Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Gruffmug 01-13-05, 08:22 PM	Our Dm awarded 1800exp to the party after this fight. (45) gnolls ared with bows and spears (4) gnoll ranger 3 (5) gnoll fighters 5 (1) gnoll berserker 8 (1) gnoll druid 9 (1) flind monk 9 (6) owl bears Now our party is 6/3 socrer/rouge halfling 9 elven evoker 7/2 bard/tomb raider of ob, halfling 9 psyic warrior 9 monk For some reason I think we short changed we attacked the gnoll encampment. after all I took mad arrow damage and a beat down drag em out fight with the flind, who DDoored out to avoid dieing. Grrrrrr Was the EXP right?
Kainy 01-13-05, 10:08 PM	Your DM can give you whatever EXP you want for whatever reason he wants. You're in a 5-person party, which decreases XP awards significantly. If you're so curious, look in the DMG. If you don't have one, buy one. If you don't like how your DM does his job, quit the campaign instead of complaining about his not giving you ph4t 3xpz0rr!11!!! on these boards, which are already overburdened with worthless tripe.
ShadowDragon8685 01-13-05, 10:15 PM	Kainy, how about you shut your pie hole if you're going to flame the OP. He has a very valid question. It's hard to judge encounters with a LOT of weak creatures, BUT, this a minimum of a EL 12 encounter, probably more in the 13 range. 10,800 XP, divided five ways, is in fact 2100 XP. He stiffed you, but not a lot. Administering EXP for such fights is hard, he probably ad-hoc'd it. Don't worry too much about it.
obrysii 01-13-05, 10:39 PM	Kainy is very right indeed, however. The DM has every right to set the XP to whatever they want. Perhaps they want the group to level slower? It's entirely reasonable.
SnowbearK 01-13-05, 10:45 PM	or, for the short short version: No you aren't being robbed. :D Since the XP isn't yours until the DM gives it to you, any amount the DM gives you is perfectly fine. WBM if you like, but do it to your DM or find a new one. I would suggest though that you try telling your DM that you don't understand his method of providing XP, then ask nicely for him to explain it.
Crossover-Chronicler 01-13-05, 10:59 PM	I'm goint to attempt to add a different spin to what some of the other posters have said. Indeed, the DM is allowed to hand out whatever XP awards he considers appropriate. As DM, he has the option of adhering to or completely ignoring the XP charts as he sees fit. However, the DM is not exempt from questions, criticisms, or demands that he make some kind of sense. He doesn't need to respond to them, but that's the point at which you should realize that you also aren't contractually obligated to play under him ;) Were he going to ignore those charts, he probably should have announced his intent to do so when the game started, so that the players who find that problematic could jump ship.
Nom 01-13-05, 11:16 PM	As mentioned, you haven't been robbed, since the gnolls didn't take any of your money. Oh, I was about to calculate nominal XP, but noticed something. When you say 'gnoll druid 9', do you mean a gnoll humanoid 2 / druid 9, or a gnoll humanoid 2 / druid 7? Assuming the former: 45 gnolls: CR 1, XP 0 4 gnoll rgr 3: CR 4, XP 450 * 4 = 1800 (net CR 8) 5 gnoll ftr 5: CR 6, XP 900 * 5 = 4500 (net CR 10.5) 1 gnoll beserker 8: CR 9, XP 2700 1 gnoll drd 9: CR 10, XP 4050 1 ? monk 9: assume CR 9, XP 2700 6 owl bears: CR 4, XP 450 * 6 = 2700 (unless summoned: XP 0) (net CR 9) total XP at level 9 = 18450 XP. Divide by 5 characters = 3690 XP Nominal CR: 8 + 10.5 + 9 + 10 + 9 + 9 ~= 2 * 11 + 12 ~= 13 + 12 ~= 15. This might be a little high: CR 14 XP = 16200; CR 15 XP = 21600, so by XP totals 14.5 is about right. Comparing CR 14.5 vs level 9 (9.5 including larger party) suggests a TPK. Thus, you probably had notable advantages to swing the battle in your favour. On that basis, half nominal XP (1800 vs 3690) is probably fair. 1800 is what you'd nominally earn for facing 5 CR 8 challenges (total CR 12.5).
