I have a question to various DMs and groups out there regarding avoidable encounters and XP rewards. I realize this can probably vary from group to group, but I'm interested in what other people tend to run with.
I've been primarily playing adventure paths with my group, so this situation crops up more than in perhaps my own designed encounters. The players entered a lizardmen village which had several encounters of it statted up, most of them they would have to fight if they assaulted the village head-on. They opted for diplomacy however, and only managed to fight the lizardman king in a duel, plus an additional encounter after that.
One could argue that, because they didn't fight the other lizardmen, they shouldn't be rewarded with XP for the remaining combat encounters. But you could also say that the challenge was the entire village, and because the PCs handled it smartly(by being diplomatic), they shouldn't be punished. Though the challenge is definately lower than hacking through every single lizardman, it did effectively "solve" the encounter.
Similar situations include dungeons/locations and simply missing out certain areas. You end up fighting the boss monster before some of its minions, the minions figure out/hear/see their boss go down, they escape the dungeon, taking their loot with them. Or secret areas completely missed. You could say that them rushing to the leader without clearing out the dungeon properly makes it their own fault for missing out on certain encounters and rewards thus. The same if you miss secret areas.
How far should one go to award XP for encounters that were avoided, either by approaching it in another way, or missing it for one reason or another?
Probably won't be much help to you, but I don't use XP the traditional way at all for this very reason.
I issue flat XP per game, whether they sit in the tavern talking all game or whether they slay a horde of 5,000 orcs.
Very nice for avoiding XP farming, too, since there's no real positive in killing everything, and potential negatives (like ill will, killing the one guy that has the info you need, etc.).
These days I usually just tell the PCs to level-up when I feel the time is right given the background plot and what they are trying to do. I don't award XPs anymore.
But, when I was doing so, I would have given the PCs XP for any encounter they knew about and deliberately avoided. I would also have given them a story award for diplomatically dealing with the village equal to the combat value of the individual encounters that make up the village.
Well, my group and I have tried many different ways of awarding XP, everything from flat XP per session to me just saying when they level. I never liked either of these as it doesn't feel as rewarding for a big effort.
To me a group that "avoids" an encounter because they are playing smart rather than playing "Hulk SMASH" deserve not only the XP that you would have given for defeating the entire village, but even an additional 10% of that total on top of that. Playing smart is a behavior that should be encouraged in all groups.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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If you encounter a creature and have to use a skill, spell, or combat to get what you need from them then you get experience. If you avoid them entirely then you do not.
Example:
You show up to the lizardman village, intimidate or diplomacize the guards into letting you see the king you get experience for those guards. Walking through the village, you pass half a dozen other guards and their pet shocker lizards, they ignore you because you are escorted by the gate guards. You do not get experience for the guards you bypass.
For the most part XP is a legacy. If you want them to level have them do it, if not don't. We haven't kept track for a few years and it's been much easier.
In my group, we stopped using xp about a year ago. Recently we started using it again because the players decided they loved tallying those points. It's a little more work, but it's a classic part of the RPG experience.
We've recently been giving the Carrion Crown adventure path a try, and I know where you're concern regarding missable encounters arises. My general rule is that if the party is aware of the potential danger of an encounter, and intelligently solves or mitigates the threat, they get full xp for the encounter. I won't often award xp if they bypass the encounter by chance or by willful avoidance. When it comes to willful avoidance, I mean situations where there is essentially a side encounter. If the party is walking through the woods and becomes aware of a spider den not far off the path, and decide to keep walking instead of checking it out, they don't get xp.
If the party decides to take the risk of bee-lining to the boss of a dungeon, aware of the fact they are leaving minions alive that may come to the aid of the boss, I would give them xp for all of those minions. Some of them will probably show up to make the boss encounter a little harder. If the party came up with a good strategy for infiltration, they should be rewarded, not punished. Some of that loot the disloyal minions made off with will show up later as part of another bad guy's horde, or be given freely in thanks for freeing them from the boss' tyranny, whatever is appropriate.
In regards to scripted encounters that can be missed, I will generally let them go missed if they aren't integral to the story, and then add a random encounter or two to make up for it. If there is information or items that the party needs, it can be a simple matter of adding some small hooks to get the party on the right track.
For an adventure path i'd give role playing experience equal to the problems they've avoided, just so the party doesn't wind up at too low a level to complete the path.
For an adventure path i'd give role playing experience equal to the problems they've avoided, just so the party doesn't wind up at too low a level to complete the path.
I agree and I disagree here. For intelligently handling an encounter xp should be rewarded. However I don't agree that it would warrant full xp everytime. Most APs I've seen/run had extra encounters to make up for the fact that things might not have been totally completed. I would probably base it off how much of the partys resources were used for the modified encounter. For example the duel, if it was just a PC smack down, I would give full XP for the lizard king but nothing more. The resource drain on the party was light. If it was a near death experience for the PC and they had to use lots of limited resources (several spells/x per day abilities) and lots of healing, that would make me suggest giving full xp for the entire bypassed encounter. If was even less, just a few diplomacy checks that an optimized character couldn't fail, minor xp would be given but there really wasn't any "challenge" involved.
