Hey there,
Our situation is that we have just defeated a powerful boss that was worth quite a bunch of experience (we are all level 6). In the fight however, our cleric died.
After the fight, we had the cleric resurrected and we completed out quest. The question our GM posed (because he wasn't sure either) is whether or not the cleric should receive experience for killing the boss or not, as he was dead when we defeated the boss.
This matters to us, because it makes the difference of him leveling up or not (while we all level up).
I tried looking through the rules and searching these message boards, but I couldn't find the answer. Is this house ruled or am I missing some obvious rule about this?
Kind regards,
Silvan
If he took part in the fight, he gets xp. That's the rule I play by. GM can do what he wants, but xp is just an abstraction for becoming better through experience, and imo, he experienced the fight with the boss, he didn't get KB, but only one party member got KB anyway, so I would expect him to get as much xp as the next guy.
The cleric died in the battle with the boss? He gets XP. He died beforehand? Probably not. Death should not negate the fact he participated. Dying is bad enough. Losing out on XP makes the game no fun.
If you need a rationale as to why he earned XP for being a corpse. Consider that maybe he learned something about when to duck and when not to duck and had a major 'breakthrough'. IE: he earned the XP everyone else did.
- Gauss
You mean that being killed and resurrected isn't an experience that teaches something?
The dead character was a contributor to overcoming the encounter so he should get xp.
+1
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Pathfinder, differently from 3.X, don't have mechanics to recover if you are lagging behind in XP and it isn't structured to handle characters of different levels like 1st-2nd edition. So giving less XP to a character, especially if he died doing what he should do, is generally a bad idea, even if he died before the last encounter.
It would penalize primarily the characters that get more in harm ways, like front-line fighters or scouts. While I don't think that non spell users are inherently weaker than spell users giving them less XP because they generally die more often is a good way to make them weaker.
My way, as a GM, is to give the same XP to all characters, so that they are all at the same level.
A character has missed a few session because the player was sick, busy with work or for some other reason? He still get the same XP of the other characters, he is penalized enough by not getting the loot. If you need some explanation for that you can say he has spent his time training or studying, so he has got better at his profession.
Our group treats xp as a way to incrementally increase party power. It's a purely metagame concept, so we don't bother trying to justify when or how its earned, other than to calculate it based on the challenges the party faces to control the pacing.
I'd not recommend punishing players with it, there's really no reason to do so.
Heck, our group even gives xp to characters who weren't there because the player couldn't make it that week.
We've always houseruled it. If you die, you come in one level lower than you started, to a minimum of one level lower than the lowest party member. And you don't get experience for an encounter in which you died.
Unfortunately it's a rule that's carried over from the days of bad players in our group. We had a few players in the past that would kill off their characters or start attempting more and more idiotic or suicidal stunts until their characters died, as soon as they got an idea for a new character. When you've had players with four characters over 8 sessions, you tend to start penalizing death a little.
It's not been an issue in our current group, and as I'm DMing, I think I'll not award experience for death during an encounter, I will allow that player to come in with enough experience to stay his current level, unless he's raised and then he'll have all experience minus that one encounter.
It would be a jerk move to deny him the XP. In the past I always gave a raised character an XP penalty, but I don't track it anymore, and its easier to simply let everyone in the party level up at the same time.
In the game I'm currently participating in we had a character death and the issue of a penalty upon death came up. In the end what we decided was that it's easier just to keep everyone at the same experience. If they die and make a new character, or if they make a new character because they feel like it they simply start with less gold appropriate to the spells they would have had to have cast in order to return to life and relieve their negative levels. In this way you are no more penalized for choosing to be resurrected as you would be for making a new character.
Remember it's just a game, only apply penalties if it would enhance everyone's gaming experience.
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If you want a "by the books" answer, give full XP to each character that was present for the encounter AT ANY POINT (dead, petrified, in a maze spell, plane shifted, or whatever). This is not high school: more participation does not equal more XP. Attendance is all that matters ;)
My advice: don't even track individual XP. As the GM, track XP for the group, and level them all when they hit the required XP. Having people of different levels doesn't work well. The lower level ones have to hang back and be less awesome, and the higher level ones get bored because balancing the fights for the party requires reducing the CR.
My group doesn't really use XP, instead just leveling when it "feels right", usually when the GM wants to use higher CR encounters. This is largely due to laziness of not wanting to track XP, but it also removes these sorts of issues.
Taking XP away from players for participating is bad. Some encounters are worded that "once the door opens, the NPC Cleric casts Circle of Death as soon as he can act". I played in a published module where the 2nd major encounter was worded exactly like that. After the second time we TPK'ed, the GM told us "sorry, but it's worded this way and there isn't much other way to run it since the NPC has little defense and no other offense". After 3 re-starts due to TPK, our party of 5 players FINALLY beat that encounter with just one player death.
In that scenario, should the dead player (a rogue) not get XP because he rolled a natural 5 on his worst saving throw? Was it the player's fault? Furthermore, if a player dies, Raise Dead has a 5,000 gold material component to cast. Greater Restoration also has a 5,000 gold material component to cast. However you accomplish this, via scrolls, NPC casters, or your party cleric, you have a minimum investment of 10k. Should the party absorb that cost as a whole, or should the player absorb that cost for the benefit of not having 2 permanent negative levels and getting to play his character again? On top of that, should the party have to pay 10k gold AND have the dead character not get XP, he will eventually be at a lower level than the party which increases his likelihood of being the next character to bite the dust.
Furthermore, that 10k gold to resurrect the fallen character is 10k gold that isn't being invested in the pseudo-zombie's AC, saving throws, ability scores, hitpoints, or other forms of defense.
As far as the "XP vs. Participation" discussion goes, my group only awards XP to the players who are present at a session. Everyone misses a game once in a while, it happens. But we have a player who routinely misses games (about 30% of the time he is a no-show), and the group feels that we shouldn't have to split our XP reward with someone who can't bother to show up. If he is present & participates, he gets his share of loot and XP. If he chooses not to show, then the rest of the party isn't docked his cut of the reward just b/c he found something else to do that night.
Thank you for the responses everyone!
I've passed the info on to our GM. I do agree he should get the experience for participating.
Generally the feeling I get here is that it would have a negative impact on the game to deny experience even though the cleric was present for a large portion of the fight. Participation should be rewarded, not punished. By in-game logic, he even experienced something all of us did not (resurrection).
I personally like the idea of individual experience by the way. Yes it may make designing encounters a bit more complex, but it also rewards individualism and making the right (or wrong!) decisions. A little disparity in experience can be a fun, competitive thing.
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Thank you for the responses everyone!
I've passed the info on to our GM. I do agree he should get the experience for participating.
Generally the feeling I get here is that it would have a negative impact on the game to deny experience even though the cleric was present for a large portion of the fight. Participation should be rewarded, not punished. By in-game logic, he even experienced something all of us did not (resurrection).
I personally like the idea of individual experience by the way. Yes it may make designing encounters a bit more complex, but it also rewards individualism and making the right (or wrong!) decisions. A little disparity in experience can be a fun, competitive thing.
Sounds like you all worked it out, and I'm glad you've found a system for XP that works for you. Lots of things in the game are like this: there's no right or wrong answer. The answer is the one that ensures you and your friends have the most fun. Happy gaming!