Should EL (and XP) be adjusted for player's actions?

[Nail]

At the end of the last gaming session, a player and I had a disagreement about how many XPs should be awarded for the PCs activities. Here's the scenario:

The party knows there is a gate, hidden in the mists of the Ethereal plane ahead of them. They also know that if they spend time searching for it, the gate activates and sends a monster after them. That summoning releases a flash of light and an audible "snap", allowing them to locate the gate.

Planning carefully, the party decides to turn the fighter invisible (greater), then send him toward the flash....while the rest of the party waits for the summoned monster to come to them. They hope that, while defeating the monster, the fighter will be able to get to the gate and deactivate it before it summons another monster.

In practice, all goes acording to plan...until the invisible fighter gets to the gate. When he gets next to the gate, the gate activates a second time! ...an anarchic Tyranosaurus lunges out!

So....there are two combats going on simultaneously....that is, until the fighter is eaten a second time. The party, meanwhile, kills the first batch of monsters, then comes and finishes off the T. Rex. (Fighter is dead, dead, dead.)

Here's the arguement:

• Player says the EL of the T.Rex encounter should be increased, since it was harder than it would have been if they had all been there.
  
• DM says EL is not affected by how the players chose to approach/defeat the bad guys.

Who's right? Opinions?

 

[ElvishBard]

I would say that the DM is right, the fighter should have realized not to take on a dinosuar by himself. He was invis, and last time I checked dino's can't see that, so he should have just left it alone. Remember that if they think the EL should be raised because it was hard, remind them that when they do very well against monsters/challenges you don't lower the EL. But this is all my opinion and I could be wrong .

 

[dcollins]

Agree with previous poster. EL should not be changed retroactively; it should be a fixed measure up-front.

 

[FireLance]

Okay, this is going to be confusing to explain. Please bear with me. I am going to be talking about three different things here: EL, CR and XP.

CR is the basic measure of how challenging is a single creature, trap or some other dangers (such as a forest fire). CR assumes that the challenge is faced by a four-person party containing a fighter, a cleric, a rogue and a wizard of equal level, properly equipped for their level. Changing the number, mix, or equipment level of the characters may make a specific challenge easier or harder, so DM eyeballing is still necessary to prevent it from becoming either insurmountable or a cakewalk. In particular, a single character is likely to fare badly when facing a challenge with a CR equal to his level.

EL is the basic measure of how challenging is an encounter. It builds on the CR of individual creatures and hazards and takes into account any other factors that might make an encounter easier or harder. An ogre fighting in a narrow corridor takes quite significant penalties because he is squeezing, and his EL would be lower as a result. Undead fighting in an area that is desecrated and unhallowed so that all of them benefit from a protection from good spell are at an advantage and the EL could be higher as a result.

XP is another different kettle of worms. Generally, XP is awarded based on CR, not EL. However, DMs may adjust XP awards up or down based on the difficulty of the encounter. Some DMs find it easier to award XP based on the EL of an encounter (awarding XP as if the party had overcome a challenge with a CR equal to the EL) instead of calculating XP for each creature individually. Ultimately, the DM has the final say on how much XP is earned and how it is calculated.

All in all, I agree with the DM in this case. CR and EL should be independent of PC actions. That said, I would recognize that the challenge of locating and closing the gate before another creature steps through is quite separate from the challenge of defeating the creatures that had already been summoned, and I would award additional XP for that, possibly equal to a CR 10 encounter (a fiendish tyrannosaurus is CR 10; I assume an anarchic tyrannosaurus is similar). The PCs will earn this XP if they manage to close the gate before the tyrannosaurus steps through, and will not earn more than this if they leave the gate open and fight more creatures. This prevents it from becoming an XP generating machine.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Well-said, FireLance.

It's also important to note that, in this particular case, the difficulty of the encounter was increased due to the PC's strategy, not the actual creatures. Had the fighter backed away and waited for his comrades, or even retreated after the first p) time he was swallowed to get healing from the party cleric, the encounter wouldn't have been so difficult. Instead he chose to go it alone. That does make the encounter more difficult, but it's a chosen difficulty, not an unavoidable one.

To throw in an example, if a PC in my game decided to fight a dual with a tiefling blackguard with one hand tied behind his back, it'd certainly be more challenging. But he wouldn't gain any extra xp from it.

 

[Jhulae]

Well-said, FireLance.

