XPs for non-combat encounters that could have been deadly but weren't

[Jay R]

I ran my first 3.5e game (as a DM) and am now counting up experience points. I’d like some advice on a couple of encounters.

There has been a major disaster (a meteor-like object striking earth). Soon after, 4 panicked wolves ran towards the village. They would have endangered any villagers in their path. The PCs successfully diverted them away from the village. [One of them already had a large tree branch is his hands. He ran in front of them waving it, and I assumed that panicked wolves would run away from anything big and unusual. The most obvious path to run was parallel to the stream, avoiding the village.] No combat, one round of action.

That’s not the same as defeating four wolves, but it did save the villagers. Five 1st level PCs defeating four wolves would be worth 240 xps each, but that seems too much for one action by one PC.

[No, I will not give all the xps to the one PC who got to act. Similarly, when a single sleep spell defeated half the goblins the next day, the wizard doesn’t get more than half of that encounter’s xps. They were all there, sharing any danger.]

Later, along their way, they found a huge tree down blocking their road. A hippogriff was standing vigil on it, and would not let them over it. Eventually they discovered that its mate was trapped under the tree with a crushed leg. They dug it out, provided as much healing as a first level party can (not much), and left.

How many experience points is that? Defeating one hippogriff would give them each 120 xps each; defeating two would give them 240 (according to the d20srd encounter calculator). But they didn’t defeat them; they dislodged a stone and dug a hole. And really, the CR of the hippogriff doesn’t matter, beyond the fact that they could not defeat it in a fight. If it had been a CR 10 monster, the danger would have been just the same.

My gut feeling is to say they actually faced one hippogriff, not two, and to cut the xps in half – 60 xps each. But this game is sufficiently different from AD&D or original D&D that I don’t trust my gut feelings yet.

Any advice?

[AnonJr]

I can't find the links at the moment, but there's a series of "Angry DMs Guides" that outline these sorts of things.

Our table has done something in a similar vein to what he talked about - the encounter was resolved. Combat is not always the resolution needed, nor is it always the only option for encounter resolution.

What is the encounter? Crazed wolves running to town, endangering the occupants. What happened at the end? Crazed wolves are no longer endangering the town. Encounter resolved, XP awarded. Your druid or ranger is probably even better pleased that the wolves didn't need to be killed.

Coffee is brewing, so let me get a little more caffeinated and check in later to expand more if needed/wanted. Just got back home at 1AM, some poor sleep, and coffee is a definite way to head off the next ... encounter.

[Biggus]

In the second case I'd say it's clear-cut, a helpless hippogriff is not a challenge, so they only get XP for one.

The first less so. Technically I think they would get full XP as they overcame the challenge of four wolves, but if you just had them run away at the sight of a waving tree branch automatically (ie, without making any sort of roll) I'd say you went quite easy on them, so it wouldn't be unfair to reduce it. My gut feeling is to give them half XP.

Edit: I think the way I'd have resolved the encounter with the wolves would be to have the PC make an Intimidate check, and the wolves would get a penalty to resist it because they're already panicked.

[wilphe]

It depends what you want to motivate your players to do.


If you are only going to give full XP if the matter is resolved by combat then don't act surprised if that becomes their main way of resolving problems


If you want them to find other solutions (frequently creative and non-violent ones) then give them the same (or more) XP than if they had resolved the situation by killing everything

[Telonius]

The "Waging Peace" section in Book of Exalted Deeds (p. 31) has some pretty good advice on this. It's tailored for people with the Vow of Peace feat, but can really apply to any situation where any character solves things non-violently. Basically, what the posters have said so far; "kill all the dudes" is not the only way to resolve an encounter. If you overcame the encounter, however you did it, you get XP for it. (It also gives some suggestions for ad-hoc XP awards for redeeming evil characters and so on).

[Batcathat]

On one hand, I feel like something that took much less effort should be rewarded less, so one PC doing one thing should get less XP than the entire party fighting, even if the result is basically the same (the villagers aren't eaten by wolves). On the other hand, the XP rewarded for combat would presumably have been the same whether it's resolved by four people stabbing repeatedly for a while or a single person using a single spell, so I guess it's kind of built into the system that XP is rewarded for results, rather than effort.

From a purely psychological perspective, it might be a good idea to give full XP for the reason others have brought up, to teach the party that there are other solutions than combat (though obviously that depends on the players, it is obviously entirely unnecessary with some groups).

[Berenger]

I think that non-violent encounter resolution should award full XP. Everything else just encourages undesirable behaviour. However, it can be a headache to decide which creatures in which situations count as an encounter. It's reasonable to get XP for a guard you circumvented by stealth instead of murder. It's unreasonable to get XP for a whole enemy army marching by while you are hiding in a nearby tree.

For example, if that hippogriff was of hostile disposition, had to be calmed down with some clever roleplaying and a challenging Handle Animal (Cha) check and would have attacked the party if they made the slightest mistake, that could qualify as a solved encounter. If the hippogriff was intelligent enough to grasp that the party was just trying to help and generally disinclined to attack them, well, they just met a neutral NSC that happened to be a CR 2 hippogriff.