was_fired 01-13-05, 11:19 PM	I'll bite the total XP value of this as per the DMG is: (45) gnolls: 0 (4) gnoll ranger 3: 1,800 (5) gnoll fighters 5: 4,500 (1) gnoll berserker 8: 2,700 (1) gnoll druid 9: 4,050 (1) flind monk 9: ??? (6) owl bears: 2,700 Total per Character: 3,150 + ??? Now you will find that your XP total is right if the encounter was a great deal easier due to certain conditions which I suspect was the case since we find a few guys between CR 9 and 10. An encounter which is a great deal easier (which this one would have to be for you to live) is worth one half the XP which is what you got.
Cold Napalm 01-14-05, 04:42 AM	Or we're giving the DM TOO much credit and he nerfed the exp because he was mad they managed to run a streak of luck and did well... This seems to happen often to DM who tends to send CR+5 of the party at the party. I'm sorry even with advantages thats a BIT much. Course I wanna hear from the Dm first, but that list of critters just sends off warning signals of a bad DM in my head.
cambric 01-14-05, 10:49 AM	The dm isn't required to give the xp that the DMG gives...it is a "guide" for the dm's to use. My dm, with 20+ years exp., never follows that...we laugh at times because of how he does it, but he has the "whole" campaign planned out...and maybe that is what this dm is doing...and maybe the dm knew it was going to be "easy" and they shouldn't get that much. Gruffmug, as someone said, I would ask the dm...if he's a "good" dm, he will give you some explanation on "why" you only got that much...if he's not, he might say, "tough" or "deal with it", then you have to do what you have to do...but in fairness to the dm, it is HIS campaign...and he needs to make sure you're having fun and understanding some of his reasons.
danielinthewolvesden 01-14-05, 11:30 AM	Note that if he has been very generous with magic items, your party could all be an ECL higher. Or perhaps you're all 40 point PC's. Since you took down this very powerful group of gnolls without a PC death, it seems like you had some significant advantage you're not telling us. In a party of five (in a high combat game, as this seems to be), I'd say that you should nearly lose one PC during the period the group levels. How often do you level, and how many PC deaths? Sure- the DM does have the right to hand out any amount of xps. The players have the right to get up from the table in a body and quit the game, too. So in reality- the DM is required to hand out a fair amount of eps.
DM Zoc 01-14-05, 05:22 PM	I didn't know whether this deserved its own thread or not, so I'm hoping to just tack in on here. An issue has arisen regarding the method by which I award Experience. I've always followed the idea that Experience should relate to how difficult a fight was; if the PCs were never in any danger, then they don't get any EXP. The problem with this is that it penalizes players for acting intelligently. Given a typical Troglodyte zombie, and a typical first-level barbarian, the barbarian can just play keep-away for the entire fight. By taking a move action and then throwing a rock (or double-moves and picking up a rock, then move and throw), the barbarian will never come into range of the zombie and he will eventually chip it to death (let's say a rock does d3 damage, and the barbarian has 16 strength). Let's say that the rest of the party is hiding in a tree or something. Should I award Exp? What if the party finds an entire town full of mindless undead, with most of them being unable to open the door of the building they are in? If the party plays conservatively and burns the whole place down (never exposing themselves to attacks) do they get Experience? If they bash in a door first and kill one zombie in hand-to-hand, how much Exp do they get? Can a player choose to "live dangerously" by attacking a giant in melee instead of flying around and shooting it while invisible? Should this be worth more Exp? It was a lot more dangerous, after all.
