XP Distribution Rules

[tzar1990]

So, if you've read through the DMs packet and looked at the encounter building section, you must have noticed the multiplier you put in for multiple enemies when calculating the XP of the encounter compared to the XP budgets available at a given level. And that makes sense - fighting multiple enemies together is more difficult than fighting them one at a time, because they have a better action economy.

However, it also notes that the multiplier doesn't change the amount of XP you actually receive for defeating the monsters, just the calculations for how difficult the monster is. And that doesn't make much sense to me! I think that if an encounter is "deadly" for a party, for instance, they should get the full XP for a deadly encounter, whether or not it came from multiple monsters or a single strong one.

What do you guys think?

[pwykersotz]

It depends on the pace of the game that you want. If you use groups of 3-6 on a normal sized party as the most common foe grouping, that doubles the rate at which the players level. It's not bad, but it is highly escalated. I prefer to reward greater dangers with gold, items, and prestige.

[ambartanen]

I was wondering about that rule myself. Clearly it was put there for a specific reason but I can't really figure out what it is.

It does have the effect of slowing down progression since according to it four CR 1 creatures are more difficult than a CR 3 creature but actually give only half as much xp. Why the designers would want that is a bit of a mystery for me?

Additionally, the xp calculation rules seem pretty useless at low levels. Last session I had two separate character breeze through what should have been triple-deadly encounters without breaking a sweat. Deadly encounter for a single first level character has a 100 xp allotment but they separately took out three and four wolves respectively i.e. a 300-xp and 400-xp equivalent fights. I think next session I am going to try the full group (a fighter, cleric, and druid) against a werewolf. That's only a bit more than double their deadly xp allotment but maybe the weapon damage immunity will make it a bit of a challenge.

Edit: Oh, I think I figured it out. Maybe the idea is to be able to give the BBEG (say CR 8) a bunch of mooks (say CR 2) without multiplying the BBEG's experience reward drastically.

[SaintRidley]

Yeah, it seems to me aimed at adding mooks without having to worry about giving too much XP at once.

[BRKNdevil]

I've just went with the policy that the encounter is worth this much exp and that the exp for the encounter is split among the players. I use the exp for the creatures as a guideline for setting the difficulty and that since it varies with the size of the group the exp gained from an encounter differs between times when the group is all together and when they aren't

[Demonic Spoon]

I was wondering about that rule myself. Clearly it was put there for a specific reason but I can't really figure out what it is.

It does have the effect of slowing down progression since according to it four CR 1 creatures are more difficult than a CR 3 creature but actually give only half as much xp. Why the designers would want that is a bit of a mystery for me?

Additionally, the xp calculation rules seem pretty useless at low levels. Last session I had two separate character breeze through what should have been triple-deadly encounters without breaking a sweat. Deadly encounter for a single first level character has a 100 xp allotment but they separately took out three and four wolves respectively i.e. a 300-xp and 400-xp equivalent fights. I think next session I am going to try the full group (a fighter, cleric, and druid) against a werewolf. That's only a bit more than double their deadly xp allotment but maybe the weapon damage immunity will make it a bit of a challenge.


In early levels especially, things don't have a lot of hitpoints. Fights can be really swingy - a good hit or two can bring down a character at level 1. With regards to wolves:

-They have good stealth and perception, so depending on circumstance they could get surprise on the party
-They get advantage on attack rolls when others are nearby
-They force a save to avoid being prone on every hit.

While I'm not totally surprised that your party killed three and four wolves, I could definitely see three or four wolves killing party members or potentially even outright TPKing the party.

[hymer]

Another reason not to award more XP for groups (though acknowledging that they are harder to fight) could be to encourage players to fight cleverly. XP awards would go down if the group came up with a way to divide a big group and defeat it piecemeal. Likewise, letting enemy scouts escape would be rewarded with extra XP, although the actual fight would of course be all the harder.