Giving out XP based on amount of damage sustained?

[Dausuul]

Whenever considering ideas like these it helps to imagine how Brian Van Hoose from KODT would deal with them.

Close your eyes and think about awarding XP for damage taken then imagine Brian playing in such a game.

Agreed. Even if your players aren't the type to deliberately abuse the system, the incentives you set up will influence their behavior. Fights are apt to get longer and grindier. New feat and power choices will shift toward the defensive, making fights even longer and even grindier.

The only way I could see this approach working would be in a system where PCs have few hit points and a single hit's worth of damage can easily mean the difference between life and death, even in a seemingly "trivial" encounter. That would provide a powerful disincentive to balance out the XP mechanic. 4E is about as far from that system as I've ever seen. Previous editions of D&D are closer, but still not close enough IMO.

One of the reasons I ditched the XP-for-kills mechanic long ago is that it pushes PCs to act in weird ways. This system would have a similar effect.

 

[Garmorn]

Rolemaster, the more complex version that MERP came from taught me how to use rule like this. Here is a more complex suggestion.

Damage taken can not exceed 50% of the normal base (The rest is given normally). The amount gain is found by the following formula (most of it can be calculated ahead of time.)

Use the percentage of the parties hit points received (not the actual number) rounded down. Add 10 for each x (x = the number of times the party use a total number of healing surge that equals the number of characters - X=((healing surges used/party members) rounded down). Subtract 10 for every round beyond Y rounds of combat. Y is what is the current average or something similar (Change it to fit your campaign). (Discourages the hit my own party members. Damage done by party members is not added to the total but subtracted from the total done to the monsters.

The results is then taken as a percentage of the allowed maximum. For easier calculation round the results to the nearest 10%

 

[Dausuul]

Rolemaster, the more complex version that MERP came from taught me how to use rule like this. Here is a more complex suggestion.

Damage taken can not exceed 50% of the normal base (The rest is given normally). The amount gain is found by the following formula (most of it can be calculated ahead of time.)

Use the percentage of the parties hit points received (not the actual number) rounded down. Add 10 for each x (x = the number of times the party use a total number of healing surge that equals the number of characters - X=((healing surges used/party members) rounded down). Subtract 10 for every round beyond Y rounds of combat. Y is what is the current average or something similar (Change it to fit your campaign). (Discourages the hit my own party members. Damage done by party members is not added to the total but subtracted from the total done to the monsters.

The results is then taken as a percentage of the allowed maximum. For easier calculation round the results to the nearest 10%

I'm going to have to go on record as being against any system where calculating the XP award for an encounter takes longer than the encounter itself.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Every way to give out XP influences how a game will be played.

Reward finding treasure with XP but not for beating monsters? Avoiding monsters becomes very important.
Reward XP for solving quests? People will try to find quests to solve.
Reward XP for taking damage? People will try to find ways to take damage.

A more interesting approach might be to reward two competing goals equally. For example, a short combat rewards more combat than a long XP, but a long combat that leads to a lot of damage taken also gets more XP.

Beating a monster in combat gets the same XP as talking it into ignoring or even helping you. (Some groups really love combat and prefer the violent approach, others love the roleplaying interaction of talking and talk. A third group just wants to use its most powergamed ability, which is either a maxed out attack bonus or a maxed out Diplomacy modifier.)

 

[Coldwyn]

A weekend with a domina and a whip sounds like a good way to level up now.

 

[harpy]

Lots of great responses!

Random things:

In terms of the difference between MERP and D&D, the crits in MERP were quite lethal and even the lowliest creature could make an amazing roll and deliver a death dealing crit in one hit. So in that regard there was definitely an incentive to shut down encounters as fast as possible and the players responded in that way.

In D&D, with its comfortable ablative armor of hit points you don't have as much urgency and so simply adpoting what MERP did wouldn't work.

Still, I think there is wiggle room. Xps for hit points taken isn't really a whole lot if it is just a 1 for 1 value. But if you increase the value of hit points taken when critted, say hit points x 5, then that helps to reward the nasty blows at a level that is worthwhile to pay attention to as a player. Other types of weighting of values could be done so that the risk/reward is emphasized.

While it worked for MERP to do things individually, in D&D it makes far more sense that a system like this was done where the total xp earned is pooled and then divided among the players. It's very true that if you used this kind of system and doled things out individually then there would be lots of problems with characters getting wildly different values.

As for players gaming the system... maybe its just coming out of old school gaming, but the DM filter always seemed to work fine here. People doing silly things like fireballing the party, or tossing themselves deliberately out of trees would just result in players getting hurt.

Of course, DMs might not want to put up with using a filter all the time. I weeded out crazed rules lawyers and abusive players starting when I was a teen back in the 80's, so I've avoided a lot of the nonsense that others might not be able to deal with or confront with problem players.

Some of the responses are interesting, because it helps to show off my own biases. I'm straining to think of a time when players actively tried to avoid combat, unless the plot was hitting them over the head saying "this is the sneak encounter" so the idea of people coming up with good ideas to avoid combat is almost completely alien to me. Players have always wanted to induce encounters because that is the main way xp are handed out.

Sure you get xp for completing quests or other fluffy stuff, but the real haul comes from the fights. As for xp for roleplaying? I've spent 30 years playing with gamists-at-heart and only can think of a handful of times when people truly roleplayed. We're pretty much a bunch of roll-players.

