Question about shared XP.


Rules Discussion


The situation: While exploring a noble's estate looking for clues pertaining to a plot on their patron, the party split up to pursue different avenues of investigation. Each of them was attacked by a would be assassin, which they each managed to defeat or drive off.

Using the rules for adjusting xp based on party size, the encounters were worth 80xp. My question is, does each player just get 80xp for the encounter he or she had, or do they each get the xp for each encounter (so 320xp in total)?


Need more details to know the answer for sure. Specifically what level of characters, how many in each split group, and how many of what level of creatures each split group faced.

The XP rules are written, like the rest of the game is, assuming that there is only 1 party and that they don't split up and face encounters - which is why all the encounters in APs assume a 4-person party is facing them.


I second thenobledrake request for more details.

Apart from that, if a 4 players party split up into 2 groups and each group managed to kill 1 assassin, the encounter was probably a normal encounter.

I'd just consider the 2 assassins against the party ( It should be probably be something like 60xp per player ).


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Everyone gets everything.

CRB p507, Experience, XP Awards, 2nd paragraph wrote:
Any XP awarded goes to all members of the group. For instance, if the party wins a battle worth 100 XP, they each get 100 XP, even if the party’s rogue was off in a vault stealing treasure during the battle. But if the rogue collected a splendid and famous gemstone, which you’ve decided was a moderate accomplishment worth 30 XP, each member of the party gets 30 XP, too.


I would actually go in a different direction than Fuzzy-Wuzzy. It seems like functionally you just had one fight, but split both teams up into different rooms. So I would award experience as if it was one battle.

If you had a fight where an enemy casts Wall of Stone to split the party in two, and then half the enemies fought one group of PCs while the other half fought the other group of PCs, I would likewise count it as one battle with one pool of xp even though the combatants were separated.


Lost In Limbo wrote:
I would actually go in a different direction than Fuzzy-Wuzzy. It seems like functionally you just had one fight, but split both teams up into different rooms. So I would award experience as if it was one battle.

That's a big part of why I was requesting more details. The XP award rules are so tied to a 4-person party that technically the only way to actually figure out how much XP your party gains is to design the encounter as if you had a 4-person party even if you already know you're going to have a different size of party, since it's whatever XP this hypothetical 4-person version of the encounter would grant that is the reward for however many players you do have and however you adjust the encounter so it's appropriately challenging for them.


You don't award exp based on adjusted exp budgets.

The easiest way to handle it is build for difficulty tier and award based on that rather than bothering with building for 4, adjusting to 5 but awarding based on the 4.

Just choose a difficulty level, set your budget, build, and award the original un-adjusted amount.

E.G. level 1 party, 6 pcs.

Moderate difficulty
80 exp reward
+40, 120 exp budget

Goblin commando level 1(+0): 40 exp
Goblin warrior level -1(-2) x4: 20 exp each, 80 exp total

Total budget spent 120 exp
Total reward 80 exp each

Super fast and relatively consistent because it is based on difficulty tiers.

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Regarding to the split party. Same deal, figure out what difficulty budget matches what they fought.

E.G. a party of 4 level 1 characters come across a moderate encounter of goblin warriors

80xp total, 4 warriors at 20exp each.

If the party split up evenly and faced 2 warriors each.

Still worth 80xp each as the difficulty is the same.

If the group split up, 2 faced two warriors and then the group came back together and faced the remaining 2 together then it would be

80xp to two players for the first encounter

40xp to all four for the second encounter as it was now trivial difficulty rather than moderate.

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I personally don't like awarding differing exp values to players though, and PF2e tends to like to assume everyone is the same level.


The Gleeful Grognard wrote:
The easiest way to handle it is build for difficulty tier and award based on that rather than bothering with building for 4, adjusting to 5 but awarding based on the 4.

That is true, but also why I used the word "technically." Because you can have a moderate encounter that actually has 90 XP worth of enemies in it instead of exactly 80, and by RAW if you adjust that encounter to fit a 5-person party they are still supposed to get 90 XP even if the added creature perfectly hit the now 100 XP budget.


thenobledrake wrote:
That is true, but also why I used the word "technically." Because you can have a moderate encounter that actually has 90 XP worth of enemies in it instead of exactly 80, and by RAW if you adjust that encounter to fit a 5-person party they are still supposed to get 90 XP even if the added creature perfectly hit the now 100 XP budget.

Yeah, I just find the strict RAW method tends to lead to more work, for no mathmatical consistency and confuses many people so I share the alternate whenever possible.

I have to admit, when I use exp I get so lazy that I just award full exp tiers rather than totalling the monsters anyway, "70 exp for a moderate, have 80 exp instead" kinda thing. I still find milestone levelling better in 9/10 of my use cases for the system though.


This is why I like to award lvls at appropriate times vs xp every session. It saves on math everyone gets the same and keeps up. If someone does something extraordinary give something else as a reward like a minor boon from his deity or s special magic item or even an extra general feat. I still build on an encounter budget so as not to overpower my players or bore them but it makes it easier for everyone to not have to bother counting xp.


For those requesting more details: The party are level 1, and they each went a separate way, so there were 4 separate encounters. Each faced a level -1 attacker.


Chilli wrote:
For those requesting more details: The party are level 1, and they each went a separate way, so there were 4 separate encounters. Each faced a level -1 attacker.

Then each character gains 80 XP, just like they would if the 4 of them were together and fought four Level -1 creatures.

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