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Post by captainjapan on Oct 7, 2022 8:30:28 GMT -6
Follow up question: Does this belie the practice of evenly splitting XP awards, fighter/magic-user, for elves? Wouldn't players have to declare, one way or the other (fighter/magic-user) at the beginning of each delve, in order for the dm to fairly award the fractional XP?
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Post by hamurai on Oct 9, 2022 9:07:18 GMT -6
I've rarely done that. Follow up question: Does this belie the practice of evenly splitting XP awards, fighter/magic-user, for elves? Wouldn't players have to declare, one way or the other (fighter/magic-user) at the beginning of each delve, in order for the dm to fairly award the fractional XP? When I did, I had the players calculate their respective rewards depending on their level. If you have a group who likes using calculators, that's not a big issue. It does slow down the game, though, so I pretty much forget it these days. |
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Post by Starbeard on Oct 10, 2022 21:58:17 GMT -6
I don't think I've ever prorated XP awards. It feels like double-dipping since the XP tables already do that for you by doubling the XP threshold each level. After a time you're just not going to make any more headway loitering around first dungeon level areas.
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Post by Finarvyn on Oct 10, 2022 22:34:14 GMT -6
It's an interesting question, as when you hit a certain level the XP seems to stagnate so that it's hard to continue advancement.
I've scaled XP down, but never up.
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Post by hamurai on Oct 10, 2022 23:29:06 GMT -6
It's an interesting question, as when you hit a certain level the XP seems to stagnate so that it's hard to continue advancement. I guess the idea is to go looking for ever harder challenges. At some point, even an army of orcs won't teach you new stuff. |
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Post by Finarvyn on Oct 11, 2022 4:13:21 GMT -6
It's an interesting question, as when you hit a certain level the XP seems to stagnate so that it's hard to continue advancement. I guess the idea is to go looking for ever harder challenges. At some point, even an army of orcs won't teach you new stuff. Probably, which is how Gods, Demi gods & Heroes became our monster manual at one point. It does certainly change the flavor of the campaign, however. |
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Post by captainjapan on Oct 11, 2022 8:14:32 GMT -6
I just had the thought that the reason for the fractional XP awards rule ,in Men & Magic, might be to coax players into fighting fantastic (as in, the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement) type opponents. Otherwise, sure, a high level fighter might seek out scores of man-type opponents to fight, instead.
Like, maybe the rule is to provoke players into engaging more unique (and deadly) monsters that they would otherwise flee.
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Post by Starbeard on Oct 11, 2022 15:01:45 GMT -6
I just had the thought that the reason for the fractional XP awards rule ,in Men & Magic, might be to coax players into fighting fantastic (as in, the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement) type opponents. Otherwise, sure, a high level fighter might seek out scores of man-type opponents to fight, instead. Like, maybe the rule is to provoke players into engaging more unique (and deadly) monsters that they would otherwise flee. That's true. And actually, after posting my own response above, I realized that I was also thinking of the post-Greyhawk monster XP conventions. For low HD monsters, at least, it can make a big difference to use the LBB rule for monster XP, and I can see the rationale as it was originally presented. Consider a warband of 30-300 orcs, averaging 165. Without worrying about special orcs in the mix, we'll just say that's 165 bog standard orcs: it would take a very large party multiple sessions to root out that band, but it's not unreasonable to think that one or two high level characters, equipped with the right magic and very clever strategic play, could handle them alone. Post-Greyhawk, that's a total average of (something like) 3,882 XP from Type D treasure and 1,650 XP from monsters. Split two ways those name level guys are coming away with 2,766 XP, which is a drop in the bucket. But with LBB monster XP in play, that's now over 10,000 XP on average to split between two high level characters, for proverbially nuking a tribe of orcs from high orbit at no threat to themselves: still not a huge amount, but easy enough that you could make a career of it and still advance slow and steady, always from a safe distance. With the right materials at your disposal, in one session you might be able to locate a number of such tribes through magic, flit your way to their lairs through more magic, and zap them to smithereens, all without breaking much of a sweat. |
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Post by Desparil on Oct 11, 2022 18:45:39 GMT -6
