Experience Points for a 6 person party?

[Nanmaniac]

Hi there,
I've been mastering for the last 4 months, and my people are really involved in the adventure path.
But I'm having a big problem. I'd thank any help!

There are 6 heroes in my party, so when all of them are 7th lvl we have a party of 10th!! (6x7/4=10.5) Then when I have to calculate the Xp awards from the EL encounters, they are too few!!! I tried to scale the encounters with the "Scaling the adventure" but sometimes is too dangerous to increase a creature because they are only 7th lvl characters.
I've also tried to increase the number of creatures in each encounter instead of increasing their CR... But I cannot adjust the EL for them.

PLEASE, SOME HELP!!!

Nan/

[Craig Shannon]

Sean K Reynolds did a good article on this:

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/handlinglargeparties.html

[Darren]

Part of your problems are coming from the way you are figuring your party level. By the way you seem to be suggesting, a party of 8 7th-level characters would be equivalent to a standard 14th level party (8x7/4=14), or add a few more characters and they are ready for epic challenges (12x7/4=21). It doesn't scale like that at all.

Even if you have 6 7th-level characters, your average party level is still 7, and that is what you use to determine experience point awards. From the DMG, a party with an average level of 7 that overcomes a CR 7 creature earns 2100 experience points. Then divide the points evenly, or 350Xp each for a party of 6, compared to 525 for the stardard party of 4. If you treated your 6-person party as a 10th-level party, they get only 1000Xp, or 167Xp each. That's a huge difference.

You will still need to increase challenges slightly to keep pace with the experience awarded to a standard party of four, but the article should be helpful for that.

[Squid]

Um... you NEVER award xp off of an encounter's EL. You award xp off of a monster's CR. EL is only used to give the GM a rough idea of the difficulty of an encounter, NOT as a measure of how much xp the party should get. You calculate xp as follows...

Keep track of the CRs that the party overcomes. Cross reference those CRs on the xp chart with a given party member's level. Total up the xp, then divide that total by the number of party members involved. Award this new amount of xp to the party member.

Squid

[Rikkus]

The method I use is to recalculate the party level. This by far is the easiest method. It allows you to adjust one thing rather than all the encounter levels.

Basicly, the EL is based off of 4 PC parties. Let's use a 7th level party as an example. A monster with the same CR as the party level is that EL. Ex CR7 is an EL7.

Two CR 7's are an EL9. Use the samething for party level. Two 4 man groups (or 8 PCs) at 7th level is a party level 9. This is a lot more accurate than 7x8/8=7 or 7x8/4=14!!

Using this method 6 PCs would count as a party 1 level higher, thus your 6 7th level would be a party level 8.

Try this method and you should have an easier time than constantly reconfiguring ELs and adding in additional villians.

Also Squid is right that you give EXP based on each monsters CR, not the EL. Although two CR 7s are an EL9, and two CR 7s give the same EXP as a CR 9, the method doesn't add up to the same for multiple creature or CR encounters. EXP is suppose to be figured up per CR and different EXP givin for PCs based on thier level (if they are differnt level PCs).

[Boredflak]

This encounter calculator might be helpful.

[Chef's Slaad]

Boredflak wrote:

This encounter calculator might be helpful.

Here's an alternative I've found pretty usefull. Encounter Calculator v3.5 by Tiera Starr It uses formulas to calculate XP rather than tables, and gives you more options on distributing XP across the party.

[Davelozzi]

I have a group that averages 8 players, and I've found that using the CR/EL system is very tricky. I haven't had good luck using encounter calculators (though I'm not sure whether or not the one I used to use is the same as either of the two linked above).

Also, back in Dungeon # 89, Jonathon Tweet wrote a sidebar giving some mechanics on how to refigure an effective party level for large parties. It appears somewhere in the adventure "Wedding Bells". I used that for a while but still had some problems.

Basically, if you're not working with a fairly standard party, the whole CR system is a poor enough crutch that it's generally not even worth using. By far the best plan is to just look at the monster's stats and abilities in comparison to the PCs, and make your own judgement. Knowing the character's BABs, ACs, and Damage dealing abilities, it's easy to see how likely it is for them and the monsters to hurt each other.

That said, Sean's article that Craig linked to above has some good advice, particularly the part about using more low level monsters and treating the large party as multiple smaller parties and designing encounters appropriately.

The advice in Sean's article that Craig linked to above is very sound, especially the part about treating the party as two smaller parties and desiging encounters appropriately.

[Nanmaniac]

Ok, guys.
I've realised how to compute XP in an encounter...It's with the CR not the EL.
Anyway, I've computed the total XPs that an adventure gives with all the encounters for a four players party and they are enough XPs to advance the level described in the adventure introduction. BUT (there's always a BUT) if you compute the total XPs for a six players party they don't get enough experience points to reach the supposed levels.
Ok, it's logical, but step by step the party can confront very hard encounters if they don't have enough level.
I've been trying to change a little bit all the encounters in one adventure to give to the six players the correct amount of XP.

For example, in the Test of The smoking Eye, you have the following encounters and the players of a 4 players group should advance from 10th level to 12th level:

Encounter # CR # Lvl Total Xp/Player
Babaus 3 6 4 10 562,5
Drider 2 7 4 10 1062,5
Succubus 1 7 4 10 1312,5
NobleSalamander 1 10 4 10 2062,5
Trap 1 10 4 10 2812,5
Bebilith 1 10 4 10 3562,5
Basilisk 1 12 4 10 5062,5
Retriever 1 11 4 10 6187,5
Assassins 4 7 4 10 7187,5
Dragon 1 11 4 10 8312,5
Rakshasa 1 10 4 10 9062,5
Fire Giant 1 10 4 10 9812,5
Clay Golem 1 10 4 10 10562,5
Lich 1 13 4 11 12212,5
Test 1 14 4 11 14687,5
Kaurophon 1 14 4 11 17162,5
Mummy Lord 1 15 4 11 20462,5

As you can see each player should earn 20462 xps, a little bit less than 21000 (needed to change from 10th to 12th).

If you tried the same encounters with a six players party, they would only get 14392 Xps, very far away from the 21000 expected points.

I've changed some encounters as descrived here:

Encounter # CR # Lvl Total Xp/Player
Babaus *4 6 6 10 500
Drider *3 7 6 10 1000
*Vrock 3 9 6 10 2000
Succubus 1 7 6 10 2166,666667
NobleSalamander 1 10 6 10 2666,666667
Trap 1 10 6 10 3166,666667
Bebilith 1 10 6 10 3666,666667
Basilisk 1 12 6 10 4666,666667
*Fiendishwyvern 4 7 6 10 5333,333333
Retriever 1 11 6 10 6083,333333
Assassins *6 7 6 10 7083,333333
Dragon 1 11 6 10 7833,333333
Rakshasa 1 10 6 10 8333,333333
Fire Giant 1 10 6 10 8833,333333
Clay Golem 1 10 6 10 9333,333333
Lich 1 13 6 10 10833,33333
*Hezrou 3 11 6 11 12483,33333
*ExtraEncounter 2 13 6 11 14683,33333
Test 1 14 6 11 16333,33333
Kaurophon 1 14 6 11 17983,33333
Mummy Lord 1 15 6 11 20183,33333

What do you think??

I've made some other tables for the others adventures in the adventuer Path.