Awarding XP

[Morphie]

Hello everybody,
So, my gaming group played 3.5e for a really long time and in the last year we made the transition to 5e. A question has arised in our gaming table recently regarding the attribution of Xp after a combat.
Let's say we fight a monster worth 50 xp. The party has 5 players, so each one of the PCs gets 10xp. But what happens if we fight 20 of those monsters? Would the party split up 1000xp or should they get more because of the added challenge of fighting a mob of 20 monsters at the same time?

In 3.5 there was that rule of adding +2 to a creature's CR each time their numbers doubled in an encounter, is there a similar one in 5e? If there's any reference to that in the DMG that you can reference, that would be awesome.

Thanks in advance.

[Christian]

XP in 5E is a lot simpler than in 3.x--the system is adapted from one of the things that 4E fixed. Number of monsters is taken into account in the challenge level calculations when the DM is designing encounters, but XP awards are not adjusted by the number of monsters you face at once. If you defeat 20 monsters worth 50 XP, you divide 1000 XP amongst the party, whether those monsters were faced one at a time or all twenty at once. And whether the party is 1st level or 20th.

[Morphie]

XP in 5E is a lot simpler than in 3.x--the system is adapted from one of the things that 4E fixed. Number of monsters is taken into account in the challenge level calculations when the DM is designing encounters, but XP awards are not adjusted by the number of monsters you face at once. If you defeat 20 monsters worth 50 XP, you divide 1000 XP amongst the party, whether those monsters were faced one at a time or all twenty at once. And whether the party is 1st level or 20th.

But how does the DM control the dificulty of the encounter and the rewards associated with it if he, let's say, just sends the monsters in rooms A, B and C to attack the party at the same time? The reward is completely below the actual difficulty of the whole encounter, isn't that predicted in the rules of game?
I get it that the reward is the same numbers-wise, no matter the level of the group, but while 1000 xp may be a lot to a 4th level character, it doesn't have the same "weight" to a 6th level one. And fighting 20 monsters at the same time is way harder than fighting 4 groups of 5 monsters with some time in-between to recover.

[Rysto]

It's a bit of a weird part of the rules. The DMG gives a formula that calculates an "adjusted XP" for an encounter based on the number of monsters, but it only uses it to gauge the difficulty of an encounter and recommends only awarding base XP. Personally, when I dipped my toe into DM'ing I awarded XP based off of adjusted XP, but that was easy because I had a spreadsheet to do all of the calculations for me.

[Morphie]

It's a bit of a weird part of the rules. The DMG gives a formula that calculates an "adjusted XP" for an encounter based on the number of monsters, but it only uses it to gauge the difficulty of an encounter and recommends only awarding base XP. Personally, when I dipped my toe into DM'ing I awarded XP based off of adjusted XP, but that was easy because I had a spreadsheet to do all of the calculations for me.

Awesome :) I just found that info on page 82 of the Dmg, I believe it might push our group in the right direction to solving this issue.
Thanks everybody!

[lperkins2]

One other thing to keep in mind, if you are relying on the EXP tables and challenge rating to design encounters, is that the system breaks horribly when you have a large difference in number of creatures on each side.

A normal size party against a lone boss will usually stomp them, even if the CR table says it should be a deadly fight. A large group (20+) of weak enemies will often pose a more significant challenge than the adjusted EXP will predict.

[Christian]

But how does the DM control the dificulty of the encounter and the rewards associated with it if he, let's say, just sends the monsters in rooms A, B and C to attack the party at the same time? The reward is completely below the actual difficulty of the whole encounter, isn't that predicted in the rules of game?
I get it that the reward is the same numbers-wise, no matter the level of the group, but while 1000 xp may be a lot to a 4th level character, it doesn't have the same "weight" to a 6th level one. And fighting 20 monsters at the same time is way harder than fighting 4 groups of 5 monsters with some time in-between to recover.

The encounter design rules assume that the DM understands that's a different, much more challenging encounter, and will know to design the adventure so that the party can fight those three rooms separately unless he wants a single encounter that's much more challenging.

Conversely, if the party does something stupid and brings 3 encounters down on their head at once that they could have faced separately, they don't get extra XP for their mistake.

[lperkins2]

The encounter design rules assume that the DM understands that's a different, much more challenging encounter, and will know to design the adventure so that the party can fight those three rooms separately unless he wants a single encounter that's much more challenging.

Conversely, if the party does something stupid and brings 3 encounters down on their head at once that they could have faced separately, they don't get extra XP for their mistake.

The guidelines also don't promise the party will have time to catch their breath between encounters, let alone have a short rest. If there's an end to combat, even if it only lasts 10 seconds, it counts as a new encounter. Obviously, the DM needs to be aware that the second encounter is likely to be much harder than the adjusted difficulty table indicates. Similarly, the CRs basically assume a stand up fight in an arena, intelligent use of terrain or similar can drastically change the difficulty of the fight.

