Should pc's be given experiance for an encounter if a monster runs away?
Should pc's be given experiance for an encounter if a monster runs away?
Yes. The PC's overcame the challenge (this is assuming the monsters ran away in some way due to PC actions) and therefore should be rewarded. Same as if they used diplomacy, force, stealth, environment (i.e. dropping a big boulder and trapping the enemy), etc.
I'd say it is an adhoc call, some creatures just really do not want to get hit, so they might actually take off before getting to that ugly part.. that wouldn't warrant full exp in most cases, the exp bonus is for defeating the challenge, when a creature flees it might be because it really was close to death (in which case full exp is ok) or because it lost interest (in which case part exp should be good).
A wizard might block a party's progress just to test them, he casts a summon monster enhancing it with a spellresistance spell and takes off to scry them from afar and estimate their potential for good or worse.
This encounter prolly will be better served by the summoned creature's CR possibly with a + 1 because of the buff, or maybe not since summoned creatures have some limitations.
Absolutely, if they were the reason it ran away. That may solve any immediate problem, albeit not with as many thrills and chills.
Smart monsters with resources to call upon will very often run away. That's when they become their most dangerous :).
Sigurd
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Hypothetical Situation:
The PCs fight an enemy wizard, who after exhausting all his spells and being reduced to 2 hit points, flees and gets away. The DM awards the party XP for defeating him.
The wizard fled to a secret stash of healing potions to recover. Several days later, the PCs face him again at full strength with all of his spells. Would they get additional XP for defeating him again?
ofcourse, that is a potential nemesis on your hands there ^^
it's like an good- / bad-guy eternal experience treaty, what is batman without Joker, HEMAN without SKELETOR, SUPERMAN without LEX LUTHOR.. anyway.. yea, it is a good thing.. besides the wizard will know what they can do now and might be better prepared this time..
Hypothetical Situation:
The PCs fight an enemy wizard, who after exhausting all his spells and being reduced to 2 hit points, flees and gets away. The DM awards the party XP for defeating him.
The wizard fled to a secret stash of healing potions to recover. Several days later, the PCs face him again at full strength with all of his spells. Would they get additional XP for defeating him again?
I would say yes. Other than a body, what’s the difference between this and fighting two different yet identical enemy wizards?
Exactly.
You need to look at an encounter with a monster or another enemy as exactly that...an ENCOUNTER. Reward PCs appropriately for overcoming the encounter. Often times this equates to the PCs killing the monster, but thats not the only way the PCs can overcome an encounter.
And when rewarding experience, look at the whole encounter and not just the individual parts. I'll adjust experience rewards based on various factors that might give one side or the other a substantial benefit. For instance, favorable terrain can give one side a huge advantage, and if its a significant enough advantage I'll increase the CR by 1 or give an ad hoc experience reward. Likewise if factors favor the PCs substantially I'll decrease the experience reward.
Really its a matter of how difficult was the encounter, and how successfully did the PCs overcome it. For instance, most encounters with a monster should get full XP for causing it to retreat. But perhaps the PCs were hired to assassinate a target...in that case causing it to retreat is not a successful result, and there would be little exp reward for that.
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I also consider the rule that the party should expend 20%-25% of their resources in an encounter when they receive full XP. Of course, not every encounter falls into suh a nice mold, but if the players don't use *any* resources, I'm likely to hold back on the XP the same way that I would increase the XP if they used an extensive amount of resources.
A pile of dead bodies is not the only indicator that the end state of 'victory' has been achieved :p
Totally. This wouldn't be a question if a PC got a major crit on his first roll and slayed a boss in one hit. The fight obviously wasn't as challenging as expected, but the job still got done. And, at the end of the day, handing out a little extra XP never hurt anyone so long as the challenges keep pace with the advancing PCs.
Should pc's be given experiance for an encounter if a monster runs away?
It all depends on why the mosters ran away.
If they were beaten, intimidated or for some other reason concede defeat to the party, then yes.
If the mosters are making harassment attacks, are making a momentary distraction or have otherwise achieved a non-lethal goal, then probably no. You can choose to award partial or ad-hoc xp for these encounters. Where some of the monsters defeated while the ones running away have actually obtained a vital objective then xp could be awarded for the ones slain only. There is no yes or no answer in these situations. You have to evaluate on how well the PCs did compared to how well the monsters did.
