question on awarding xp

[questionmark693]

So this is a hypothetical question for now, but I'm positive its going to come up. Say your party fights a creature, and it runs away instead of letting them kill it, and gets away succesfully. however, you know they're going to get the cjance to kill it later. Do you award them the xp for the encounter? If so, will you end up giving it to them for both encounters?

[herrhauptmann]

If in the first fight the monster runs with only a quarter of its HP, maybe reduce the level of the fight.

Otherwise, yeah, they defeated two encounters, give them XP for both.

If you didn't, there'd be a reason for you to not give them XP for beating a returning villain.
Imagine not getting XP the first time you beat Kefka in final fantasy.
Or the Order of the Stick not getting it for 'killing' Xykon when Roy's sword got shattered.

[BowStreetRunner]

The key here is that experience is awarded for defeating the encounter, not for defeating any specific components of that encounter, including monsters, traps, puzzles, or other obstacles. So if the component's CR was calculated into the overall XP award for the encounter, then the PCs will receive XP for defeating the encounter regardless of the status of the specific component at the end.

For instance, if the encounter has four monsters, four traps, and magical barrier that need to be overcome in order to rescue the princess, and all are calculated into the overall XP award for the encounter, the PCs can receive full XP for rescuing the princess if they sneak past the monsters, bypass the traps without setting them off, and dimension door through the magical barrier, then teleport out with the princess. Even though the monsters, traps and barrier all remain the XP is awarded for the entire encounter.

If one of the components is included as part of another encounter later, then its CR can be factored into that encounter too, just as if it were a different monster/trap/etc. entirely. [And hey, let's be honest. If the party does manage to kill the monster, the DM can certainly use it again anyway and just claim it is a 'different' monster after all!]

[questionmark693]

Ok, cool, that makes sense, thanks :smallsmile:

[pbdr]

But, it's also fine (in my opinion) to adjust XP based on actual difficulty. I've had a party breeze past what was supposed to be a very hard encounter and reduced XP some.

I've also had a case where an "easy" encounter went bad and turned out harder than it was suppose to, but the PCs persevered and I gave bonus XP. One time, crits took out the front line guys in the first two rounds, and a non-combat cleric and sorc used good tactics (and a bit of luck) to not only avoid a TPK, but also defeat the baddies and not lose either of the two downed combatants. I gave all them bonus XP (I almost always keep the at the same XP).

XP is PC experience and they earned it that time.

[BowStreetRunner]

But, it's also fine (in my opinion) to adjust XP based on actual difficulty.

I would absolutely agree. In theory, the CR of a monster should be based on numerous factors. Can the PCs just mow it down easily, or sneak past it, or win it over through diplomacy, or use clerical turning on it, or cast a charm spell on it, or overcome it in some other manner? If the encounter is designed well, no simple solution will overcome all of the challenges. The big scary monster with a low Spot/Listen check will be accompanied by a lot less scary dog with a high spot/listen and the scent ability. The low CR traps aren't actually placed where they will prevent the PCs from getting at their objective, they're placed where the PCs will likely go during combat to try to flank the big scary monster.

However, no matter how crafty the DM is in constructing the encounter, sometimes we just forget and leave a back-door that is unbelievably simple to use to overcome the encounter. [Or we inadvertently create a potent combo that nearly overwhelms the PCs instead.] In these instances it is certainly reasonable to make adjustments after the fact.

There is a trivia contest held every year in Wisconsin that is billed as the "world's largest trivia contest". One of the things I like about the scoring system is that the questions aren't assigned values up-front. Each is assigned a value based on how many teams correctly answer the question. Unfortunately, in D&D there is no way to objectively rate the difficulty of an encounter relative to a specific party, but you should feel free to adjust up or down until you feel the award is more appropriate. You are the DM after all.

[TuggyNE]

But, it's also fine (in my opinion) to adjust XP based on actual difficulty. I've had a party breeze past what was supposed to be a very hard encounter and reduced XP some.

This is true, although as BowStreetRunner was getting at, the philosophy should not be so much "how much did the PCs bleed?" as "OK, really, how difficult was this in reality?" If it turns out that, in hindsight, the encounter really wasn't all that hard to thoroughly trounce or bypass, then the CR should have been lower. But if the PCs managed to come up with some extremely clever tactic, or got absurdly lucky in their rolls, or otherwise performed exceptionally well against a difficult challenge… well, that happens, and they should still get full XP.

Put another way, CR adjustments after the fact should be made to correct your own errors (if any) in setting up the encounter, not to correct for PC unpredictability. It's a perhaps subtle distinction, but an important one.