xp for this encounter

[MerakSpielman]

The PCs are first level. They are planning a journey and decide to travel with a military supply shipment. They're hired on as mercinary guards for the rate of 2sp per day and are expected to fight if the convoy is attacked.

A couple days later, the convoy is attacked. It's 25 trained soldiers versus 20 heavy cavalry (bandits). The last thing I wanted to do was play out the whole combat, blow-by-blow, so I winged it.

I rolled percentile dice, on the assumption that the forces were evenly enough matched that without the PCs influence it would be a draw and the bandits would retreat before there were any casualties.

I asked the PCs for their strategies. Ranger: I'm shooting with my crossbow. Sorcerer: I'll charm an enemy. Cleric: I'll patch up soldiers afterwards.

Fine. I give the percentile roll a +5% bonus for the spell, and a +3% bonus for the ranged fire. I roll and it indicates minor (but significant) success for the soldiers. My description: 1 bandit is killed, and another one is charmed and confused. The rest of the bandits managed to kill 1 porter (out of 20) and take his load of food. A soldier rendered the charmed bandit unconscious, ties him up, and sends him back to base with the 2 captured horses and an escort of 2 soldiers. The cleric heals some minor wounds.

So the characters participated in a conflict, but didn't follow the standard rules of EL at all as far as I can tell.

How to determine xp award?

 

[Thanee]

Ad hoc, 50-80 xp each.

In game I would have played a small portion of the combat, where the PCs are involved and just wing the majority of the NPCs (and make a judging roll, like you did). Feels a bit better to give out xp then!

Bye
Thanee

 

[XCorvis]

How to determine xp award?

To me, it sounds like an encounter that was apporpriate to their level. It used about 25% of their resources, so it's EL 1. If they were in great danger if they lost, you might up it to EL 2.

 

[sparxmith]

Rat Bastich DM'ing

Being a RBDM, I wouldn't have given them any xp. They really didn't do anything to earn it.

But at the same time, I probably would have done as Thanee suggested. I would have roll played their parts in the battle and given XP commensurate with their accomplishments.

But that's just my two Ducketts,

Sparxmith

 

[Silveras]

Well, remember that the PCs earn XP for the CR of each creature in an encounter, not the EL of the overall encounter (that's used for expected treasure).

What you basically have is 1 over-sized party against 1 over-sized encounter. The two "over-sized" parts cancel out, and you can basically award XP as normal.

So, each PC earns XP as follows:

For each Bandit: [PC's level] vs. [Bandit's CR] divided by [number of PCs + soldiers in the fight].

Assuming the bandits are "generic" enough to be the same level, it simplifies down to:

(# Bandits x ([PC level] vs [Bandit CR]) ) divided by [#PCs + #soldiers]

or, assuming the Bandits are CR 1...

(20 x 300) divided by 28 ... about 214 XP to each PC, overall. If the Bandits were CR 1/2, it is 107 XP each.

 

[DragonShadow]

The PC's put themselves at minimum risk and essentially did nothing, the way you handled the combat.

Personally I would have at least played out a portion of it, as it concerned the PC's, but the battle would have been raging around them too, with the NPC's duking it out in grand fashion (which can definately be glossed over).


Given the situation though, my advice would be this: don't assign them any exp until they get where they're going safe and sound (assuming they haven't already). If they already have...just go with 100 exp for everybody. It seems reasonable, and it sucks enough to tell the PC's that they have to do better than that.

 

[kamosa]

I would give them a roleplayer award of 100 xp. They played their characters and helped solve the situation. They didn't have to make any major efforts or do anything to creative, so I would keep the award small.

Trying to calculate out a CR for something like this will drive you mad. Don't treat it like a combat, treat it like a role playing situation and give an appropriate story/roleplaying award.

 

[StalkingBlue]

I would give them a roleplayer award of 100 xp. They played their characters and helped solve the situation. They didn't have to make any major efforts or do anything to creative, so I would keep the award small.

Trying to calculate out a CR for something like this will drive you mad. Don't treat it like a combat, treat it like a role playing situation and give an appropriate story/roleplaying award.

Seconded. You didn't give them a combat challenge to face, so add a small amount of Story XP to the overall award for the session, but don't award combat XP. In fact I wouldn't even give an award for this scene as such because it wasn't really a challenge of any kind, as others have already pointed out. No risk, no roleplaying opportunity - so, no award.

What did your players think of the way you handled this? I know I'd have been frustrated not to get to fight properly. In a low-level caravan-guarding mission I played in recently (sole PC), the GM handled things differently - he used a shorthand system for NPC-NPC combat (similar to percentile but using d6s), but we played out my bit of combat against a few bandits by normal DnD rules. Much more satisfying that - and very eerie when the surviving bandits fled and the GM described the battlefield littered with dead and dying soldiers.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Skull & Bones by Green Ronin has a great mass combat system that is designed to reflect crews of ships fighting against each other. You still handle the PC's combat individually but any enemies they defeat do affect the overall combat between the crews. It would be super easy to use that system for any mass combat. You take the average level of a given side (not counting the PCs), the average damage output from their weapons, and each man is considered a single HP. Each crew is treated as a single unit. There are several other modifiers such as a leader's Charisma affecting his troops but I won't go into the whole thing (I don't have my book on me). Each round you roll initiative and the crews attack each other. If the attacking crew hits then you roll damage and that is the number of enemies that were killed or subdued that round. There are situational modifiers for outnumbering your enemy so if the PC Wizard lobs a Fireball or Sleep spell at the enemy and drops a large number of them that can easily sway the combat in favor of the Wizard's side but it still doesn't make victory a guarantee. Because the PCs still approach combat in the normal method you can easily keep track of the number of enemies they individually defeat and award XP based on that.

 

[diaglo]

yeah without the risk of being injured or using up resources i wouldn't award too many xps.

otherwise every tom, dick, and harry NPC guard on a caravan route would be at least warrior lvl 2 or 3...


ad hoc...maybe 25-50 xp each.