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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9798891" data-attributes="member: 29398">For NPCs like that I always convert them to having levels of Fighter, therefore the Lieutenants here would be 4th-level Fighters.  In other words, I follow the 3e line of thinking - only I got there about 15 years before 3e came out. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The leader is an 8th level Cleric, the guards are 6th level Clerics, and I interpret "quadruple (or triple) normal hit dice" to simply mean "quadruple (or triple) normal hit points" because those things are bloody tough.They still save like 8th (or 6th) level Clerics, though; though a case could be made through that awful wording that they're supposed to save lke 32 (or 24) hit-die creatures.And if all the extra "hit dice" give are extra hit points, the xp table already accounts for those in the "xp per hit point" column.At first glance I'd say 3+3.Agreed.  The problem with this definition as written is that it doesn't speak to how a creature's HD value also affects how well it fights, saves, and does other game-mechanical things.When only looking at hit points, the glossary maps perfectly here: the 4th-level leaders have 4d8+7 hit points each*.  A commoner or 0th-level Svirfneblin has 1d8+4 hit points - they grow 'em tough down there.* - unless I'm doing the rolling, of course; in which case they'd have 4d10 hit points because they're Fighters, plus whatever bonus their Con gives them if any.My headache isn't the non-kindred creatures.  My headache comes when the party fight the following foes, let's say they're all Human, in a combat:--- a specialized 6th-level Fighter wearing a girdle of giant strength and a ring of free action and wielding an aligned-evil sword that does double damage vs Good--- a 5th-level Cleric/5th-level MU with a wide array of spells, a couple of blast wands, and a device of escape (e.g. teleport)--- a 7th-level Assassin disguised as an archer, with a ring of invisibility, slippers of spider-climb, and lots of poison--- a 6th-level Illusionist with no magic items to speak of but an excellent spell selection and who also rocks some psionics--- a 4th-level Thief (the Assassin's hench) whose job is to act as distraction to set up the Assassin's kill strikesThese characters can silently communicate via telepathy courtesy of the psionic Illusionist, unless she's concentrating on casting a spell or maintaining an illusion - she can't do both at once.  Also, the Assassin and Thief have worked out their own personal series of signs and signals so they can co-ordinate with each other.How, in under half an hour, am I supposed to calculate the xp value of that lot?  Also, I can't do it ahead of time as I've no way of knowing until the combat plays out whether the Cleric will be able to use his escape device if-when things go badly and if so, who if anyone he'll be able to take with him.I've run combats like this before and whenever I try to calculate the xp using the table the resulting number always seems way too low.</blockquote>

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