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Several people around our table seem to remember something along the lines of "when the average party level (APL) is X amount higher than the encounter's challenge rating, you don't gain any experience." This is for stuff like a 10th level party encountering a single goblin sentry and slitting his throat, or bypassing a pretty easy CR2 trap. Problem is, none of us can agree on how many levels "X" is (guesses include 5, 8 and 10), and none of us can remember where in the rules to look to find something that officially backs this up. Google Fu has been unhelpful to this point.
Any rules lawyers with eidetic memories know if/where this rule officially exists?
In PF I don't recall that rule surviving. It isn't in the OGL because the specifics on the gaining of XP was one of the sections that was never included.
A 10th level party would have to massacre vast numbers of goblins to advance to 11th ... and they wouldn't have earned enough loot to keep up WBL ...
200,000 xp (50,000 per PC x4) takes more than 1,481 book-standard goblins to earn. That's a lotta goblins. ;)
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In PF I don't recall that rule surviving. It isn't in the OGL because the specifics on the gaining of XP was one of the sections that was never included.
A 10th level party would have to massacre vast numbers of goblins to advance to 11th ... and they wouldn't have earned enough loot to keep up WBL ...
200,000 xp (50,000 per PC x4) takes more than 1,481 book-standard goblins to earn. That's a lotta goblins. ;)
True, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference in the grand scheme, but I have two engineers and an accountant (IRL) sitting at the table. They're very much of the bean counter variety. :) So it was a 3.5 rule that didn't make the jump?
True, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference in the grand scheme, but I have two engineers and an accountant (IRL) sitting at the table. They're very much of the bean counter variety. :) So it was a 3.5 rule that didn't make the jump?In PF I don't recall that rule surviving. It isn't in the OGL because the specifics on the gaining of XP was one of the sections that was never included.
A 10th level party would have to massacre vast numbers of goblins to advance to 11th ... and they wouldn't have earned enough loot to keep up WBL ...
200,000 xp (50,000 per PC x4) takes more than 1,481 book-standard goblins to earn. That's a lotta goblins. ;)
Correct. The above example also puts back into Pathfinder the old 1e/2e "-ism" of "The 13th Level Fighter is only 320 XP away from 14th level! EVERYBODY HIDE!!"
So it was a 3.5 rule that didn't make the jump?
Yes. For PF, you gain XP for all encounters, though as mentioned extremely low level encounters provide minimal returns in relation to amount needed to go up at later levels.
Each monster, trap, and obstacle awards a set amount of XP, as determined by its CR, regardless of the level of the party in relation to the challenge, although you should never bother awarding XP for challenges that have a CR of 10 or more lower than the APL..
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Great stuff, wraithstrike.
So the APL 10 party doesn't get XP for anything less than CR 1/2 (such as a book-standard CR 1/3 goblin). They still get XP for the CR 2 trap. ;)
The 3.5 rule was essentially the same, but the threshold was 8 CR below the party level.
Each monster, trap, and obstacle awards a set amount of XP, as determined by its CR, regardless of the level of the party in relation to the challenge, although you should never bother awarding XP for challenges that have a CR of 10 or more lower than the APL..
Where does this appear?
CRB, Gamemastering, Awarding Experience, 2nd paragraph.
CRB, Gamemastering, Awarding Experience, 2nd paragraph.
Thanks.
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World-building side-rant:
Consider a city watchman on his first day on the job. During his night patrol (new guy gets the crappy shift), he and his fellow watchmen break up three drunken brawls and chase down a thief and bring him to justice. 4 encounters. Assuming they were of a proper CR for his level, he's now about 1/5 of the way to second level. By the end of the week, he might be second level. Another week or so, third level. A couple more weeks, fourth level. A few more weeks to fifth level and a few more to sixth level.
Yep, that's 6th level in two months.
And no, that is not assuming he is always getting CR appropriate encounters - I'm assuming they always stay at CR1. He will level up much faster if his DM keeps throwing level-appropriate encounters at him, leveling in less than half the time.
So why are almost all town guards still only 1st level? Are they all dying so everyone is a new recruit? Where do you keep hiring people for a job when they can plainly see that their life expectancy is less than one week?
OK, so maybe that was aggressive. Even Gotham City doesn't have that much nightly crime. So spread those 4 encounters out over a whole week. Now it takes a little under a year to reach sixth level. Spread them out over a whole month, that's only one encounter per week, and the guy is still sixth level before his 5-year anniversary on the job.
Even spreading it out to one encounter per month, the guy will be sixth level before he reaches his 20-year pension. Besides, it's a pretty quiet town that only has one crime every month.
And since they keep on getting XP until they reach 11th level at which time they only get XP from the better criminals (those of higher than first level).
If you factor in that the thieves are also gaining levels for successful crimes and for guard encounters (that usually means escaping), I'm sure even a veteran 11th level guard will get some XP action some of the time.
Looking at it this way, your average city watch patrol should have 4 guys, ranging in levels from a newbie at level 1-3, a couple older guys at levels 4-6, and a watch sergeant at levels 7-9, while some watchmen who have been around a while might be into the double digits.
But you never see it that way in published materials. I guess watchmen never get any action, at least until PCs come to town at which time the world gets chaotic fast and all bets are off.
town guards are no heroes and they dont go out adventuring they might catch a thief once and a while!
Why are town guards level 1? High turnover rate. As soon as they get to level 2 they demand wage increases (to keep at the correct gold per level) which are usually denied so the town guard leave the watch and becomes a level 2 sellswords. Contractors are always paid better. But not much so when he gets to level 3 he decides the highway patrol guard (lvl 3) will be a better fit... etc etc.
I tend to think of regular NPC's as gaining about one level per age category, and 1000 xp per 10 years of age above the adulthood limit.
Yes, this means the long-lived races are generally higher level, but that's part of the point for me. :)
Why track experience? Just level up when appropriate for the story.
Ignore my earlier post, don't know why it ended up in this thread. Now it's too late to delete or edit, sorry for posting confusing messages.
Why track experience? Just level up when appropriate for the story.
The reason for experience is to constantly feel some sense of accomplishment from your play since it's a game. You could do nothing else and just get XP and that has a psychological impact of reward even if you got nothing else. It has nothing to do with making sense along the lines of "it's a cheap trick to stroke egos." It has to do with the psychology of gameplay.
Also level by checkpoint style progression requires players stay on rails. If they jump the rail and go off on a tangent for a while they should be rewarded for what they did during that time. Once they come back to the rail then you need to re-evaluate your levelling points as they will no doubt feel off from the progression you had planned. If you artificially stagnate levelling while off rails then you're taking away one of the core ways players are rewarded for play: levelling up.
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Why track experience? Just level up when appropriate for the story.The reason for experience is to constantly feel some sense of accomplishment from your play since it's a game. You could do nothing else and just get XP and that has a psychological impact of reward even if you got nothing else. It has nothing to do with making sense along the lines of "it's a cheap trick to stroke egos." It has to do with the psychology of gameplay.
Also level by checkpoint style progression requires players stay on rails. If they jump the rail and go off on a tangent for a while they should be rewarded for what they did during that time. Once they come back to the rail then you need to re-evaluate your levelling points as they will no doubt feel off from the progression you had planned. If you artificially stagnate levelling while off rails then you're taking away one of the core ways players are rewarded for play: levelling up.
I could be wrong, but I think he may have meant "Why track experience for NPCs?"