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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5464383" data-attributes="member: 42582">4e has four sources of XP: combat encounters (XP based on total XP budget of defeated monsters), skill challenges (XP based on complexity of challenge, and in the Essentials revisions awarded whether the PCs succeed or fail at the challenge), quests, and "drama" (as per DMG 2, every 15 minutes of story-advancing roleplay earns an XP award equivalent to defeating one monster of the PCs' level).And all XP awards - even for drama, or individual quests - are shared with the whole party.Given that an encounter with 5 equal level monsters takes around about an hour to play out (some tables are quicker, some slower, but I think this is something like the average), that a complexity 5 skill challenge (which delivers the same rewards) would not normally be much quicker, and that an hour of "drama" earns equivalent XP to a 4-monster encounter, I draw the following inference: XP in 4e are a system for advancing the PCs on the basis of time spent playing the game.This impression is, in my view, reinforced by the express option stated in the DMG to not use XP at all, and just advance the PCs one level every 8 or so encounters.XP, then, aren't really a reward in 4e, at least in the sense that you can't earn more of them by playing smarter (unless you find a way to make your combats quicker!). It's very different, I think, from the treasure-based XP of 1st ed AD&D and other early versions.To me, this also fits in with the complaint that, in 4e, your PC never gets better because of the scaling DCs. I think that the scaling aspect of 4e is not really about the PC getting better at all - like the XP rules, it's a way of pacing the overall story of the game. If you use the published monsters, then a natural consequence of the scaling rules is that as PCs gain levels they'll be fighting fewer humanoids et al and more demons et al, culminating in Orcus, Vecna or Lolth. The overall idea of the game seems to be that, over the course of a campaign, the players (via their PCs) experience "the story of D&D". And the XP mechanics are part of the machinery that produces this result.Agreed. The micromanagement of XP I've tried to analyse in the previous paragraph.Treasure, in 4e (especially pre-Essentials), is explicitly part of the character build rules. As you gain levels you get your treasure parcels to improve your PC. The DMG even encourages players to make explicit to the GM the sort of treasure they want to help their PC builds.So treasure, also, is not a reward, because treasure depends on levels (10 parcels per level), levels depend on XP, and XP is "per unit of time played".This is also why I don't think 4e is a gamist RPG - or, at least, not a traditional one. To play 4e with the idea tha you can earn more XP or collect more treasure by playing smarter - in the sort of way that Gygax talks about playing AD&D in the 1st ed PHG - you would have to tweak the rules and guidelines quite a bit. You'd want to drop the rule that skill challenges award XP on success or failure; you'd want to change the way you build encounters, to make combat more risky (and combat might become more risky anyway, if PCs aren't automatically getting the items that the scaling rules presuppose); you'd want to drop drama awards for XP; and you might want to drop quest XP also, because quest XP (especially for player-initiated quests, which the DMG encourages) aren't really about rewarding smart play. And if you want competition between players to earn XP, you'd also have to drop the rule that XP awards are shared across the whole party.</blockquote>

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