Non-Combat XP?

[Orick]

I was wondering if there were rules for assigning a CR to non-combat encounters that would work with the Tables on p.38 of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

[SiuiS]

There's the one that says to assign XP in increments of (25/50/75)*party level for a "successful encounter" based on how difficult it was. If a social situation or even just a phenomenon they deal with is easy, average or hard compared to level (not power! Don't screw optimized characters off the bat!) then reward them XP.

[Orick]

okay, that sounds perfect. Is that just in the DMG or some other source?

[ericgrau]

If they're significantly large encounters and not some 5 minute thing you could use the rule of EL = party level - 2 for really easy, EL = party level for routine (makes players blow their abilities but otherwise not all that threatening), and EL = party level + 2 for difficult. Then award xp accordingly. You can go higher or lower but it's either a trivial encounter or a potential TPK. This isn't so much a rule as the reverse of the existing rules: I'm using difficulty to determine EL rather than EL to determine difficulty.

[Maginomicon]

Personally, I use this nifty calculator I made (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AojdoKCdOXqNdE1RQmNsOFRtb2s4MThDdzFwZEkxa 2c&usp=sharing). Anyone can edit the contents of the green boxes in the calculator. You can see the formulas I used to calculate, on which I've changed them to plain English variables.

Simply set the "% effort" value to whatever you feel is relevant for the ease of the encounter. You can even have the PCs that contributed more to the encounter get more experience by using the "Awesome Marks" system. (If you do, you might want to give everyone who participated an awesome mark and then give more awesome marks befitting their efforts in the encounter.)

"Auxiliary Points" are an optional variable based on how much the XP the party would have received if they had earned 100% of the CR-appropriate XP.