So, I was looking at the XP values wondering if there was an obvious progression there. And there is, up to level 18 at least.
For one thing, XP does not depend on monster "class" - brute, soldier, lurker, etc. Any creature of a particular level is worth the same XP as any other of the same level. Elites are worth twice as much for their level, solo monsters five times as much - makes sense, since they are supposed to take the place of two and five normal monsters, respectively. Based on the kobold minion example, minions seem to be worth 1/4 the xp for their level, but there's only one data point there.
Level 1 creatures are worth 100 xp.
For levels 2 through 5, each level adds +25 xp.
For levels 6 through 9, each level adds +50 xp.
For levels 10 through 13, each level adds +100 xp.
For levels 14 through 17, each level adds +200 xp.
For levels 18 through 21 (?), each level adds +400 xp.
Seems like a simple enough progression... unfortunately it breaks down there. There's no xp values that I've seen between 18 and 23. And at 23 we have an elite worth 10,700 xp (the chuul juggernaut), which means that a normal lvl 23 would be worth 5,350 xp. At level 26, we have the elite pit fiend at 18,000 xp, or 9,000 xp for a normal lvl 26. In both cases, the progression I posit above comes out lower than expected (4800 for lvl 23; 8000 for lvl 26).
If the progression (every 4 levels the amount of xp increase per level doubles) did hold out till level 30, you're left with a "normal" level 30 foe being worth 16,000 xp. I put the numbers at the end of this post for anyone interested (a ? denotes guesses rather than hard data). EDIT: Racinante posits what looks to be the correct progression downthread. The progression changes for Epic tier monsters, as follows:
For levels 22 through 25, each level adds +950 xp.
For levels 26 through 29, each level adds +2000 xp.
Implications for Encounter Design
This is the interesting part, to me. From what we've been told, a normal (whatever that means) encounter for a party would be a number of monsters equal to the number of players, at the same level the players are. So 4 1st level PCs face 4 1st level monsters, or: 400 xp. In theory we're supposed to be able to throw together anything that adds up to 400 xp, and it should be around the same difficulty. Which means that a party of 4 level 1s can fight a level 9 monster (gargoyle, grick alpha, shadow panther are ones we have stats for right now) with no problems. Or a level 10 if you have a party of 5 (chuul is the only non-elite of that level we have at the moment). Looking at the monster stats, this seems plausible - defenses are certainly higher, but none of these monsters does a ridiculous amount of damage or is impossible for the sample 1st level PCs to hit (although the grick's DR might be hard to bypass, depending on how 'resist' works).
It also shows you at what point a monster theoretically becomes cannon fodder - at least as far as xp is concerned. Minions are (possibly) worth 25% of the normal XP for their level. This is the same XP value as a normal monster's level - 8. So a level 9 minion should be worth 100 xp (same as a level 1), a level 15 minion worth 300 xp (same as a level 7), etc. This would suggest that you'd no longer want to use level 1 monsters once your party hits 10th level, no longer use 7th level monsters when the party is 16th, and so on.
The progression (updated):
lvl 1: 100
lvl 1 (minion): 25
lvl 2: 125
lvl 3: 150
lvl 4: 175
lvl 4 (solo): 875
lvl 5: 200
lvl 6: 250
lvl 7: 300
lvl 7 (elite): 600
lvl 8: 350
lvl 9: 400
lvl 10: 500
lvl 11: 600
lvl 11 (elite): 1200
lvl 12: 700
lvl 13: 800
lvl 14: 1000
lvl 15: 1200
lvl 16: 1400
lvl 17: 1600
lvl 18: 2000
lvl 19: 2400
lvl 20: 2800
lvl 21: 3200
lvl 22: 4150
lvl 23: 5100
lvl 23 (elite): 10200
lvl 24: 6050
lvl 25: 7000
lvl 26: 9000
lvl 26 (elite): 18000
lvl 27: 11000
lvl 28: 13000
lvl 29: 15000
lvl 30: 20000?