It's also important to note that, in this particular case, the difficulty of the encounter was increased due to the PC's strategy, not the actual creatures. Had the fighter backed away and waited for his comrades, or even retreated after the first p) time he was swallowed to get healing from the party cleric, the encounter wouldn't have been so difficult. Instead he chose to go it alone. That does make the encounter more difficult, but it's a chosen difficulty, not an unavoidable one.

To throw in an example, if a PC in my game decided to fight a dual with a tiefling blackguard with one hand tied behind his back, it'd certainly be more challenging. But he wouldn't gain any extra xp from it.

Sadly, one of our DMs has been known to hand out less experience for an encounter if the party uses good tactics and hands the encounter it's collective backside.

An example: We were in a snowy region and could only move at half our speed. We were set upon by an owl bear (I believe), and at that time, it was 1) capable of easily tearing the party to shreds because of our low level and 2) capable of moving at 3/4s of it's speed so it was faster than us.

Instead of just sitting and waiting for it to come to us, we split up and used ranged attacks while the wizard summoned creatures in it's way. We didn't take any damage at all, while we got it down to only a couple of hit points and it ran away.

after the battle, the DM only gave us half xp because 'the battle was so easy'.

Um, excuse me? We get punished for using good tactics instead of standing and fighting it in melee? Talk about a load. (Note: the DM was known for playing a dwarven barbarian who's single tactic was 'charge into battle and hope for a crit'.)

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Um, excuse me? We get punished for using good tactics instead of standing and fighting it in melee? Talk about a load. (Note: the DM was known for playing a dwarven barbarian who's single tactic was 'charge into battle and hope for a crit'.)

I seem to remember a thread a little while back about killing a golem through a doorway. Was that you as well? If not, your DMs are of like-mind. That group didn't get full xp either, because they chose to pelt it with arrows instead of running up to it and getting pounded on.

I feel for you, man. Does he ever give you more xp when the encounter turns out far more deadly than it's CR would indicate? Like, say, if you guys engage a group of ghasts and roll a couple of bad Fort saves that lead to several party members almost dying?

 

[Jhulae]

I seem to remember a thread a little while back about killing a golem through a doorway. Was that you as well? If not, your DMs are of like-mind. That group didn't get full xp either, because they chose to pelt it with arrows instead of running up to it and getting pounded on.

I feel for you, man. Does he ever give you more xp when the encounter turns out far more deadly than it's CR would indicate? Like, say, if you guys engage a group of ghasts and roll a couple of bad Fort saves that lead to several party members almost dying?

No, that wasn't us.

No, he's never given us more exp for an encounter that turned out to be tougher. It does suck.

As an example of what I consider a fair DM: When my brother DMed a while back, we ran into a green dragon (it was mature adult or something, I think.. one bigger than adult if I remember correctly). Anyway, the battle had just begun, the dragon got one breath attack on us on a flyby, and then the bard was able to hold it with Hold Monster (in 3.0). It was held for 14 rounds, we beat on it and killed it. It turned out that the lucky Hold Monster made the battle incredibly easy. But, he gave us full xp for the encounter, because if it hadn't worked, he knew we would have been beaten on pretty badly.

Now, I do understand if an encounter is overcome with diplomacy (for example) and aren't in any kind of danger, no, there shouldn't be full xp. But, any time where the party is in danger (i.e. combat and the like), full xp based on the EL or CR or whatever should always be given for the encounter, whether the party uses good tactics (or bad tactics). No more is needed, no less should be given.

 

[Nail]

Sadly, one of our DMs has been known to hand out less experience for an encounter if the party uses good tactics...

Ouch.

Well, I'm not doing that. Lessening XP 'cause the PCs were awesome is LAME. IMO, the XP for an encounter is completely independent of how the PCs overcome it. In fact, I think the DMG says something like that....but I could be wrong.

I meant to email my players that this thread is active. I'll do that now. Meanwhile: anyone agree with the player? Why/why not?

 

[Gina]

I meant to email my players that this thread is active. I'll do that now. Meanwhile: anyone agree with the player? Why/why not?

I'm one of Nail's players!

I don't agree with the other player, since it was a tactical thing on our part. It just didn't work out quite the way we planned. It worked out better than it would have if another "round" of monsters had been summoned though.

XP should be the same, though if the fighter had survived or managed to kill the T Rex on his own without our help, I would expect that he would have gotten a nice bonus for taking it on himself!

Oh, and the fighter really wanted to get away, but it got hold of him and he was uanble to escape.....the first time he cut his way out of its belly, then it grabbed him again before he was able to move away.

In the end though, our tactics did help us and we learned how to better handle the situation on our next foray. Yeah, there are at least two more gates to close.

Nail seems to be trying for a TPK!