I just had the thought that the reason for the fractional XP awards rule ,in Men & Magic, might be to coax players into fighting fantastic (as in, the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement) type opponents. Otherwise, sure, a high level fighter might seek out scores of man-type opponents to fight, instead. Like, maybe the rule is to provoke players into engaging more unique (and deadly) monsters that they would otherwise flee. That's true. And actually, after posting my own response above, I realized that I was also thinking of the post-Greyhawk monster XP conventions. For low HD monsters, at least, it can make a big difference to use the LBB rule for monster XP, and I can see the rationale as it was originally presented. Consider a warband of 30-300 orcs, averaging 165. Without worrying about special orcs in the mix, we'll just say that's 165 bog standard orcs: it would take a very large party multiple sessions to root out that band, but it's not unreasonable to think that one or two high level characters, equipped with the right magic and very clever strategic play, could handle them alone. Post-Greyhawk, that's a total average of (something like) 3,882 XP from Type D treasure and 1,650 XP from monsters. Split two ways those name level guys are coming away with 2,766 XP, which is a drop in the bucket. But with LBB monster XP in play, that's now over 10,000 XP on average to split between two high level characters, for proverbially nuking a tribe of orcs from high orbit at no threat to themselves: still not a huge amount, but easy enough that you could make a career of it and still advance slow and steady, always from a safe distance. With the right materials at your disposal, in one session you might be able to locate a number of such tribes through magic, flit your way to their lairs through more magic, and zap them to smithereens, all without breaking much of a sweat. This is kind of the same thing I was thinking - I've never used fractional XP in actual practice, but if I were to run a game according to the unmodified LBB rule of 100 XP per hit die, then I would probably want to use fractional XP as well. |
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Post by tkdco2 on Oct 12, 2022 12:58:55 GMT -6
I can see it working in later editions (3.0 and beyond) of D&D because
1. Required XP to level up are lower than in older editions.
2. All classes require the same amount of XP to level up.
3. XP is awarded solely on defeating monsters.
It can be done in older editions, but it makes awarding XP more more complicated than it needs to be. and high-level characters will have to either fight more monsters or gain more treasure in the long run. Yes, you can just throw powerful monsters at them, but did all the orcs and skeletons just disappear?
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Post by Starbeard on Oct 12, 2022 13:11:39 GMT -6
True. And for another counter argument: if the game has gotten to the point where your astral hopping wizard can't think of anything better to do than scry and blot out every bugbear tribe on the map, or loiter around on the first few megadungeon levels, then maybe the DM needs to step it up and crank the game world into gear. There ought to be things out there forcing the wizard to think about matters at wizardly levels.
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Post by tkdco2 on Oct 12, 2022 14:01:26 GMT -6
High level characters should have more important things to worry about than a small group of orcs or bandits. But keep in mind they're often landowners or lords of their own domains, and the outside world will intrude on their realms. In the case of a minor threat, sending their retainers to deal with it is appropriate, but on a wider scale, such as a war, they will need to get personally involved, even if the enemy force is mainly comprised of low-level monsters.
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Post by hamurai on Oct 12, 2022 15:03:45 GMT -6
It can be done in older editions, but it makes awarding XP more more complicated than it needs to be. and high-level characters will have to either fight more monsters or gain more treasure in the long run. Yes, you can just throw powerful monsters at them, but did all the orcs and skeletons just disappear? They're in the upper levels of the dungeon  |
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Post by waysoftheearth on Oct 12, 2022 16:19:12 GMT -6
I find the relative XP award rule (M&M p18) to be a bit impractical/misaligned with my regular practice of awarding XP at the end of the adventure. I guess reading it exactly as written, it could be implied that experience is awarded in situ, on the spot, as each monster is defeated or treasure is gained. This would make it plausible to know what dungeon level the encounter was on, and what level each player in the group was, at the moment the XP were awarded, and to therefore calculate the relative award. However, there is advice elsewhere (including from Gygax) that experience is all awarded at the end of the adventure. In this case, the ref would require detailed notes of all the above information in order to calculate the relative experience ratios for each individual encounter that happened along the way (each with a potentially different mix of players, versus different monsters on different dungeon levels). For me, this is too much overhead, and I just don't do it. For many of my games I've awarded XP for treasure only, at the standard 1 XP per GP rate, which probably (I tell myself) makes up for any potentially missed XP for slaying monsters  |
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Post by tkdco2 on Oct 12, 2022 16:57:23 GMT -6
