Don't want to deal with CR

[Grindle]

I was considering using the alternate experience point system in the DMG where you award each player 75 XP per balanced encounter, and more or less XP for more or less difficult encounters. Anyone have any advice on using this/reasons I shouldn't use this, or suggestions for other simple XP systems?

[Grindle]

Well, this is already on the second page, so apparently no one is willing to be helpful on these parts of the forums.

[Callin]

Just go with x number of like level encounters equals 1 level. add or subtract if you include harder or easier ones. x is equal to what you find fit. 4th ed uses 10 i think.

[Urpriest]

Well, it's not 75XP, it scales with level. But if you've got the correct scaling, there's no huge problem. Just be aware that you need to judge what constitutes a fair encounter, which takes some experience, and that you can't hide behind RAW CRs if your encounters end up more challenging than expected.

[hamishspence]

I think there's a version in Unearthed Arcana that awarded fixed XP per monster.

So, unlike the standard system- you can spam killing weak monsters, and still gain XP.

I think it means complications for spells that use XP, though.

[Fyermind]

CR is generally so borked this is the only way to do it.

This is entirely homebrew, but I use the following formula:

([Best case resources] + [worst case probability] * [worst case resources]) * party level * 3

Best case resources is a number between 10 and 20 based on how easy and cheap the encounter is if handled properly. It only ever goes below 10 if there are actually no resources that need spent or risked on the encounter.

Worst case probability looks like odds of a meaningful critical in straightforward brawls, or the odds of the party not targeting the will save of a cryo-hydra, or the odds of the party not noticing the choker until after it attacks. I try to figure this out as a build the encounter as best I can. This is a number between zero and 1.

Worst case resouces is a number up to about 50 where over 50 is a TPK. 50 is usually more than one party member's death, 40 is a death, and 0 a to 40 represent expended resources.

I will add additional case probability*resources if there are multiple distinct probable cases.

Most of my encounters will wind up being about (15+.40*20+.10*40)*3*party level or about 81 xp per level. I tend to like having roughly 11 encounters per level, so this works well for me. This formula is easy to adjust for more or fewer battles by replacing that 3. Judging how challenging an encounter will be is hard though, so expect things to go sideways sometimes. I often wait until the next meeting to award XP so I can think about whether the PCs could have reasonably taken an easier path and whether they just got unlucky (or lucky) and how likely that really was.