Quorothorn
2008-04-22, 08:38 PM
Whilst I suppose the easiest answer might be “If your team doesn’t win you get no XP”, I’ve been wondering about the case when one side loses but certain individuals in the group survive and do some serious damage.
The specific incident that is making me wonder about this is actually a NPC v. NPC group-battle: the NPCs in question are important ones that are going to advance in level. So I was wondering if there was a codified way to deal with certain somewhat odd conditions that appeared in this particular incident.
Here’s the situation: two factions in an orc tribe squared off for dominance of the band. The first was an Adept who had led the warband for an extended length of time, using his magic (cure/disruption/damage spells and Animate Dead, not to mention his fairly solid grasp on tactical positioning) to make the group far more effective in their raids. However, these ARE Orcs, and the Adept (Kara-Khitai, if anyone’s interested in names) is a rather small orc, in the Old age category, with highly unimpressive Physicals but unusually solid Mentals, so, naturally, some figured he’s not fit to lead because of that negative Strength modifier. The second faction was a contingent of 16 1st-level Barbarians (called “Berserkers”, unsurprisingly), led by another Barbarian (Naiman) of 9th-level.
So, the two groups square off after some amount of in-fighting (not yet actual throw-down combat, however). It’s the seventeen Berserkers against Khitai and his commanded undead (24 human skeletons and an ogre zombie). Khitai gets the jump on his opponents, frying three Berserkers (and badly singing Naiman) with a Lightning Bolt: a seven-round showdown results. Khitai and the ogre fight Naiman as the skeletons and Berserkers clash, then, with Naiman dead (Khitai finished him with a spear-thrust, to add insult to injury), Khitai turned his attention to the Berserkers (who were slowly--and not without losses--but steadily winning against the skeletons despite the two-to-one numbers—CR 1/3 skeletons against PC-class orcs, after all). He fried all the ones who were still standing with a couple Burning Hands…except one, who made two Reflex saves and was still standing with 1 HP: said Berserker (Tayiachar) wisely surrendered, and Khitai healed him, and another Berserker (Kushluk, who had been downed by the skeletons but who Khitai considered worth saving—and yes, I did rip off the Mongols for these names). Khitai then used Animate Dead (his last daily non-cantrip) to turn the 14 fallen Berserkers into skeletons and Naiman into a zombie (as a continuing message that HE, Kara-Khitai, was in charge…and also because his entire force of undead had been wiped out in the fight, except for two skeletons who had gotten lucky and were still hanging around w/1HP—when in Rage, the Berserker’s dealt 1d12+9 damage, so even with their Damage Reduction any struck skeleton was dust unless that d12 came up 1; one got exactly that lucky, and the other made his Reflex save when caught in the cone of Khitai’s final Burning Hands).
That’s leaving out all the intra-battle shouting going on, of course (Khitai tried to warn Naiman and the others to back down, with obviously mixed results: Tayiachar “saw the light”, but another Berserker, even in the last round when it was obvious his faction had lost completely, refused to lay down his axe).
Anyway, my question obviously is about those three surviving orcs. What kind of CR would this be for Khitai? He has a NPC class, so I’m not sure if that’s supposed to have any effect on the table (he’s 9th-level, FYI). I put the Berserkers (all 16 plus Naiman) as CR11 all told, so I’m presuming it’s 5,400 lovely XPs for Khitai. But what about Kushluk and Tayiachar? Especially Tayiachar, who not only surrendered to Khitai before the battle actually ended but also kicked total ass during the fight itself (he destroyed four skeletons and helped down the ogre zombie before surrendering in Round 6; Kushluk also took down a skeleton, but was critted, then hit twice more, and went down in Round 2). Would he get XP for those accomplishments?
Again, I can always advance these lot “by feel”, but if anyone can provide or point me towards a reliable way of figuring out this sort of thing in future, that’d likely be useful. Perhaps the CR of the opponents the character-on-the-losing side defeated in the course of battle would be a start?
