Need advice on EXP award

[rowanlobos]

I recently ran my group through a chase scene, it was hilarious and while it was brutal for a few checks it was a great time and the party enjoyed it. I have no idea how to award exp though for. It was the one encounter and it was heavy on role play. I am running Dragon's Demand and the party just finished up the Kobold Lair and as they were returning late at night to town for healing and disease removal, As they arrived at the temple of Adabar, they found a lowly adapt tied up and the altar flipped over. I told them relics are usually kept under altars and had the adapt blurt out once ungagged that the thief had gone up the stairs.

Part 1 acrobabitcs of 15 to race up stairs while dodging toppled debris, or perception 15 to avoid the debris.

2 Roof dash, acrobatics 10 or perception 10

3 Jump the gap acrobatics 15

4 Rapelling, Climb 10

5 Crowd, perception 20, or diplomacy 15 to find out who does not belong

6 Gain entrance to a building, Diplomacy 20, Escape artist 15, or bull rush door

7 Ford the stream, swim 15, climb 10

8 Cemetery Wall Climb 20, escape artist 15

9 Find the trail Survival 15

10 Perception 10 what is missing

11. Back over the cemetery wall

12. Tense negotiations Dipomacy/bluff/intimidate

I wrapped things up with thief having been hired to retrieve an item buried by the Adabarians from during the reign off Baron Savos, the item taken from the altar was a tome confessing to various crimes during the reign of the baron...kinda like a book for the dead where the good and bad was written down. The thief gave them the tome but kept the item he retrieved from the graves, the party cleaned up the crime scene and returned to the temple where the cleric was very excited to see them and the party dropped hints that they knew what had been done, not so much blackmail but that they were trustworthy. The cleric eagerly healed them and promised to be be of future aid.

So any suggestions as to how much exp to award? They are all 3rd level, I only had 3 players last night so I though it would be nice to not have a combat encounter, though the fighter did take a slogging from failing the climb checks. The party rolled horribly during the night, two d20s were retired and my friend wanted to roll two d10s after some fantastically bad rolls.

[Corvino]

If you think it was intense, challenged the players and made them use their wits and skills as well as (or moreso) than combat then by all means give them an equivalent reward. How long did this session take compared to your typical CR-appropriate combat? If you could have run one or two full CR-appropriate combats in the same time then give them the same reward.

Sure, their lives weren't on the line, but rewarding in-character behaviour and out-of-the-box thinking will encourage them to do the same or better next time. Positive feedback is more powerful than people give it credit for.

[Jericho Graves]

This is my own opinion and I'll say right now I'm a bit generous with exp. But I'd give them the exp of at LEAST one CR 3 combat encounter, and since they are level 3, another 400 exp each for good role-playing.

Normally for role-playing I give 10% of the required exp needed for leveling. In example: Level 1 Characters need 2,000 exp to move on, so good role-playing earns 200 exp.

Level 2 characters need a total of another 3,000 exp, so I give them 300 exp.

Level 3 characters need a total of another 4,000 exp to level, so I give them 400 exp for good role-playing.