How much EXP to award an assisted encounter?

[ZenBear]

In my last session, my players fought off a Wight, his 12 zombos, 6 skelebros and his skelehorse with the help of about 30 Commoners from the village they were defending. They survived the onslaught by bunkering in the village chapel protected by a Greater Sanctuary spell (deus ex machina) but not before killing all 6 skelebros, 3 zombos and nearly killing the skelehorse.

So how much EXP do they get? I awarded them 75 EXP (arbitrary number) for escaping the Wight and 2 zombies at the end of last session because I believe in awarding EXP for things other than murder. In this case I again see surviving a very deadly encounter as worthy of EXP, but I don't know how much should be taken away for having 30 villagers helping out eating Wight arrows and zombie punches.

[ImSAMazing]

In my last session, my players fought off a Wight, his 12 zombos, 6 skelebros and his skelehorse with the help of about 30 Commoners from the village they were defending. They survived the onslaught by bunkering in the village chapel protected by a Greater Sanctuary spell (deus ex machina) but not before killing all 6 skelebros, 3 zombos and nearly killing the skelehorse.

So how much EXP do they get? I awarded them 75 EXP (arbitrary number) for escaping the Wight and 2 zombies at the end of last session because I believe in awarding EXP for things other than murder. In this case I again see surviving a very deadly encounter as worthy of EXP, but I don't know how much should be taken away for having 30 villagers helping out eating Wight arrows and zombie punches.
How many villagers did REALLY contribute?

[ZenBear]

How many villagers did REALLY contribute?

16 died, 10 survived the retreat to the chapel, 4 deserted and are unaccounted for. Pretty much all contributed throwing stones and swinging clubs. Primary use was as meat shields.

[Ultimate_Coffee]

In my last session, my players fought off a Wight, his 12 zombos, 6 skelebros and his skelehorse with the help of about 30 Commoners from the village they were defending. They survived the onslaught by bunkering in the village chapel protected by a Greater Sanctuary spell (deus ex machina) but not before killing all 6 skelebros, 3 zombos and nearly killing the skelehorse.

So how much EXP do they get? I awarded them 75 EXP (arbitrary number) for escaping the Wight and 2 zombies at the end of last session because I believe in awarding EXP for things other than murder. In this case I again see surviving a very deadly encounter as worthy of EXP, but I don't know how much should be taken away for having 30 villagers helping out eating Wight arrows and zombie punches.

ZenBear, I would award them full XP for what they successfully killed, and probably half XP for the skelehorse. So That's 500XP for 6 skeletons, 3 zombies, and half of a warhorse skeleton. Then I would award additional XP for escaping the encounter, as I feel it is just as important to know when to run away as it is to know when to fight. So your 75 XP for running away is okay... maybe a little low. Was that 75 each? or 75 split between the group? If it is 75 each, assuming a group of 4, that means running away was worth 300XP, and the kills were worth 500XP, giving a total of 800XP for the fight, which was worth 1700XP. That seems fair for surviving the battle, but not winning outright.
As for the influence of the commoners, it seems to me that they provide little benefit in the fight. They are more like a terrain feature of fighting in or near a city. I would adjust the encounter difficulty due to their presence, but not the awarded XP.


Modifying Encounter Difficulty
Increase the difficulty of the encounter by one step (from easy to medium, for example) if the characters have a drawback that their enemies don't. Reduce the difficulty by one step if the characters have a benefit that their enemies don't.

[Ninja_Prawn]

It's kind of up to you how you rule this. There is no wrong answer.

My first thought would be: this is a combat encounter (forgetting about the escape part - that's done and dusted*). As a whole, the encounter is worth an amount of XP equal to the sum of its monsters (1,700). The ten commoners who survived were on the winning side, so they get a share in the XP. The deserters didn't win the encounter and get nothing. The dead, obviously, get nothing. Therefore, if you have 4 PCs, everyone (4x PCs and 10x commoners) gets 121 XP. If you have 5 PCs, it's 113.

*I like XP for things other than murder, too. I call it 'success XP'. I feel like 75 for escaping a wight and an undead army is pretty stingy, but since they had an opportunity to get the 'murder XP' later, it's not so bad.

[Hawkstar]

-300 XP: the total XP value of the commoners. Or maybe 150 XP, if each is only worth 5.

[Soris Atham]

I would award 150 xp, maybe 200 if a villager decided to join the party as a first level character.

If any in the party died during the encounter, the player could start again as one of the surviving villagers.

[ZenBear]

Thanks for the responses guys, it's been very helpful.

The first session had the players kill 4 wolves, 4 giant rats, 3 goblins and escape a Wight and 2 zombies. I awarded a total of 200 EXP to each member for the session, meaning 75 EXP each for escaping the cave (my math may be off, I just glanced through the MM and rounded to 200).

The second session (this past Saturday) had them fight alongside 30 villagers against the Wight, his skeleton warhorse, 12 zombies and 6 skeletons. The party didn't do all of the killing, the villagers were actually quite useful in combat. They served as excellent meat shields against the skeletons' and Wight's arrows, killed 3 of the skeletons, one of the zombies, and contributed a lot of damage to the others the party actually scored killing blows on. The party was definitely not slacking, but the commoners played their part too.

I suppose an even 125 EXP each should suffice. They're officially 2nd level at that point with a little extra toward 3rd. If anyone else has comments, please post. Next session is Saturday, so I have time to adjust.