Do I do XP wrong?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


I understand the logistics of combat experience.

4 players, defeat a CR1 monster, 400xp/4 = 100xp each.

But what about things like traps? If the trap is a CR2 trap 600xp, do you hand out exp if they avoid it, disable it, trigger it?

I have always handed it out of the avoid or disable. For me, avoiding a trap, even by dumb luck is worth the reward. If you trigger it, not so much.

I have some statues that trigger a burst 1 fire explosion of they are defiled. My priest, in opposition to the religion of the statues, deemed them to be destroyed and triggered them.

I see full justification in awarding xp for his actions.

Is this just a personal preference to most?

Grand Lodge

Whatever way works for you is the right way.

Scarab Sages

I give xp for a trap if the party triggers it and suffers the effects or disables it. If the party walks past a trap somehow without ever realizing it was there, I award no xp since it was not a challenge that was overcome.


Soulkeeper wrote:

I understand the logistics of combat experience.

4 players, defeat a CR1 monster, 400xp/4 = 100xp each.

But what about things like traps? If the trap is a CR2 trap 600xp, do you hand out exp if they avoid it, disable it, trigger it?

I have always handed it out of the avoid or disable. For me, avoiding a trap, even by dumb luck is worth the reward. If you trigger it, not so much.

I have some statues that trigger a burst 1 fire explosion of they are defiled. My priest, in opposition to the religion of the statues, deemed them to be destroyed and triggered them.

I see full justification in awarding xp for his actions.

Is this just a personal preference to most?

As lonmgh as they experienced it (whether it went off, they diabled it, etc), they should get EXP for it.

Avoiding by dumb luck makes no sense. Same for monsters, if they are sneaking by it= EXP. But never went that way? No exp.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Obirandiath wrote:
I give xp for a trap if the party triggers it and suffers the effects or disables it. If the party walks past a trap somehow without ever realizing it was there, I award no xp since it was not a challenge that was overcome.

This is consistent with the guidelines in the core rule book, and I emphasize guide lines, because how XP is awarded is often a DM preference thing.

Somewhat restated, if a party encounters a trap and overcomes it, then they are awarded XP.

Overcomes includes:
* Disables
* Survives the effect of triggering
* cleverly bypassing the trap

Should not include:
* avoiding or retreating from the objective protected from the trap (ie just not opening the trapped chest and moving on.)

Also consider making traps have multiple levels of reward, for example a chest with an explosive rune trap, filled with 3 potions, a scroll, some gold, and a short sword. Should the PC's twart the mechanism, then all the treasure is theirs and so is the XP for the trap. If they should accidentally set off the trap it ruins the scroll and potions, so they get some of the treasure and the xp but not all. An example of a clever solution might be to cast resist energy on the chest then setting off the trap preventing the explosion from damaging the contents (not technically a spell that is allowed on an object but sometimes you have to reward cleverness).


I give XP for encountering and surviving the trap. If they manage to win the scenario while triggering every trap, then they did so at a severe disadvantage, which is frankly pretty epic. They can have the XP.

If they never even get into a situation where the trap was in the equation, I do not award XP. This is pretty unusual unless they just skipped an area or got impatient and didn't look for the hidden chest or something. Perhaps someone else triggered the trap ahead of time.

If they simply give up on whatever the trap is meant to protect rather than find a solution, I do not give XP for that either, though if the act of detecting the trap was in itself dangerous, I might give a partial award.

Sovereign Court

One question, did the cleric know about the traps when he defiled the statues? Either way no XP if trap is triggered seems harsh to me. I mean monsters hurt you and you still get XP for fighting them. I dont know if there is an official ruling so I would say its up to the GM. Personally, I don't use experience points anymore.

Shadow Lodge

Quite honestly, I give XP for every encounter, no matter what. (By virtue of not tracking XP at all, and leveling the party as I see fit.)


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XP: "Just say no."


When I've played once, some of the players effectively lost experience for a combat encounter. That was interesting. Wasn't really a session where the DM gave experience the traditional way.


I handle XP by keeping a running (private) total as a benchmark but then hand out levels at points where I think it is appropriate. Its a middle ground between XP and non-XP methods I think. - Gauss


Meophist wrote:
When I've played once, some of the players effectively lost experience for a combat encounter. That was interesting. Wasn't really a session where the DM gave experience the traditional way.

Now you made me curious...


Quatar wrote:
Now you made me curious...

The DM was probably new to the game so I don't know how effective it is, but basically, the game had the players as part of a sort of shadow guild and we were doing missions for them. We were told beforehand that most of the missions were sneaking-based and it would be best to remain low-profile about it.

The DM basically had a checklist for things that happened in the mission and gave out experience at the end for what happened. I don't remember what the exact objectives it was that caused it, but basically one group of players ended up in a big fight and thus didn't get the experience for doing it sneakily enough whereas the other two groups did.

We only ended up doing two missions due to scheduling problems, but I found them to be interesting games.


TOZ wrote:
Quite honestly, I give XP for every encounter, no matter what. (By virtue of not tracking XP at all, and leveling the party as I see fit.)

This was actually how I ran it in 4E, but the adventures were very linear.

The current one, is very open ended. While it does say, your players should be level x before entering this, or that, it leaves the rest wide open, so there is no firm guide for when the next time to level is.

Grand Lodge

That's what the DM is for.


I only run custom campaigns, and I level the party up according to the challenges they are facing.

I mostly try to level the party up when I feel the players have mostly mastered the new abilities or changes made in their last level gained. Sometimes it takes longer than other times.

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