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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cheiromancer" data-source="post: 1662559" data-attributes="member: 141">I imagine everyone knows the dangers of proof-reading your own work- you can read it a hundred times, and instead of seeing what is really there, you read what you expect to be there.  After reading these last two posts I went and looked again at the relevant section of the 3.5 DMG.  And what do you know- I finally read what was really there, as opposed to what I had expected to be there!It turns out that what I thought was the "core rules" method of assigning xp *was* the core rules method... in version 3.0.  The 3.5 system in fact does exactly what Anubis says it does.  But I had somehow failed to notice that, and simply read it as saying what it had said in 3.5.  It is as embarassing as having an egregious typo pointed out to you in work that you had gone over, so you thought, with a fine-toothed comb.So I humbly retract my statement above, that Anubis' method does not correspond to the core rules.  I was mistaken about the core rules were, and was still back in 3.0 land.  And so I would encourage anyone delving into the mysteries of CRs, ELs and XP assignment to brush up on the changes between the relevant sections of the 3.0 and 3.5 DMGs.  The method that Anubis proposes is the closest fit to what is in the 3.5 DMG.  The "even division" variant of my method is closer to 3.0; a variant of the Grim Tales method will also do this.  The standard variant of my method corresponds most closely to Grim Tales' preferred method.  Anubis (and 3.5) gives more xp to lower leveled characters; one variant of my method gives equal xp, but Grim Tales (and the usual method I expound) both cause all characters in a party to level at the same rate; it thus gives more xp to higher level characters.Anubis,There is one ambiguity in the way you describe your method:  the fact that there is a different power factor for each character in a party.  It would be very easy for someone to misunderstand your explanation, and decide that "LV" must be the average level of the party, and multiply *that* by the number of participants.  It will just strike people as logical that if the "power factor" depends on the number of participants of a group, it must be a property of the group.You have to make it clear that the power factor is a property of characters, not the group, and that each character's power factor is based not only on that character's level, but also on the size of the total party. This last bit is a little hard to wrap one's mind around.  Intuitively you'd think that if each character has their own power factor, that power factor should depend only on facts about that character- facts about the size and composition of the party should be irrelevant.To make it easier for someone to grasp at the first reading, I therefore think you should break down the process as follows:Determine the Base XP of the encounter using the usual formula, and then divide it evenly among the participants.  Then have each player divide their share of the Base XP by their character's level to determine how much XP that character gets.i.e. instead of (Base XP)/(LV*Participants)Have ((Base XP)/Participants)/LVInstead of a multiplication and a division, it is two divisions.  Since multiplying and dividing are of equal difficulty, it doesn't make it any harder. In fact it is a little easier to divide by a small number than by a large one.  Instead of having the players do both operations, they just have to do one: the DM looks up the base XP for the encounter, and divides it by the number of participants.  Each player then divides that number by their character's CL.  Or the DM does this part, too.  He shouts out "the 6th level characters get ...., the 7th level characters get... and the 8th level character gets..."If you need terms for each of the parts, call themBase XP = (CR^2)*300Group XP = Base XP / ParticipantsIndividual XP = Group XP / LVIntuitively the Base XP is what the monster is worth- it's also what a 1st level character would get if he defeated that monster single-handedly.  The Group XP recognizes that more than one person is involved; it is what each member of a group of 1st level characters would get if that group was the same size as the character's own group.  Finally, the Individual XP recognizes that a particular character might not be 1st level, and calculates what XP a character of that level should get.For templated characters you'll have to use CR instead of character level.  A 15th level rogue who is also a werewolf (CR +3) divides by 18, and needs 18,000 xp to advance a level.  This is also different from Grim Tales.  I don't know what the standard rules say anymore about LAs, but I think this is what your rules would have to do to make sense.How does that sound?</blockquote>

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