XP - CR or EL?

[Thanee]

A friend of mine recently brought this up.

While it's the standard method to derive XP from the individual CR of whatever opposition has been overcome, the actual threat level is the EL.

Wouldn't it be reasonable to base XP awards on the EL (like treasure is done as well), instead of each individual CR?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

The main problem I see is determining EL. What's, for example, the EL of an evil mob comprised of:
1 CR 9
3 CR 5
7 CR 2
13 CR 1/3

Of course, if you arrange your encounters so that the EL is easy to calculate, you can use the method you described. If you do so, would the rewards be high or lower than if XP was awarded for CR?

The rules for evaluating EL from multiple CRs is "add 2 to the EL each time you double the number of creatures of a particular CR". So if a CR2 creature is EL2, 2 CR2 creatures are EL4, 4 are EL6, 8 are EL8, 16 are EL10

If we had a 5th level party, the XP awards for each member would be:

1 CR2 vs EL2: 125XP / 125XP
2 CR2 vs EL4: 250XP / 250XP
4 CR2 vs EL6: 500XP / 562XP
8 CR2 vs EL8: 1000XP / 1125XP

For small encouters, it wouldn't chante much, but as you go higher in ELs, you would get more XP if calculated with EL instead of CR.

AR

 

[Li Shenron]

Wouldn't it be reasonable to base XP awards on the EL (like treasure is done as well), instead of each individual CR?

Since Xp are supposed to be more for greater challenges, they should indeed be based on EL, which not only it is based on CRs but also takes into account any favorable/unfavorable condition.

The point is that, while CRs are already approximate (compared to older editions' fixed Xp per creature, CR has a much lesser "precision"), EL are even more approximate. That's why the DMG rather suggests to base Xp on CR and then adjust them depending on the conditions. Published adventures should always provide an EL, but not to overlap the DM's decision on Xp, just to give a ready evaluation about how difficult the encounter could be for the party.

Although I like the CR system, my humble opinion is that a DM shouldn't worry too much about calculating Xp. It is much more important that the advancement pace is kept under control, even if it means to ignore the DMG Xp baselines and simply give ad hoc Xp.
However, in "official" circumstances (such as tournaments) it is necessary to use a standard method, and a free-form experience system may have the drawback of having some player feel like it depends too much on the DM and too little on how good the players are.

 

[Thanee]

The main problem I see is determining EL. What's, for example, the EL of an evil mob comprised of:
1 CR 9
3 CR 5
7 CR 2
13 CR 1/3

Well, you face that problem anyways, if you use the random treasure generation, which is the standard method (altho maybe not used by everyone), since random treasure is based on the EL.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Liquidsabre]

RaW, XP is awarded per CR of each creature, individually. With the assumption that CRs are only approximate representations of creature difficulty and then one goes and calculates EL based from multiple CRs, then you have an EL rating potentially more askew than the individual CRs. While EL remains a reasonable guideline when drawing up encounters (so as to provide a reasonable challenge/ i.e. not kill them all outright) I'd stick with CRs when rewarding XP as their sum total is closer to the XP worth for the encounter than the EL would be.

 

[silentspace]

In the House Rules forum there is a neat system which you might want to look into:

v4: Challenge Ratings pdf (3.5 compatible)

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Well, you face that problem anyways, if you use the random treasure generation, which is the standard method (altho maybe not used by everyone), since random treasure is based on the EL.

Bye
Thanee

Not necessarily, since in every monster entry, it tells you how much an individual creature should have / should give away. Some monsters have no treasure, some have much more than their CR indicates (dragons).

AR

 

[The Souljourner]

The method they use to determine CR vs. EL vs. XP guarantees that individual CR - XP awards equal total EL - XP awards, except in the case where you are fighting many many guys who are so low CR that they're not actually worth any XP.

4 CR 2 guys is EL 6 and gives the same XP as 1 CR 6 guy if you just multiple the XP for a single CR 2 guy times 4. So, you don't need to use EL to calculate XP, because it's designed to work out either way.

EL is really just a guideline for how tough an encounter will be. It's not intended to be used for XP awards.

-The Souljourner

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

4 CR 2 guys is EL 6 and gives the same XP as 1 CR 6 guy if you just multiple the XP for a single CR 2 guy times 4. So, you don't need to use EL to calculate XP, because it's designed to work out either way.

Check out my example, it doesn't necessarily work out. For a 5th level party (for example), a CR 2 creature is worth 500XP, thus 4 CR2 creatures (EL6) will be worth 2000XP. a CR6 creature (again, for a 5th level party) is worth 2250XP (unless they changed the XP table in 3.5).

AR