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So I’m trying to not use milestones in the Age of Ashes AP and want to hand out XP after each encounter. Some of the encounters have XP listed but for the ones that don’t, what does Severe X mean.
I’ve read table 10-2 Creature XP and Role (page 489 Core Rulebook) is that the reward that the players get? Does the Severe/Moderate/Low modify the amount of XP earned?
What am I missing?
It's a bit hard to get to this, but if your group is at the level the encounter indicates and you have a 4 person party, you can use table 10-1 and use the 'Character Adjustment' 'XP Budget' column as XP reward per character.
e.g. 4 characters level 2 against a severe 2 encounter nets every player 30XP 120XP.
For more or less PCs it's recommended to adjust the encounter, to hand out the same XP per player.
Should your players stumble upon an encounter of higher level than they are, the easy solution is to go down 1 line per level difference, as it's a higher challenge. A low 4 encounter is a (roughly) moderate challenge for level 3, and severe for level 2.
You must add the xp of each individual monster and make the calculation by yourself.
For example, a monster level -1 will award 30xp to your party. If you have 3 of them (Moderate encounter) it would award 90xp per character.
e.g. 4 characters level 2 against a severe 2 encounter nets every player 30XP.
You must not divide the xp of the encounter by the number of characters. A Severe encounter is 120 xp per character.
You must not divide the xp of the encounter by the number of characters.
That was Pathfinder 1 rules shining through, right? damn. Sorry Moulson!
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So I’m trying to not use milestones in the Age of Ashes AP and want to hand out XP after each encounter. Some of the encounters have XP listed but for the ones that don’t, what does Severe X mean.
Severe X means that for a level X party, this encounter should feel "severe" in difficulty. It also means that the XP value for the opposition in the encounter should add up to a certain amount of XP (120 in the case of Severe).
I’ve read table 10-2 Creature XP and Role (page 489 Core Rulebook) is that the reward that the players get? Does the Severe/Moderate/Low modify the amount of XP earned?
What am I missing?
Yes, that table shows how much XP the monster is worth. XP for monsters is relative to the level of the players when they fight it. If you get to that encounter a level early, it's gonna be worth more XP, because it's harder.
The Sever/Moderate/Low is a name for how hard the encounter should feel, and how much XP you get to shop together monsters for the encounter. If you want a Severe encounter you can buy 120XP worth of monsters.
Or going from the other direction, if your party comes to an encounter and compared to their level, those monsters are worth 120XP, they've just walked into a Severe encounter and you have an idea of how difficult this should be.
So if the book says Severe 3, that's an encounter designed to be tough for a level 3 party. If the party skipped some side quests and didn't get that XP so they're only level 2 when they get to your Severe 3 encounter, it's actually much more than Severe for your party and you might want to adjust it a bit (or chase them away and let them come back when they've leveled).
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Not wanting to use milestones is perfectly fine, but you have a bit more responsibility to ensure the players can earn enough XP, even if they end up skipping some encounters. And it can be good to have some idea of how it'll work if the party wants to run away. (I recommend the GMG chase mechanics.)
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I have a question (sorry for the necro).
I am reading through Fall of Plaguestone. There is an encounter on Page 5 (trying not to give spoilers.) It is a severe 1 encounter. Characters at this point are all level 1.
There are 3 creatures that are Creature -1 (so those would be 30 XP each, correct?) and one Creature 2 (which is 60 xp) for a total XP of 150 for each character if they overcome the encounter.
But, looking at the encounter building stuff, a Severe Encounter budget is 120 XP, not 150 XP. Did I calculate this wrong>
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I have a question (sorry for the necro).
I am reading through Fall of Plaguestone. There is an encounter on Page 5 (trying not to give spoilers.) It is a severe 1 encounter. Characters at this point are all level 1.
There are 3 creatures that are Creature -1 (so those would be 30 XP each, correct?) and one Creature 2 (which is 60 xp) for a total XP of 150 for each character if they overcome the encounter.
But, looking at the encounter building stuff, a Severe Encounter budget is 120 XP, not 150 XP. Did I calculate this wrong>
Actually you made a mistake.
A creature -1 is 20xp, because it is two levels below a level 1 PC (1 -1 is 0 -1 is -1)
Therefore its:
20xp per level -1 creatures for 60 xp
60xp for level 2 creature for a total of 120 xp.