Am I calculating xp correctly?

[NiklasWB]

Hi guys, I need your collective wisdom.

I’ve been DM:ing my group for close to 6 months now, and due to real life schedules we haven’t made it past level 4 yet. Up to now I have simply told the party when they level up as I see fit. Level 2 was reached after the first session, level 3 after 3 more sessions and level 4 after 4 more sessions. It felt natural and passed well with the adventures they were facing, getting a level up as they returned to the village to re-supply and turn in their quests.

Now they have been out in the wilderness fighting monsters for another 4 sessions and they have faced a whole lot of monsters. I was starting to wonder if they were close to level 5 or if they were still a bit off. So in the interest of being fair I thought I should do a tally of the monsters they have faced and see how much xp they have gained.

From level 4 (2 700 xp) to level 5 (6 500 xp), they would have to gain 3 800 xp to level up, correct?

From the start of level 4 they have fought the following:

Thugs x 4: 400 xp
Scouts x 6: 600 xp
Ankhegs x 2: 1000 xp
Banshee x 1: 1100 xp
Peryton x 1: 450 xp
Ogre x 1: 450 xp
Hobgoblins x 20: 2000 xp
Hobgoblin captain: 700 xp

This comes to a total of 6700 xp. Divided by the 4 players, that’s only 1675 per player… not even half of what they need to level up.

Should I also award xp for things like skill-checks, roleplaying with NPCs or other out-of-combat things? As I said earlier, I’ve usually just told my players when they level up without thinking too much on the actual math. I also get that the progression gets slower at level 5+ and then picks up again in the teens.

I was just surprised when I did the math as it feels like they should probably gain a new level soon, especially since we are nearing the end of this leg of the adventure. Also I think the players will think that it’s taking too long if they don’t gain a level within 2 sessions.

Is this right or have I misunderstood the way you calculate xp gained?

[Mathis]

You are free to level up your characters as you see fit, but if you want to level them up due to XP gained then you should look at the chart at page 82. If more than one adversary appears in an encounter you should multiply the XP total that they reward based on how many they are. 3-6 monsters mean they give x2 XP, 7-10 give x2,5 and so on. So if the group have an encounter with 4 thugs which normally would give 100 XP each you should reward them 400x2 XP, or 800xp.

[Zman]

You are free to level up your characters as you see fit, but if you want to level them up due to XP gained then you should look at the chart at page 82. If more than one adversary appears in an encounter you should multiply the XP total that they reward based on how many they are. 3-6 monsters mean they give x2 XP, 7-10 give x2,5 and so on. So if the group have an encounter with 4 thugs which normally would give 100 XP each you should reward them 400x2 XP, or 800xp.

That is only for calculating encounter difficulty, they are still only worth 100xp each.


OP, you can level them how you see fit, I often award additional do for completing plot arcs, side quests, or doing something heroic. I also occasionally award some extra do doing something spectacular or perfectly in character. For instance the level 5 party recently saved the town from a massive Orc attack, they got 1593xp from the battle, and a bonus of 1000xp for saving the town.

[Cybren]

I am away from book at the moment but I believe the multiplier is only to calculate difficulty, and the XP award remains static

[uraniumrooster]

Is this right or have I misunderstood the way you calculate xp gained?

I don't have my books in front of me so I can't confirm the actual numbers, but assuming you just pulled the XP values out of the MM and multiplied by the number of each type they defeated, that looks right to me.

As for awarding non-combat XP, that's pretty much your discretion as DM. A rule of thumb many DMs use is to give XP whenever the players overcome a challenge, not just when they defeat a combat encounter. So for instance, persuading the lord to give up some information, intimidating bandits into surrendering, burgling a house, etc, could all result in XP even if they didn't have any combat.

It would also be your choice if you want to just use milestones, and simply decide whenever you feel like they've made enough progress to earn a new level, as you've been doing. I have played in many story-driven games that use this method and it works pretty well.

Also, feel free to throw a bigger monster or two at your characters. A party of four 4th-levels ought to be able to handle up to a CR 5, maybe even CR 6-7 if they have some magic items. By itself, that'd be worth just as much as that whole clan of bugbears they slaughtered :smallbiggrin:


You are free to level up your characters as you see fit, but if you want to level them up due to XP gained then you should look at the chart at page 82. If more than one adversary appears in an encounter you should multiply the XP total that they reward based on how many they are. 3-6 monsters mean they give x2 XP, 7-10 give x2,5 and so on. So if the group have an encounter with 4 thugs which normally would give 100 XP each you should reward them 400x2 XP, or 800xp.