Oh, and if anyone’s wondering what the other 400 orcs in the band were doing: they were all standing around and watching the battle for rulership over them, obviously.
The specific incident that is making me wonder about this is actually a NPC v. NPC group-battle: the NPCs in question are important ones that are going to advance in level. So I was wondering if there was a codified way to deal with certain somewhat odd conditions that appeared in this particular incident.
Here’s the situation: two factions in an orc tribe squared off for dominance of the band. The first was an Adept who had led the warband for an extended length of time, using his magic (cure/disruption/damage spells and Animate Dead, not to mention his fairly solid grasp on tactical positioning) to make the group far more effective in their raids. However, these ARE Orcs, and the Adept (Kara-Khitai, if anyone’s interested in names) is a rather small orc, in the Old age category, with highly unimpressive Physicals but unusually solid Mentals, so, naturally, some figured he’s not fit to lead because of that negative Strength modifier. The second faction was a contingent of 16 1st-level Barbarians (called “Berserkers”, unsurprisingly), led by another Barbarian (Naiman) of 9th-level.
So, the two groups square off after some amount of in-fighting (not yet actual throw-down combat, however). It’s the seventeen Berserkers against Khitai and his commanded undead (24 human skeletons and an ogre zombie). Khitai gets the jump on his opponents, frying three Berserkers (and badly singing Naiman) with a Lightning Bolt: a seven-round showdown results. Khitai and the ogre fight Naiman as the skeletons and Berserkers clash, then, with Naiman dead (Khitai finished him with a spear-thrust, to add insult to injury), Khitai turned his attention to the Berserkers (who were slowly--and not without losses--but steadily winning against the skeletons despite the two-to-one numbers—CR 1/3 skeletons against PC-class orcs, after all). He fried all the ones who were still standing with a couple Burning Hands…except one, who made two Reflex saves and was still standing with 1 HP: said Berserker (Tayiachar) wisely surrendered, and Khitai healed him, and another Berserker (Kushluk, who had been downed by the skeletons but who Khitai considered worth saving—and yes, I did rip off the Mongols for these names). Khitai then used Animate Dead (his last daily non-cantrip) to turn the 14 fallen Berserkers into skeletons and Naiman into a zombie (as a continuing message that HE, Kara-Khitai, was in charge…and also because his entire force of undead had been wiped out in the fight, except for two skeletons who had gotten lucky and were still hanging around w/1HP—when in Rage, the Berserker’s dealt 1d12+9 damage, so even with their Damage Reduction any struck skeleton was dust unless that d12 came up 1; one got exactly that lucky, and the other made his Reflex save when caught in the cone of Khitai’s final Burning Hands).
That’s leaving out all the intra-battle shouting going on, of course (Khitai tried to warn Naiman and the others to back down, with obviously mixed results: Tayiachar “saw the light”, but another Berserker, even in the last round when it was obvious his faction had lost completely, refused to lay down his axe).
Anyway, my question obviously is about those three surviving orcs. What kind of CR would this be for Khitai? He has a NPC class, so I’m not sure if that’s supposed to have any effect on the table (he’s 9th-level, FYI). I put the Berserkers (all 16 plus Naiman) as CR11 all told, so I’m presuming it’s 5,400 lovely XPs for Khitai. But what about Kushluk and Tayiachar? Especially Tayiachar, who not only surrendered to Khitai before the battle actually ended but also kicked total ass during the fight itself (he destroyed four skeletons and helped down the ogre zombie before surrendering in Round 6; Kushluk also took down a skeleton, but was critted, then hit twice more, and went down in Round 2). Would he get XP for those accomplishments?
Again, I can always advance these lot “by feel”, but if anyone can provide or point me towards a reliable way of figuring out this sort of thing in future, that’d likely be useful. Perhaps the CR of the opponents the character-on-the-losing side defeated in the course of battle would be a start?
Oh, and if anyone’s wondering what the other 400 orcs in the band were doing: they were all standing around and watching the battle for rulership over them, obviously.