Gruffmug 01-14-05, 06:54 PM	I am a rules lawyer, kind of, and just wanted to know if it was correct exp because it was one crazy tuff encounter. Most of the PC are casters so that gives us an edge. We snuck in and the bard began singing, gnolls fail rolls vs music and were fascinated then the bard suggested the get me (I had ablative skin up, just like stone skin). They bunched up near the bottle neck the mage made with a wall of ice. They bunched up and volley fired arrows at me. The mage then incinateted most of them with a fireball. than we moved in to clean house. We used good tatics and battlefield control, effectively spliting the encounter into smaller chunks. I asked mainly because we used over half of our spells/powers and lost a grip of HP in the process and I felt the reward was a little anti climatic. Thats all I enjoyed the game and have been playing my PC for over 6 months. I was unsure on how exp was given out so I figured I would ask here. After all this is the Whats a player to do board. Thanks for the info, I really had no ideal what the ECL of such a large encounter was. Really, no Exp for the 45 gnolls? doesn't having more than 1 critter of the same type raise the CR a min of +2? I took the alot of damage from massed arrow fire and that blasted monk. That freaking gnoll druid also rusted my +1 breastplate into scrap. Gruffmug
Nom 01-14-05, 07:18 PM	This is a classic problem in computer "role playing" games that award kill XP: players are rewarded for picking fights, even unnecessary ones. I rework the XP rules slightly. I reward my players for overcoming "meaningful" challenges, according to the difficulty of the challenge. "Meaningful" is roughly defined as "would this be featured if we were writing a novel?". Each challenge, whether opponent, social, trap, or miscellaneous, has a CR. If the PCs overcome the challenge, they are awarded XP according to the CR. If they partially overcome it but do a good job, they get a partial reward. Sometimes, I'm even more high-level. I just assign an XP award for a section of the adventure, assign it a CR level, and award based on that, without worrying too much about each encounter. In practice, this means the XP might not be the same as if I awarded it per-unit. At some point, the party reaches a state where they can deal with a particular threat without even trying - it's not worth the time or effort to roll initiative. Wave hands, "you kill - one at a time - six zombies". Award token XP. If it's not really contributing to the story, it's not worth much XP. Although the party who makes a hard job of everything might end up getting more XP for a particular encounter, they'll go home with less because they'll never make it as far. The trickiest part is that the XP reward really should subjectively match how hard the PCs found the encounter. It's bad practice to award only token XP for an encounter that the players are celebrating because they only just won. It's also bad practice to award lots of XP for an encounter the players feel they walked through. More than anything else, the XP award should match what the players feel their characters achieved, regardless of the 'nominal' value. The trick, then, for encouraging the players not to create random mayhem is to treat it as "not interesting". If your attitude treats it as an epic battle, the players will expect big rewards. If you attitude treats it as a minor skirmish in which the PCs have their butts handed to them, the players will expect no reward and be less likely to try it again.
Nom 01-14-05, 07:31 PM	We snuck in and the bard began singing, gnolls fail rolls vs music and were fascinated then the bard suggested the get me (I had ablative skin up, just like stone skin).You are aware that a bard may fascinate 1 creature per 3 levels (round up), and improving that to suggestion affects only a single creature? Further, a non-friend casting a spell will automatically break the the fascinate. PH pg 29. That said, suggestion "attack the enemy with stoneskin" is rather cute. Thanks for the info, I really had no ideal what the ECL of such a large encounter was. Really, no Exp for the 45 gnolls? doesn't having more than 1 critter of the same type raise the CR a min of +2?In general, yes - each doubling of number increases CR by 2. However, creatures whose CR is 8 or more below party level are considered "too easy" to award standardised XP for, while creatures 8 or more above are considered "impossible" without massive circumstantial advantages, and thus not elegible for standardised XP awards. Even allowing for situational advantages (you had surprise) and perhaps some rules errors in your favour, it sounds as if your DM has made something of a mistake - the XP award doesn't match how the players subjectively feel about the encounter. If you're used to getting more XP for encounters that you felt were much easier, then this sort of disconnect will happen. Of course, it's possible that he's always been light on the XP, and you were just over-estimating what the encounter was really worth.