That table is not actually meant for determining XP rewards, just calculating the challenge rating of an encounter. You still always just reward the XP value listed in the monster manual for each defeated enemy. Of course, DMs are free to award however much XP they want, so take this with a grain of salt.

[Mathis]

Ah you guys are absolutely right, that chart is only used to calculate encounter difficulty, not the actual XP rewards given to the player.

[NiklasWB]

Also, feel free to throw a bigger monster or two at your characters. A party of four 4th-levels ought to be able to handle up to a CR 5, maybe even CR 6-7 if they have some magic items. By itself, that'd be worth just as much as that whole clan of bugbears they slaughtered :smallbiggrin:

Interesting. I just thought a CR 5 monster would be too tough since they usually do a ton of damage and usually have multi-attack. Our Bard for example only has like 23 HP, which would mean that a troll could probably kill him in one round, especially if he is already injured. That's the problem I usually run into. The monsters usually have too low health and too much damage. They die in 3-4 rounds but can kill super fast. I feel like a CR 6-7 would obliterate the group or at least a few of the weaker characters.

[Hudsonian]

If you give theach party some clues that there is a big monster ahead, they should be able to prepare their positioning and toss the meatshields out in front to protect the squishy squishy bards and wizards. But if that doesn't work, you can always choose that some of the less intelligent monsters are enamored by the shiny armor and enraged by the sharp pokey things they carry.

[EternalPrime]

You are calculating XP correctly. Level 4 is what my group has dubbed a "plateau level." The XP table is skewed to make the characters stay longer at certain "sweet spots" at the top of each tier.

[uraniumrooster]

Interesting. I just thought a CR 5 monster would be too tough since they usually do a ton of damage and usually have multi-attack. Our Bard for example only has like 23 HP, which would mean that a troll could probably kill him in one round, especially if he is already injured. That's the problem I usually run into. The monsters usually have too low health and too much damage. They die in 3-4 rounds but can kill super fast. I feel like a CR 6-7 would obliterate the group or at least a few of the weaker characters.

It depends on party composition too, I suppose. If they're mostly set up as a Social/Exploration party, then probably don't go above CR 4. But, technically, a CR 5 falls right around a Hard rating for four 4th level characters, which means they should be able to handle it, but it would be a challenging fight. You might knock one of them out, but I've honestly found it to be pretty hard to actually perma-kill characters once they get past 2nd level or so.

It'd be essentially a boss fight type situation too, so like Hudsonian said, definitely give them some clues so they can come into the fight prepared.

[Tanarii]

One reason would be they're fighting pretty easy encounters, and not that many of them. Unless they were groups of things (ie 4 Thugs + 10 Scouts would be a Deadly Encounter together, or an Easy and Medium one seperately.)

Also yes you should definitely assume non-combat XP. Anything that drains resources per the encounter difficulty descriptions should earn XP, per the DMG.


You are calculating XP correctly. Level 4 is what my group has dubbed a "plateau level." The XP table is skewed to make the characters stay longer at certain "sweet spots" at the top of each tier.Yeah, level 4 to level 5 takes a while unless you fight a bunch of Deadly Solo battles. Or get plenty of non-combat challenge XP. The nice side beni is that players that have to reroll characters due to death at level 3 or 4 have plenty of time to almost catch up before level 5. Important in high-fatality or huge campaigns with rotating players. Or both.

[Firechanter]

Yes, going from 4 to level 5 takes _forever_ - at least in the perception of the players - and the reason for that is that 5th level is probably the single biggest power spike in the game: pretty much everyone doubles their damage output, by way of Extra Attack or Cantrip; casters acquire a new spell level... it really is huge.

The good news is that after that, leveling will feel a good deal faster.
FWIW, our DM stopped counting XP entirely, and we now simply level up by "milestones". As it happened, going from 7 to 9 involved very little combat at all - but a trip to Sigil does wonders for expanding your horizon. ;)

As for encounter difficulty, the chart is to be taken only has a _very_ rough guideline. On the one hand, we regularly deal with Double-Deadly encounters with no significant problems; on the other hand, just by mixing and matching the right monsters you could probably make a TPK a very real possibility for what is nominally only a Medium/Hard encounter. Which is why our DM doesn't really care for it very much anymore.

[Malifice]

Interesting. I just thought a CR 5 monster would be too tough since they usually do a ton of damage and usually have multi-attack. Our Bard for example only has like 23 HP, which would mean that a troll could probably kill him in one round, especially if he is already injured. That's the problem I usually run into. The monsters usually have too low health and too much damage. They die in 3-4 rounds but can kill super fast. I feel like a CR 6-7 would obliterate the group or at least a few of the weaker characters.

