Forest fires = easy levels

[Mr. Moogle]

in the DMs guide it says forest fires are the equivalent o a level 6 (or is it 8?) encounter. If you have a decent spellcaster, you can escape that moderately easily. Imagine power leveling via forest fires. you cant go wrong!

[Variable Arcana]

If you escape it moderately easily... the DMG has guidelines for what such an encounter is worth as well.

TANSTAAFXP!

[The Great Skenardo]

...Unless the DM clamps down on that kind of balatant cheese. The DM is always free to adjust the XP award for any encounter due to mitigating factors.

Also: Limited number of trees?

Also Also: Irate druids may be a valid source of XP

Also Also Also: so may all of the various fey, elves, dragons and other beasts that call a forest home, and are kinda mad someone burned it down.

Also Also Also Also: but deities of the woodlands (if you're being particularly persistent about burning down forests) are most likely more than you can chew.

Good thought, though

[Desyth]

Why not take it another way then. Instead of escaping a forest fire, make smokey the bear sad by starting one! That way all the Druids, fuzzy wuzzy animals, and other things that are in there will die due to your actions, possibly awarding xp!

[the_tick_rules]

well you have to defeat the fire to earn xp, how how you go about doing that is where it gets tricky.

[Zeta Kai]

That's by far the most munchkinish/stupid-evil thing I've heard this year. It's even worse than "The princess is a 7th level aristocrat. We're better off killing her for the XP, bringing her body back to the castle, & telling the king that the kobold did it. We'll still collect the ransom, & be considered heroes until she gets raised."

[Soniku]

It's this sort of thing that made me rule that you get xp for roleplaying, not the dungeon crawl "Kill everything and smash the puzzle up" fashion the manual says

[the_tick_rules]

That's by far the most munchkinish/stupid-evil thing I've heard this year. It's even worse than "The princess is a 7th level aristocrat. We're better off killing her for the XP, bringing her body back to the castle, & telling the king that the kobold did it. We'll still collect the ransom, & be considered heroes until she gets raised."

i still say the boiling water and anthill idea wins.

[ocato]

Druids have a "put forest fires out" spell. So you just put Johnny Fireball the Chaotic stupid sorcerer in the woods and have him spray the trees with searing hands, fireball, flaming sphere, etc until a good cookin' a-starts. THEN, our hero arrives, puts the flames out, beats johnny fireball within an inch of his life, and the other druids, fey, dragons, and woodland creatures (bambi, etc) reward said druid with money, magic, and lovins' (hugs, faeries love to hug). Drag the unconscious sorcerer back to town, heal him, then beat the crap out of him again because, honestly, we all have a player we want to beat mercilessly. Also there might be experience but that is really neither here nor there.

[Aquillion]

You get xp for accomplishing goals and overcoming challenges, not for mindlessly burning down forests. Lighting a forest on fire for no good reason and then putting it out isn't an accomplishment, and it doesn't really provide any challenge, so you don't get any xp. If there was a goblin army in the forest, and your players made it a goal to kill them, burning it down might help with that, though.

I prefer this. First, have your adventurers, sitting in a bar somewhere, decide to kill every dragon in the world. They swear to kill every dragon in the world before they eat another bite! Then they decide not to. Per the rules, using cleverness to avoid a fight is worth as much as winning that fight in straight combat. Therefore, they get as much xp as they would have gotten for defeating every dragon, everywhere. They can continue to do this as many times as they want for unlimited xp--essentially, considering a dangerous act, then not doing it, is the same as accomplishing it in terms of earning xp.

But what about money? Well, there are guidelines for the amount of wealth they are supposed to have at each level. Deciding not to fight every dragon in the world a few times will make them about level 50. They will certainly be far below the curve in terms of wealth, so that means they just have to look under barstools and search their pockets again, and presto, they'll find enough wealth to make up for the differences.

[Galathir]

If players tried to do that in one of my campaigns just to get XP, they would soon run into a few very angry druids with their bear animal companions. Druids incidently, who are all at the party level +5.

[Chris_Chandler]

There's absolutely no reason to be punitive as a DM about this. This is a simple action-consequence situation, and one where, if this is something repeated, the consequences will eventually become inevitable, like by a Marut.

[LotharBot]

You get xp for accomplishing goals and overcoming challenges

QFT. I've considered putting this in my signature just so I don't have to repeat it.

[Zincorium]

There's absolutely no reason to be punitive as a DM about this. This is a simple action-consequence situation, and one where, if this is something repeated, the consequences will eventually become inevitable, like by a Marut.