[Sir cryosin]

The guidelines also don't promise the party will have time to catch their breath between encounters, let alone have a short rest. If there's an end to combat, even if it only lasts 10 seconds, it counts as a new encounter. Obviously, the DM needs to be aware that the second encounter is likely to be much harder than the adjusted difficulty table indicates. Similarly, the CRs basically assume a stand up fight in an arena, intelligent use of terrain or similar can drastically change the difficulty of the fight.

This comment got me thinking is there a formula. That can be use to calculate the party's CR after every encounter. Because a 5th level wizard that blow his 3rd lv spell slot and have taken some damage. Compaired to the same wizard the has all resource's.

To the OP it's much easyer not to use XP. It's much easyer just to use mile stones leveling. It help's keep the party from wanting to kill everything. It also makes encounters easyer to craft.

[DivisibleByZero]

XP is a big waste of time. Just use a Milestone style, granting levels to players when you think it's appropriate. It's less bookkeeping, it's subjectively more fun, it keeps the players from looking for the next thing to kill because they're getting close to that next threshold, and it removes the wierdness of leveling up mid dungeon crawl.

edit:
Unless you're running a legit AL game at your FLGS, in which case it's a necessary evil.

[Rhaegar]

XP is a big waste of time. Just use a Milestone style, granting levels to players when you think it's appropriate. It's less bookkeeping, it's subjectively more fun, it keeps the players from looking for the next thing to kill because they're getting close to that next threshold, and it removes the wierdness of leveling up mid dungeon crawl.

edit:
Unless you're running a legit AL game at your FLGS, in which case it's a necessary evil.


The players at my table like getting their regular experience for killing monsters. The problem is when you get to the situation of 'We're really close to leveling up, lets go find a few wolves/bears to kill before we enter the dungeon." I try to discourage this kind of thought, as a character won't really know that they're close to breaking a new threshold in their development.

[Coranhann]

I reward XP & Loot depending on the risk my players take.

In a Dungeon, it's pretty straight forward.

In a city scenario, they get XP for advancing the plot (uncovering info, taking decision & action that forces opposing parties to act/react etc...). When they do, I try to make sure they get roughly the same amount of XP as they would for killing monster.

In both case, they get extra XP for completing the scenario, depending on how fully they went through it (or what the situation they created at the end of it).

All in all, it provide them with regular positive rewards (which they enjoy), and guide lines on how they progress in the plot...

... plus I've warn them. Shameless optimization on their part will be met with shameless optimization on my part. It's said in a playful way, but, yeah, if they start going out to kill a bunch of wolves for a few XP, they might get either in big trouble. Or find nothing to kill at all. Whatever is more probable where they stand.

I like XP, it's a bit old & generic, but it serves a purpose (they regular positive feedback).

[Contrast]

A normal size party against a lone boss will usually stomp them, even if the CR table says it should be a deadly fight. A large group (20+) of weak enemies will often pose a more significant challenge than the adjusted EXP will predict.

Of course converesly, if the party has fireball prepped, a large number of weak enemies may be no challenge at all (outside of the expenditure of the spell slot of course). An adult white dragon is a medium encounter for 8 level 5 PCs but if it catches them all in its breath attack theres a good chance of an instant party wipe. I would say the main point is that the challenge rating system (which is pretty wonky at the best of times) gets increasingly unreliable to the extremes.


I reward XP & Loot depending on the risk my players take.

So you reward recklessness? In my experience players need no encouraging in that regard :smallwink:


I like XP, it's a bit old & generic, but it serves a purpose (they regular positive feedback).

I'd say thats what the inspiration mechanic was for. In my experience directly rewarding specific actions resonates more that just noting a number at the end of a session.

[lperkins2]

This comment got me thinking is there a formula. That can be use to calculate the party's CR after every encounter. Because a 5th level wizard that blow his 3rd lv spell slot and have taken some damage. Compaired to the same wizard the has all resource's.

There is, in the DMG someplace. It's mostly for calculating increased CRs, or for the rare NPC with class levels. Someplace there is also a community effort to calculate creatures' CRs, since a bunch of them seem to be miscalculated in the monster manual. That said, increasing the reward, or decreasing the encounter difficulty, as the party expends resources is generally not a good idea. 5e is already prone to 'rocket tag', where the DM throws hard and harder encounters at the party, prompting them to burn through resources faster, with no apparent increase in danger or difficulty, until they encounter something for which they don't have the right kind of resource to trivialize the encounter, followed closely by a TPK. Decreasing the difficulty of encounters when the party has spent resources is a good way to have them burn through their resources faster.