Gruffmug 01-14-05, 07:45 PM	WOw, i though fascinate was alot cooler than that! I guess we all had that one wrong or maybe the GM let it slide so the bard would seem cooler. I remember we looked the range of the effect and were like wow this has a huge area of effect. bad guys made saves and failed. Grrrrr.... Now do I tell the bard/GM we were doing it wrong. Hmmmm I guess I will I hate breaking rules That suggestion changed the course of the battle if the mage had not been able to get most of the gnolls in the blast things would have went poorly to say the least. They went through my stonekin (90) and my (45) vigored temp Hp plus a bunch of real ones too. I don't think I want to be the bait again. I can see my PC saying "hey, why is always me who has to draw them out" I think this was a very ultima style battle tactic. Stay between the lines the lines are our friends Gruffmug
Cymraegmorgan 01-14-05, 07:49 PM	I am a rules lawyer, kind of, and just wanted to know if it was correct exp because it was one crazy tuff encounter. Most of the PC are casters so that gives us an edge. We snuck in and the bard began singing, gnolls fail rolls vs music and were fascinated then the bard suggested the get me (I had ablative skin up, just like stone skin). They bunched up near the bottle neck the mage made with a wall of ice. They bunched up and volley fired arrows at me. The mage then incinateted most of them with a fireball. than we moved in to clean house. We used good tatics and battlefield control, effectively spliting the encounter into smaller chunks. I asked mainly because we used over half of our spells/powers and lost a grip of HP in the process and I felt the reward was a little anti climatic. Thats all I enjoyed the game and have been playing my PC for over 6 months. I was unsure on how exp was given out so I figured I would ask here. After all this is the Whats a player to do board. Thanks for the info, I really had no ideal what the ECL of such a large encounter was. Really, no Exp for the 45 gnolls? doesn't having more than 1 critter of the same type raise the CR a min of +2? I took the alot of damage from massed arrow fire and that blasted monk. That freaking gnoll druid also rusted my +1 breastplate into scrap. Gruffmug Five PCs in the party. No PCs died. Most of your foes were fodder. You had the advantage from beginning to end. If I had been your DM, 1600 EP max. Sorry to hear about your armor, though. :weep: The situation, while not easy, was easily handled from your description. Your DM is fair, in my estimation. If you are "a rules lawyer, kind of," then you should know Rule 0. And rember, the dictionary is your friend. So is spellcheck.
spasheridan 01-14-05, 07:49 PM	I didn't know whether this deserved its own thread or not, so I'm hoping to just tack in on here. An issue has arisen regarding the method by which I award Experience. I've always followed the idea that Experience should relate to how difficult a fight was; if the PCs were never in any danger, then they don't get any EXP. The problem with this is that it penalizes players for acting intelligently. Given a typical Troglodyte zombie, and a typical first-level barbarian, the barbarian can just play keep-away for the entire fight. By taking a move action and then throwing a rock (or double-moves and picking up a rock, then move and throw), the barbarian will never come into range of the zombie and he will eventually chip it to death (let's say a rock does d3 damage, and the barbarian has 16 strength). Let's say that the rest of the party is hiding in a tree or something. Should I award Exp? What if the party finds an entire town full of mindless undead, with most of them being unable to open the door of the building they are in? If the party plays conservatively and burns the whole place down (never exposing themselves to attacks) do they get Experience? If they bash in a door first and kill one zombie in hand-to-hand, how much Exp do they get? Can a player choose to "live dangerously" by attacking a giant in melee instead of flying around and shooting it while invisible? Should this be worth more Exp? It was a lot more dangerous, after all. 1 - Never penalize (completely) PC's for being smart. If the PC's are chased by a pack of worgs (totally capable of killing the PC) but they all climb a tree and shoot the worgs dead from their safety.. well, the combat STARTED fair so it's a completely normal encounter. 2 - Adjusting for the starting situation. If the PC's hide in the tall tree and leave some bait below it to lure some worgs into their arrow death trap then this is definitly a low risk / no risk encounter worthy of a might xp / cr adjustment. 3 - whats good for the goose... if the monsters get to ambush the PC's from time to time (with no increase in their CR) then the the PCs should be able to ambush the monsters some times (with no decrease in the CR). Keep it fair and it'll be fun
