Traps - XP
- Thread starter zlorf
- Start date
Li Shenron
Legend
Do you mean, beside obviously looking at the trap's CR? 
My rule of thumb is to give xps if the party (at least one PC) has interacted with the trap, and successfully overcome the trap's purpose. The last thing isn't always obvious, but the purpose is usually to prevent people to get to some place: give xp if the PC disable it, bypass it or just walk through it but survive.
Cases when the trap doesn't give xp include for example finding the trap but not choosing to deal with it, and instead find a long way around it. It depends tho... walking close to the walls around a pit trap counts as challenge won for me; turning your back and look for another way through the dungeon doesn't.
But generally speaking, the purpose of an encounter (monster or trap) is to provide a challenge. If the PC didn't use any skill, spell, ability or anything requiring either a roll or a sort-of tactical decision, there was no challenge. [however i still give xp for springing a trap, as a kind of compensation]
My rule of thumb is to give xps if the party (at least one PC) has interacted with the trap, and successfully overcome the trap's purpose. The last thing isn't always obvious, but the purpose is usually to prevent people to get to some place: give xp if the PC disable it, bypass it or just walk through it but survive.
Cases when the trap doesn't give xp include for example finding the trap but not choosing to deal with it, and instead find a long way around it. It depends tho... walking close to the walls around a pit trap counts as challenge won for me; turning your back and look for another way through the dungeon doesn't.
But generally speaking, the purpose of an encounter (monster or trap) is to provide a challenge. If the PC didn't use any skill, spell, ability or anything requiring either a roll or a sort-of tactical decision, there was no challenge. [however i still give xp for springing a trap, as a kind of compensation]
Gee, LS's response doesn't make much sense after the question was edited ... My take: if the whole party encounters the trap, the whole party splits the full XP award-the rogue who disarmed it gets the same share as the characters who stood around asking why it was taking so long to search one suspicious doorway. If the rogue is scouting ahead by herself & has the trap located and disabled before the rest of the group catches up, I'd probably give all the XP to the rogue.
If the rogue is scouting ahead by herself & has the trap located and disabled before the rest of the group catches up, I'd probably give all the XP to the rogue.
Infiniti2000
First Post
The whole party gets the XP. If not, you'll have one of two things happen:Christian said:Gee, LS's response doesn't make much sense after the question was edited ... My take: if the whole party encounters the trap, the whole party splits the full XP award-the rogue who disarmed it gets the same share as the characters who stood around asking why it was taking so long to search one suspicious doorway.
- The party doesn't let the rogue scout ahead.
- If the rogue is injured or impacted by the trap in any way, the party can do nothing to help (i.e. no healing, no heal checks vs. poison, no rescuing, etc.). Otherwise, they deserve part of the XP for expending resources.
Peter Gibbons
First Post
Yep. Just like the whole party gets XP for killing monsters, even if the party's tank deals all of the damage to it.zlorf said:
lukelightning
First Post
XP represents learning things, and among things that you learn, learning about oneself is foremost. Know thyself and all that jazz. And one of the most important things I've learned in D&D is "let the rogue deal with the traps, particularly if you are a wizard with a low fort save."
Li Shenron
Legend
I see better now... I give Xp to the whole party as well.
Now that I think about it, it never happened to us that the party lets the rogue or ranger scout WAY ahead. Usually, the risk of the rogue getting caught into a combat it enough so that the rest of the party never stays behind more than a few yards or tens of yards.
If the rogue was really on her own, I'd give her the full xp.
Now that I think about it, it never happened to us that the party lets the rogue or ranger scout WAY ahead. Usually, the risk of the rogue getting caught into a combat it enough so that the rest of the party never stays behind more than a few yards or tens of yards.
If the rogue was really on her own, I'd give her the full xp.
