XP awards in D&D 3.5

[Churchill]

Acording to the DM's guide page 166, a 10th level Fighter defeating a CR 10 beast earns 3000 X.P.. However, A 10th level Fighter and a 1st level Fighter defeating the same CR 10 beast each earn 4500 X.P. ...

I was wondering if X.P. award issues are fixed in the 3.5 DM's guide.

You're dealing with an extreme example here, and almost any time you deal with an extreme example something breaks down. That's kinda like saying, "Well, my speedometer goes to 120 MPH, why can't I drive that fast?"

Originally posted by Fenes 2
Edit: That goes double as soon as you have to eyeball the tables anyway if there were special conditions of an encounter that should raise or reduce the CR - at that point you are just guessing anyway.

Actually, don't those things go into calculating something's Encounter Level, not the CR? That should be used more for determining if the party can handle a challenge, not what their reward is.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Re: Re: XP awards in D&D 3.5

Besides, it's the designers' fault for counting summoned monsters in XP calculations.

Uh, they're not supposed to.

(Thanks for the game, BTW. It was great. Pity to see it go -- but it's for the best, I think.)

 

[reiella]

Hehe CRGreathouse, I believe his developer comment was in reference to Bioware (or whoever wrote the mod he's playing) that's putting summoned critters into the equation.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I've tried various methods to mitigate this "squire effect" as it was first named some while ago. The FR method was too calculation intensive so I've ended up with a simpler method of using the standard tables -

instead of using average party level, I use "max" party level.

This means that the highest level person in the party doesn't get bonus xps for being with lower level people, and that the lower level characters get less exp than if they had faced the foe on their own... but they are typically facing more serious challenges than they would otherwise have, so it all works out nicely.

Top level characters get the expected amount for their level, lower level characters get slightly shortchanged, but to a certain extent they are "carried" by the higher level characters, and they are still getting more than if they adventured alone.

Cheers

 

[Trainz]

Oh... I don't expect the system to be perfect. I really like 3rd ed., in fact, it is my favourite edition.

I was just pointing at an inconsistency and was wondering if it would be addressed. The importance and impact of that inconsistency has yet to be evaluated.

IMC, it has no impact whatsoever. After I saw the many loopholes of the XP system, I decided to give a flat XP award after the game session, with no correlation with the foes defeated during the adventure. This way players play their characters smarter, not needing to accumulate kills to improve.

Now, I did use such a system in 2nd Ed, and it was also elegant.

However, if the XP reward system would be less chaotic and complicated, I might go back to using it. Which was the point of my post. To know if They intended to tweak it or not.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think my DM works on an "Each person gets 4/Xth of what they would get if the party were all their level", where X is the number of people in the group - so the low level character in your example would get nothing (challenge is higher by 8) and the fighter would get half as much as if he'd done it solo, or twice what he'd get if he'd been in a regular party of 4.

The neat effect of this is that people who get left behind from crafting magic items, or level drains or deaths can catch up again once their level is below that of the rest of the party.

 

[jasamcarl]

The problem with arbitrary xp awards is that it can lead to serious imbalance interms of party wealth and level. The CR system is balanced based upon the amount of resources expended in defeating a given challenge, pluss a surplus commensurate from the level gain through given xp. The mechanics are there for a reason.

 

[Creamsteak]

I think my DM works on an "Each person gets 4/Xth of what they would get if the party were all their level", where X is the number of people in the group - so the low level character in your example would get nothing (challenge is higher by 8) and the fighter would get half as much as if he'd done it solo, or twice what he'd get if he'd been in a regular party of 4.

The neat effect of this is that people who get left behind from crafting magic items, or level drains or deaths can catch up again once their level is below that of the rest of the party.

Honestly, I thought that was the way the rules worked. You divide the xp award for an individuals level by the party members recieving experience, and you give that share to them. Then you do that for the other players. Done and done, and your 3rd level character gets a slightly larger share than the 4th level character, because it was a bigger threat to him/her than to the 4th level character.

I thought you only needed party average levels to determine ELs?

 

[Fenes 2]

The problem with arbitrary xp awards is that it can lead to serious imbalance interms of party wealth and level. The CR system is balanced based upon the amount of resources expended in defeating a given challenge, pluss a surplus commensurate from the level gain through given xp. The mechanics are there for a reason.

First, I don't use that balance from the DMG, so that concerns me not. Second, the day I am unable to distribute some wealth to meet some figures as a DM is the day I give up on gaming.

Sheesh, how difficult do you think it is to just check the expected amount of treasure, and then place some loot in an adventure?

 

[David Argall]

Average is wrong

"People who diss the CR system based on unusual examples should take a reality check."

The same points are present in less unusual examples, just not as dramatic. So instead of a 10th and a 1st, we have 2 6th, 5th and 3 3rd levels. The 3 top take on a 6CR and share 1800 xp. Add in the help of the 3 lower levels and the part splits 2400 XP. The reality is quite simple. The system rewards players for easier tasks.

"I hope none of you seriously thinks that WotC should invent a simple method that gives a decent estimate of any given D&D party's chance of winning any given encounter and expected resources expended (and therefore the reward they should get)."

That is precisely what we would like. Would you seriously like to say you prefer some alternative? Such as 500 Xp whether you face an orc or Orcus?

"if I was able to do that, I would instead make a model that accurately predicts the share market and get filthy rich, or devise a method to unerringly predict weather conditions and get a Nobel prize. Both things look fairly easier."

Both are rather obviously far harder, in the case of the stock market because millions of others are also trying to make predictions, and each of their actions changes the formulas. Weather is also based on large numbers of rather random factors, each of which may greatly change the role of others. By contrast, D&D involves merely a few hundred factors. By comparision, a pocket calculator to a mainframe.

We don't expect a perfect system, just that they make it better.