Liches and XP

[Lord Pendragon]

Sorry if I disagree - A lich's phylactery is one of its defensive mechanisms - so if the objective is to rid the world of the Lich, no XP until they have destroyed it and its phylactery for good - hence no more returns.

Say the party fights a dragon, and after a terribly difficult battle in which 2 PCs die, they manage to beat it down to its last bit of hp. Realizing it's almost dead, the dragon flies off and quickly makes its escape. Then, since it was only testing out the area to see how easy the prey might be, it decides to never come back. Are you saying you'd award the party no xp?

It doesn't matter if you actually kill something. Defeating the encounter is good enough, and when the lich dies, the encounter is over. It's CR has nothing to do with its immortality. That's just a nice little bonus that makes them good recurring villains.

 

[FireLance]

Fundamentally, XP is a DM tool. You can give as many or as little as you want.

For me, I award XP for achieving the objectives of the adventure. If the objective is to get past a monster, the PCs don't have to kill it to get full XP. If the objective is to kill the monster, the PCs only get full XP if they kill it. If the objective is to capture the monster alive, I would reduce the XP award if they killed it instead (assuming I give any XP at all).

 

[smetzger]

It doesn't matter if you actually kill something. Defeating the encounter is good enough, and when the lich dies, the encounter is over. It's CR has nothing to do with its immortality. That's just a nice little bonus that makes them good recurring villains.

According to the DMG, its the objective of the PCs that determines if XP is to be awarded. If you don't meet the objective then you don't get XP. If the objective is to destroy the Dragon or the Liche and you only drive it off then no XP by the rules. But if the objective is to rid this area of the Dragon or Liche and you succeed in doing this without destroying the creature then the objective has been met and XP is to be awarded.

 

[uzagi_akimbo]

Say the party fights a dragon, and after a terribly difficult battle in which 2 PCs die, they manage to beat it down to its last bit of hp. Realizing it's almost dead, the dragon flies off and quickly makes its escape. Then, since it was only testing out the area to see how easy the prey might be, it decides to never come back. Are you saying you'd award the party no xp?

It doesn't matter if you actually kill something. Defeating the encounter is good enough, and when the lich dies, the encounter is over. It's CR has nothing to do with its immortality. That's just a nice little bonus that makes them good recurring villains.

Excuse me - that depends entirely on what the PCs' objective is - if it is "overcome the dragon and free the area/kingdom/princess " they would get certainly XP for driving it off.
BUT if their mission's objective is destroy the dragon and end its menace to peaceful folks forever.... than well, sorry, no XP for driving the dragon off (although reduced XP for a tactical victory or and even full XP other monsters/adversaries overcome to get to the dragon would apply ). If they came to slay it, defeat it once and for all they must. How they accomplish that is open to inventiveness - kill it, entomb it alive, banish/transport it to some other place without appearant/obvious recourse, polymorph it into a mouse, change its alignment to lawful good.... whatever floats and has no apperant logical holes. But driving it off, or only delaying its plans for a few days won't do - hence no XP for "mission accomplished"

And, lets face it, there is a bunch of monster which have to be put down in a specific way to be destroyed - starting with the infamous Tarrasque (wish anyone ?) , several undead, many outsiders (who need to be destroyed on their homeplane) , also many creatures with regenerative abilities. That's part of the fun and challenge. If players and/or their characters don' t know, tough luck. And yes, Liches aren't easy to destroy mainly due to that. Otherwise, to a prepared party, they can fall astonishingly fast.

Speaking from personal experience, the PCs IMC faced just that problem some sessions back. They had battered the Lich to smithereens, but were well aware that he had retreated to his phylactery, which, right then, they couldn't spare the time to locate , so they knew he would be back.
None of them even asked for the XP for him for fun - they just knew he hadn't been dealt with (their mission was to secure a ruined area and make it safe for civillian use, which definitely included taking care of the Lich who claimed the area as a hereditary fief, and was pretty aggressive about it) yet. They met him a couple of sessions later, this time prepared for tracking him down, and took him out, with glee. XP awards for the first fight (roughly a CR10 instead of a CR15) were purely for tactical skill and secondary monsters, roleplaying and heroics, so that may have softened the blow over "delayed" XP some.

It's the same rule as overcoming a monster by guile, smarts or stealth without destroying it, just applied in reverse. If the characters can accomplish a mission without bloodshed and gain the full XP for it if they have the appropriate goals, then it must also be the case, that until the characters have permanently dealt with an adversary they need to destroy/take out of the equation for good, they cannot take it easy and reap the rewards, unless they go the whole nine yards.

And yes, if the villain returns through some means not inherently part of his class/type/template or equipment (say being ressurected ), then that is an entirely new challenge, with corresponding XP rewards.

YMMV.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Excuse me - that depends entirely on what the PCs' objective is - if it is "overcome the dragon and free the area/kingdom/princess " they would get certainly XP for driving it off.
BUT if their mission's objective is destroy the dragon and end its menace to peaceful folks forever.... than well, sorry, no XP for driving the dragon off

I disagree. Regardless of whether they accomplished their overall objective, they've defeated a dragon in combat, and that carries with it a commensurate xp award, IMO. I may or may not award bonus xp for accomplishing certain tasks, but defeating a dragon is defeating a dragon. It doesn't matter whether or not they want to kill it dead (except in the awarding of the bonus xp I mentioned before.)

