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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4044357" data-attributes="member: 2067">I really don't know why people keep trying to tell me I'm having badwrongfun, but whatever, I'm game.Untrue. NPC's gain XP the same way PC's do, according to the 3e DMG. Not just when they are hirelings, but when they are Commoners on the frontier. Read the rules before the NPC classes, when it talks about what levels and classes the NPC's in your world should normally be. In a way, yes. In a way, you already did. The bodies of the adventurers who tried to attack it before and failed serve as testement that they have done their own share of XP-earning encounters "off screen." Well, we can start with the disclaimer that one of the many things I would've liked 4e to provide is a robust system for gaining XP via non-combat methods, and an NPC class that doesn't gain much hp, BAB, etc., but gains plenty of skill points. I think this is an area of 3e that can be improved with 4e.But let's look at how it has been for me in 3e:It's a fantasy world. Levels are purely a feature of the "heroic." When John goes out and risks his neck in the goblin-infested wilderness killing ponies, he's not just learning about killing ponies. He's also thinking about what killing ponies teaches him about blacksmithing, and applying that to the blacksmithing.There's several ways to see this:#1: When John goes out hunting, he goes out hunting with a friend who is a better blacksmith than him, and they swap stories about blacksmithing, and John picks up some tips the don't teach you in books.#2: As John hunts, he learns about the properties of metal. He identifies veins running close to the surface of the ground. He perhaps does some impromptu forging over a campfire with some clay. He analyzes how different kinds of folding allow for different kinds of wounds on the prey, some more effective than others. #3: As John is hunting, he's also finding treasure in some of those pony-infested forests, goblin-holes and old tombs and the like. He uncovers tomes of blacksmithing from bygone empires when the secrets from Moradin himself were passed down, coins of unusual synthesis, shapes and patterns no one back home really knows about.#4: Hunting ponies leads to all sorts of interesting encounters with travelers, like those dwarves he talked to.Study all you want, you won't get that "aha!" moment until you take your nose out of the book and go explore the world a little bit.In D&D, life experience (and a variety of it!) is vastly better than any sort of purely academic learning.I'm not really seeing a problem with that.I dunno, I take into account potential NPC allies when accounting for PC experience, because having another target to waste actions and limited resources on makes the encounter that much less dangerous. Even if it's just 50 commoners, that's a bunch of actions the sea monster can spend one-shotting mooks.The rules differentiate between Heroes and Mere Mortals in major ways. The rules don't differentiate between On-Camera and Off-Camera much.</blockquote>

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