Trap XP awards? Seem biased.

[aboyd]

I'm struggling with the XP award for a CR 3 trap. The DMG says that players who do not participate do not get considered in the XP calculations.

So a rogue would almost always be doing traps solo, unless the party was hoisting him or maybe fending off monsters while the rogue rush through the job...? If so, then the full XP award would go solely to the rogue. Wouldn't this cause rogues to level up waaaaaayy faster than the rest of the party? Is that intended?

 

[akbearfoot]

If the PCs are in the dungeon that contains the trap, and the party eventually gets PAST the trap, then they helped. Even if they backed up 100ft and let the rogue roll the disarm check etc....They still helped keep the rogue alive/guarded him/took a chance that the rogue failed at disarming it when they walked over the pressure plate etc.

Same principle as in combat....If a wizard or an injured comrade doesn't cast any spells in a fight or instead hides behind an obstacle while the fighters dispatch the monsters. He still gets exp. Same thing if a monster attacks and the guy who wins initiative gets a lucky crit and kills the monster before anyone gets any actions at all, they still all share the exp.

 

[aboyd]

If a wizard or an injured comrade doesn't cast any spells in a fight or instead hides behind an obstacle while the fighters dispatch the monsters. He still gets exp.

I'm not disputing you -- I don't know enough yet to have formed an opinion -- but help me understand what this means: "Characters who died before the encounter took place, or did not participate for some other reason earn nothing." That's page 37 of the DMG. I guess I'm defining "participate" wrong? I have indeed been omitting awards to a certain character who just sorta stands back and does nothing when combat breaks out. But for your interpretation, "not participating" would require being absent from the dungeon or encounter area entirely, right?

 

[akbearfoot]

The way I see it.

A monster shows up and attacks...At this point, all members of the party are at risk. Regardless of how the combat unfolds, everyone involved receives exp except for people that completely run away. One PC isn't supposed to be penalized for another PCs actions...meaning the presence of a rogue in the party does not negate the inherent risk involved in being in an area that contains traps.

The guy sitting outside the dungeon guarding the horses....ie the player who didn't show up that night. He doesn't deserve exp from the trap.

If a player wants to sneak down a corridor, and the other PCs are afraid and tell him he's on his own if the hits the fan, and he gets in a fight and kills a monster on his own, he gets it all. If instead they tell him 'we'll rush in if you get into trouble' Then even if he kills the monsters before they can arrive and help, they still participated.

And the PCs get exp traps even if they fail to find or disarm them...Merely encountering it and surviving it gives them exp.

 

[frankthedm]

Were the other PCs backing off when the rogue tried disarming the trap? If the rest of the party was with the rogue, fighter trying to be prepared to back the rogue up if needed, cleric by his side if the rogue needs quick healing and the wizard right behind with a dispel if the trap gets tricksy {breaks LOS for example], sure divide the XP. But if someone gets used as a sacrificial lamb while the rest of the party are 30' back, I say the DM should consider giving the rogue the lion's share of the XP and the rogue should consider better allies.

 

[akbearfoot]

That's my point frank....There is a reasonable assumption that if the rogue gets into trouble then the other PCs will back him up. Most PCs would probably face alignment shifts if they didnt help.

So where do you draw the line? If a PC is in a position where they can reasonably respond to whatever is happening then they are participating....even if they don't get to make an attack roll, or skill check. In the case of traps, moving back while someone tries to disarm it is a very WISE thing to do...I'd be more inclined to reduce exp if a rogue finds something that resembles a gas trap and 3 of the PCs decide to stand right next to him when he disarms it, cuz that would be the non-smart decision.

That's not using someone as a sacrificial lamb. That's intelligently using an individual's strengths to the entire groups advantage.

But as I've said before....this is another reason why I prefer non-experienced based leveling up. It's counter-intuitive for PCs to be wondering if they can get more exp if they are the first one to run blindly down the trapped corridor. But some people think that they'd deserve a bigger reward for being stoopid.

 

[jaywolfenstien]

I'm not disputing you -- I don't know enough yet to have formed an opinion -- but help me understand what this means: "Characters who died before the encounter took place, or did not participate for some other reason earn nothing." That's page 37 of the DMG. I guess I'm defining "participate" wrong? I have indeed been omitting awards to a certain character who just sorta stands back and does nothing when combat breaks out. But for your interpretation, "not participating" would require being absent from the dungeon or encounter area entirely, right?

Well, by a very very strict literal interpretation, you are correct. However, it's not very practical, and sooner or later a player will feel someone else wrongly got more XP than he did and put you into an uncomfortable position of justifying your decision. It might result in hard feelings -- he might start thinking you have a bias against him even if you're playing it fair -- and that's bad for any gaming group.

The more practical interpretation is this: a player earns his full share of XP for an encounter unless the character is incapacitated before the start of it (ie, they are dead, dying, unconscious, paralyzed, petrified, etc.)

If you fight a Medusa, she wins initiative and turns the Ranger to Stone ... the Ranger would earn XP from the Medusa because he started the encounter fine. He was petrified after the encounter started.

Once the Medusa falls, the party starts to drag their statue friend to town, and a Mind Flayer comes down the tunnel. The Ranger will not earn XP from the Mindflayer because he was incapacitated before the fight started.

Now, the Ranger might still complain about getting less XP, but you can objectively prove that his character did nothing because there was absolutely nothing he could do (and everyone at the table was a witness.)

You could argue that a player who has his character stand back and do nothing for the sake of being a dead weight shouldn't earn XP, but I'm not sure I'd invite that guy back to my table at all.

 

[aboyd]

Like I said, I'm not saying anybody is wrong; I'm just trying to figure this out. So, by your line of thinking, if a character is present but does nothing, well, he/she was still there and still gets XP. OK. So now we apply that logic to traps, and it basically implies that everyone gets a share even if all they did was stand to the side and wait. That actually makes sense, in the sense that then rogues are not getting obscenely high amounts of extra XP.

So, maybe I'll go with that thinking. I still wish there was some text that directly addressed traps and had explicit steps for resolving this issue, but at least with these suggestions I have something to go on. Thanks.

 

[irdeggman]

Not participating is more than not actively engaged. It is more like no where near the area at all.

Would xp not be awarded to the entire party if only a single PCs took on the opponent? That is how the xp awards for traps shold work - just like a normal "encounter". If the PCs is anywhere in the area of effect of the encounter (AoE in this usage is not the same as AoE for a spell - but more like for the fog of war type logic).

treat traps just like a normal battle - it keeps things simple and follows the intent of the system, IMO.

 

[pawsplay]

If they were there, they participated. Just like combat.