Do you give XP for sprung traps?

[drnuncheon]

But, say, if you reduce all XP gained to 75% normal, then the party has too much wealth, since they are looting more per level due to more encounters per level.

The obvious solution to that is to decrease treasure in direct proportion to the decrease in XP...

J

 

[Kershek]

The obvious solution to that is to decrease treasure in direct proportion to the decrease in XP...

J

I knew that was going to be mentioned. The problem with THAT is the following: If you reduce the treasure that enemies can have, they may not have the firepower to face the PCs, and that will make the fights easier for the party.

 

[Celebrim]

Kershak: Hense what I said about changing the way that CR is calculated. Also, many if not most monsters are not dependent on useful items in order to be challenging. Also, those that are (humanoids mostly), can get by quite well with potions, scrolls, wands and other low value expendable items.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Honestly I don't give xp for traps period. Your reward for dealing with the trap is that it doesn't get you first. Personally I fail to see why a magical trap is supposed to give xp but a symbol or a glyph or a firetrap produced from the spell and behaves exactly the same way doesn't.

But then gain I twist CRs downward and I don't increase the CR if the PCs are forced to fight with a handicap either.

I guess what it boils down to is that I despise the 3e xp system. Unfortunately, I don't like the ad hoc method either. Currently I am working on an alternate which I hope will be satisfactory (and promote slower advancement).

Honestly, I don't understand why WoTC didn't publish alternate xp systems in the DMG. They put out alternate rules for everything else. (Before anyone states that the ad hoc method is provided as an alternative, I say ad hoc xp amounts to DM's guess. That isn't an xp "system" by any definition. If I wanted to guess xp awards I could do that without WoTC's OK.)

What I would like is a regular system that is easier to use than the current one and doesn't inflate xp. I know that the 3e team must have considered many choices before they settled on the current one. What I want them to do is publish some of them.

Tzarevitch

 

[Cedric]

Half xp for disarming it the "hard way" (tripping it).

Full xp for finding it and disarming it or finding it and avoiding it.

Extra xp for using a trap in a clever man...springing it on the enemy...etc.

Cedric

 

[MerakSpielman]

I suppose, by the book, you could build a trap, set it off, and get xp. Repeat until level up. Always arrange the trap to be capable of doing one fewer hp than you actually have.

It'll get rule-zeroed in a split second by any sane DM, but hey, it's by the book.

 

[Celebrim]

My absolute favorite 'xp' system is old school CoC. You only got xp for the skills you used, and it got harder and harder to increase your skills as you became increasingly good at them.

But that would mean doing away with the level system, which might be more trouble than its worth.

If you can come up with a completely fair and interesting way of giving XP in a level based game, I'll be all for it - but don't get your hopes up.

My system is basically the same as the system of granting score in a early text based adventure (say Colosal Cave) - if it furthers the goal of advancing 'the story', then it ought to be worth at least a little points but nothing is worth alot of points in and of itself.

 

[S'mon]

Honestly I don't give xp for traps period. Your reward for dealing with the trap is that it doesn't get you first. Personally I fail to see why a magical trap is supposed to give xp but a symbol or a glyph or a firetrap produced from the spell and behaves exactly the same way doesn't.

But then gain I twist CRs downward and I don't increase the CR if the PCs are forced to fight with a handicap either.

I guess what it boils down to is that I despise the 3e xp system. Unfortunately, I don't like the ad hoc method either. Currently I am working on an alternate which I hope will be satisfactory (and promote slower advancement).

Honestly, I don't understand why WoTC didn't publish alternate xp systems in the DMG. They put out alternate rules for everything else. (Before anyone states that the ad hoc method is provided as an alternative, I say ad hoc xp amounts to DM's guess. That isn't an xp "system" by any definition. If I wanted to guess xp awards I could do that without WoTC's OK.)

What I would like is a regular system that is easier to use than the current one and doesn't inflate xp. I know that the 3e team must have considered many choices before they settled on the current one. What I want them to do is publish some of them.

Tzarevitch

If you give 10% XP by encounter and 10% of standard wealth per encounter also, everything should balance out. Except the long published scenarios that assume the PCs gain several levels during the course of them (start at 4th, finish at 12th, & suchlike), your PCs wouldn't gain levels fast enough to complete them. But you probably don't like them anyway, for that very same reason.

I've pretty much used the DMG xp system as given (including XP for traps), and rarely had a major problem with it per se. The PCs in my game seem to advance a bit slower than standard, but one reason for that is that it's a large group, 7 players currently: not everyone turns up for every game, and if they do it gets divided into ca 8-9 shares (with cohorts getting 1/2 shares). The other thing is that PCs die sometimes, and the new PCs start with 1/2 xp of the old (capped at minimum to be at same level as lowest-leveller in the group), which also keeps advancement down.

For PCs who do turn up, they average around 3000 xp/6 hour session, at 10th level. We play about fortnightly, highest level PC started at 6th and is currently 12th, but he lost two previous PCs in the campaign before that.

 

[Destil]

Yes.

As a side note, I also think 3e's advancement rate is obscene. Even using a variant system that gives rp awards of roughly 100 xp/character level per session and halving combat xp, it's very fast.

As you have things your XP rate breakedown will look like this:
100(level)/session - 1 level / 10 sessions.
1/2 combat XP - 1 level per 26.6 equal CR encounters.
It's really fairly easy to control this.

Figure out how many equal CR encounters you tend to have per session (in terms of XP rewards, note that one encounter 2 EL higher than the party level is woth two times the XP, and should be counted as two encounters, for instance). The hardest part of controling XP is finding this, since it can vary widly between sessions. Call this N

Figure how many sessions you want to play per level. Call this S

Now multiply your XP awarded from combat by the ratio 13.3(N)/S


Now for a RPing reward, figure out what % of XP you want to be from RPing. Convert this to a decimal (so 90% would be .9), and call this R.

Your adjusted combat XP ratio is now 14.3(N)(1-R)/S

Now for the accual RP reward, give the players the following XP every session: 1000(current level)R/S

 

[Kershek]

Half xp for disarming it the "hard way" (tripping it).

Full xp for finding it and disarming it or finding it and avoiding it.

Extra xp for using a trap in a clever man...springing it on the enemy...etc.

Cedric

I like this one! Sometimes the best answers are the simplest.