Razoreface 01-14-05, 09:25 PM	This is a classic problem in computer "role playing" games that award kill XP: players are rewarded for picking fights, even unnecessary ones. The really odd thing about it is, those rules were changed in 3.5 at least, probably 3.0 but I forget where that DMG is right now. It's different in Modern too... the DMG says you get xp for "defeating" an encounter. It even gives an example where PC's specifically avoid a fight, and have defeated the encounter. Modern goes a step further, into dangerous or critical skill checks getting xp, it's quite similar to how you describe your meaningful challenges. But what I find funny is, for as often as I see people complain about it (usually DM's, or players who are just irritated at fellow players for dragging them into stupid fights), the rules don't support that anymore.. it's just the somehow hold-over mentality that you simply have to chase down every last kobold and off them. Sometimes, I'm even more high-level. I just assign an XP award for a section of the adventure, assign it a CR level, and award based on that, without worrying too much about each encounter. In practice, this means the XP might not be the same as if I awarded it per-unit. I do the same as a GM, most of the time because I simply feel that the xp charts advance players way too fast in the campaigns I've played in, wherein it was normal for a single session of about 5 hours of functional play would result in one level per session up to level 9 or so, then slowly filtering off for a few levels and then picking up again at 15+. It was almost like we hardly had to work to level, and I felt that as a player in those games, not just a GM. The trickiest part is that the XP reward really should subjectively match how hard the PCs found the encounter. It's bad practice to award only token XP for an encounter that the players are celebrating because they only just won. It's also bad practice to award lots of XP for an encounter the players feel they walked through. I've done that too... the lion's share of xp for one adventure lay on simply finding one particular person. Even after several hard-won fights, which while hard, would have taken some real bad luck to lose, I didn't think they were worth much xp because they were really just pointless fights that were a form of path of least resistance, which is more a path of least thinking. I've run that particular adventure four times, different players each time, and only one of those groups ever found that guy. And it wasn't even designed to be hard to do.. they simply had to stop looking for any fight they could (it mostly actually hinged on picking one of three paths. A fight that looked hard, a fight that looked easy, or no fight. All three that didn't find it, picked the hard fight, after one or two of the players pointed out the xp they would be worth)
ShadowDragon8685 01-15-05, 01:13 AM	Here's an amazing, spank-tacular idea for you. get some DM/Player Correspondance going. Do the players feel ripped off? Do they feel like they're playing an MMORPG, where a heroic, titanic struggle is worth a mere pittance? Do they feel like they're playing an unbalanced CRPG where you can rack up ten levels in about sis hours' work? ASK THEM! Find out! If the players feel they're not getting enough XP, the DM should up it. If they feel they're getting too much, ajust it downward. Same for the treasure, and the story. ASK THEM!
Loren Pechtel 01-15-05, 01:36 AM	Note that if he has been very generous with magic items, your party could all be an ECL higher. Or perhaps you're all 40 point PC's. Since you took down this very powerful group of gnolls without a PC death, it seems like you had some significant advantage you're not telling us. Yeah. That encounter sounds like a likely TPK. No deaths makes me think something's off in the power balance--and that would justify a lower XP award.
DM Zoc 01-15-05, 05:19 AM	1 - Never penalize (completely) PC's for being smart. If the PC's are chased by a pack of worgs (totally capable of killing the PC) but they all climb a tree and shoot the worgs dead from their safety.. well, the combat STARTED fair so it's a completely normal encounter. 2 - Adjusting for the starting situation. If the PC's hide in the tall tree and leave some bait below it to lure some worgs into their arrow death trap then this is definitly a low risk / no risk encounter worthy of a might xp / cr adjustment. If the PC's mission is to eradicate a bunch of worgs who have been wreaking havoc across the countryside, then (2) is a smarter approach than (1). This means that they get less experience for thinking it through? That's my problem.
Gruffmug 01-17-05, 06:15 PM	Ok, talked to GM. We have been using 3.0/3.5 hybrid game the bard uses mainly 3.0 rules and in 3.0 there is no limit to the number of people effected in the area of effect. As, for the EXP I feel that if I squash it, I should get the EXP for it. I havn't run 3.5 and got confused when trying to figure out the CR of the encounter. That was why I asked for help. gruffmug Thanks for all the help
Arlowat 01-17-05, 07:47 PM	In 3.0, "A bard with 3 or more ranks in Perform can use his music or poetics to cause a single creature to become fascinated with him." (PHB page 28.) Since you're a self-proclaimed rule lawyer, I thought you should know.
