The "measure of challenge" rule in AD&D1

[Quasqueton]

Since personal experience is rarely something one can take as a universal truth, I’m going to put this to a poll, to see how others at ENWorld looked at this AD&D1 rule.

Regarding awarding experience points in AD&D1:

Dividing the total adjusted hit dice equivalent of the monsters slain by the total of all levels of experience of all characters who had a part (even if only 1 missile, blow, spell, etc.) in the slaying yields a fraction which is the measure of challenge. If the numerator is greater than the denominator, then full experience should be awarded. If the denominator is greater, use the fraction to adjust the amount of experience by simple multiplication.

Did you use this rule? Did you run these calculations each time you awarded xp to the PCs?

Quasqueton

 

[the Jester]

I voted no, but my real answer is "used it very, very seldomly."

 

[Delta]

I'll point out that's not even the whole rule... it continues with another subjective adjustment based on the relative average level of each party.

 

[wmasters]

I don't remember any more. But I do remember sitting down working it out for ages after DMing, so the answer is probably 'I tried'. Whether I got it right or not is another matter altogether. Now it's something I'd handwave, but then I tend to largely do this with XP anyway.

 

[Alensande]

Nope, never used this, never thought about using this, thought it was relatively stupid.

And while we had the occasional player who could (and did) take mathematics as a skill so he could use planar geometry in setting Wall spells, most people panic at the words 'numerator' and 'denominator', and such panic tends to spoil the fun of the tabletop experience

Seriously, if you couldn't set up encounters so the players had enough of a challenge to deserve full XP, you needed to let someone else GM.

 

[SWBaxter]

Initially I house-ruled it to a more straightforward monster "level" divided by character level multiplier for each critter's XP value, since the DMG's formula seemed a little strange to me. By about the time second edition rolled around I had switched to using something more like Palladium's XP system, since it didn't bog down the calculations as much. Most of the DMs I knew used the same house rule and eventually junked the AD&D system, but that was probably because I was one of the first DMs in my area so a lot of my house rules and other practices became SOP in the groups I played in.

 

[el-remmen]

Yep, I used it.

Since XP was only awarded about every four or five sessions it was not a big deal to figure out.

 

[Seeker95]

I voted sort of. We did not use any direct formula. We just assumed a generic % multiplier based on the DM's assessment -- usually 5-10%.

 

[Mercule]

I said "sort of", which means I remember doing some bastard of a calculation for XP, but I couldn't swear to it being that particular bastard calculation.

 

[Uder]

It's really not that hard, just wordy.

I would only use it when figuring out xp for large hordes of humanoids after (if? )the characters got past 4th level, since from that point on they were more like ammunition for big bads than actual threats.