Party Experience


Shackled City Adventure Path


Our group just started SCAP last night and had a great time with the adventure. I'm the DM and I was calculating the exp. for the session, which will run about 1800. Anyways, I was totalling the exp for the entire Life's Bazaar, and if my calcuations are correct, my group will be 5th level!

Has anyone else noticed this? I'm going to level up the characters for the next session and level them up again just before they encounter Kazmojen.

Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks.


umm... you do realize you're supposed to add up all the experience for all the monsters and divide it among the PC's, right? If they killed 6 things, each worth 300 xp, that's 1800 total xp; if there are 3 pc's, they each get 600 xp, not 1800.


Actually I had a similar problem but this was due to me not scaling down the number of enemies for my small group. Hence, the large XP awards got divided amongst a smaller number.

However, they'll have fun being a level too high for Drakthar's Way and the low CRs there will mean that it'll even out.


I understand how to calculate the experience. We only have 4 characters in the group and they've been quite successful so far.

I like to look plan ahead so that the group is at an appropriate level for the "module". It just seemed to me that with all the skulks in Jzadirune the exp adds up quickly.

Thanks.

Scarab Sages

As for myself, i just increase their levels when i feel it appropriate in epic campaigns(WLD, AoW, Underdark, etc)- being careful to not increase their levels to quickly, need to keep it challenging, after all. In fact, i have been following this rule for years. By doing this, i find that the players pay more attention to staying alive and adventuring, rather than crying about how close they are to 'level.' Yes, i do reward a bit more-or less-depending on outstanding play or, 'what were you thinkin,' play. All my experienced players, having played with me for sometime, have all went to my method, for its advantages.

Thoth-Amon


Gregory Ellen,

I think leveling your players up now and again just before Kazmojen should be fine. My group had 7 players at the time they encountered Kazmojen and they still had a rough encounter with him when they were 3rd level.

I also agree with Orcwart that having the extra levels for Drakthar’s Way should be fun for your group. Especially if Drakthar gets lucky when using his hit and run tactics to actually siphon off some character levels. My group’s poor cleric of Fharlanghn with his adjusted move of 50 was literally racing about the tunnels with Drakthar in dire wolf form in pursuit. Made for some humorous and tension filled moments to be sure as the cleric continually raced away from the group and their support. :-)

Anyway, good luck with your campaign and let us know how things work out with your group when they face Kazmojen.

Good gaming,
Mark


Thanks for all the feedback. I'll post an update after our session next week.

Greg


Thoth-Amon the Mindflayerian,

I was thinking of doing this myself. Do you give them actual experience points or do you just say, "Hey, you've gone up a level." If it's the latter, how do you deal with item creation, powerful spells and death, all of which cost xp?


Usually I tell them that they've gone up a level and place them at the minimum xp needed for that level. We have an artificer in the group, so I give him an actual amount so that he create his scrolls, etc.

Greg

Liberty's Edge

Gregory Ellen wrote:
I understand how to calculate the experience. We only have 4 characters in the group and they've been quite successful so far.

Experience for a party of 4 is going to be fast early on, but 5 levels for Life's Bazaar seems too much. I'm wondering if you maybe gave exp for the EL, and not the CRs of the individual creatures? I'll total it up tonight and see what I get for 4 1st levels.

However, leveling early should not be a problem. One of the nice things about 3.5's experience system is that it does a fair job of throttling experience when it comes too fast. Of course, it will mean that some encounters later on are a bit too easy, but those encouhnters won't give as much exp. because the players are higher level.

Dark Archive

5 seems steep. Are you assuming a party of 4 1st, adding all the XP up, and then coming up with 5? It's just when they hit 4 their advancment will slow down. Also you'll be second guessing what order they may have encounters in. Basically they won't earn all XP as 1st level. The adventures assume levelling as they PCs go along. Remember it was designed for 6 1st, reaching some point into 3rd. That's at least 18,000+ XP, which is 4500+ each. As the players are probably into 3rd and onto 4th for 6, reaching 4th for 4 seems probable.

Thoth-Amon, as for levelling up when you think it's appropriate as DM, and thus XP becomes somewhat meaningless and arbitrary, how do you adjudicate a fair and balanced approach to XP for item creation and spells with an XP component? If it works for you fine, but when players can spend exact amounts of XP in a system they most likely need a system to earn it exactly as well :) Just curious.


Actually, the experience issue has seemed to work itself out. The party was level 3 when they interrupted Kazmojen and his auctions. After a fun battle, they were able to take him out and rescue the prisoners. However, just to make it interesting, as they re-emerged in Cauldron, I had several of the town guards start a rumor that the Stormblades had rescued the hostages.

I'm sure the rest of this will be equally as fun.

Greg


I'm actually at just about the same point in the campaign - heading into our 7th session, and just now descending into the Malachite Fortress. I just finished calculating the group's XP at 4,224 each ... I'm estimating they'll either be nearly done with 3rd, or just past 4th, by the conclusion of the Bazaar.