I guess the central point of trying some kind of system where risk is rewarded is that it tries to goad players away from shutting down encounters easily. If you are optimizing to the point where you cream the encounter before it got even interesting then the drama is fizziling out. I can acknowledge as a player that I enjoy doing that. The feeling of rationally breaking down the situation and then applying an plan that takes out the BBEG is satisfying, but when you have a table full of people doing that it tends to bleed a lot of drama out of the game.

I think the suggestion for a hybrid form between MERP and D&D style experience would work well. You get a flat amount based on CR, but you also get an amount depending on the amount of resources players spent or how close they succumbed to death. I'm sure the numbers could be mapped out so that the numbers aren't too far off from how they roll out now.

It's more of the psychological factor of giving players bonus points because they failed that will save, got critted or went to -9 xp. Those xp reflect them learning something, say, to duck better. There are plenty of psychological studies out there now that show that some of the most potent learning comes from when people learn from mistakes, and not from when they succeed.

As for things like skill checks, it just comes down to risk/reward. If you cross a narrow ledge over a lava pit then you'd get a good chunk of xp. If you jump over a stream to avoid 1d6 damage from a twisted ankle then not so much.

As for brilliant strategies. These things have always been part of the DM filter evaluation. A player who has an obnoxious character build who can walk in and cheesily shut down an encounter isn't going to get rewarded. But if you can think of a way to have that pillar topple on top of the dragon as it comes out of the entrance, then sure that should be rewarded. I haven't really seen any systematic way of rewarding good ideas though. It's always just been one of those catch all categories that the rules give to the DM.

Lets see... the last thing is death. I don't think it was in MERP, but in Rolemaster there was probably at the very least an optional rule where if you died and were resurrected you gained XP. D&D hurts you for this, but with Rolemaster it was more like you coming back as Gandalf the White in a certain way. You've died and now you come back all the wiser.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Every way to give out XP influences how a game will be played.

Reward finding treasure with XP but not for beating monsters? Avoiding monsters becomes very important.
Reward XP for solving quests? People will try to find quests to solve.
Reward XP for taking damage? People will try to find ways to take damage.

A more interesting approach might be to reward two competing goals equally. For example, a short combat rewards more combat than a long XP, but a long combat that leads to a lot of damage taken also gets more XP.

Beating a monster in combat gets the same XP as talking it into ignoring or even helping you. (Some groups really love combat and prefer the violent approach, others love the roleplaying interaction of talking and talk. A third group just wants to use its most powergamed ability, which is either a maxed out attack bonus or a maxed out Diplomacy modifier.)

Cool ideas.

This thread has given me an alternate idea for combat XP. How about increasing the amount of XP the party gets for taking the least amount of damage? The scale could slide to take the level of opposition into consideration.

So a group that barely earns any XP from fighting a foe wouldn't get a bonus for doing so without a scratch but defeating a powerful enemy while minimizing losses would be worth a big bonus.

The would encourage a party to work smarter rather than harder which is the type of play I like to encourage.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Some of the responses are interesting, because it helps to show off my own biases. I'm straining to think of a time when players actively tried to avoid combat, unless the plot was hitting them over the head saying "this is the sneak encounter" so the idea of people coming up with good ideas to avoid combat is almost completely alien to me. Players have always wanted to induce encounters because that is the main way xp are handed out.

Sure you get xp for completing quests or other fluffy stuff, but the real haul comes from the fights. As for xp for roleplaying? I've spent 30 years playing with gamists-at-heart and only can think of a handful of times when people truly roleplayed. We're pretty much a bunch of roll-players.

If you strain back far enough you will hear lots of tales of players avoiding combat. Back when combat XP was an afterthought to that gained through treasure. Monsters that didn't appear to have anything of value were avoided like the plague and it little to do with roleplaying.

 

[Janx]

Every way to give out XP influences how a game will be played.

Reward finding treasure with XP but not for beating monsters? Avoiding monsters becomes very important.
Reward XP for solving quests? People will try to find quests to solve.
Reward XP for taking damage? People will try to find ways to take damage.

A more interesting approach might be to reward two competing goals equally. For example, a short combat rewards more combat than a long XP, but a long combat that leads to a lot of damage taken also gets more XP.

Beating a monster in combat gets the same XP as talking it into ignoring or even helping you. (Some groups really love combat and prefer the violent approach, others love the roleplaying interaction of talking and talk. A third group just wants to use its most powergamed ability, which is either a maxed out attack bonus or a maxed out Diplomacy modifier.)

There's an old saw in metrics, that you get what you measure.

Measure damage taken (as in more=better) and you'll find people doing everything they can to take damage.

This is why, in the business world, you have to be very careful of what you do metrics on, and what's considered good. Employees will game the system. Measure tickets closed, and you'll find them closing a ticket as a stage is reached, and opening a new ticket for the next stage of the problem, rather than using the one ticket. This drives up their "closure rate", which looks good at review time.

Games are no different.

If you only gave out XP for accomplishments like finishing quests, doing combat would have less value (afterall, you could die, and except for treasure, it doesn't advance you).

However, most people would interpret "gave out XP for accomplishments like finishing quests" and see "gave out XP for finishing quests". From there, they would only focus on finding and finishing GM quests. Whereas, I also meant to include player driven goals, like becoming mayor of HappyVille.

Thus, you must be careful to consider the angles on what you reward. As somebody suggested, imagine Brian Van Hoose from KoDT at your table.

 

[Dausuul]

There's an old saw in metrics, that you get what you measure. ...

Yup. Because of this, my own solution (YMMV) is to level the PCs up when I darn well feel like it. Nothing they can do will alter the rate of advancement, so they focus on their in-game motivations instead.