I have an encounter this week with my 5th level party, where they will encounter a dragon in the major port city of Egede. The dragon will be tearing off the roof of the tavern looking to kill them due to the dragon being under an compulsion spell.
QUESTION
How do you calculate XP AND Monster CR if you have 8-10 NPCs (city guard, city wizard, merchants, etc) all trying to kill/or make the dragon flee?
I'm thinking of an epic level encounter so it would be a CR7-8 black dragon. The party is very powerful and has successfully survived CR 6/7 encounters by themselves.
I'm fairly certain you ignore NPCs when dividing XP. Whether they affect the CR (which would affect XP indirectly) is simply a judgement call. I don't know if there are any hard and fast rules per se. Although there might be something in the Game Mastery Guide. (Great book. I really need to read it more.)
Hope my lack of help helps!
Thanks for the suggestions so far. BTW EldonG, you ever hear of one of my favorite epic fantasy writers, Eldon Thompson?
check him out at eldonthompson.com. Thanks for the suggestions and let's see if anyone else wants to comment.
SOOOO, How do you calculate a party's CR level, a party's XP, and the monster's CR when you have 8-10 NPC's in the fight?
Anyone else...anyone..."Bueller"..."Bueller" (I love that movie)?
the party's level is static what changes is the cr of the encounter.
if the party has NOOOoooo way of defeating the dragon, say 4 level 3 characters vs a cr 9 dragon and all the extra npcs Have to be there to help dps/tank the dragon then adjust the cr to something more suitable say a 5 or so but if the dragon is closer to their level then just leave it and have it ignore the npc's.
side note Most npc's will/would wet themselfs at the scene you described, don't forget the fear aura.
I forget what the formula is for npc's but it's something like 5 of them with 1 level of a npc class equals a cr 1, so depending on the npc's you have in there you could adjust it that way also.
You can tally up of the CR of the "intervening" NPC's and compare it against the party, then award XP accordingly.
This would be one possible table you can use to award XP:
APL-1 or less = 100% XP
APL = 80% (4/5) XP
APL+1 = 75% (3/4) XP
APL+2 = 66% (2/3) XP
APL+3 = 50% (1/2) XP
APL+4 = 33% (1/3) XP
APL+5 = 25% (1/4) XP
APL+6 = 20% (1/5) XP
APL+7 or more = 0% XP
Obviously this is subject to GM discretion, but it makes a fairly good rule of thumb.
UPDATE with MORE Info!
The dragon is a Very Young Bronze Dragon (CR 7 vs Party level 5) and remember a Bronze Dragon is lawful good. This dragon is under an epic level compulsion spell to destroy this party. The party is being followed by the evil lich's "right hand' man. This is how they know they're in the major port city of Egede.
The dragon wants to fight the compulsion spell because it's nature is to want to help the party of adventures find the epic artifact Judgement (a sword belonging to the royal family of the country Mendev that's been lost for hundreds of years). The dragon would be billowing in sadness because the spell is counter to what it wants to be doing.
The party has already met another CG aligned CR 15 old age Copper Dragon. This dragon may arrive to help break the compulsion spell? The dragons to some degree are starting to band together to try and figure out why they''re all sick. What happens if you don't carry out an compulsion in a situation like this?
P.S. The dragon race's life force is being siphoned away due to an epic level necromantic spell, so they all look mottled, ragged, etc due to the spell. They're desperately trying to figure out what is happening to them. The lich wants to turn them into a dracolich army (the dragons don't know this yet).
If my evil lich uses the 9th level "Dominate Monster" spell on the bronze dragon, and a another good dragon (Copper Dragon) takes the dominated LG bronze dragon away from the fight to stop it from killing the party. What would happen to the bronze dragon since the spell works anywhere on this plane? The dragon was stopped at least temporarily from completing it's compulsion? There isn't any mention of breaking the spell except with a Will Save.
Dominate Monster spell with brand new description just released 45 minutes ago!
It's states a new saving throw for compulsions against it's nature.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/dominate-monster