Cold Napalm 01-20-05, 06:03 AM	As for the EXP deal...by the rules, yep you got jiped...don't give me that rule 0 or the DM can adjucate up and down how they feel :censored: . There seems to be no real big advantage over then mistake in bardsong and they got jiped pure and simple. If I played with a DM that just randomly gave exp I'd quit the first time he did that without saying he's doing that. I know sometimes I don't wanna deal with caculation so I'll make a number up, BUT I always say I'm making a number up. The DM can give half exp or 0 or some random number if he wants and that would be me going BYE.
Draco Strang 02-17-05, 05:46 AM	As for the EXP deal...by the rules, yep you got jiped...don't give me that rule 0 or the DM can adjucate up and down how they feel :censored: . There seems to be no real big advantage over then mistake in bardsong and they got jiped pure and simple. If I played with a DM that just randomly gave exp I'd quit the first time he did that without saying he's doing that. I know sometimes I don't wanna deal with caculation so I'll make a number up, BUT I always say I'm making a number up. The DM can give half exp or 0 or some random number if he wants and that would be me going BYE. Well God forbid a DM try to make a world HIS. Ya know, sometimes there's a reason for halving experience. what if he specifically wants you to fight X amount of monsters, and while usually it would take you from 3rd to 7th level, he only wants you moving up to 5th level? (For various reasons, including making sure you're at the appropriate level to run the next adventure, which could be a module for 5th level characters, or he just doesn't like DMing higher level campaigns) He is fully justified in halving experience. So if you don't like your DM's rulings, then DM yourself, or go BYE.
Sir Todd 02-17-05, 08:40 AM	The numbers seem fair. It IS an official rule to give less XP if the group has some significant advantage. Clearly they had a huge advantage. By the official rules it looks like 1845xp is what should have been given. And yes while increased numbers of critters increase the EL (encounter level) their actual CR is still what you use in assigning XP. And CR1 monsters in any amount give you no XP for combat. You can still get good roleplaying XP when dealing with low CR beings. As to Cold Napalm who suggested the GM live up to his demands or he walks... It would be better for everyone if he simply never applied to any games. Clearly he is going into games with an attitude. And is probably quiting at the drop of a hat. Just the kind of player who ruins everyones fun.
Ra-Tiel 02-17-05, 08:58 AM	Hello. Oh no! Not again a discussion on *that* topic, please. Ah well, I'll make my participation as short as possible: (1)It's not DM vs Players. Both sides should have fun with the game. (2)Read this (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=373634). The thread was finally closed by a moderator because it started to get out of hands. (3)An encounter is an encounter is an encounter no matter how you defeat it. The group in questsion used "more than half of their spells" and therefore should receive full xp. If you think the way "no damage taken no xp earned" you're really just cheating casters and archers out of their deserved experience. (4)TALK WITH EACH OTHER. In our last WLD session (to be continued today) our dm started assigning the xp from some traps to the rogue alone "because he alone defeated it". After we've told him that a) sooner the rogue would have much more hp than my favored soul could heal with a single spell in combat and b) the rest of the group secured him while he disarmed the trap, aided with detect magic and my character healed him afterwards (he botched his check once) the dm reconsidered and did split the xp among the group. (5)Have a nice day. Just my :twocents: _Ra-Tiel.
Andrew_980 02-17-05, 09:18 AM	if it makes you feel any better my PC ,in a group of 4, killed a small dragon and several other monsters and only got 500 xp. 3 level1,one level2 and we killed a dragon and only got 500 xp. do you feel better about your situation now?
DrMorganes 02-17-05, 10:04 AM	I plugged the numbers into the Encounter Calculator, and came up with the following XP breakdowns: 3.5 CR-based award (Per PC): 5400 3.5 Difficulty-based award (per PC): 5387 That's disregarding the 45 CR 1 gnolls. Assuming you faced ALL of these creatures at ONE TIME (that's a whopping 63 creatures - the majority of which are intelligent foes), at least one PC should have been killed. The gnolls with class levels particularly would understand and use tactics to their best advantage. Since there were NO PC deaths, I think your DM's XP award was quite sufficient.