lists a "simplified" way to figure a "half share" which is not actually a half share and which, in my opinion, fails to be simple. That way is this: figure the NPC's share as if he were going to get as much as anybody else. Then give him only half of that and divide the other half up among everybody else.

I don't remeber the DMG to suggest that! Yes it looks very silly

I thought the suggested way was to divide the total XPx among the number of characters (as normal) where the number of characters is number of PCs + (number of NPCs)/2.

The result is a "share", each PC gets 1 share and each NPC/cohort gets half a share.

example:

tot 1000 Xp
2 PC + 1 cohort -> tot 2.5
share = 1000/2.5 = 400

each PC gets 400 and the cohort gets 200.

 

[dcollins]

Li Shenron is correct that that's the formal mathematical way of computing it. Dr. Rictus is correct that that's what the DMG demonstrates as a "simple" way of computing it (for those frightened at the idea of dividing by a fraction...)

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Those frightened of dividing by a fraction should count each NPC as if he were 1 person, and each PC as if he were 2 people, divide by that total, and give each PC 2 shares of the result. It comes out the same, and unlike what's in the DMG, actually is simple.