Stupid XP Question

[Koren n'Rhys]

Hey all,
I'm curious how you go about splitting up XP for a small victory among party members.

I use the OD&D 100XP/HD rule in my B/X game for faster leveling and ease of calculation. Say a party of three kills a single 1 HD monster for 100 XP. Do you divide that among the three PCs or give them each 100?

What if you have a couple hirelings that earn 1/2 XP? Would it then be 25 XP per PC and 12 to each hireling, or 100 per PC and 50 per hireling?

Logically I'd split it up, but I'm wondering if giving everyone full XP would speed along advancement without breaking anything.

Thoughts?

[Ynas Midgard]

If I was not to divide XP for combat among the party members, I would give much less XP for individual monsters, something like 20 XP/HD, double for powerful special abilities.

By the way, the question is very good, because if the XP is divided, it discourages hiring henchmen, as they are potential "XP stealers".

[aldarron]

Another way to do that would be 100/5 = 20 XP for the PC's and 10 XP (20/2) for the hirelings. <shrug>

However, I'm sure the original intention was to give the full amount (100 XP in your example), not divided by number of PC's. (hence Gary's comment in Greyhawk p. 12 that it was a "ridiculous" amount).

What's not clear to me is whether you could share XP at all. In fact, the silence on the matter of shared XP in the rules and the fact that the references (even in Arneson's manuscript) only ever talk about the single PC who killed the creature, seem pretty intentional. What I mean is, that the character who got in the killing blow gets the XP and the others don't get squat.

So in your above example, one first level PC would get 100 XP (or one Hireling would get 50 XP) and the others would get nothing for the kill. They all would get XP for their share of the loot, however.

[talysman]

I divide the monster instead of the XP. A party of 5 versus 15 goblins means each character killed 3 goblins (whether they did so literally or not doesn't matter to me.) If the number doesn't divide evenly, divide the hit dice.

Mathematically identical, I know, except that I count a fractional HD as a whole HD, so there's a rounding error in the player's favor. But divvying up HD first and then multiplying by 100 is pretty easy, compared to multiplying by 100 first and accounting for every last point.

Oh, and hirelings get nothing. Only henchmen get half XP in my game.

[Deleted]

Divide it up. IN fact, cut the numbers in half and THEN divide it up.

XP comes from GOLD, not monster kills. Wandering monsters are supposed to be a hazard, not XP on the hoof.

[starcraft]

I never liked the gold = xp myself (I understand the game function of it, I just never liked it). I was always a fan of limited wealth style campaigns, so I was always looking for XP enhancements to offset the expectation that money would provide the bulk of XPs.

I did many things (roleplaying rewards, xp for disarming traps and other class skills like turning undead etc). but one of the first was the non-split of XP. If a defeated monster was worth 100xp, everyone who contributed to the fight got 100 xp. If the thief ran and hid, he got no xp for killing the bad guy. If the MU stood in the back and decided not to risk himself, he got nothing. Clerics who healed the front liners or wizards who used buffs on others were contributors.

Considering the lethality of OD&D, it never seemed to make people level too quickly as there was enough non combat XP to be had to make players wary of charging ahead at every monster they saw...

[llenlleawg]

Feb 14, 2012 14:11:48 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Divide it up. IN fact, cut the numbers in half and THEN divide it up.

XP comes from GOLD, not monster kills. Wandering monsters are supposed to be a hazard, not XP on the hoof.

I would rather say that a wise party of adventurers seeks more XP from gold than from kills. However, I've never understood the hostility to getting a decent XP reward from successful combat. To borrow a term from the cool kids, it provides more "player agency". How? It gives them real choice about adventures, and part of the risk of achieving heroic status merely by monster slaying is the real risk of death in every combat. So, if you survive, good for you, here's your reward! Take away the meaningful reward from a successful kill and you force the players only to seek a means to find treasure. Still, you may have a different experience (pun intended) than I have had.

This is also why I find Gary's calling the 100 xp/HD rule ridiculous itself a ridiculous claim, and it seems to depend a great deal on, say, frequency of combat in a campaign, as well, if not more, on how often the players play.

To get to the original post, however, I would say divide among the total number of meaningful participants (i.e. not Perkin the peasant hired as a torchbearer or mule-tender) to find each individual's reward, with henchmen only getting half that amount.

[Deleted]

Feb 14, 2012 16:25:28 GMT -6 llenlleawg said:

This is also why I find Gary's calling the 100 xp/HD rule ridiculous itself a ridiculous claim, and it seems to depend a great deal on, say, frequency of combat in a campaign, as well, if not more, on how often the players play.

Perhaps it is a matter of misinterpretation? I always thought EGG meant the actual amount of 100 XP to be the problem. I base this opinion upon the reduced XP award suggested in Greyhawk. IMC I use the 100 XP/HD formula but the GH table seems to scale rather nicely.

Just a thought.

[Koren n'Rhys]

Thanks for the input everyone!
To be clear - simple hirelings like torchbearers would not get any XP. I'm talking more of leveled henchmen here, who would also be getting a share of treasure rather than being paid a set wage.
I agree that giving everyone involved a full 100/HD seems high. I'm inclined to split that amount among the party if I use that rule. OTOH, if I stick to the BTB values from B/X, then they are low enough to give the full amount to everyone.

Food for thought.

Edited to add: Back when I played 2e in college, I recall the DM giving the XP to whoever killed the monster. Seems to me to promote inter-party competition rather than cooperation though - not what I want in my game, I think.