I've got a group of 6 PCs that I'm torturing ... er, I mean handling. ;)

So far, it's been a total blast.


Two things you have to remember:
1. The AP is balanced for 6 characters not 4. So extra xp will come in handy when they end up facing a dragon, a pyrohydra, an advanced eriynies, a high level cleric and then another dragon one right after the other :)
2. They won’t necessarily kill everything in the dungeon. And, once Kazmojen is gone, they wouldn’t get the chance to hit the hobgoblins and skulks who are running away so quickly.

Also my party retreated from Malachite after beating Kazmojen to rest for 3 days. In that time I had all the monsters pretty much leave and the Stormblades swoop in and take the main treasure room and destroy the lift. This SOOO pissed off my party who had dreams of turning it into their own fortress and now they *never* retreat until they have found the treasure room/big bad.


I've had to institute 1/2 XP a couple times when the players got too far ahead. Once they were caught up (caught down?), it went back to regular.


Our party finished the first adventure and we are level 3 so experience can be quite relative.


I am awarding only half the XP for the SCAP. I did this so I could run plenty of Side Treks in between the 'offical adventures'.

Like you I found that my party gained a large amount of XP in the first adventure and even though I was halving the XP, my party finished the adventure at 3rd level and halfway to 4th.

Only now, inbetween Flood Season and Zenith's Tajectory, I have run the Demonskar Ball and another adventure that links with one of the characters backgrounds.

I'm hoping I by reducing the XP I'll have plenty of opportunity for more character background advetures and foreshadowing adventures inbetween the adventures.

So far so good.

I am a big believer in manipulating the XP to make it suit. As long as your party understand and are happy don't feel obligated to award the XP as written or even run every adventure exactly as described. Make them suit your party as situation.

Delvesdeep

Scarab Sages

Speaking as a player who's completed this chapter, I agree that the xps seem excessive.
I've posted on this topic before, but I like to feel I've earned my xp, and in this case I didn't.
My DM can't help discussing the adventures once they're over and done with, so I am aware of the scale of the place. Had we continued in Jzadirune, with no time pressure, we could quite easily have spent weeks (game-time) down there. Now, the place has been cleared by the city watch and the Stormblades, so the issue is irrelevant.

Our party contained 2 elves and a dwarf, so finding secret doors wasn't a problem. We only explored a fraction of Jzadirune (an L-shape between the entrance, the map room and the ragamuffin), before discovering the route to the elevator on our way out with our spoils.

This is only a fraction of the potential area (according to the map we were given by Ghelve) but, even so, we had levelled up (admittedly with some roleplay xp and a duel at the Slippery Eel). If we had explored the whole area, I dread to think how many xps we would have got.

The DM has admitted he was glad we found the way to the Malachite Fortress, since he didn't want to spend forever on search, spot & listen checks in Jzadirune, and I happen to agree.

Having said all of that:

If you believe the xps are too high, then consider the following suggestions (some or all of which were instituted by my DM, at least for this chapter);

1) Don't give xps for traps the party fail to find or disarm. Yes, I know the DMG tells you to do so, but this is really bizarre. Giving xps for being blasted by a trap just encourages the players to kick in every door they find, since they 'know' that the typical low-CR trap won't kill them.
Giving xps for 'overcoming' a series of traps (by being caught by them) is akin to handing out 'combat' xp for 'overcoming' a jailer who comes to your cell and beats the living daylights out of you each morning.

"Hey, Mr Jailer, come back! You missed me out this morning! Don't forget to kick me in the ribs a bit, Oh you've missed a spot. Thanks for all this, I really appreciate it! Only 2 more days of this, and I'll have levelled up! Sorted!"

2) The CRs for traps are waaaay out, in my opinion. Unless a trap can kill a PC outright, it may as well not exist, unless it triggers in the middle of a fight, or unless there is a serious deadline to beat. That's why I give out reduced (or sometime even no) xps for such actions as looting an abandoned crypt, or removing fire traps from spellbooks during down-time.

3) Don't give out xps for the same style of trap twice. After all, what have you learnt?

4) Reduce the CR and accompanying xp for traps which are clearly signposted. For the party to even be in Jzadirune, they have to come via Ghelve, who knows all about the gear doors, the gear traps, and the magical plague.
They will be given this info freely, since Ghelve is desperate to retrieve his familiar, and needs them to succeed.
Therefore, the traps are nowhere near as dangerous as they would appear. In fact, since someone else (we never found out who) has been tunneling through the walls, you may never need to force a gear door at all.
How obnoxious the PCs would have to be, for him to think "To hell with you, I hope you die", I have no idea, but in this case they would deserve everything they get....and, no, I wouldn't reward them with full xp for the traps, since the info was there, if they hadn't blown it....

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