If my players "defeat" but don't kill an enemy who will "return later" do they get the experience reward now?
Sometimes the players cannot get a kill on a creature but have advanced the story so I feel I should reward the creature's experience at that point. The question then becomes, do they get no experience at the "later time" when they essentially re fight, and kill the foe? That would be double experience, right?
Thanks!
They should gain experience whenever they overcome an obstacle, whatever the outcome is.
Defending a town from orc raiders by chasing them off should give XP as if they had killed every attacking orc.
Hunting down and killing the already defeated orcs should not. But if the orcs have time to recover, then they are again a real challenge and should grant XP.
XP should be given whenever dire consequences are avoided.
If an attack is just a distraction and the enemy flees immediately, then I would say that not much is gained, but still a little XP.
I'm changing my prior statement:
They should gain XP whenever they play the game!
Experience is gained for overcoming an encounter. An encounter is a situation that provides the players with a challenge which must be overcome. Creatures are not worth XP directly; they impart a challenge rating to the encounter in order to determine the XP value of the challenge. This is also done by traps, environmental concerns, and even difficulty of skill checks per the GM's discretion.
Because the players will fight this creature twice as you describe, it is in fact two different challenges. Each challenge would be worth experience since they must fight two different times.
You could give them less XP for the first fight because you know the creature will only fight half way and then run for it (which would indicate the encounter had a challenge rating less than that of the monster). Then give full XP in the second fight when it stays to the bitter end.
Don't think of XP only coming out of the corpse of a fallen foe like little bubbles of happiness. They represent the progression through the adventure and sometimes require no monsters to be killed at all. For example:
The characters need to track down and stop a bandit in the woods. So they use knowledge local and diplomacy to gather information in town as to where people had seen the bandits. Then they go into the woods and use knowledge nature, knowledge local, survival, and perception to find the camp. Along the way they fight against a few animals. When they get to the camp, they decide to use bluff, climb, stealth to lie and sneak their way in. Instead of fighting the bandits, they use diplomacy and intimidate and sense motive to reason with the bandit boss. They convince him to leave the area without having to kill anyone.
You should give the players XP for gathering information, for finding the camp, for killing the animals along the way, for infiltrating the camp, and for convincing the boss to take his bandits elsewhere. The amount of XP is reasonably difficult to decide, of course. I'd consider the first two to be 1/2 the xp for an equal level CR challenge. Then for breaking in, it should be worth the amount of XP they'd have gotten for killing any bandit guards. Then for convincing the guy to leave, give them the same XP as if they killed him and his men.
If you want to promote non-combat solutions, you could even give bonus xp for each event, especially if they get creative achieving the goal.
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They would gain the XP each time they "defeat" the challenge appropriate for whatever CR that challenge is.
Liches are a great example. The PCs defeat a lich and take his stuff, but they don't destroy the phylactery. They get appropriate XP for that fight's CR. X months later when he comes for revenge, they get the XP again if they defeat him, though his CR may be lower and thus the XP reward, unless he has obtained new gear (or advanced some other way).
To summarize, if a challenge is overcome, XP is awarded, no questions.
(As a side note, I hate the XP system and just do plot-based leveling, but you have to do what works for your group.)
To be specific then, running RoTRL and the players fought Gogmurt and Tangletooth.
I awarded the 1200xp for Gogmurt, now what? 1200 again later? He WILL definitely make the encounter later a lot tougher, though it will not be in his favored terrain.
Thanks again!
If you fight the same bad guy in short order, don't give the same experience twice (just the first time). You might give some bonus XP the second time if the battle was still a challenge (the bad guy got to heal up or fell back to other minions, etc.).
However, if there's some time and the bad guy gets beefed up again, increases in ability, comes back fully replenished, etc. I'd probably at least award a substantial chunk of the XP again, if not just giving another full award.
That's how I'd typically do it, anyway.
sorry, I don't know how to use spoilers! Oops! The format isn't very clear to me.
never mind, figured it out, apologies all..
Thank you very much to whomever helped to "spoiler" my previous post!