It can be done in older editions, but it makes awarding XP more more complicated than it needs to be. and high-level characters will have to either fight more monsters or gain more treasure in the long run. Yes, you can just throw powerful monsters at them, but did all the orcs and skeletons just disappear? They're in the upper levels of the dungeon Or in the wilderness or their own villages, since I don't use dungeons (or at least megadungeons) too often nowadays. Monsters usually have enough brains to avoid obviously powerful parties, but why would they fight fair? They can set ambushes or use poison. They may or may not work, but they may still avoid a straight-up fight. Meanwhile, the PCs won't appreciate these tactics and would probably retaliate. |
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Post by Desparil on Oct 12, 2022 19:09:31 GMT -6
I find the relative XP award rule (M&M p18) to be a bit impractical/misaligned with my regular practice of awarding XP at the end of the adventure. I guess reading it exactly as written, it could be implied that experience is awarded in situ, on the spot, as each monster is defeated or treasure is gained. This would make it plausible to know what dungeon level the encounter was on, and what level each player in the group was, at the moment the XP were awarded, and to therefore calculate the relative award. However, there is advice elsewhere (including from Gygax) that experience is all awarded at the end of the adventure. In this case, the ref would require detailed notes of all the above information in order to calculate the relative experience ratios for each individual encounter that happened along the way (each with a potentially different mix of players, versus different monsters on different dungeon levels). For me, this is too much overhead, and I just don't do it. For many of my games I've awarded XP for treasure only, at the standard 1 XP per GP rate, which probably (I tell myself) makes up for any potentially missed XP for slaying monsters If you're awarding it all at the end of the adventure, that requires keeping notes about XP earned; adding a tiny bit of extra info about relative levels doesn't seem like any imposition to me. I think a lot of people aren't actually thinking through the math to realize that it's not very complicated, either, because of the way it dovetails with the practice of allocating XP proportionally by the levels of the characters involved. Let's say a group of two 3rd level characters and two 2nd level characters defeat 10 orcs, worth 1000 XP according to the LBB values. Each of the 3rd level characters gets a 3/10 share of the XP, but then must divide it by 3 because of the ratio of their levels to the monster hit dice, gaining 100 XP. Similarly, the 2nd level characters each get a 2/10 share, but divide by 2 because of their level ratio, also gaining 100 XP. If all members of the PC party are equal to or greater than the hit dice of the monsters, then they all end of getting equal amounts of XP. Note that the suggested default loot distribution mirrors this, with shares based on the ratio of character levels, so if those orcs were guarding a chest with 2000 GP and it was divided up in the recommended way, then the 3rd level characters would receive 600 GP each and the 2nd level ones would receive 200 GP apiece, and after dividing by their level factors each character would accrue an additional 200 XP from treasure gained. When some of all of the characters are a lower level than the monsters that you end up with each individual receiving a different amount of XP, but that happens regardless of whether or not you use the fractional XP rules. |
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Post by waysoftheearth on Oct 12, 2022 20:40:43 GMT -6
If you're awarding it all at the end of the adventure, that requires keeping notes about XP earned; adding a tiny bit of extra info about relative levels doesn't seem like any imposition to me. Seems to me the difference is: 1. Relative method: Players involved, monsters defeated, treasure gained; for each encounter. vs 2. End of adventure method: Surviving players, monsters defeated, treasure gained; for the whole adventure. Whether either or both is an impost likely depends how keen the individual ref is on record keeping |
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Post by Desparil on Oct 12, 2022 20:54:47 GMT -6
If you're awarding it all at the end of the adventure, that requires keeping notes about XP earned; adding a tiny bit of extra info about relative levels doesn't seem like any imposition to me. Seems to me the difference is: 1. Relative method: Players involved, monsters defeated, treasure gained; for each encounter. vs 2. End of adventure method: Surviving players, monsters defeated, treasure gained; for the whole adventure. Whether either or both is an impost likely depends how keen the individual ref is on record keeping But for your "end of adventure method," in actual practice you'd still need to make a note for each encounter, unless you can memorize the exact type and quantity of all monsters killed and treasure found throughout the entire session while also running the game at the same time. |
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Post by waysoftheearth on Oct 12, 2022 22:26:45 GMT -6
Perhaps an example would be helpful?
