Determining Experience and Rewards for overcoming challenges

[GreyICE]

Okay. At 8 to 11 players I don't even know what would happen.

I seriously think that I'd be challenged to DM that.

I'm not sure my knowledge of the RC is 100%, but it's good enough you'd be hard pressed to challenge it in a fight, and I'm more likely to make an on-the-fly "sounds about right" ruling than open up a book and drain everyone's enthusiasm and will to live while I read dense rules text.

P.S. Cards are simple. You have all the powers written on cards. It's an old AD&D thing for spells, but with DDI they're dynamically generated, and thus have all the relevant weapon stats and math included right on the card (and you can scribble conditional bonuses on the bottom). Makes everyone's life easier, and I'd strongly recommend you do it in pretty much any edition. Having every spell you can cast on a small card, the grapple rules, all of that, makes everyone's life easier.

 

[Lanefan]

Okay. At 8 to 11 players I don't even know what would happen.

Not players, characters. We usually run more than one PC each at a time. Usually 5 players at the table, plus me.

Lanefan

 

[tlantl]

The reality of the situation is that party B is going to get a lot more experience than group A.

If it takes three hours to earn 400 experience points then that is all that the group will get. If said group can deal with more encounters in that three hours then they are going to be rewarded for their ability to deal with challenges in a timely manner.

The only way this wouldn't be true is if the one encounter is all they do during the play session.

As for the idea that because group A was fighting longer that their challenge was greater I'd have to expect that group B was fighting badly wounded creatures from another encounter which would make the encounter less challenging and therefor worth fewer experience points. But if both groups fought the same creatures then they both deserve the same XP.

Group A is shooting themselves in the foot for being inefficient, poorly organize, or using the cinematic style of combat so many seem to find appealing.

 

[delericho]

How do you determine experience and rewards for challanges?

Pretty much as in 4e and Pathfinder:

1. Give each challenge, monster and trap a level, and an XP value based on that level.

2. Give each encounter an XP budget, again depending on the level of the encounter. (Depending on the system assumptions, a "level 1 encounter" may be the same as a "level 1 monster", or it might be "five level 1 monsters", or whatever.)

3. When the PCs overcome the challenge, monster, trap, or encounter, they gain the appropriate XP. And they gain this however they overcome the challenge, and however long it took.

Example:
Party A encounters challenge 1. It takes 3 hours for party A to succeed.

Party B encounters challenge 1. It takes 5 minutes for party B to succeed.

Suppose that party A and B have the same level (although classes and gear are different).

Should both parties get the same exp for overcoming the same challenge?

Yes.

Should party A get more experience for over-coming a more difficult challenge?

They didn't. They were just less good at it.

Should party B get more experience for being more efficient in over-coming the challenge?

No. Efficiency is its own reward - they probably lost fewer resources in overcoming the challenge, so can immediately proceed to another challenge and so gain more XP. They certainly used less time, so have more time available for more fun.

Party B, since it only took five minutes, might get to over-come several challenges in the time it took party A to overcome challenge 1. Is it fair for party B to obtain several rewards in the time it took party A to obtain a single reward?

Reading too many political blogs, articles and editorials has left me extremely cynical about the use of the word "fair". My answer to your question is "yes" - the reward comes from overcoming the challenge. If that takes 5 minutes instead of 3 hours, then good for you.

Ultimately, though, I'm not sure it matters. Chances are, those two groups aren't ever really going to meet and compare notes. Just give them out an amount of XP, and don't worry about it too much!

 

[GreyICE]

Not players, characters. We usually run more than one PC each at a time. Usually 5 players at the table, plus me.

Lanefan

Oh. Interesting mechanic. In that case, hmmm. Since everyone is running two characters I have to assume your game is a tad more gamist than simulationist.

Anyway, get some card stock, and print out two sets of power cards for each player from DDI. Use different color cardstock, and color code standard/minor and At-Will (oddly these are the distinctions that matter the most). Then give each player his set of two colors of cards (sky blue and yellow, for instance). This will let them easily differentiate between their two characters powers.

Discuss planning your turn during other people's turns. I effectively ran a low level summon-monkey in 3E and took most turns in a minute or less. Why? I knew exactly what spell I would cast or attack I would make and how my pets would act, including contingencies (if the Bear successfully grapples I'll go after X, otherwise I need to hit his target). Then it was just dice and damage, that's easy. I was one of the fastest people in the party, despite planning each turn, because I planned while everyone else was rolling dice and looking at their character sheet.