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Message: <blockquote data-quote="evilbob" data-source="post: 4091646" data-attributes="member: 9789">I'm running a game with four 8th level PCs who just picked up a 4th level NPC that's pretty important to the story (3 guesses as to the campaign).  I've noticed that one quirk in the way 3.5 XP is awarded, it really doesn't matter what level your party members are; the XP you are awarded is more dependent on the number of party members.  In other words, if I'm an 8th level fighter, my XP from each encounter doesn't change whether my party members are level 10 or level 6; it only changes if there are more or fewer of them.So, the quandary is:  since this 4th level NPC is going to be contributing almost nothing to an 8th level party (in fact, the NPC will likely be more of a hindrance than anything), how would you award XP from encounters that include this NPC to the party?My thoughts on solutions are:1.  award XP as normal (which seems to penalize the party for having a low-level tagalog that can hardly contribute but will eventually, over a very long period of time, cause the NPC to catch up)2.  award XP as if there were only 4 party members instead of 5 (this seems more fair, but what happens if the lowly 4th level NPC actually contributes in some way - then the party is basically getting free help)3.  level the NPC up a couple times to match the party (may be the best XP solution, but sucks because then you have what amounts to a DM-NPC and the party members are the ones who should shine)4.  intentionally keep the NPC out of battle as much as possible (easier said than done, and also means I have one more thing to keep up with instead of letting the players just run the NPC during battles)I'm sure there are other solutions as well - can anyone think of some?  How would others solve this problem?</blockquote>

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