Giving out XP based on amount of damage sustained?

[Garmorn]

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.

It really would not take that long. Every thing but the damage per encounter could be calculated once each level. Heck you could even make a table for the damage taken percentage. It would only have to be rough.

Now I did not say I have or would use it. It was just put out as a suggestion/starting point.

 

[Stuntman]

I guess this would apply to really any version of D&D, but one thing that knocks about in my head is an old element in Middle Earth Role Playing, where players would earn xp for the damage they took.

Yeah, I remember that. It had many other factors like how many criticals inflicted or received. There was quite a bit of bookkeeping involved. You need an accountant with every battle.

That has stuck with me over the years, and after a recent game of Pathfinder where players coasted through several encounters that were rated as being "hard" for their level, I thought perhaps... instead of giving out xp based off of the potential threat of the encounter, why not give out xp based on the actual threat of the encounter?

That is, the more the characters take a beating, the more xp they get, regardless of whatever the encounter is rated at.

OK. So you have two groups with the exact same characters. One group is very good at 4E combat tactics and manages to complete the encounter with very little damage sustained. The second group is less competent and sustains much more damage. Group 1 receives less experience than group 2. Essentially, you are rewarding group 2 for their incompetence. Group 1 realises this and decides that they want to get more XP. The kill every monster except one zombie minion. Then they get one guy to stand in front of it and do nothing and take a bunch of damage. Then the next party member moves in and stands in front of it and takes damage etc. Once they sustained enough damage, they decide to finish off the minion thus getting a bunch more XP for the encounter.

Basically, I do not like this idea of giving more XP based on damage sustained. It basically means that if you want to get more XP, you have to fight. You discourage players from sneaking, bluffing, bribing enemies. You do not reward players for using better tactics in a fight because they would recieve less XP. I understand the intent is to try to find an actual difficulty rating for an encounter, but even tough encounters may end up dealing less damage than an easy one.

 

[Bullgrit]

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.

I've heard this concept mentioned on this forum many times, but in all my years of BD&D and AD&D, I never personally saw any PCs avoid monsters because they weren't worth the danger:xp ratio.

In my experiences, people played D&D for the adventure & excitement, and that very often meant battling monsters. Regardless of the xp value.

In fact, it was an old not-really-a-joke, that when a PC was >this< close to the next level, they'd look for a weak monster to fight to earn those last few xp -- they didn't look for loose treasure.

Bullgrit

 

[fba827]

(i did not read all the posts, just the first one and skimmed a couple others - so apologies if i'm repeating something already said).

I think such a system would encourage longer battles where people delay "big guns" until after they've been hit a lot (or get hit a lot, then heal themselves, then get hit some more and then kill the things).... and long battles are not necessarily a good thing (at least not for my group, your group preference may vary). And it would effectively penalize anyone who wants to come up with a creative way to "nuke things" up front (using their special big power to cause a cave in or some such)...

bottom line, there just seems too be too much openining for abuse to work the system since HP are a resource with many ways to replenish and deplete, and if i ever tried something like this, i think it would just lead to longer battles where people try to soak in more damage before the final kills. (again, all just my opinion and preferences, YMMV)

 

[Lanefan]

At first glance, this sounds like a great idea.

Then I look closer....

Problem the first:
You're giving a huge advantage to the high-h.p. types - if the Fighter has 50 h.p. and the Wizard only 20, who in the long run is going to advance faster? So to beat this you need to look at %-ages. The Wizard gets the same ExP for taking 10 damage as the Fighter gets for taking 25. And what about someone who gets cured during the battle? I've seen characters take over twice their hit points in damage in a single battle, and survive because they were being cured from behind the whole time. Messier yet is when things that add temporary h.p. enter the mix e.g. Potion of Heroism.

And how the bleep do you assign ExP to someone who took so much damage they died, but were later revived?

Problem the second:
Who is going to do all the record-keeping? Not me, that's for sure; I'm too busy trying to track the h.p. of my monsters!

Problem the third:
What about non-damaging encounters that give ExP, e.g. sneaking around a lookout post to scout the enemy camp. Here, taking damage should equal *less* ExP, if anything.

Lan-"if I'd got ExP for all the damage I've taken, I'd be a freakin' god"-efan

 

[ExploderWizard]

In fact, it was an old not-really-a-joke, that when a PC was >this< close to the next level, they'd look for a weak monster to fight to earn those last few xp -- they didn't look for loose treasure.

Bullgrit

Heck yeah. If you were in hyper metagame mode and needed 5 XP to level it certainly would be easier to find an orc or something to chop down than 5 gp lying around someplace.

 

[Morrus]

Say goodbye to your ranged strikers! Why play anything but a Defender is your XP is based on the amount of damage you soak up?

 

[Coldwyn]

Say goodbye to your ranged strikers! Why play anything but a Defender is your XP is based on the amount of damage you soak up?

Also, good bye to damage reduction, energy resistances, immunities... You want full exp, right? While we´re at it, good bye armor, and please use abilities that actually hamper your saves, an enemy might miss you with his exp-giving abilities.

 

[Janx]

in terms of DM-work, it is far easier to give out 300XP per CR divided by # of players than it is to record how much damage was taken/recieved per encounter.

XP-for-damage-taken can drive an undesired/nonsensical playstyle (people should generally want to avoid getting hurt)

XP-for killing-stuff being the standard, the side-effect is kill-happy PCs, but at least they are still within the concept of people who face danger and kill stuff

Thus, I think for most GMs, XP-for-damage-taken is too much bother at the risk of not making sense anway.

One model I might consider is to determine what the PC's objective is (either a quest, or player chosen goal like "take over the kingdom"). Then look at the straight line path of encounters to achieve that, and add up the XP the usual way. Let's say the party chooses "rescue the princess" and you determine there's 5000XP if they go straight to it through 5 encounters.

Now, let them do the adventure. Don't track encounter XP. If the PCs face 20 encounters because they do some wasteful stuff, or find a back way clever solution, give them the 5000XP. In short, the PCs are rewarded for achieving their goal. The value in any encounters is whatever they get out of it (treasure), rather than XP directly.

If it was a major quest, I suppose you could break it up by stages. Whatever.

Possible side effects:
players would try to skip some encounters, knowing they aren't losing XP
players would still look for encounters, knowing that they'll get loot and reduce a future threat against them,ultimately stuff gets done in encounters
learning from failure isn't modeled in this method, there are valid times the PCs fail and should get XP anyway

learning from failure is a complex issue. In a way, that's what the OP is talking about. When you take damage, you have failed to block, dodge or defend yourself. The question is, is this something a PC would realistically learn from?

I don't doubt a person can learn from failure, but in my experience, failure is not the best teacher.

I find that when I have people who are stuck, or behind, they need some successes to help them catch up and get the hang of things. That usually comes in the form of easier sub-components of the problem.

I find that when I am teaching a complex technical concept, having technical issues during the demo/explanation gets in the way of talking about the actual point.

I find that, in failing at something, we don't always walk away with the same conclusion/lesson that somebody who succeeded did. In many ways, we end up with a kneejerk, more cautious attitude about the lesson which doesn't help us actually succeed and win the next time it comes up.

When they say, "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger", they're not talking about something that beats the snot out of you and leaves you for dead. They're talking about something that TRIED to beat the snot out of you and you WON. or they're talking about how after getting the snot beat out of you,you defied the doctor's expectations and WON. The learning comes from the process of winning, not the losing part.

 

[Aramax]

I used to hand out 1xp per damage taken and the players lovedit,it turned them all into mascocists,but they loved it!