The world outside the dungeon

[MerricB]

You have it backwards: you divide the total monster "levels" by the total party levels. If the result is 1 or higher, then full ExP. If lower, the calculated ExP total gets reduced by the same ratio.

Oops. You're right. It is XP * (Monster levels)/(Party Levels)

Oddly enough, in this particular example the problem neatly solves itself.

Let's say (for ease of arithmetic) those Ogres each had 22 h.p. Appendix E shows an Ogre being worth 90 + 5/h.p., so these'd be 200 each; 3 of 'em makes 600.

Three characters take 'em down, each gets 200. 6 characters take 'em down, the ExP get divided more ways, so each gets only 100; i.e. precisely half of what each member of the smaller party got. I don't see the point in going through the motions just so I can reduce the 100 a bit further.

You're wrong: The three PCs get 200 XP each. The six PCs get 50 XP each.

That's not an insignificant change.

Cheers!

 

[Hussar]

Or "Campaign: The Slogging" if people get it in their head that every moment of the life of any character needs to be played out at the table. This harkens back to more traditional D&D campaigns where characters would take time to properly heal, would train to gain some new technique, and would travel for some months to cross a huge ocean. In the right hands, these become the truly epic campaigns that span time, and even whole lives. But in this type of campaign, players have to come to grips with the idea that they don't need to interupt every bit of GM/DM exposition for fear of missing a chance to snatch every bauble and we don't need characters to slay every single rat in every sewer from their hometown to the capitol and all points beyond. In this type of campaign, players need to be disabused of the paradigm that there can be meaningful experience gleaned from 24/7 slaying and the hoarding of coins, and persuaded to understand that a differently-paced campaign than the frenetic insomnafests that are only governed by the rules mechanics of resource replenishment can be as satisfying or even moreso.

This is something I've noticed too. Players want every second to be accounted for. I remember in a 2e campaign, telling the players that the mountain village they were staying in was snowed in for the winter, so, I was advancing the timeline to spring to when the passes opened.

I couldn't believe the amount of bitching and griping that I was "running roughshod" over their game time. I mean, it was two minutes of session time - as long as it took to say, "The winter passes quietly, nothing of note happens".

I had a riot on my hands as players were complaining endlessly.

I've often wondered what has led to the idea that PC's must adventure every possible second or they might be missing something. IME, it's not a new thing either. That campaign was from a university group, which is about 1990 for me.

I could totally see a game where you allow time to pass.

 

[S'mon]

This is something I've noticed too. Players want every second to be accounted for. I remember in a 2e campaign, telling the players that the mountain village they were staying in was snowed in for the winter, so, I was advancing the timeline to spring to when the passes opened.

I couldn't believe the amount of bitching and griping that I was "running roughshod" over their game time. I mean, it was two minutes of session time - as long as it took to say, "The winter passes quietly, nothing of note happens".

I had a riot on my hands as players were complaining endlessly.

I've often wondered what has led to the idea that PC's must adventure every possible second or they might be missing something. IME, it's not a new thing either. That campaign was from a university group, which is about 1990 for me.

I could totally see a game where you allow time to pass.

Again, this doesn't really tally with my experience. I've only seen players get antsy at the timeline moving forward if they're afraid their PC will be hit with Aging penalties, in particular the 3e 'Middle Age' category kicks in early (at 33, AIR?) and hits Fighter types hard. Once I understood that I house-ruled Middle Aged back to 2e's 45.

Generally I've had no problem with advancing the timeline even by years, especially in the 'end game' phase when they're high (8th+) level and have established strongholds, settled down etc.

In my current 4e sandbox game though time is somewhat of the essence, as bad guys are also doing things that will eventually come to fruition, and the PCs presumably want to get as much done in the mountain valley as possible during the summer 'adventuring season' before winter comes. So I don't normally advance the timeline more than about 3 days at a time. Once the current adventure ends though, probably around the top of Heroic Tier, I expect to advance the timeline at least a year or two.

 

[Lanefan]

By the book, shouldn't the 6 PCs get 50 xp each (600 total xp, halfed for the level of challenge rule, divided by 6 PCs). So double the number of PCs end up getting a quarter of the xp each.

Quite possibly, but halving it again from 100 to 50 seems like complete overkill when you're told in the next paragraph of the DMG only to alter it this much when there's a 10-or-more-level difference in the averages between party and foe; which in this case there is clearly not.

"I don't see the point in going through the motions just so I can reduce the 100 a bit further." See, this is the point. You consider the AD&D1 xp award RAW more complicated than necessary, so you house rule out (ignore) the parts you don't like. But for some reason, you don't do this for D&D3, and then you complain about it.

I didn't do this for 3e because I wasn't running 3e. The DM who was wouldn't change it, and thus spent a lot of time on (what I thought were needless) calculations. Believe me, had I been running it I'd have gone to a flat division method with all level characters getting the same ExP for the same encounter in a heartbeat.

He was doing it wrong then - 3e RAW said to average the party level for purpose of XP calculation. Only with 3.5 did the RAW say to make an individual calculation for each PC level represented.

Well, whatever he was doing ended up with the lower level characters in the party getting a higher actual number of ExP for a given encounter than the higher level characters; each level got a different number, and he was working it all out somehow.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

I agree that with 1e there was really no need to reduce monster XP for easy fights, since the amount of XP generated would be trivial anyway. Adjusting treasure XP for 'easy money' was an issue, though. I never did, but that could lead to some over-fast levelling.

I've never used the ExP-for-treasure rule, so I don't need to worry about that bit.

Lanefan

 

[MerricB]

Quite possibly, but halving it again from 100 to 50 seems like complete overkill when you're told in the next paragraph of the DMG only to alter it this much when there's a 10-or-more-level difference in the averages between party and foe; which in this case there is clearly not.

You're misinterpreting the section again: that refers to the case when the total HD of the party and monsters are similar, but the average levels are terribly different.

The first calculation is based on total levels/HD. The second calculation (the indented section) refers to average levels/HD.

So, a party of four 10th level PCs kill forty orcs (hp 5).

The calculation goes...

Individual Orc XP = 15.
Forty Orcs = 600
Total Party Level compared to Total Monster Level: 1:1 - no modifier.

However, average party level/ compared to average monster HD is 10:1, so there must be at least (Gygax's italics) a halving of the XP.

Let's say half XP. The party gets 300 XP - divided by party numbers, so each member gets 75 XP.

Cheers!

 

[The Shaman]

There's a world outside the dungeon?

For the world is hollow, and I have touched the sky.