I'm not sure this is the correct place to post this but I cannot seem to find it written anywhere.
When I run a game I divide the combat EXP among the players, as each helped in combat.
Do I do the same for story EXP? I am currently running Wrath of the Righteous and it says that by part 3 the players should be right around 3rd level.
My players, with all EXP split evenly have earned 3000 exp which isn't quite level 3.
However if I only split combat exp and award Story exp per player then they would have just over 6k which is just over 3rd level. Is this how the writers planned exp to be awarded? I've never run from a set AP before only home written games.
Thanks in advance.
We just had this exact same issue come up in our WotR game on Sat, where it says the PCs should be "catapulted" into 6th level from the final fight. After looking at all the XP we received, we still would have been 1k or so short of 6th, had the GM not decided to put us at a flat XP total after all was said and done. The only thing I can think caused it would be a lack of enough random encounters in the course of our playthrough.
Don't forget that there IS a random encounter table for part 1 under kenebres, but it's not called out in that part of the adventure. You have to look in the back of the book to find it.
I think the story XP is generally supposed to be awarded per player, on the other hand you could always throw in some extra adventures using the side quests or your own stuff to make up the difference. Really it comes down to how you want to run the game.
Right now my group is playing the Serpent Skull AP and our DM just decided that We level when he says we do. So we are pretty much not tracking XP gains at all, he just looks at the guide in the front that says "PCs should be X level when they start this part" and that's the level we are when we get there.
Honestly We find it takes a lot of pressure off us. Lets the group focus on the goals of the adventure instead of focusing on how many things to kill for next level.
I've always looked up the CR equivalent and use that table to award XP per player. There was only a single instance where a flat XP reward didn't match a CR equivalent award. In that case, we just divided it by the number of players.
If the party is together, everyone gains some experience from the story. If the party splits, then each character gains experience separately.
The easy way to do it is to skip XP altogether. When you get to the point in the adventure where it says 'the PCs should be level X by now', just level them up.
I can't remember where, but I remember JJ saying that they don't do per player XP amounts.
Normally I would go with the just level them all up at once but we are trying something new this time and a couple of people are gestalting based on the multi-class rules from the older (2nd) editions.