Encounter XP or Monster XP

[timeaisis]

A quick question about designing encounters. Say I'm putting together a CR 2 encounter, giving me a 600 XP budget. I decide I want Skeletons (1/3 CR, 135 XP). I can have 4 Skeletons before going over the budget. Instead of adding another creature in to make it an even 600, I leave it the way it is, for 540 XP.

My question is, when awarding XP do I do it monster by monster CR/XP or encounter by encounter. Do I give the party 600 XP, or 540 XP? Or should I just fill the gap with little creature?

[Are]

You award XP for each individual monster.

The encounter-CR calculation is only to determine how appropriate/easy/hard an encounter is for the party.

[DrDeth]

Now, my suggestion is to skip eps altogether and just decide when the party levels.

[evolved]

DrDeth wrote:

Now, my suggestion is to skip eps altogether and just decide when the party levels.

Feel free, but keep a close eye on treasure (most likely the party will be lagging monetarily) when you ad-hoc level the party. On overall/average the party will get correct WBL from encounters around their CR until they level. If you level the party on a whim they will most likely have the incorrect amount of treasure for their party level.

[TriOmegaZero]

They could get an incorrect amount of treasure by fighting nothing but 'no treasure' encounters that gave exactly enough XP for each level. They could get twice their WBL and end up with effectively nothing by spending it on roleplay effects.

CR and WBL are rough guidelines. There's no reason to do all the math for XP if you don't want to.