Let's look at it another way. Say there's a lich that's worth 10,000 xp for its CR. The party fights it ten times in the course of looking for its phyactery, their goal from the very first to destroy it utterly. By your reckoning, the party would gain 10,000 xp for finally destroying the lich...and that's it?

Why is that different from the party killing ten different monsters, each monster worth 10,000 xp for its CR?

My answer: it isn't. Each time you're facing 10 encounters, each worth 10,000 xp, and you walk away with 100,000 xp in all.

 

[FireLance]

Well, I can't speak for other DMs, but when I give a challenge to a group of PCs, I'd make sure that they had a reasonable chance of overcoming it. If the task is to slay the dragon, I wouldn't craft a scenario where the dragon flees and never returns just to deny the PCs XP. If the task is to destroy a lich, I'd make sure that they can find clues to the location of his phylactery. If they had to fight the lich again, it would only be because they bungled or are deliberately delaying the search, and I wouldn't award extra XP for that.

On the other hand, if I did plan to make the lich a recurring villian and thus made it practically impossible for the party to find his phylactery until after the final climactic encounter, I would be planning not one challenge but several challenges that just happened to use the same opponent. And I would award full XP if the party overcame each one.

I hope that makes it clearer .

 

[Majere]

We used to have a DM
His creatures had a habit of running away when almost dead.
Seems sensible enough, players run away if they are about to die.
He gave us 0 exp for fights in which the enemy ran away.
Namely all of them

The game lasted about 3 weeks before we all left.

There is a lesson there.

Majere.

 

[uzagi_akimbo]

I disagree. Regardless of whether they accomplished their overall objective, they've defeated a dragon in combat, and that carries with it a commensurate xp award, IMO. I may or may not award bonus xp for accomplishing certain tasks, but defeating a dragon is defeating a dragon. It doesn't matter whether or not they want to kill it dead (except in the awarding of the bonus xp I mentioned before.)

Let's look at it another way. Say there's a lich that's worth 10,000 xp for its CR. The party fights it ten times in the course of looking for its phyactery, their goal from the very first to destroy it utterly. By your reckoning, the party would gain 10,000 xp for finally destroying the lich...and that's it?

Why is that different from the party killing ten different monsters, each monster worth 10,000 xp for its CR?

My answer: it isn't. Each time you're facing 10 encounters, each worth 10,000 xp, and you walk away with 100,000 xp in all.

As for
A) I recommend checking the DMG pages 36 and 37 - the XP is awarded for overcoming the challenge set by the mission. If the challenge was to kill/permanently neutralize the dragon, sorry no XP for defeating him (although as stated, XP for fighting his minions, allies, traps etc. contributing to the final fight might still apply. If the dragon escapes - well, sorry, they have been narrowly defeated in their quest to kill him. As for an alternative quest like driving the dragon off, freeing the princess (and, IMCs such goals often go hand in hand ) they have succeeded (and might likely qualify for the XP for the dragon fight that way ).
Of course the DMG leaves the decisiona s to what constitues the challenged and triumphed over constitutes to the GM who runs and writes the adventure. And, I guess YMMV on that. But that is very close to a house rule.

B) It is definitely not the same as fighting 10 different creatures - because the ability confered by the phylactery is part of a Lich's Challenge Rating. You have to defeat it as it is, and if that means you cannot find a way to deal with the phylactery in time and have to fight him again, that is your character's problem. Same with Ghosts - you can put them down through combat for some time, but you cannot defeat them. Same for Revenants... or Trolls, if you lack fire or acid to stop their healing. Many other creatures, too.

Or to spin the yarn a different way, let me resort to an example to illumniate my point - a hostile magic user "Magic Jars" some of your characters, forcing the other characters to kill or subdue them to stop him from attacking the rest of the party with and through their possessed bodies. In the end , you have three group members killed by their fellows, and the remainder of the group kills the magic user. Now do you as the GM hand out XP to the survivors for "defeating" their comrades in addition to those they gained for defeating the magic user ? Because, basically, that magic user simply used one of its abilities which made up its CR to fight the group, effectively, by adding additional opposition, aka, the possessed. But still, it was only him alone, all the time. So - from my point of view, no XP for the slaughtered comrades.
And that applies to an adversary who needs to be slain in a specific way as part of its normal array of powers, too.
Matter of preparartion

 

[Lord Pendragon]

*shrug* I can see doing it FireLance's way, Usagi, but I can't see doing it yours. Your illustration is strong, but I think there's a difference between summoned/possessed creatures, and not awarding xp for defeating a lich.

I respect your opinion, and in no way doubt that your system works for you and your players. But for me, I would find such an xp award system unacceptable.

 

[Shin Okada]

I will go for full XP. Basically, XP is awarded per encounter and when PCs overcome the challenge in that Encounter. They don't even need to kill a monster if they can drive off monsters to survive, or, say, if they could sneak passed a watch monster to go through a corridor.

And, not just Lich, but most of the powerful NPCs with enough resources may come back to life. Important Blackguards in a big evil cult should be resurrected by clerics of that cult when slaying. Do you give PCs smaller amount of XP because the enemy they have just defeated is a member of a powerful cult?

I will give full XP for each encounters, and then maybe give additional XP for driving off the enemy from the material plane permanently (though nothing is permanent for sure).