During the play, at the conclusion of each encounter/event, the ref records:
Relative method:
#1: Ed, Marlin, Elbith, Waldo, Fingut, Whatisname. Killed 6 orcs. 80 GP.
...
#123: Ed, Waldo, Fingut, Nork. 2 giants. 8,000 SP.
End of Adventure method
6 orcs. 80 GP.
...
2 giants. 8,000 SP.
The difference is that the relative method needs to bundle each encounter of players, kills, treasure together into a discrete record so that relative XP from the kills and treasure can be apportioned to the players present in that encounter.
Whereas, the adventure method just needs a list of monsters, and a list of treasures be built up for the whole adventure. It doesn't matter who was there. The total is just divided among the survivors at the end of the adventure.
Yes, both methods require the ref to record something at each event, but seems to me the second method require less detail.
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Post by Starbeard on Oct 12, 2022 22:30:18 GMT -6
Well, for my own method, which I tend not to overthink much, the only record keeping is stuff like "5 orcs, 2 wights, 1 thief 4HD," or even as basic as "3HD x5, 1HD x10, 1HD** x2," and so on, without reference to where the encounters were made. When back in town, I add up total monster XP according to the chart while the players add up total treasure, and we divide the XP equally amongst the surviving PCs. Barring special arrangements, henchmen and hirelings are paid by their employers and consequently receive XP according to the munificence of the player.
So for me, in order to prorate everything would actually require maybe two extra steps of record keeping, which in practice certainly does bog me down.
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Post by Mordorandor on Oct 14, 2022 9:38:58 GMT -6
I find the relative XP award rule (M&M p18) to be a bit impractical/misaligned with my regular practice of awarding XP at the end of the adventure. I guess reading it exactly as written, it could be implied that experience is awarded in situ, on the spot, as each monster is defeated or treasure is gained. This would make it plausible to know what dungeon level the encounter was on, and what level each player in the group was, at the moment the XP were awarded, and to therefore calculate the relative award. However, there is advice elsewhere (including from Gygax) that experience is all awarded at the end of the adventure. In this case, the ref would require detailed notes of all the above information in order to calculate the relative experience ratios for each individual encounter that happened along the way (each with a potentially different mix of players, versus different monsters on different dungeon levels). For me, this is too much overhead, and I just don't do it. For many of my games I've awarded XP for treasure only, at the standard 1 XP per GP rate, which probably (I tell myself) makes up for any potentially missed XP for slaying monsters Here's what I do for relative XP. - I note at the end of every battle the monsters defeated from where and note the treasure taken.
- I get explicit instructions of who's carrying what wealth (encumbrance and speed modifications happen]
- At the end of the adventure, I note the base XP amounts for the monsters.
- I then ask the players to divvy the treasure, and thus the XP for treasure, however they want among survivors. (a mini-game of who wants to level or get close to leveling, with a lot of player haggling and convincing to do sometimes)
- Once all is done, I calculate. (generally after the session ends, and I send folks the totals later.)
Dungeon Level FiveKey #3: 3 orcs [300 XP] and a bugbear [300 XP] 500 GP = 1,100 XP Key #7: 5 lizard men [1,000 XP] and 1,000 GP Key #8: 500 GP unguarded At the end of the adventure, the two PCs split the wealth to get their XP. For the 7th-level fighting man, who gets a 500 GP ring from keyed area #7 and half the unguarded 500 GP from keyed area #8, the calculation would go something like: 300/2 + 300/2 + 1,000/2 + 500 GP ring + 500 GP/2 = (150 [1st level monster] XP * 1/7) + (150 [3rd level monster] XP * 3/7) + 500 [2nd level monster] XP * 2/7 + (500 GP [taken from 2nd level monster] * 2/7) + (250 GP [taken on dungeon level 5] * 5/7 = 21 XP + 64 XP + 143 XP + 143 XP + 179 XP = 550 XP That would be an award of a mere 1% of the 56,000 XP needed to earn 8th level. Was it worth it? Only the players can decide that. There's only so much a burgeoning superhero can learn from continued encounters with such minor threats. Maybe in the future, they'll decide to avoid/ignore these "minor encounters" to go after the truly heroic treasures/rewards? |
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