XP: Shouldn't the whole be more than the sum of its parts?

[Skyscraper]

You're not evaluating XP in the right way. The way to go is to design an encounter of appropriate level and difficulty for the PCs. Some are easier, some are harder, overall the balance makes it that average XPs awarded are appropriate. The fact that the difficulty level/XP progression should not be linear is of no importance whatsoever.

Methinks you're overthinking this topic a tad.

Sky

 

[KidSnide]

I agree with most of the comments above... In other words, the example is a poor encounter for a DM to set up, but - if the PCs engineer the encounter through luck or guile - the DM shouldn't penalizing the PCs for turning a challenging encounter into an easy one. That's their job. And those two points are the right answers for a normal D&D game.

However, I also wanted to point out that, if you're in an atypical game where the PCs are concentrating on story goals as opposed to defeating as many monsters as possible, the xp system as written is not very helpful. If making peace with the orcs is just as legitimate an adventure path as exterminating them, you can effectively prevent your PCs from going down that path if it doesn't earn them any xp.

Whatever your game is like, you should focus your xp system on rewarding good play appropriate to that game. If the objective is to kill as many monsters as possible, then the DM should set up balanced monster encounters and the PCs should get rewards for killing them. (And, presumably, some quest xp for following the story.) But, if the overriding objective is the story, then you should be rewarding the PCs with story-based rewards. In a story-based rewards game, xp should be tied to really flexible quest goals and treasure / magic items should be about rewards for resolving the situation, not just stuff you loot off dead corpses.

-KS

 

[IanArgent]

I agree with most of the comments above... In other words, the example is a poor encounter for a DM to set up, but - if the PCs engineer the encounter through luck or guile - the DM shouldn't penalizing the PCs for turning a challenging encounter into an easy one. That's their job. And those two points are the right answers for a normal D&D game.

However, I also wanted to point out that, if you're in an atypical game where the PCs are concentrating on story goals as opposed to defeating as many monsters as possible, the xp system as written is not very helpful. If making peace with the orcs is just as legitimate an adventure path as exterminating them, you can effectively prevent your PCs from going down that path if it doesn't earn them any xp.

Whatever your game is like, you should focus your xp system on rewarding good play appropriate to that game. If the objective is to kill as many monsters as possible, then the DM should set up balanced monster encounters and the PCs should get rewards for killing them. (And, presumably, some quest xp for following the story.) But, if the overriding objective is the story, then you should be rewarding the PCs with story-based rewards. In a story-based rewards game, xp should be tied to really flexible quest goals and treasure / magic items should be about rewards for resolving the situation, not just stuff you loot off dead corpses.

-KS

And in that case they wouldn't get any (or only incidentally earn any) XP for fights with the orcs. But they'd get a great whack of XP for achieving the story goal.

In many ways, the per-encounter XP paradigm of D&D makes it harder to set up stories. I am debating experimenting with per-adventure XP for jsut this reason, though the levels are small enough as-written that you could reasonably expect a CP to level once or twice in the course of an adventure.

 

[Bleoberis De Ganis]

There is an unwritten assumption that a dungeon designer wont make stupid encounters. If he does so it is his fault, not the system's.

Personally, I would get rid of encounter XP and make it purely goal based anyway. The difficulty of accomplishing the goal should be XP difficulty. If you manage to avoid all encounters (almost impossible to do) whilst accomplishing the goal you get the XP. This would stop characters feeling they have to search every little place in a dungeon, killing everything there is in there just for XP.

As for treasure - if they made that mostly goal orientated and noncombat earned it would have the same effect on that as well.

That way RP and goal driven motivations and actions might actually take hold. Don't get me wrong, I love the combat, but in its current state you may as well just put encounters in a long line and stuff most of the map or plot. Just give out (pretty pointless) adventure hooks to the next adventure at the end.

Sorry off thread.

 

[Turtlejay]

...If making peace with the orcs is just as legitimate an adventure path as exterminating them, you can effectively prevent your PCs from going down that path if it doesn't earn them any xp.
-KS

If your DM is a literalist or a jackass, sure. What DM would not be thrilled with his party thinking out of the box to 'defeat' the orcs, while furthering the story? Sure, you may have to scrap some encounters you prepared, but we should remember that this is a Role Playing Game and role playing should be rewarded. If this were a combat game then I would understand not awarding XP.

In short, a good DM will roll with it and award appropriate XP for the encounter whether the orcs are dead or not, and hopefully weave the unique experience into the story.

Jay