Youre supposed to avoid solo encounters if at all possible. It throws the maths out a bit.

A solo monster that hits the 'hard' challenge level, is usually 3 CR above the party level, and as you point out, can easily kill a PC with some lucky rolls (wins initiative, walks over, and multiattacks a PC to death).

On the flip side, the PCs will smash it due to the action economy advantage they have. For every attack it makes, they make 5 back.

So it can become a game of rocket tag pretty fast.

For a party of 4th level PCs look to create encounters with 2-3 CR 1 or 2 monsters, or a single CR 2 or 3 monster and a bunch of CR > 1 mook henchmen.

A single CR 7 is a worthy challenge, but (at a minimum) give them a rounds advance warning to mitigate the high probability of a TPK (and dont spring one on them if theyre wounded or drained of resources from an early battle). Play the creature a bit 'dumb' too - have it waste rounds chasing the PCs or using the shove action to push them to the ground or whatever.

[Cespenar]

CR4-5 for a party like that? Our party in one of my game of 4 level 4s had just demolished a Stone Giant (CR7), and so effortlessly that it wasn't even funny. And our party wasn't really too optimized for battle as well, just slightly above average, I'd guess.

I think the real issue is how many encounters the party faces in a day. The above example was our first encounter in that day, for example, so ideally the XP-encounter value should have been divided by some factor, 2 or something, maybe.

[Malifice]

CR4-5 for a party like that? Our party in one of my game of 4 level 4s had just demolished a Stone Giant (CR7), and so effortlessly that it wasn't even funny. And our party wasn't really too optimized for battle as well, just slightly above average, I'd guess.

Stone giant wins initiative, walks forward and swings twice at +9 dealing an average of 39 damage if both hit. Thats enough to kill (reduce to 0 hp) almost any 4th level PC.

It has an AC of 17 and 126 hit points to soak up return attacks (one attack per PC at 4th level) before doing it again.

Decent chance of attaining surprise too. In the right terrain, any PC that fails a DC 17 perception check is surprised.

I have a strange feeling that you either rolled really really well (ad it didnt), or your DM didnt run this encounter too smart.


I think the real issue is how many encounters the party faces in a day. The above example was our first encounter in that day, for example, so ideally the XP-encounter value should have been divided by some factor, 2 or something, maybe.

First encounter in a day means you're more readily able to nova. The expectation is (or should be) around 6 per day by any DM that is worth his salt.

[Cespenar]

Stone giant wins initiative, walks forward and swings twice at +9 dealing an average of 39 damage if both hit. Thats enough to kill (reduce to 0 hp) almost any 4th level PC.

It has an AC of 17 and 126 hit points to soak up return attacks (one attack per PC at 4th level) before doing it again.

Decent chance of attaining surprise too. In the right terrain, any PC that fails a DC 17 perception check is surprised.

I have a strange feeling that you either rolled really really well (ad it didnt), or your DM didnt run this encounter too smart.

We had heard it coming (Passive Perception 20), and so could prepare.

We had two tanks: my Druid/Barbarian had 34 animal hp x2 + damage resistance. Our Barbarian had around 40 hp and damage resistance. It couldn't bring us down.

I admit, it's the best conditions all stacked together, and I imagine if it surprised us from behind, it would be a wipe. But Perception (as always) is a game changer.

If anything, this shows how swingy even Deadly+ encounters could be, considering surprise, party formation, and the number of encounters per day. It's good in my opinion, though, for the swinginess to come from such conditions and not from pure luck.

Also, linking DM quality with encounter numbers per day is a very, very sketchy endeavor.

[Tanarii]

Also, linking DM quality with encounter numbers per day is a very, very sketchy endeavor.
He may have put it badly. But DMs that ignore the DMG guidelines for difficulty (in either direction), have a much lower number of encounters per long rest, and also don't make some adjustments to the classes and/or momsters, will be providing a very unchallenging gaming experience for their players.

In other words, throwing a few Deadly fights per long rest is already easily handled by players who are paying attention and playing smart, per the PHB. Making them less and even more Deadly doesn't necessarily make things harder. At best (worst?), it makes things so one unlucky roll and a player is insta-gibbed. But if that doesn't happen, it's often a steamroll for the PCs. Especially for solos.

[Kurt Kurageous]

To justify additional XP, consider milestones XP as well. See DMG 261. A dungeon room can be a minor milestone worth an easy encounter XP, clearing a dungeon is a major milestone worth a hard encounter XP. So the XP bonus is level dependent.