Simply not awarding xp isn't being punitive, and I strongly recommend just saying 'you get 0 xp'.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

This is why I don't award xp until the end of a session. And even then, I don't award it based on fights, but by how difficult the challenges I placed before them were to overcome. The entire session could be dedicated to political intrigue and I'd still award good xp for being clever about it.

[The Demented One]

I don't think the DMG means that you get XP for forest fires that you start.

[Runeclaw]

I once had a party inadvertently set a forest fire by missing with some flaming oil. They then decided to escape the fire by climbing a tree. As I narrated the fire burning more and more out of control, they stubornly sat fast in their tree.

Only TPK I've ever run.

[Rakeesh]

What on God's green Earth is the point of powerleveling in a completely virtual RPG?!

[Ivius]

What on God's green Earth is the point of powerleveling in a completely virtual RPG?!

I really don't think anyone's really going to try these. We all just enjoy finding loopholes in D&D.

[Cybren]

Well, this isn't hackmaster. You can't just go around breeding monsters so you can kill them for XP.
Awww yeahh that's a good idea.

[Zincorium]

Well, this isn't hackmaster. You can't just go around breeding monsters so you can kill them for XP.
Awww yeahh that's a good idea.

Actually, if you fight them arena style, that is both a challenge and a legitimate reason to gain xp. Seriously, what better way of training than a no holds barred fight with a critter that fully intends to kill you? The main differences between it and a regular dungeon is that you gain no treasure (unless you charge admission or something similiar) and you can control most of the random factors, so there's less chance of something unexpected happening.

Heck, stick with non-lethal damage and you can re-use the monsters.

[Mr. Moogle]

this all goes back to a story i had, i was a 2nd level sword sage and i used "hatchlings flame on a group of warlocks (in a forest) and all hell broke lose when it cought everything on fire. my party left me to die by running away with their horses i slowly choked (swordsages have an ability that gives them fire resistance) and fell to my death 5 feet from the edge of the forest.
it was by far the stupidest thing ive ever done, and now my official nickname is "kenny the cannon fodder boy".

[Dervag]

I once had a party inadvertently set a forest fire by missing with some flaming oil. They then decided to escape the fire by climbing a tree. As I narrated the fire burning more and more out of control, they stubornly sat fast in their tree.

Only TPK I've ever run.

That's the second dumbest party I've ever heard of.

The only dumber one I've heard of is on the "PC stupidity" thread; the one that committed suicide in the narrow sense of the term.

As for the forest fire, escaping the direct and predictable consequences of your own actions shouldn't earn you any XP unless you do so in a very dramatic and resourceful way. Even then, it should only earn you roleplaying XP.

So, for instance, if the wizard has to figure out how to get into his own trapped storeroom when he's forgotten the key or the password, he might earn a little XP for that, not least because he's learned Rule One about traps.

But if the wizard starts a fire on his own or at the behest of some other party member, and then proceeds to escape or extinguish it, he earns no XP, just as he earns no XP for unlocking his own front door at home.

The same goes for other methods of getting 'free, unlimited XP'. They all hinge on the idea that you can do something and then get XP for dealing with the direct and predictable consequences. No dice.

[brian c]

Rule 0 people. DM rules whether or not something constitutes a "forest fire" and if it does, how much XP you get for "defeating it" or dealing with it in some way. I don't think any encounter can really be munchkin-ed like this, because encounters and XP are completely controlled by the DM.

[Flying Elephant]

1024 second level commoners is a CR 21 encounter (according to my 3.0 editions DM's Guide). They have: 5 HP, 10 AC, 0 on all saves, and 1 BAB.

[Gralamin]

1024 second level commoners is a CR 21 encounter (according to my 3.0 editions DM's Guide). They have: 5 HP, 10 AC, 0 on all saves, and 1 BAB.

correction, thats an EL of 21. They still get xp from the individuals CR.

[Aquillion]

The same goes for other methods of getting 'free, unlimited XP'. They all hinge on the idea that you can do something and then get XP for dealing with the direct and predictable consequences. No dice.

I would disagree with this; players are quite allowed to earn xp for challenges they set for themselves. If a low-level character arbitrarily makes it his goal to kill every guard in the city, then methodically accomplishes it, he can earn plenty of XP; if the player was a pyromaniac who made burning down a forest his goal, he could earn XP for doing so.

It has to be an actual challenge, though. In the forest fire case, say, the DM could throw druids or the king's rangers or a wizard who thinks the forest makes for a nice view outside his tower or whatever at him to stop him, then award XP based on the challenge they represented. The 'challenge' of "burn down that totally undefended forest while nobody is watching" wouldn't earn any xp, no; but burning down the high central forest of the druids or somesuch certainly could.