Would you give XP for this?

[Victim]

And the reason the paladin doesn't have those resources is because he gets immunities and other abilities instead. Both are the same in terms of class balance.

 

[Archer]

I'm surprised that this question generated so much commentary. When I first say this thread I thought, "Of course they should get experience."

The only time you wouldn't get experience for something is it some powerful creature was chained or incapacitated in advance and you CDG'ed it or if you are given an artifact or item which destroys the particular powerful being you wouldn't normally be able to defeat.

You don't double the exp for undead vs parties without clerics and you don't halve the exp if there are 2 clerics. Some things are easier and harder for different groups or characters but the obstacle remains the same.

 

[the Jester]

I thought that CRs were based on how much of a Risk they were. How much resources they would drain from you. For instance, isn't it a CR of the adequate level adjusted so that it drains 20% of a party's resources? Be they spells, Hps, etc?

Well, if it Doesn't hinder, or they don't do anything except just run through them... where's the challange?

Just as sometimes a low CR relative to the party's level can be a very tough fight, a high CR relative to the party's level can be an easy fight. The idea is that the encounter will drain about 20% of a party's resources on average, generally assuming one of the party members is optimized against the threat (notice that dire animals can dish out tons of damage for their CR, but a ranger or druid in the party makes it much easier to deal with them, for example). A lucky roll or good tactics can change this significantly.

If you have a Half-Dragon character who is immune to fire, and he gets ambushed by a fireballing sorceror. The mage does no damage to him, and, since all his spells are fire, the mage panics and teleports away, would the character get any Xp for defeating the sorceror, since he well... didn't do anything?

I'd say no. He didn't defeat the sorcerer, the sorcerer left to come back another day. If the sorcerer stuck around for a while and tried different stuff out before fleeing, I'd award xp for the battle. What you describe is a different situation though: the sorcerer leaves without using much of anything against the half-dragon. The character encounters a fireball, not a sorcerer, if you know what I mean.

I'd definitely give the paladin xp for the trap; it tried its best.

 

[magnas_veritas]

A monk or rogue doesn't choose to use evasion, so if they evade a trap with a reflex save would you not give them XP?

Erm...strictly speaking, they can choose to forfeit the save and walk into it and not get the benefit of evasion. I'm not sure *why*, but they could. :-D

Brad

 

[Xarlen]

Edit post: Mr. Fidgit said what I was about to.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Actually, the half dragon is even closer to the druid than some might think.

The druid made a temporary decision to allocate his resources to fire protection. The resource the druid allocated was a 7th level spell slot.

The half dragon made a permanent decision to allocate some of his character resources to fire immunity (assuming half-red or half-gold dragon. The resource the dragon allocated was 3-5 (depending upon your DM) levels in ECL.

The half dragon darn well ought to get experience for the encounter. It cost him 3-5 levels to beat it not just one spell.

(Of course, the DM really ought to design his foes to be more effective against the PCs. My interpretation of the paladin situation is that the traps would have been threatening to the party but they all hit the paladin because he was the only one left alive--if it were a solo adventure for the paladin, that kind of thing would be poor design. Since the paladin was part of a party which got wasted, it's entirely different).

What if a druid was fighting the fire ball sorcerer and had Elemental Immunity: Fire up? He used his abilities to negate the attack, right? Same thing for a 1/2 dragon.

Why should you punish someone for picking abilities that grant immunities, as opposed to other ones. CRs are based on what threat they'd pose to a hypothetical group of kind of crappy adventurers. If a character has a class or racial immunity, they could easily have a different, more offenisve ability. Why should one deny the value of defense.

 

[Forrester]

I wouldn't give XP . . . but partially because the traps are so lame.

Holy Smite? If one member of the party is a Paladin, I'm guessing that most of the others are good-aligned as well. I can't imagine giving XP for this. So if a good-aligned party walks into a good-aligned castle, and walks past twenty traps that only harm the evil, they get a mess of XP? Just because of their alignment?

Definitely not. Traps that don't do anything because of a players matched alignment shouldn't give XP.

Cause Fear? Unless this spell was going to cause the character who triggers it to run into a room with a 100' deep pit . . . what's the big deal? If it was just meant to keep someone out of a given room . . . I dunno, it seems to me that even if it had been triggered, it would have been lame. Why give XP?

Contagion? Can make the best case for XP for this one, but once again, what a lame-ass trap. The purpose of a trap should really be to hurt, kill, maim, paralyze, whatever. Not give someone a slow, slow acting disease. Ooh, he loses a couple points of Con, or Dex, or Strength. And then goes on to slaughter everyone in the complex. That was worth it.

In the final analysis . . . no, I don't think XP is called for.

 

[FireLance]

I wouldn't give XP . . . but partially because the traps are so lame.

Holy Smite? If one member of the party is a Paladin, I'm guessing that most of the others are good-aligned as well. I can't imagine giving XP for this. So if a good-aligned party walks into a good-aligned castle, and walks past twenty traps that only harm the evil, they get a mess of XP? Just because of their alignment?

Definitely not. Traps that don't do anything because of a players matched alignment shouldn't give XP.

Cause Fear? Unless this spell was going to cause the character who triggers it to run into a room with a 100' deep pit . . . what's the big deal? If it was just meant to keep someone out of a given room . . . I dunno, it seems to me that even if it had been triggered, it would have been lame. Why give XP?

Contagion? Can make the best case for XP for this one, but once again, what a lame-ass trap. The purpose of a trap should really be to hurt, kill, maim, paralyze, whatever. Not give someone a slow, slow acting disease. Ooh, he loses a couple points of Con, or Dex, or Strength. And then goes on to slaughter everyone in the complex. That was worth it.

In the final analysis . . . no, I don't think XP is called for.

Fair point. The spell selection was kind of lame in a couple of cases, but did serve to highlight that certain "trap" spells would not affect certain characters.

I guess I could have used phantasmal killer instead of cause fear, but I didn't want to open the whole "are-paladins-immune-to-phantasmal-killer" can of worms.

And I beg to differ on the analysis of contagion. The disease takes effect immediately and causes ability damage on a failed save. Ability damage can sometimes be more dangerous than hit point damage because ability scores increase at a slower pace than hp. Damage to Wis, Dex and Con can also have far-reaching effects by making you more vulnerable to subsequent challenges due to lower saves, AC and hp. That's why stirges can be really nasty in large numbers.

 

[Chacal]

For those who think I'm penalizing a character, please remember that
I was talking about the situation where there was only a paladin
rewards for surviving as a group are a different thing, as I said before, because what affects the group even if it's not affecting you directly, create a challenge , even for you and in that case I could give XP.

In the situation where someone walking alone sets traps that have no chance to affect him, I
really think that there's no difference with walking in an empty corridor. And I don't give xp for just walking.

Keep in mind that a challenge is not necessarily a risk, IMO (my lack of english vocabulary might explain if I use the term challenge wrong)
if it's overcome by a clever plan that deserves XP for me.

I still think that picking immunities is ok, and it helps a PC to do its part of the job in a group so that he deserves XP.
But there's no way I'll give a standalone PC XP for fighting alone fire elementals just for the sake of it if he has fire immunity.

If the paladin in the case number 1 actually said " Thanks Pelor for its powers ..." or the like , I might take it into account when giving XP for either good interpretation or making me smile ;-)

Chacal

 

[Darklone]

UIh, making the DM smile is worth some Xps? Wanna play in that group!

Otherwise, I agree with Forrester about the traps