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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4843523" data-attributes="member: 80487">Mallus, that's simply what's written in the DMG. Your statement as to what makes a puzzle an 'encounter' is perfectly in keeping with my understanding -- and, I think, with the passage I quoted. So, it's a puzzle to me what you find &quot;uncharitable&quot;.DMG p. 120: &quot;Say the characters avoid a hydra to get into the treasure vault it guards. Do they get XP for overcoming the hydra? No.&quot; In the old days, they would not have gotten XP particular to the hydra -- but they would have been potentially able to get the (probably much greater) XP for the treasure. This is the sort of situation in which Quest XP (mentioned immediately following) show their superiority over 'encounter' XP for a freer approach to the game.Much more likely, I think, than posing challenges directly to players and then not giving XP -- which is not a course recommended in the DMG, nor did I suggest that it was -- is simple avoidance of presenting such challenges. That is in fact what I have seen in published scenarios, and the reaction of more experienced 4E players the one time such a puzzle appeared does not encourage me to suspect that such things have been much more common.There is in fact some guidance on DMG p. 121: &quot;If the puzzle is the entire encounter, treat it as a solo monster. If it's part of an encounter that also includes traps or monsters, count it as one or two monsters, depending on how hard it is and how important it is for the characters to solve it.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 4843523, member: 80487"] Mallus, that's simply what's written in the DMG. Your statement as to what makes a puzzle an 'encounter' is perfectly in keeping with my understanding -- and, I think, with the passage I quoted. So, it's a puzzle to me what you find "uncharitable". DMG p. 120: "Say the characters avoid a hydra to get into the treasure vault it guards. Do they get XP for overcoming the hydra? No." In the old days, they would not have gotten XP particular to the hydra -- but they would have been potentially able to get the (probably much greater) XP for the treasure. This is the sort of situation in which Quest XP (mentioned immediately following) show their superiority over 'encounter' XP for a freer approach to the game. Much more likely, I think, than posing challenges directly to players and then not giving XP -- which is not a course recommended in the DMG, nor did I suggest that it was -- is simple avoidance of presenting such challenges. That is in fact what I have seen in published scenarios, and the reaction of more experienced 4E players the one time such a puzzle appeared does not encourage me to suspect that such things have been much more common. There is in fact some guidance on DMG p. 121: "If the puzzle is the entire encounter, treat it as a solo monster. If it's part of an encounter that also includes traps or monsters, count it as one or two monsters, depending on how hard it is and how important it is for the characters to solve it." [/QUOTE]

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