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<blockquote data-quote="Ridley's Cohort" data-source="post: 648330" data-attributes="member: 545">I think you have found the key stumbling block in the discussion.&nbsp; Common sense says that &quot;losing&quot; to a trap should not give xp.In actual play, common sense is wrong because:(1) Detecting and even attempting to bypass a trap is extremely dependent on party composition.&nbsp; Party A with a skilled Rogue bypasses all traps, takes no damage, gains piles of xp.&nbsp; Party B without the dungeon crawling skills gets hammered again and again, and gets zero xp.&nbsp; The punishment for tripping a trap is the trap itself, adding xp penalties on top of that is not good for game play.(2) A trap is not fundamentally different from any&nbsp; monster from a resource POV -- so creating a whole new set of xp rules for traps is not a benefit to the game.&nbsp; An nth level party can either encounter a CR n monster or a CR n trap in the corridor.&nbsp; It should be the same deal for both.&nbsp; Why make it more complicated when it doesn't need to be?(3) For game enjoyment it is better to give the PC the option of just walking on the traps to keep the game moving.&nbsp; If the DM decides to add metagame punishments for this tactic, then he is encouraging tedious, boring play.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ridley's Cohort, post: 648330, member: 545"] I think you have found the key stumbling block in the discussion. Common sense says that "losing" to a trap should not give xp. In actual play, common sense is wrong because: (1) Detecting and even attempting to bypass a trap is extremely dependent on party composition. Party A with a skilled Rogue bypasses all traps, takes no damage, gains piles of xp. Party B without the dungeon crawling skills gets hammered again and again, and gets zero xp. The punishment for tripping a trap is the trap itself, adding xp penalties on top of that is not good for game play. (2) A trap is not fundamentally different from any monster from a resource POV -- so creating a whole new set of xp rules for traps is not a benefit to the game. An [i]n[/i]th level party can either encounter a CR [i]n[/i] monster or a CR [i]n[/i] trap in the corridor. It should be the same deal for both. Why make it more complicated when it doesn't need to be? (3) For game enjoyment it is better to give the PC the option of just walking on the traps to keep the game moving. If the DM decides to add metagame punishments for this tactic, then he is encouraging tedious, boring play. [/QUOTE]

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