Experience awards?

[DedmeetDM]

Hello all,

Sorry if this has been answered before, I tried doing a search for it.

When awarding experience for an encounter; do you award xp for individual monsters, overall CR, or both.

Thanks in advance for the answers.

[The Fox]

The way the table is constructed, the two should be more or less the same. In any case, assign XP for individual monsters. This total is split amongst party members.

Edit: do not count familiars, animal companions, commanded undead, or summoned creatures into this total. Those are factored into the CR of the controlling creature.

[MagiMaster]

It's generally much easier to calculate if you assign XP per creature, as you (usually) don't have to try and work out what the CR for an encounter is, but yeah, they should be the same in most cases.