[Deleted]

If you want to know why you get crap experience for monster kills, go read Knights of the Dinner Table.

[Stormcrow]

Feb 14, 2012 9:15:32 GMT -6 aldarron said:

However, I'm sure the original intention was to give the full amount (100 XP in your example), not divided by number of PC's. (hence Gary's comment in Greyhawk p. 12 that it was a "ridiculous" amount).

I don't think 100 XP per HD was the intention at all. Yes, it's given in an example, but it's not given as a "rule." I believe the real intention was that the judge would hand out whatever amount of XP he thought was appropriate, and for the purpose of this example let's assume the judge has decided on 100 XP per HD.

So don't stick to 100 XP per HD as if that's "by the book."

[blackbarn]

I've been giving 100 XP per HD, and split it evenly amongst the PCs. I don't give zero-level hirelings anything, because they are not classed and do not gain levels. If a hireling is a leveled NPC, I would add them in for a cut (possibly an equal share, maybe not... it has not come up yet.)

[Deleted]

Feb 14, 2012 16:52:23 GMT -6 @dubeers said:

Perhaps it is a matter of misinterpretation? I always thought EGG meant the actual amount of 100 XP to be the problem. I base this opinion upon the reduced XP award suggested in Greyhawk. IMC I use the 100 XP/HD formula but the GH table seems to scale rather nicely.

Just a thought.

Yes; 100 XP per hit die was ridiculously LARGE!!!!!

[Deleted]

Oct 30, 2012 21:45:01 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Yes; 100 XP per hit die was ridiculously LARGE!!!!!

(chuckle) Well, it worked okay for me!

[Alex]

Oct 30, 2012 21:45:01 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Feb 14, 2012 16:52:23 GMT -6 @dubeers said:

Perhaps it is a matter of misinterpretation? I always thought EGG meant the actual amount of 100 XP to be the problem. I base this opinion upon the reduced XP award suggested in Greyhawk. IMC I use the 100 XP/HD formula but the GH table seems to scale rather nicely.

Just a thought.

Yes; 100 XP per hit die was ridiculously LARGE!!!!!

Okay, Mike. Do you actually know if Gary gave XP per monster out to every character in a party or if he gave XP per monster to the party and characters divided it up?

Here's how I see it. I always hated the D&D XP tables (having started with Mentzer Basic). The problem with the tables was that low hit die monsters were worth practically nothing, yet they still were very likely to kill your 1st level character, and the increased danger from a special ability like poison, invisibility, curse, etc was not reflected by the tiny value for special abilities (+1 XP at the start of the table). To that add that a typical party of 8-10 that defeats a low-hit-die threat then needs to figure out how to divide a small amount of experience by a comparable number of characters/retainers. Actually the DM does the division, but the point is why even both with all that math to find out each character gains 4.777 XP from a given yet typical encounter? It would be faster and more to the point to say no XP comes from a typical encounter and be done with it! It was the mid-2000s when I learned of the 100/HD method in OD&D. I think Gary's complaint was not that it was too much, since his XP rewards actually outpace the M&M rewards after about levels 6-9 (earlier with special abilities). I think his complaint was in the simplicity of the system. Gary always seemed to belittle simple approaches and put forward the most convoluted counter-proposals in his writings. I now use the "ridiculous" system with great comfort (I don't even have XP values calculated in notes/adventures when I run games) compared to the old days of BECMI when I had to spend 30 minutes computing XP at the end of a night (even longer with AD&D).

[Deleted]

Monster xp was CRAP.

At the end of the adventure, we'd divvy up the gold. "Okay, we each get 2745 gold." Then Gary would say what percentage we got. "Full Xp, 75% XP, whatever" based on his estimate of how challenging it was. If somebody was close to leveling, Gary might give a few XP for monsters.

Usually he didn't even bother with monster XP. When you're splitting several thousand gold pieces, a few dozen XP aren't worth the bother.

However, if we took no treasure we'd get a tiny bit of monster XP... which was DIVIDED UP BETWEEN CHARACTERS.

[zeraser]

To your original question: I'd give everyone 100 experience points. Dies ist die Zeit der Könige nicht mehr, to quote Hölderlin; if it becomes a problem that the characters advance more quickly than you or they would like, there are plenty of provisional solutions you can pursue.

[tombowings]

If you want player to be struggling for money, may XP from gold spent not just gained. Should solve most of your problems.

[blackbarn]

We play 2-4 times a month for a couple hours per session. At that rate, 100 xp per HD, split among PCs, works great. Treasure still awards XP, too, but the relatively high XP from monsters helps through the low levels, and will not seem so great once they are encountering deadlier beasts and still not getting any more xp to account for those monsters' special attacks. I think you've really got to tailor it to your own group and needs, no matter what anyone or any book says, otherwise it may not work out well in your campaign.

[runequester]

They thought the 100/HD was "by the book" enough to specifically disown it in Greyhawk

The way I run things is that you do count henchmen as half characters.

So if I have 3 PC's and 2 henchmen, there's 8 shares, with 1 for each henchman, and 2 for each PC. (rather than giving the henchman a full share and wasting half)


I have taken the fact that every post-OD&D version of D&D shares XP to assume they always intended that, but the original rules, far as I can tell, never really addresses it. It seems to be one of those things where the text is written by the guys who know how to play the game, so they never thought to explain it.