XP for non-combat jobs.

[G.Cube]

Are there maybe alternate rules for players gaining xp for performing class oriented tasjs? Rogues gaining for disabling traps, picking pockets, and opening locks, Clerics for healing, curing diesease, and preventing death, party faces for successful diplomacy and bluffs. Has anyone ever experimented with this?

[Red Fel]

Traps are explicitly called out as encounters that grant xp. (See the SRD Encounter Calculator (http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/).)

Remember that anything is an encounter, not just combat. Meeting with the king? Encounter. Haggling with the storekeep? Encounter. Forcing open a sealed door? Encounter. Solving a puzzle? Encounter. And all encounters should be granting xp, to varying degrees.

What you're asking, if I understand correctly, is if you can give xp specifically to one person for performing their role in an encounter. I would say no, with some provisos. When the party handles an encounter, the party gets xp as a whole. When the party gets past that trap in the hall, or defeats that minotaur, or manages to diplomance the king into supplying them with an army, the party gets rewarded, even though individual characters participated more or less than others.

That said, I believe that a particularly masterful job should be rewarded with some bonus xp for the specific character involved. Killing the minotaur in a remarkably cinematic way, or charming the crown jewels off the king, or dismantling the trap and reassembling it to be used against an enemy - that just demands a little something extra. But that's extra.

I don't like the idea of "You did your job, have some xp," because that creates unbalance. The Barbarian will always do "his job," because there are always things that need killing. There may not always be traps to disarm, kings to diplomance, or diseases to be purged. So as long as each party member does what they're good at, everyone should benefit. And maybe, if one party member does a really awesome job of his job, he gets a little bonus on top of that.

[Urpriest]

To give an example, suppose you want to give XP for healing.

Let's say you set up a situation where people are on the verge of rioting due to a plague that might spread. Your party decides to solve the problem by having the Cleric cure some diseases. You rule that that calms people down. If the party failed to calm people down, maybe they'd have to fight a Mob of Humans. Then the party gets XP as if they had defeated the Mob, even though they never actually fought it, because the Cleric solved the problem with healing.

[Slipperychicken]

You're supposed to get XP for overcoming any encounter, however you do it. Even if you bribe, sneak, or talk your way past it.


Rogues gaining for disabling traps

Traps do have challenge ratings (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/traps.htm#challengeRatingOfATrap), and you gain experience for disabling, disarming, or otherwise circumventing or overcoming them. Just like any encounter.

[Chronos]

Yeah, you're not looking for alternate rules; you're just looking for the standard rules that already exist.

[Phelix-Mu]

This used to be an option in 2e.

- Fighters got a bonus to xp for each HD of creature slain

- Rogues got bonus xp for each gp of treasure acquired

- Casters got bonus xp for each level of spells cast

...and so forth.

With the proviso, I think, that all of the above xp only be awarded for actions taken in pursuit of the mission (though in 2e the implied Rule Zero was even more omnipresent than now...I pretty much handed it out whenever it seemed appropriate and in-character).

I still make extensive use of ad-hoc bonus xp with my irl group. If someone has a solo scene where they do very good in-character rp, that's worth a bonus. Completing or significantly advancing a plot point is worth bonus to everyone. Sometimes a particularly spectacular curve ball from a pc will get a bonus. Finally, if your character has some cause or motive aside from the plot, and makes a major accomplishment furthering that cause, then that gets a bonus.

I like handing out experience based on behavior and varying by individual. I have played long enough with my current group that I have a sense of how to incentivize without being unfair. This is important, since obviously some people may be better and earning these bonus xp than others, and any big disparity in xp totals will begin to affect the dynamic at the table.

[Crustypeanut]

Pathfinder APs often give experience for non-combat encounters. Perhaps finding an important piece of information nets the PCs some experience, as does completing a story arc or befriending an NPC.

I love such rewards personally, as while I enjoy combat, I also enjoy a good non-combat encounter.

[Chronos]

The way I remember that 2e optional rule was that you only got XP for doing things in a way appropriate to your class. So fighters would get XP for monsters defeated in battle, no matter how they did it, because battle was what was appropriate for fighters. A thief, meanwhile, would get the monster's standard XP only from defeating it using backstabs, trickery, or the like, but would get no XP at all from just standing toe-to-toe with it trading blows. To compensate, though, the thief would also get XP for stealing valuables, which the fighter wouldn't at all.

Of course, like most of 2e, this was an optional rule, so it's no surprise at all that it was implemented differently at different tables.