For one thing, XP does not depend on monster "class" - brute, soldier, lurker, etc. Any creature of a particular level is worth the same XP as any other of the same level. Elites are worth twice as much for their level, solo monsters five times as much - makes sense, since they are supposed to take the place of two and five normal monsters, respectively. Based on the kobold minion example, minions seem to be worth 1/4 the xp for their level, but there's only one data point there.
Level 1 creatures are worth 100 xp.
For levels 2 through 5, each level adds +25 xp.
For levels 6 through 9, each level adds +50 xp.
For levels 10 through 13, each level adds +100 xp.
For levels 14 through 17, each level adds +200 xp.
For levels 18 through 21 (?), each level adds +400 xp.
Seems like a simple enough progression... unfortunately it breaks down there. There's no xp values that I've seen between 18 and 23. And at 23 we have an elite worth 10,700 xp (the chuul juggernaut), which means that a normal lvl 23 would be worth 5,350 xp. At level 26, we have the elite pit fiend at 18,000 xp, or 9,000 xp for a normal lvl 26. In both cases, the progression I posit above comes out lower than expected (4800 for lvl 23; 8000 for lvl 26).
If the progression (every 4 levels the amount of xp increase per level doubles) did hold out till level 30, you're left with a "normal" level 30 foe being worth 16,000 xp. I put the numbers at the end of this post for anyone interested (a ? denotes guesses rather than hard data). EDIT: Racinante posits what looks to be the correct progression downthread. The progression changes for Epic tier monsters, as follows:
For levels 22 through 25, each level adds +950 xp.
For levels 26 through 29, each level adds +2000 xp.
Implications for Encounter Design
This is the interesting part, to me. From what we've been told, a normal (whatever that means) encounter for a party would be a number of monsters equal to the number of players, at the same level the players are. So 4 1st level PCs face 4 1st level monsters, or: 400 xp. In theory we're supposed to be able to throw together anything that adds up to 400 xp, and it should be around the same difficulty. Which means that a party of 4 level 1s can fight a level 9 monster (gargoyle, grick alpha, shadow panther are ones we have stats for right now) with no problems. Or a level 10 if you have a party of 5 (chuul is the only non-elite of that level we have at the moment). Looking at the monster stats, this seems plausible - defenses are certainly higher, but none of these monsters does a ridiculous amount of damage or is impossible for the sample 1st level PCs to hit (although the grick's DR might be hard to bypass, depending on how 'resist' works).
It also shows you at what point a monster theoretically becomes cannon fodder - at least as far as xp is concerned. Minions are (possibly) worth 25% of the normal XP for their level. This is the same XP value as a normal monster's level - 8. So a level 9 minion should be worth 100 xp (same as a level 1), a level 15 minion worth 300 xp (same as a level 7), etc. This would suggest that you'd no longer want to use level 1 monsters once your party hits 10th level, no longer use 7th level monsters when the party is 16th, and so on.
The progression (updated):
lvl 1: 100
lvl 1 (minion): 25
lvl 2: 125
lvl 3: 150
lvl 4: 175
lvl 4 (solo): 875
lvl 5: 200
lvl 6: 250
lvl 7: 300
lvl 7 (elite): 600
lvl 8: 350
lvl 9: 400
lvl 10: 500
lvl 11: 600
lvl 11 (elite): 1200
lvl 12: 700
lvl 13: 800
lvl 14: 1000
lvl 15: 1200
lvl 16: 1400
lvl 17: 1600
lvl 18: 2000
lvl 19: 2400
lvl 20: 2800
lvl 21: 3200
lvl 22: 4150
lvl 23: 5100
lvl 23 (elite): 10200
lvl 24: 6050
lvl 25: 7000
lvl 26: 9000
lvl 26 (elite): 18000
lvl 27: 11000
lvl 28: 13000
lvl 29: 15000
lvl 30: 20000?
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