XP awards for killing foes multiple times

[maouse]

I was wondering what the rules are for killing foes who "re-spawn" or "reform" 2d6 minutes, 2d6 hours, or 2d6 days later is ran by most people here. Do you award XP for every time the players kill the being which re-spawns? Do you only award XP after they have completely vanquished it? Do you let your players XP farm it (Silly GM, no biscuit)?

I mean, technically, they are defeating the foe, even if they are not destroying it. Kind of like driving a foe back to its original plane of existence is not killing it (and it might return, and they'd get xp for defeating it again, right?).

So how is it ran? What is RAW, versus RAI? Do people ignore RAW due to the whole "XP farming" opportunities these creatures present? Or do they ignore RAI and let their players level 20 levels overnight (with a fast re-spawning low level easy to kill mob that can't hurt them)?

[Dekalinder]

Being able to respawn is part of the challenge so no exp untill you remove the cause.

I personally run half XP on defeating them the first time, no extra XP for subsequent fights untill they remove the cause, when I award the other half and, if I deem it necessary, some extra "quest" XP award.

That is, those few campaign I actually award XP instead of "you now level up".

[Trekkie90909]

XP is rewarded when the danger is thwarted or resolved. So whisking the Ghost for example to a positive energy plane would net XP (thwarting the issue), as would setting the spirit to rest (resolving it). Disrupting the spirit, while a temporary gain which potentially reduces the difficulty of accomplishing some other task (generally worth XP and gold) is insufficient for a reward.

[Guru-Meditation]

Dekalinder wrote:

Being able to respawn is part of the challenge so no exp untill you remove the cause.

I personally run half XP on defeating them the first time, no extra XP for subsequent fights untill they remove the cause, when I award the other half and, if I deem it necessary, some extra "quest" XP award.

We use this method, too.

[blackbloodtroll]

Ah. I sometimes forget people still use XP outside of PFS.

[maouse]

blackbloodtroll wrote:

Ah. I sometimes forget people still use XP outside of PFS.

Yeh, running monster campaigns (25 pt build +25 MP monster build) with Mythic added on top... All monsters are max HP (players paid to train their HP too) with no CR changes. Have a Svirfeblin, a Kasatha and a Human Plant (pod person, from Numeria...) doing the Legacy of Fire Campaign.

Spoiler:

I was debating on giving them XP for killing the undead dwarf (Qilzar) five times, and then convincing him to leave them alone so they didn't have to kill him any more (Diplomacy 50 FTW) - five or six times XP. But this would be silly. But they did kill him a bunch of times. So I was torn. But I think 1x is enough (they still hit level 12... ). It was fun, the clever players Dimension Doored to the roof from downstairs - after several attempts were made. And though the word "notwithstanding" was used (and I got caught up in "is that the contractual use, meaning all these things apply regardless of the first thing we said" or "the standard use is that you can ignore the second thing in favor of the first thing"), I may have mis-interpreted it slightly to mean not what the writers intended, and in doing so I let them "escape" the curse for as long as their dimensional anchor spells lasted - not long - long enough to waste money on a gate scroll and do a cold run on the guy in Kelmarane and try to drag him back to the cursed citadel (they failed - or rather, he made his save). It was fun, and that is what matters. Handed Ezer over to the dragon still trapped, in the end... yeh, they got the dragon's attention... fun fun fun

Thanks for the input, just wanted to "play fair" with my players.

[Drake Brimstone]

Here is how I see it. XP is rewarded for a challenge, something that "teaches" the characters something. If they defeat a monster that has the ability to return, I would give them XP for defeating the challenge it represented when they fought it. In future fights if they use the exact same tactics and there is little or no danger to the players facing it again and again, then there is no XP in it. If the monster itself changes sufficiently to offer a different challenge, then it is worth XP again.

[Cevah]

If it respawns, then the original defeat was not a true defeat and thus not worth XP. When you defeat something, it no longer interferes with your quest/plot/.... If an archenemy escapes to cause trouble again, you get XP for foiling its current plan, but not for defeating it.

For the spoilered entry, only one set of XP. However, CR should account for the more difficult nature of defeating it. Also, a reward for creatively defeating it once and for all would not be out of line.

/cevah