question about awarding xp.

[JoeYounger]

Basic scenario is like this. The PCs are on a quest to get a magic item at the bottom of a cave full of baddies. The cave has one entrance. There are regular non-magical mooks in the cave. The party sets up a decanter of endless water to flood the cave, and holds the door until everyone drowns. Would you guys give them xp for all 40 of the bad guys? I mean, they killed em, but there was no character growth. They didn't really do anything other than bar the door. Or would you guys just DM fiat that the water finds a way out just as fast as its coming in?

/discuss

[Urpriest]

Well, presumably the bad guys tried to get out, so the PCs had to fight to keep them from breaking out through the door. Given that, I'd probably award them full XP.

[Aegis013]

They overcame the challenge presented. I would award full XP. If I thought using the decanter of endless water was a particular creative use of resources on the part of the players, I might award bonus XP.

[JoeYounger]

Awesome. Thanks for the replies guys.

[Verte]

I would give them full xp, unless that's completely inconsistent with the way you've been giving it so far.


Or would you guys just DM fiat that the water finds a way out just as fast as its coming in?

I'd would strongly advise against doing this. I mean, if I had come up with the idea, I'd be pretty irritated if the DM just decided that the cave didn't flood at all besides all indications to the contrary. Now, you could have the enemies shut off the decanter before it floods the cave and then use it against the PCs - if the enemies are intelligent, it shouldn't take them too long to figure out how it works. How big is this cave?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Give them the full experience the first time they do it. It's a clever use of a magic item, after all, and they did defeat the challenge. But don't keep letting them use the same trick to avoid fights.