My party recently had a very dangerous encounter. We expended close to 100% of our resources in one combat, killing all but one enemy, while losing two of our five members. The last enemy was healing itself (while killing us) faster than we could deal damage to it, so we ran. Now our GM is saying we've lost that experience we would have gained for all our successful kills in the combat because "we were defeated" and had to run. Maybe it's just me, but I feel we deserve the XP for the monsters that we defeated.
By his logic, say a wizard destroys a small army of orcs using all of his spells, only leaving one survivor, but fearing the last enemy will win in a fist fight, the wizard retreats and no longer gets XP for the 100 other orcs he fireballed and such.
Or say your party is fighting a bunch of monsters, and just before you kill the last one, a second wave of monsters arrives. Your party flees this second wave, but since initiative was never dropped, you lose all the XP from the first part of the encounter.
If that's RAW or RAI then fine, whatever, but I feel like realistically the characters would learn and grow from the combat. We risked our characters lives (and lost 40% of the party) to kill off the creatures that we did, and now we're being told it was for nothing. We get no XP for the kills now, but the monsters are now dead and gone, so it would've been better for us to have run without killing them so we could kill them later?
I would even be okay with a ruling of we get XP for them all once we return and defeat the last monster, but that's not what our GM is saying either.
Awarding Experience
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Keep a list of the CRs of all the monsters, traps, obstacles, and roleplaying encounters the PCs overcome. At the end of each session, award XP to each PC that participated. Each monster, trap, and obstacle awards a set amount of XP, as determined by its CR, regardless of the level of the party in relation to the challenge, although you should never bother awarding XP for challenges that have a CR of 10 or more lower than the APL.
(emphasis added)
Try to get your GM to re-read the Core Rule book. You can make a good argument that you get XP based on the amount of XP total of the monsters you did defeat. It doesn't say each encounter awards a certain amount of XP, it says each monster awards a certain amount of XP.
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As CrystalSeas pointed out, you have overcome part of the encounter. Next time you will not meet the fallen enemies (unless they are raised, resurrected, made undead, etc.), so that is an obstacle that has been overcome. What substitute them, if they are substituted at all, is a new obstacle, even if they are the same guy revived.
If the GM don't agree you can try a different argument: "Ok, so we haven't overcome that obstacle, but the obstacle is still the same. If we overcome it the original enemies we killed are still part of it and the relative XP should be awarded when we beat the obstacle."
If the GM don't agree, let it fall. It is not worth arguing over a few XP.
If the GM don't agree, let it fall. It is not worth arguing over a few XP.
Normally I would let it go, but we are currently level 2 and fighting ghouls, vampiric mists, and doppelgangers on a daily basis. In 4 sessions of the campaign we have now lost 4 characters. There is currently nowhere to buy or sell items, nor is there much option for which direction to explore in. We need every point of XP we can get right now, especially since new characters are coming in at the base XP for the APL. Only two characters on the team are originals from session 1, the rest are falling behind quickly (although not so much if we don't gain any XP I guess).
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Normally I would let it go, but we are currently level 2 and fighting ghouls, vampiric mists, and doppelgangers on a daily basis. In 4 sessions of the campaign we have now lost 4 characters. There is currently nowhere to buy or sell items, nor is there much option for which direction to explore in. We need every point of XP we can get right now, especially since new characters are coming in at the base XP for the APL. Only two characters on the team are originals from session 1, the rest are falling behind quickly (although not so much if we don't gain any XP I guess).
If the GM don't agree, let it fall. It is not worth arguing over a few XP.
Let's me guess: replacements start with 0 xp characters and starting equipment, not as characters with the current party level/xp and similar equipment?
Then probably it isn't worth arguing with the GM, but for different reasons. It can be inexperience or meanness, but your GM don't seem good at balancing scenarios. Depending on the situation you can try to change is GMing stile or try to find a new GM.
Is everyone having fun?
If not, have you explained what's not fun to the DM?
Does everyone want to continue not having fun if this is just the way it's going to be the whole trip?
I've learned very early on, parties that don't level together suck, let alone being different levels. You have to some work around for death and revival, put you can usually just turn it into a quest and have one of the pcs only temporarily lower level.
It sounds like you have a killing dm, that only cares about "beating" you. I'd suggest a chat with him and if things don't change, find someone else to DM.