xp for maintenance actions?

[alsih2o]

do you award your p.c.'s xp for maintenance actions?

i have a friend who is new to the game who wishes to make up a ranger (real life hunter) who think s he should get xp for hunting for food for the party. i am having trouble working this out.

is it fair to the rest of the party that he can get xp by hunting dinner?

 

[Sejs]

*goes to check the CR of a deer, or some rabbits*

Okay, looked in the MM,.. closest thing to a deer I could find was a pony. Pony is thicker, deer is taller. Pony clocks in at CR 1/4th.

For rabbits..gonna fake it with rat stats. Rats make the mark at CR 1/8th.

This is also assuming the critters in question.. you know.. fight back instead of just run for their lives, fall over, and die. No fight, no exp. If he say, decides to take on a boar solo.. CR 2, it probably will fight him, and uh.. they're frickin' mean. Solo boar kill could be worth some exp.


But that's all aside. To the question of getting exp for hunting food / performing maintennance actions: No. If you want to shoot some grouse for dinner, insead of paying a few silvers to buy trail rations back at the town.. you're already getting a reward of sorts. You save money, and you get some additional natural materials that you can do other things with.

 

[Benben]

Fair up to a certain point.

Here's what I do for this sort of thing.

Any challenge the PCs face gets a CR.

Hunting for the party in a verdant forest would be about CR 1/2. Hunting for the party in a wastedland would be around CR 5. The possiblity of random encounters with monsters can turn this into a bigger encounter but I usually gloss over that.

When selling and buying supplies I hand out XP according to the level of the merchant if the PCs get a bargain. Usually equal to the CR of the merchant.

Scholarly characters can gain XP for researching information for the party. For healers I can apply a sliding CR to an event and guage the success on the triage skills of the healer. Say healing all of the disease in a village is CR 5 if the character heals the sickest and weakest first so that no lives are lost.

These maintenece CRs generally don't scale with the level of the party so eventually the individual character won't get any XP for doing these tasks.

 

[Sejs]

Uh, I like Benben's answer way better then mine.

Just imagine my first post was in total agreement with what he said, instead of what I actually typed, please.

^_^

 

[alsih2o]

No fight, no exp.

so, if someone takes out an orc from behind with an arrow in the back you give no xp?

and the ranger is different, he is using a skill, possibly more than one.

 

[Sejs]

Not quite - my statement was poorly said, I think.

The difference is more that the orc didn't get a chance to fight back, whereas the rabbit wouldn't fight back. I've been rabbit and quail hunting a few times with my uncles, and I've never once seen small game rush a hunter.

 

[Crothian]

You can give a flat rate of like 20 or so per skill used in constructive manner. It makes PCs happy, gives them a little extra XP, but shouldn't matter too much overall.

 

[Benben]

Uh, I like Benben's answer way better then mine.

Just imagine my first post was in total agreement with what he said, instead of what I actually typed, please.

^_^

Thanks.

I'd just like to point out that I was forced to do this because I started having sessions with no combat at all, and sometimes no dice rolling. This meant I had to find a different source of XP for my players.

 

[the Jester]

I give xp for roleplaying in four categories- class, race, align, and personal. I'd give him class xp for this (25xchar. level per session per category). But I also cut monster xp in half so advancement isn't even faster than standard 3e.

 

[Gizzard]

I've been rabbit and quail hunting a few times with my uncles, and I've never once seen small game rush a hunter.

What you need in this case is the "Tiny Animal Critical Table", I think it was from a game system called Claw Law back in the 80's? It was hilariously funny, extremely improbable and quite deadly. It had things like "Foe makes amazing leap and severs your jugular vein. Bleed to death in 3 rounds." That'll teach that ranger to respect bunnies. ;-)