Balancing the xp scale in the party

[Morphie]

Hello guys,

So, I'm currently the DM in our gaming group, we're playing the Age of Worms Adventure Path and there are some players that are a bit behind on XP, due to missing a couple of gaming sessions (real life can suck sometimes :p). The gap isn't that big at the time but I'm afraid it will have an impact in the near future. So I was wondering what I could do to balance things a bit, and that's where I could really use your help.

We already have some rules that help this a bit, we give half xp to people that miss a gaming session, we give xp based on the individual level of each PC instead of giving the same to everyone based on the average level of the party (p.e. if the encounter was cr 14, the pcs that are level 12 will get more than the pcs that are level 13) and everyone gets xp even if they can't contribute on the encounter (being asleep or in another room), but naturally there's still some difference I want to mitigate.

I've thought about not doing anything and letting things even out with time by adding a couple of encounters, but it would probably end up pushing the power level of the party over what's established in the module I'm currently DMing. That usually wouldn't be a problem, but we are rotating DMs and I don't want to make the next DM have to adjust every encounter in his module.

The party is currently at level 13-14 and there are 6 members: A cleric, a rogue/swashbuckler, a druid, a wizard, a duskblade and a sorcerer.
The rogue/swashbuckler, the sorcerer and the duskblade are about 5.000 behind the other half of the party. The druid was killed in the last session and the player is thinking about starting a new char, so if he comes up at level 13 the gap will get even bigger.

I've talked to the group about this, and one of my friends suggested giving the players a couple of personal quests that would give them bonus xp if they accomplish them. This idea sounds great, do you have any ideas of what I could use? Any other suggestions would also be greatly appreciated.

P.S: Oh, and bonus points if the tasks could be given/accomplished out of session time or along the adventure without detracting much from it - it seems a bit unfair to the assiduous players to halt the flow of the story just to play catch up.

Thanks guys and sorry for the big post :smallsmile:

[Kelb_Panthera]

You could just give the occasionally absentee players full xp.

More importantly don't overestimate the importance of a small xp difference. It doesn't matter in the slightest until it actually causes a difference in level and anyone that falls behind will catch up (mostly) with the extra xp from being lower level.

[jaydubs]

Have you considered just evening out experience? I'm firmly in the "the reward for showing up is getting to play the game" camp. But here's some other suggestions.

Award experience to players who are behind for doing things that are useful to the whole group, but that maybe no one wants to do. These don't necessarily have to be in-character actions. Maybe something like tracking loot or rations, writing up session summaries of campaign sessions, or even bringing food and drink for the group. Writing down the names of towns and NPCs is one that can also take some of the pressure off of DMs.

[Morphie]

I'm not looking to even things out completely, I just want to bring the PCs a bit closer to each other xp-wise.
They're thinking about returning to the city to recover and wonder what to do about the dead druid, so I was thinking about having someone approach the guys that are a bit behind and give them personal quests (p.e: the swashbuckler has to prove that wits are stronger than brute force). But I'm really out of ideas at the moment, so I don't know how to do this.
Any help?

[thesilentx]

It sounds like this is the perfect time to pick some stuff from a backstory and chuck it at the party. Maybe a loved one (In this case either really young sister/daughter, or mom) thought to be dead has actually been raised by a local necromancer and is now actively hunting the party. Maybe the undead version of the loved one launches an ambush/assassination attempt while the party is in the city, forcing the group to go after it or have to deal with it later. Someone's criminal past could come to the forefront with a tireless justicar hunting them across the area, causing the party to either A)Fight and kill the justicar, or B)Try to reason with the justicar. As these could be personal "quests" that can be culminated inside the city in a matter of hours/days, it shouldn't derail the campaign. Although, if the guy whose loved one was raised wants to murder the crap out of the necromancer who did it, now you have a BBEG/final boss for that episode of the campaign that at least one character is invested in making sure i is stopped.