Xp for getting butt kicked?

[the Jester]

Do you give pcs xp for getting their butts kicked?

For instance, if the group is ambushed and one member assassinate, then the assassins escape, would you give the pcs any xp? (This is quite relevent, as it happened last game and I'm figuring the party's xp right now...)

 

[Crothian]

If they played well maybe 10%, but if they just reacted and didn't really accomplish anything then no.

 

[clark411]

Step 1. Identify the challenge the PCs were supposed to overcome in this fight.

Step 2. Determine if they did, or to what degree they did.

Step 3. Find CR of encounter and determine the experience rewarded by overcoming the challenge to the degree that they did.

Step 4. Alter this reward based on any circumstance modifiers you see fit to (did they have an advantage, a real disadvantage?)

Step 5. Split up, and dole out experience.

I think, looking at this, you might realize that it's the Assassins who should be recieving experience from this encounter rather than the PCs.


If the challenge for the party was simply to keep the one character alive and they failed, it's hard to award any experience... if the challenge was simply for the character in danger to survive taking damage and making fort saves, ew. While I respect the need for proactive NPCs, as a player who has too been killed by assassins I can say that no amount of experience dished out would be needed- because all I was taught was that I could be thwonked by DM run NPCs at any time. Not a lesson I needed.

 

[Drawmack]

This is iffy

I would probably give xp based on reaction.

Did they get the person reincarnated?

Did they get to see the person through the eyes of dead person via spells to be able to identify the assassin?

basically they would earn xp but it would be for the reaction to the murder and not the murder itself.

 

[dvvega]

The way I do it in my campaigns is ...

Why did the assassin flee?

Was it because the PCs were beating him/her into a pulp?
If this is the case, they defeated the assassin. They get the full XP award.

Other reason?
Then the encounter was extremely difficult. It's equivalent to that 5th encounter that risks a character. They should get XP in ratio to how many survived ... since they made it through this encounter with some people in tact.

 

[the Jester]

Well, the assassins were aerial servants that were sent after a cohort that had been scrying the Temple of Elemental Evil's champion. The game before, when the cohort scried the Champion of Elemental Evil, the CoEE made his scry check to notice. He then made nasty threats at the scry sensor, used clerical divination magic to figure out who was spying on him, and sent his assassins to slay him and drop a note that said, "Do not trifle with or spy on us!" The assassins fled because they'd accomplished their mission.

I agree that the assassins should be the ones earning xp, I just was debating giving the party a fraction of the xp for defeating the assassins. In the end I've decided not to- they got their butts handed to them.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I don't know, I think that the PCs getting their asses handed to them would be a learning experience, in general.

That's why you play with people better than you-- so that you learn to play better until you can beat them.

 

[DM_Matt]

I don't know, I think that the PCs getting their asses handed to them would be a learning experience, in general.

That's why you play with people better than you-- so that you learn to play better until you can beat them.

But it doesnt look like they really did much. XP is a reward in addition to a measure of experience. Watching their friend get killed and the assassins get away immediately doesnt involve much for them to be rewarded for.

 

[magnas_veritas]

But it doesnt look like they really did much. XP is a reward in addition to a measure of experience. Watching their friend get killed and the assassins get away immediately doesnt involve much for them to be rewarded for.

They might deserve a little bit for looking threatening enough to not have the assassins stick around to take care of the targets of opportunity. After all, a logical extrapolation of the instructions would be, if they could, take out the party and resolve the intrusions permanently. Ergo, they prevented the assassins from completing a secondary or tertiary objective, and so had something of a victory...okay, that's stretching it a bit.

It does make a sort of sense to give XP for being defeated, as surely they learned *something* from it. But it shouldn't be much...maybe 1/10 normal, or even less.

Brad

 

[Andion Isurand]

If simply surviving the encounter was the goal, then they made it through the encounter. Not all enounters have to be about killing or defeating your enemies.