D&D 5E Weirdness: The more monsters, the less the XP.

[Sage Genesis]

I'm not sure where you get that. Given most of the published encounters are not with singlets, but with multiple entities, you've got a high burden to show that the single monster assumption exists.

Because single monsters have no special xp calculation multipliers and groups do.

Note that I say that the single monster assumption exists within the encounter xp rules. I never said that assumption also existed in WotC's adventure design.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Because single monsters have no special xp calculation multipliers and groups do.

Note that I say that the single monster assumption exists within the encounter xp rules. I never said that assumption also existed in WotC's adventure design.

The US income tax system has a zero tax rate for earning no money and a higher marginal rate as you make more money. That doesn't mean that it has an assumption of earning no money.

Similarly, that there's no modifiers on the xp of a single monster just says that the xp for single monsters is sufficient. The multiplier for more is there to offset the effect of action economies that isn't a part of monster xp calculations -- it's literally a bodge to cover an effect that's impossible to measure for a single creature xp calculation. This, in no way, makes any kind of assumption as to what an encounter should be. It's just a set of tools to help balance encounters of many different kinds as fairly as possible (leaving aside it's actual effectiveness).

 

[Sage Genesis]

I think you're rather misreading me. I'm not saying that 5e's encounter rules think you should only fight a single monster. I'm saying the math for the budgets is centered around a single monster as the baseline. The assumption is not a proscriptive one, it's one of starting points. The starting point of 5e's encounter math is the single monster of the . The starting point of 4e's encounter math is one creature per PC. And that's all I mean with "assumption".

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is just one of the myriad of things that makes me wonder why WotC even bothers with challenge ratings, encounter building tables and the like. It seems like so many players take them as gospel, follow them to the letter, then get annoyed when they don't work right for their particular group. That group of 20 Bandits against 4 melee PCs makes the battle difficult enough that the XP that they get out of it (due to XP multipliers for large groups) doesn't seem nearly enough... whereas the same 20 Bandit group against 4 PCs that can drop a pair of AoE spells in the middle of them at the top of the battle seems like a cakewalk.

If WotC had just left "encounter building" and "challenge ratings" out of it and just told DMs "figure out what your group can handle and create fights to challenge them"... DMs would build towards their specific party and not just using arbitrary numbers and wonder why they don't work right. It's how DMs always had to do it way back when and we got pretty good at just eyeballing things based on monster stats and XP gained... and it's a skill that too many DMs these days have never really learned how to do.

I'd encourage all DMs to occasionally just put together a random encounter using nothing more than your instincts on what you think your group could handle-- not bothering with any encounter building equations or ratings or anything-- and just see what happens.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think you're rather misreading me. I'm not saying that 5e's encounter rules think you should only fight a single monster. I'm saying the math for the budgets is centered around a single monster as the baseline. The assumption is not a proscriptive one, it's one of starting points. The starting point of 5e's encounter math is the single monster of the . The starting point of 4e's encounter math is one creature per PC. And that's all I mean with "assumption".

I understand your intent, now, but still disagree. That a single monster has no multiplier is more of an artifact of addressing the fact that monster CR calculations ignore the economy of actions. EoA has a big effect on encounter difficulty, though, and needs to be addressed and is through the multipliers. There's nothing that would indicate that the starting point for encounters is one monster -- they system works with one or many and is pretty agnostic about it.

 

[DeathMutant]

I interpreted it differently. I assumed that the XP multiplier is for XP *budget* of the encounter, for determining difficulty, but not the XP *earned*. The XP earned is always the sum of the individual monster's XP (divided by the size of the party).

Personally, I ignore the XP multipliers anyway because I usually run larger (6-7 PCs plus followers) parties and award more XP for overcoming challenges (which may include combat), story milestones and treasure than pure combat encounters.

 

[Illithidbix]

I concur that it does seem a tad strange.

I don't use XP for leveling up in the games I run (I level the party up when I think it's appropriate), so I only use XP values when I'm encounter building.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Something I've been thinking about in 5e: I've been DMing pretty much since the outset of 5e. During the process of encounter design, groups of monsters get an effective "XP multiplier" that counts toward encounter difficulty and XP budget; but does not contribute to the actual XP earned by the PCs. The ultimate significance of this is that larger encounter groups are worth decreasing total amounts of XP. And, given a trend of more or less balanced encounters during a play session, the PCs are likely to earn LESS experience the MORE monsters they fight.

I've got mixed feelings about this. It conveniently enables DMs to speed or slow experience gain as suits their preference. But I have also occasionally had frustrated players who were unimpressed at the XP gain at the end of a session in which they vanquished many foes. Does this not strike anyone else as being a little bizarre?

It did once, especially at first. I went through a brief phase of awarding "adjusted XP" instead of raw XP. Decided I didn't like it because it meant that there were physical consequences to the players for whether I decided to call two connected battles one encounter vs. two: e.g. if 1d4 umber hulks emerge every round (up to a total of 25 available), and every round the players kill or disable some, what multiplier should I use for the ones they manage to kill before having to retreat? Should I pretend all 25 are there the whole time? Clearly false. Should I use however many umber hulks are in play at the time, changing from round to round? It's a mess.

Furthermore, the adjustment process doesn't stop at a "number of monsters" multiplier. There's also a situational modifier, bumping difficulty up or down based on environmental concerns like "Are there lots of hiding places for the goblins?" If you commit to awarding adjusted XP, you are awarding extra XP for one way of making encounters harder, but ignoring another factor. How would you adjust XP awards for Stone Giants on a cliff face? (20d6 falling damage every time they shove you off the edge with their Athletics +12 skill.)

So after a brief flirtation with awarding adjusted XP, I went back to awarding base XP. If my players want an easier fight, it's now their job to defeat the enemy in detail; and if they want higher XP rewards, they can go hunt beholders instead of hobgoblins. (Although the hobgoblins give pretty good non-XP rewards, in the form of arms and equipment, and occasional prisoners-turned-allies.)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Similarly, that there's no modifiers on the xp of a single monster just says that the xp for single monsters is sufficient. The multiplier for more is there to offset the effect of action economies that isn't a part of monster xp calculations -- it's literally a bodge to cover an effect that's impossible to measure for a single creature xp calculation. This, in no way, makes any kind of assumption as to what an encounter should be. It's just a set of tools to help balance encounters of many different kinds as fairly as possible (leaving aside it's actual effectiveness).

The multiplier isn't there because of action economies. It's there because of Lanchester's Square Law. If one troll inflicts 20 HP of damage before you kill it, a second troll will be inflicting 20 HP of damage during that same time, and will inflict another 20 HP after the first troll is dead. It inflicts 3x as much damage to the party (to a first approximation, neglecting AoEs/etc.) and so costs 3x as much XP budget.

Action economy is one factor of this equation but the bigger bag of HP is the other. Multiply them together and you get the square effect.

 

[Azurewraith]

T "Monster Manual" that includes guidelines on how best to use the monsters therein.

This NEEDS! to be a thing as a father of soon to be 2 a full time worker and an avid gamer of both the virtual and table varieties this would make life so much easier than having to search the manual and spend 2-3mins per monster working out if it could "fit" into my encounter and in what role then re skin it to make sense. I imagine Wotc read these boards and there more than aware that most of there market will be in the same boat as me THIS should be done you would get my monnies!