GM made a bad call... reduce the XP and move on. Seems obvious to me.
One thing I tried for a while that seemed to work was allocating XP based on the difficulty of the fight. If they pull off a trick and one shot something before the party can even get their swords out, then nobody learned anything by fighting it, so little XP was earned. If what should have been a simple fight gets complicated by bad luck or tactics and turns into an epic brawl then bonus XP is earned because that is a fight they would learn a lot from.
Your player had a moment to shine, the fight was won. Sounds good to me. Actually, it sounds like a "remember when I pushed that drider into the river?"-story to be told in the future. I see no need to reduce the XP. Maybe the fight was easier than you anticipated, but stuff like that happens. Some fights are easier, others more difficult. You cannot account for all the myriad possibilities of a fight.
And I guess it is better to not listen to the people who make assumptions about your game based on nothing really. Sailors (and driders) can be unable to swim (look up Nelson's Navy for example), and there can be cliffs at rivers (look up many non-engineered rivers for example).
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I would award full XP. I enjoy it when my players make use of their surroundings and not just their attack bonuses and foes to overcome enemies and obstacles.
Aye, when the players make clever use of their surroundings and do things that are unexpected and trip you up, and you genuinely believe that they outsmarted you fair and square and were civil about it, I'd pull a "i see what you did there...clever girl..." and then award them full XP, plus a little extra for creative uses of their class abilities. After all, the game's no fun unless you let your imagination soar.
In my game last night, the monk used his tiger claw technique to bull rush a dryder (spider centaur) into a river. I ruled that it rolled belly up in the water and floated down stream, because I couldn't figure out how it could swim.
Before I hear the chorus of people saying it wasn't being tactical enough, it was guarding something by the river, and didn't know the monk could burn ki to run good or bypass difficult terrain by running on top the mushrooms.
Anyway, he basically one-shotted a CR 7, so I awarded XP for that part of the encounter.
Should I have, or did the terrain effectively reduce the CR?
No you shouldn't for 2 reasons at least.
1.Sometimes these things happen. The only way I would take XP away from a party for a fight that was to be too easy due to high dice rolls would be if I were willing to give them extra XP due to low dice rolls. Feel free to replace "dice rolls" with any other circumstantial event.2.You allowed a houserule to influence the game. If tigers and people can swim then I don't see why a drider can not move its legs so it can swim. Driders are also big and the current would have to be strong to sweep one away, and the water would have to be deep to be over its head.
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In my game last night, the monk used his tiger claw technique to bull rush a dryder (spider centaur) into a river. I ruled that it rolled belly up in the water and floated down stream, because I couldn't figure out how it could swim.
Before I hear the chorus of people saying it wasn't being tactical enough, it was guarding something by the river, and didn't know the monk could burn ki to run good or bypass difficult terrain by running on top the mushrooms.
Anyway, he basically one-shotted a CR 7, so I awarded XP for that part of the encounter.
Should I have, or did the terrain effectively reduce the CR?
No you shouldn't for 2 reasons at least.
1.Sometimes these things happen. The only way I would take XP away from a party for a fight that was to be too easy due to high dice rolls would be if I were willing to give them extra XP due to low dice rolls. Feel free to replace "dice rolls" with any other circumstantial event.2.You allowed a houserule to influence the game. If tigers and people can swim then I don't see why a drider can not move its legs so it can swim. Driders are also big and the current would have to be strong to sweep one away, and the water would have to be deep to be over its head.
Its bonus to swim is only a +2 assuming normal drider. A river deep enough for a large creature would be violent waters (rivers that deep tend to have fairly strong currents), so DC 20. But, then again, if it was auto-houseruled, maybe you do have a point...not enough to reduce XP, but...meh
Generally, I would say that the terrain wasn't enough to drop the CR by one - or wouldn't normally have been. Having a river at its back shouldn't really give a drider cause for concern.
However, I think failure to give the monster an even break did make the encounter significantly easier. Maybe the drider would have blown it swim checks trying to get out of the river and the point would have been moot. But because you didn't even give it that chance, I think you gimped the encounter. Had that been part of the plan, then I think a reduced XP award would be appropriate. Since this seems to be more because of a brain fart in handling the drider than anything else, I wouldn't reduce the award.
I'd really love to DM for the sort of player people keep describing who hear about or see on the map even a vaguely hazardous terrain feature and then don't spend all their resources trying to relocate an enemy into it. That's not cleverness; that's the natural instinct of every player I've ever met. Don't get me wrong - I do think players should sometimes be rewarded for clever solutions (although in most cases circumventing a combat encounter without spending meaningful resources is itself a reward), but "move enemy to lava hole" isn't a special example of cleverness, it's what every player's instinct is from the first time they scratch a pencil across a character sheet. One of the marks of a tactically-minded player is the ability to recognize that hey, maybe it's easier if we just kill this goblin with our weapons instead of trying to shove him 30 feet into that spiky pit.
Generally, I would say that the terrain wasn't enough to drop the CR by one - or wouldn't normally have been. Having a river at its back shouldn't really give a drider cause for concern.
However, I think failure to give the monster an even break did make the encounter significantly easier. Maybe the drider would have blown it swim checks trying to get out of the river and the point would have been moot. But because you didn't even give it that chance, I think you gimped the encounter. Had that been part of the plan, then I think a reduced XP award would be appropriate. Since this seems to be more because of a brain fart in handling the drider than anything else, I wouldn't reduce the award.
Bolding Mine.
This. He didn't intentionally nerf the drider. Just one hilarious set of circumstance. Full XP.And Guys, it was a river, I don't know where several of you are getting "Lava Hole" from.
"Lava hole" was not a literal statement. It was a representation of any terrain or lack of terrain(off the side of a cliff) that would have the players an advantage.
As far as your comment about how rivers work, that simply isn't true. Are you a geologist?
No, but I've personally visited many rivers. Including a canyon not 2 hours from my home, which I've been to many times now.
If the water level is near the shoreline, chances are very high that taking a step into it won't result in the water being deep enough for a large creature (such as a horse or cow) to not touch the bottom.Rivers cut through the path of least resistance, and if there are distinctly different material types like what you would need for the under dark, the river could easily be carved through more erodible material while the walls remain high, like in a canyon.
So it was a cliff with a river at the bottom? That's very different, and I'm surprised you didn't make a climb check on behalf of the Drider.