problem calculating xp

[victorcrossman]

One of my players made a wizard who made a bomb big enough to destroy a large city. He launched it onto a castle which had 875 bugbears inside we ended the night there and i haven't tried to calculate xp should i give him xp for all of the bugbears?

[Spanish_Paladin]

I am no expert in dungeons but i remember that there is a maximun number of creatures you can kill before it becomes rutine, on that point this type of creature is worth of no px. However if these bugbears were unaware of the attack i wouldn't give them the maximum px.

p.d. sorry for my crappy english

[Comet]

If this wizard can obliterate entire fortresses with any regularity, I don't think he's going to do much with bugbear xp so just give him whatever.
On the other hand, if he's level 1 you should definitely give him xp for every single one of those bugbears. Because he's obviously very good at killing things and if you're going to reward that you should go all out.

[ewoods]

I would reward this as one encounter with a fortress rather than an encounter with 875 bugbears. In my mind, he didn't actually kill the bugbears, he destroyed the fortress, which then had the effect of killing the bugbears. I would try to assign a challenge rating to destroy the fortress similar to the way you would with a trap. How difficult was it to destroy? Was it a simple matter of igniting the poorly-placed armory with a fireball, or did the party have to go gather supplies, roll crafting checks, dig a tunnel over the course of several days, and get out before the explosion killed them too?

[Honest Tiefling]

I believe in many systems experience is only awarded for challenging encounters. If he casually blew them up, they have ceased to be challenging or a threat to him. If he struggled and fought for the ability...I'd let him have some fun and give a generous award. Have the other players ever indicated how they preferred experience to be awarded by the way?

[Lord Torath]

One of my players made a wizard who made a bomb big enough to destroy a large city. He launched it onto a castle which had 875 bugbears inside we ended the night there and i haven't tried to calculate xp should i give him xp for all of the bugbears?

I'd suggest you divide the xp among all the PCs who were present for the attack. They were putting themselves at just as much risk as the wizard was. And while the wizard learned how to create and launch a bomb, his companions learned what wizards are capable of. But them, I'm a big fan of splitting xp evenly. It generally avoids hurt feelings among the rest of the party. Of course, if the wizard wants to venture out to the site completely on his own, with out the party around for protection, then maybe he can keep all the xp. But that's just me. Your experience may very.

[LibraryOgre]

Varies widely among systems. I'd lean towards "He doesn't get XP for every single bugbear", because he didn't face them, and they didn't threaten him. Would his accomplishment have been easier if there had been half as many bugbears? Would it have been harder if there were twice as many bugbears, and they were all celestial fiendish half dragon half fiend half celestial bugbears?

If the difficulty of the act doesn't really change when you make outlandish adjustments to one variable, then that variable usually shouldn't count into a pure XP reward. He might get "story XP" for completing a goal, but I wouldn't tally up the bugbears and give him XP for that.

[goto124]

You could also have a few surving bugbears among the ruins, in case your players want to kill them personally. Or keep them as pets.

[BaronOfHell]

I like to think systems, such as experience gain, tries to mimic what those words means in the real world. Consider the difference between e.g. Elder Scrolls and Diablo. In Diablo you get a set amount of XP for every monster you kill depending solely on the monsters level and your own level. In Elder Scrolls you get better with a skill the more you use it. Here I prefer the elder scrolls way a lot more.. to translate, the Wizard should get XP for what the Wizard did, not what it accomplished..

But in my opinion it's a lot more about what the players expect than what the GM prefers, because if you've been playing with a group of players and you know what they like and dislike you're the one who's the best chances at doing this in a way that is most pleasing for the people present.

[goto124]

But in my opinion it's a lot more about what the players expect than what the GM prefers, because if you've been playing with a group of players and you know what they like and dislike you're the one who's the best chances at doing this in a way that is most pleasing for the people present.

Firstly, I agree with this.

In Diablo you get a set amount of XP for every monster you kill depending solely on the monsters level and your own level. In Elder Scrolls you get better with a skill the more you use it. Here I prefer the elder scrolls way a lot more.. to translate, the Wizard should get XP for what the Wizard did, not what it accomplished..

I would argue why one system isn't 'better' than another, but that's veering off-topic since we'll be talking about computer games. Good thing TTRPGs have the advantage of a living, breathing, human DM who's likely smarter at choosing when and how much EXP to give the players.

EXP is more for the players to keep up with the campaign. If there were 20 monsters to kill in a dungeon, but the party found a way to kill only 10 monsters and still complete the dungeon, better let them level up all the same otherwise they may be unable to face the higher-level monsters in the next dungeon...

[Knaight]

EXP is more for the players to keep up with the campaign. If there were 20 monsters to kill in a dungeon, but the party found a way to kill only 10 monsters and still complete the dungeon, better let them level up all the same otherwise they may be unable to face the higher-level monsters in the next dungeon...

It has a lot of uses. This one is particularly important in systems where character improvements are dramatic, which are being used in campaigns where there is a pre-made setup that constantly escalates in difficulty. I'm guessing the game is an edition of D&D, so the first of these definitely applies. The second? Maybe.

Other uses of experience systems are in character customization past character creation, simulation of growth, mechanical change for the sake of mechanical change, and other such things. Which (if any) of these are in use depends on what system is in play and how it is being GMed, but there are a lot of things an experience system can do.

[Jay R]

What's the system? In AD&D, you don't get any experience points for an encounter in which you had no risk. I'd give him some for solving the problem, but none for facing the bugbears he never faced.