Hypothetical Situation:
The PCs fight an enemy wizard, who after exhausting all his spells and being reduced to 2 hit points, flees and gets away. The DM awards the party XP for defeating him.
The wizard fled to a secret stash of healing potions to recover. Several days later, the PCs face him again at full strength with all of his spells. Would they get additional XP for defeating him again?
In this case yes I would award full xp on both encounters.
If however the wizard only escapes teh scene to drink a pair of potions and pick up a wand just to reenter the fight I would say no.
In this later case part of the party's job is to track down the wizard and prevent him from carrying out his plan for the fight. However, in this second situation you should add an ad-hoc bonus to the encounter xp dependant on how dificult it is for the party to track down the wizard and disrupt his plan.
The monster CR is just a guideline though, I am tempted to give more exp when the players actually can manage to overcome a challenge without killing every single thing that moves.
The monster CR is just a guideline though, I am tempted to give more exp when the players actually can manage to overcome a challenge without killing every single thing that moves.
Good for you! So many players neglect the fun roleplaying opportunities leaving a survivor can have, and for the less scrupulous ones, you can have them get tortured for info, sold into slavery, or brow-beaten into a favor or six.
For some reason my PCs like to collect NPCs from parties they've defeated in all of my games. From kobolds to tengu to goblins... I wouldn't be surprised if they carted around a BBEG one of these days, if they found him likeable enough.
Should pc's be given experiance for an encounter if a monster runs away?
Ad-Hoc if you plan on having it return to plague the party/characters. This can be very fun as this creature/NPC continues to advance in olevels as the party does. May even discover others who have been "Wronged" by the party and unite against them.
Full if it was a non-intelligent beast that crawled away, never to be seen again.
Hypothetical Situation:
The PCs fight an enemy wizard, who after exhausting all his spells and being reduced to 2 hit points, flees and gets away. The DM awards the party XP for defeating him.
The wizard fled to a secret stash of healing potions to recover. Several days later, the PCs face him again at full strength with all of his spells. Would they get additional XP for defeating him again?
I'd give the XP twice (they face the threat and win both times - one real threat + one threat = XP twice).
IF I, as the GM decided to have the wizard flee at once without a fight the first time, then I'd just give them XP the second time... (one bogus threat + one real threat = XP for one encounter).
GRU
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Always give the XP for solving an encounter, whether by combat or otherwise. My players recently used cleverness to avoid battle with a golem and get by it without raising alarm. I gave them XP as if they had "defeated" the golem. Should they return to bypass it again, I wouldn't award XP (because there's nothing novel about the experience to warrant getting XP). Should they return to destroy it, I would award XP because they have gained experience on a situation different from the first time.
Does this mean my players will abuse my generosity by trying to double up on XP? Negative, because I'm not a computer game. Awards are flexible and situational.
A lot of gamers are hard set on killing things as the only way to gain xp. In my games, I have several different criteria that I award xp for:
1) Roleplay. Plain and simple.
2) Combat
3) Solving a situation (puzzle, social encounter, discovering useful/needed information, etc.)
So if a party comes across a bridge guarded by brigands extorting a toll, I would award xp for the encounter if they:
a) Killed all of the brigands.
b) Intimidated/beat them so they ran off
c) Convinced them to quit slacking with thier life and to go get a real job, settle down into society, and find a nice girlfriend and drop this bandit nonsense before they got themselves killed.
And they would recieve nothing for running away or simply paying the toll.
I would say yes. Other than a body, what’s the difference between this and fighting two different yet identical enemy wizards?Hypothetical Situation:
The PCs fight an enemy wizard, who after exhausting all his spells and being reduced to 2 hit points, flees and gets away. The DM awards the party XP for defeating him.
The wizard fled to a secret stash of healing potions to recover. Several days later, the PCs face him again at full strength with all of his spells. Would they get additional XP for defeating him again?
What I have done in the past, and it worked out pretty well, is when a monster/bad guy flees, and I KNOW he will be back, I award 50% experience. From that point on any defeat of that same person is 50% of the experience total.
I ran a party through a game a while back and they fought the Big Bad 4 times (each time was more of a test than an actual "to the death" fight), before the final 5th confrontation. They ended up getting 250% total experience. 50% each time they fought him. That way they get something, but in a situation where you know they will be back, it works.
-Windquake