You could also just keep track of treasure very closely and when the party reaches the correct amount (on average) level them.
To me a group that "avoids" an encounter because they are playing smart rather than playing "Hulk SMASH" deserve not only the XP that you would have given for defeating the entire village, but even an additional 10% of that total on top of that. Playing smart is a behavior that should be encouraged in all groups.
+1
Well maybe not the additional 10% but I definitly give the award. The goal is to deal with the lizard folk...if they did what they had too...than the deserve the exp.
I don't really like XP for anything other than competitive dungeon crawling games that are run RAW. For everything else, I just like leveling when the GM feels like it.
This is probably the most useless post I have seen in weeks. The OP already stated he has tried other ways of doing things...and his group went back to the orginal way. So you don't use exp? Yeah you. You want a medal? Or is it that you guys are sooo far 'advance' beyond exp. that uou need to show your 'superiority' to the rest of you.
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I don't really like XP for anything other than competitive dungeon crawling games that are run RAW. For everything else, I just like leveling when the GM feels like it.This is probably the most useless post I have seen in weeks. The OP already stated he has tried other ways of doing things...and his group went back to the orginal way. So you don't use exp? Yeah you. You want a medal? Or is it that you guys are sooo far 'advance' beyond exp. that uou need to show your 'superiority' to the rest of you.
I think you're being unfair here. cranewings said nothing much different than what Bill Dunn and dunelord3001 when describing how they handle XP - and as the OP stated...
I'm interested in what other people tend to run with.
This is probably the most useless post I have seen in weeks. The OP already stated he has tried other ways of doing things...and his group went back to the orginal way. So you don't use exp? Yeah you. You want a medal? Or is it that you guys are sooo far 'advance' beyond exp. that uou need to show your 'superiority' to the rest of you.
It's not really a "WE ARE BETTER THEN YOU!" thing. It's a "You see that big heavy rock you spend a bunch of time carrying around? You can just set that sucker down and go on with your day. It'll be way easier. I used to carry it around too, don't feel bad."
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I don't really like XP for anything other than competitive dungeon crawling games that are run RAW. For everything else, I just like leveling when the GM feels like it.This is probably the most useless post I have seen in weeks. The OP already stated he has tried other ways of doing things...and his group went back to the orginal way. So you don't use exp? Yeah you. You want a medal? Or is it that you guys are sooo far 'advance' beyond exp. that uou need to show your 'superiority' to the rest of you.
I nominate it for second most useless post, right behind yours for degrading his. You added a bunch of personal attacks that assume a lot of things he didn't say.
As for the original post, I give experience when the party experiences something. If they recognize an avoidable encounter, and avoid it, they've experienced it. If they walk past the door, never realizing there was an encounter beyond it, then they don't experience it.
Since I run APs, I usually don't spend time tracking individual points. I just tell the party when to level up. It has made things much easier on my group.
Weirdly, I remember it was a big problem and source of stress back in 2e - running APs but tracking individual xp. I remember several groups that either suffered tpks or walk throughs because of it.
Well, it sure helps if the AP states it assumes the PCs to be at Level XX at a certain point.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Weirdly, I remember it was a big problem and source of stress back in 2e - running APs but tracking individual xp. I remember several groups that either suffered tpks or walk throughs because of it.Well, it sure helps if the AP states it assumes the PCs to be at Level XX at a certain point.
Nah, you just keep running them until there is a near TPK then have them level up before the next session. Keep doing that and your players are always *just* at the right level. :D
ah, you just keep running them until there is a near TPK then have them level up before the next session. Keep doing that and your players are always *just* at the right level. :D
Didn't work in 2.x / 3.x. A 'near TPK' usually equals a few dead ones among the group. Who, in editions prior to Pathfinder, lost a level upon being raised... getting the APL even lower.
If they would have had to fight x lizardmen, but instead talked their way in so they didnt have to fight them, i'd give experience. They overcame the challenge in a non-combat way. I am fine with handing out full xp for that. The same way I would have given them xp if they snuck past the lizardmen gaurds, into the lizardmen thrown room and did whatever it was they were there to do (kill the king, steal the magic thinger, rescue the prisoner etc). The encounters are obstacles to get past (aside from possibly the final encounter). However you get past them is sufficient for gaining xp in my view.
We usually used a larger story XP to cover at least part of the difference ONLY if:
The party intentionally, intelligently worked past an encounter.
Like others said if they didn't notice or just ignored a side option, they get nothing for that.
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I'm not certain I'd count out each point of XP for all the possible encounters, but I'd certainly give a nice fat chunk of it instead.
Look at it this way, they got past the obstacle without miring the game down in hours of die rolling. Now you can get on to better parts and more meaningful encounters.
That being said, though, I probably would think hard to find ways of foiling any attempt to bypass the 'key encounters' in a story.
We play if you use a skill/RP for an encounter to "avoid" it then you have encountered it and defeated it in a sense thus getting XP.