XP Question

[MENTION=90920]HoboGod[/MENTION] The diplomacy skill is just as much a part of the character sheet as the attack bonus is. Why would you against the use that specific part of the character.

Because Diplomacy as written is horribly broken. It's a flat DC 35 Diplomacy check to make a hostile NPC friendly with a -10 penalty to make the check as a full round action. With a Choker of Eloquence +10, Cloak of Charisma +6, Skill Focus (Diplomacy) feat, Negotiator feat, Charisma 20, 11 ranks in Diplomacy, 5 Ranks in Bluff for +2 Synergy, you need only roll a natural 11 subdue your enemy, no save, no opposed check. There's even a half-elf feat, Sociable Personality, that lets you reroll any Diplomacy check, which makes it effectively about the same probability as rolling a 4 or higher.
 

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...and with all that build focus and money instead invested in UMD and custom wands of disintegration (with increased save DC or something) you can blast your way through most encounters.

However, I give you that the fixed DC is an oversight. So, why not fix the diplomacy check instead of simply ignoring that option. You could, for instance, adopt the Intimidate rules where the DC is a modified level check, and then increase the DC depending on the initial attitude according to the 'jumps' listed in the table.
 

Because Diplomacy as written is horribly broken. It's a flat DC 35 Diplomacy check to make a hostile NPC friendly with a -10 penalty to make the check as a full round action. With a Choker of Eloquence +10, Cloak of Charisma +6, Skill Focus (Diplomacy) feat, Negotiator feat, Charisma 20, 11 ranks in Diplomacy, 5 Ranks in Bluff for +2 Synergy, you need only roll a natural 11 subdue your enemy, no save, no opposed check. There's even a half-elf feat, Sociable Personality, that lets you reroll any Diplomacy check, which makes it effectively about the same probability as rolling a 4 or higher.

Simple way to get around diplomancer characters... base the XP earned for "defeating" the monsters on the party's effective character level. For a primary skill, you'd normally expect maxed ranks, plus maybe 1/5 character level in items, plus a +4 for an 18 in the relevant ability score. So a level 10 character should typically have a +19 on Diplomacy checks, (+31 by level 20). I'm excluding feats and massive item twinking in this formula, because those have significant opportunity costs which non-optimisers wouldn't use.

So if level 8 character described above is diplomancing the fight away, his total modifier of +39 is what you'd normally expect a level 26 character to have, and the XP earned is as if teh encounter had been beaten by a level 26 character, regardless of the actual level of the party.
 

Say the party is fighting two CR8 monsters. The ECL should be around 10 for this (i think). Do you award them for two CR8's or 1 CR10?
By the book - you find the average level of the party first and calculate the base xp award just on CR. Calculating the Encounter Level is strictly intended as a tool for designing survivable encounters, not handing out the xp awards for them. That doesn't mean you IGNORE encounter level when determining xp awards though. XP should be adjusted according to the difficulty of the overall encounter.

The DMG suggests that an encounter roughly half as difficult as its EL would suggest should be worth only half the xp and actually have the EL adjusted by -2. At the other end of the scale an encounter twice as difficult as its normal EL might suggest should be EL+2 and twice the XP. Note that these adjustments are based more on CIRCUMSTANCES of the encounter that make it easier or harder.

If your party is an average level of 8 and you throw an EL10 encounter of two CR8 monsters at them they're still going to get xp for two CR8 monsters. Only if something ELSE about the encounter would make it easier or harder than EL10 should you adjust the XP. So, if you think that the PC's can't handle the two CR8 monsters then you should either use different monsters or otherwise adjust the encounter in other areas than the actual monsters used to make it easier. That's what EL is there for - to show where the characters should be in relation to the challenge of the encounter. But the base xp still comes from the monster CR.
 

I use a spreadsheet I found at this place: Andargor's Home

It's about 5 sections down titled D&D 3.5 - Mixed-CR EL/XP Calculator. It also gives expected survival and resource use rates, and has every monster in at least MM1 already in it. Granted, I have no idea how to use the power adjustment in it, but it's more accurate for awarding XP (2 CR 8 monsters award slightly more than a single CR 10).[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][/FONT]
 

However, I give you that the fixed DC is an oversight. So, why not fix the diplomacy check instead of simply ignoring that option.

To that I agree. My approach is actually to say "Your diplomacy works, the Ogres like you, but if you don't get the *bleep* outta here, they're still gunna kill you." Thusly, your diplomacy allows you the chance to run away unscathed, but you don't get the XP and treasure associated to the encounter because you ran away. I'm all in favor of using skills to aid you in combat, but to automatically win an encounter? No thank you. As a DM, there's nothing more irritating that building an encounter (or studying an encounter if I'm doing a modular) just to have it go to waste because the players have some cheesy way to bypass it.


Simple way to get around diplomancer characters... base the XP earned for "defeating" the monsters on the party's effective character level. For a primary skill, you'd normally expect maxed ranks, plus maybe 1/5 character level in items, plus a +4 for an 18 in the relevant ability score. So a level 10 character should typically have a +19 on Diplomacy checks, (+31 by level 20). I'm excluding feats and massive item twinking in this formula, because those have significant opportunity costs which non-optimisers wouldn't use.

So if level 8 character described above is diplomancing the fight away, his total modifier of +39 is what you'd normally expect a level 26 character to have, and the XP earned is as if teh encounter had been beaten by a level 26 character, regardless of the actual level of the party.

That gets really convoluted really quick. Either magic items and feats suddenly start making it harder to gain experience across the board or I just arbitrarily start penalizing powergamers. And quite honestly, I like powergamers, they put a lot of time and thought into their characters and their characters' usefulness tends to keep my games fast pace. It's only when they start ruining my fun or other people's fun does it start crossing over into munchkin territory where I start highly frowning upon them.
 

I'm all in favor of using skills to aid you in combat, but to automatically win an encounter? No thank you.

Isn't that what happens in most non-combat encounters?

If the party is helping the city watch assert a serial killer, wouldn't you allow both the combat based solution (confront him and beat him unconscious) and a skill based one (intimidate or otherwise persuade him into surrendering)? If so, is getting past two ogres guarding a cave entry any different?
 

==How do you award XP for encounters in your game?==
Say the party is fighting two CR8 monsters. The ECL should be around 10 for this (i think). Do you award them for two CR8's or 1 CR10?


Ermm... as far as I remember, 2 x CR 8 and 1 x CR 10 both award equal XP? Which is the point?
 

2x CR8. Even if they amount to the same XP value (didn't check), higher level characters don't get XP for low CR monsters. (check the table)
 

If you go based on the tables, then a CR10 since that is what the encounter equals to. That's why I prefer the chi/rho method (which is part of the Character EL/CR calculator) since 2 CR8 (which can be slightly harder than a single CR10 creature) gets slightly more, 960 per character for 2 CR8 vs 750 per character for 1 CR10.
 

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