As you are splitting XP evenly between all characters anyway, have you considered switching to milestone XP?

[Rleonardh]

Wolfs get full exp to party in my eyes, if only giving to the 1 player you will make that player level 5 before the others reach level 3 if that player is better at these types of situations.

The griff no exp as it wasn't a threat, however you can bring them back to help the players later as a thank you. So that will become there reward.

[wilphe]

On one hand, I feel like something that took much less effort should be rewarded less, so one PC doing one thing should get less XP than the entire party fighting, even if the result is basically the same (the villagers aren't eaten by wolves).

Thing is if you give into that too much then the players will not only stop trying to be clever but will actively try to be dumb

[King of Nowhere]

It depends what you want to motivate your players to do.


If you are only going to give full XP if the matter is resolved by combat then don't act surprised if that becomes their main way of resolving problems


If you want them to find other solutions (frequently creative and non-violent ones) then give them the same (or more) XP than if they had resolved the situation by killing everything

this.
giving the players less xp because they solved the problem without fighting is the perfect way to push them on the path for murderhoboing.

[Batcathat]

Thing is if you give into that too much then the players will not only stop trying to be clever but will actively try to be dumb

Yes, that's probably true, though how much is too much is hard to say.

I'm rather split on the issue. Personally, I love it when characters take some clever shortcut instead of doing it the hard way. But on the other hand, I also think there should be some correlation between how much effort something took and how much XP it should result in.

this.
giving the players less xp because they solved the problem without fighting is the perfect way to push them on the path for murderhoboing.

You're not wrong, but I think it's worth keeping in mind that it wasn't just that they solved the problem without fighting, they also solved the problem with much less effort. If they had conducted some brilliant plan to divert the wolves from the village, I totally agree they should get as much XP as from fighting the wolves (or probably more). But from one character waving a stick around? I'm not so sure.

[Dimers]

Encounters solved with combat should give XP based on how demanding the combat should have been, with the assumption of a typical spread of rolls and typical tactics. (By which I mean, you shouldn't penalize your players' XP if they come up with a great plan or happen to roll a string of crits.) And creature-based CR adjusted for the specific situation makes sense to use for that purpose.

Encounters solved without combat shouldn't give XP based on the probable difficulty of the combat, so attending to the CR of the creatures in those encounters doesn't make sense. Instead, they should give XP based on how demanding the situation would typically be to resolve. (And again, XP shouldn't change based on the players' actual tactics used or how successful their rolls were.)

For the wolves, since the players didn't fight, ignore the combat XP entirely and eyeball an Encounter Level for the encounter based on what level party of generic PCs should be able to handle it by spending a modest amount of their daily and consumable resources on it. I would say a group of 3rd-level PCs with L3 WBL could resolve the wolf encounter several different ways by spending some spell slots, item uses, hit points and so forth, with little threat of extreme consequences (including endangering villagers), so I'd call it EL3. An EL3 encounter equals one CR3 monster in terms of XP rewards -- that's 900 total XP if the party is 1st through 3rd level, so 180 XP apiece. If you think a 2nd level party should be able to handle the situation without serious threat of consequences beyond modest attrition, EL2/CR2 grants 600 total XP, for 120 apiece.

The hippogriff situation seems to have little threat of consequences at all -- can't the PCs just ignore it and go a different way? But since they chose to address the situation, they did take on some risk and had the potential to learn something. To me, that reads like a trap in an optional part of a dungeon: If the characters look at the trap and choose to skip that part entirely, they get no XP because they don't really encounter the trap (DMG p39 second paragraph), but if they do tackle it, they do get XP for it. So CR it like a trap/hazard that the players encountered and found a way to safely bypass. Looking at examples of traps in the DMG, I'd call the encounter as difficult to handle and as potentially damaging as some CR2 traps. If the PCs are 1st through 3rd level, 120 XP each. If the PCs had just looked at the first hippogriff and walked around the roadblock, that wouldn't count as an encounter and wouldn't give XP.

[Jay R]

Some very helpful comments here. Thanks.

I’m not worried about teaching them to prefer violent solutions. We’re new to 3.5e, but not to D&D. Over half the table has played original D&D, and all have played AD&D. These are experienced role-players who already (obviously) look for other solutions.

Besides which, they will never know. Assuming I reduce the question to either half or full xps, I’m debating between telling them that they got 855 or 1,035 xps for the entire session. I don’t expect any of them to try to break it down beyond that.

I agree in general with the principle behind Berenger’s statement that “I think that non-violent encounter resolution should award full XP.” But it can break down in practice, because the word “encounter” is far too general. If a 20th level wizard meets with them in order to hire them, that’s an “encounter”. But accepting the job is not worth as many experience points as defeating the wizard.

Similarly, they didn't defeat the hippogriffs peacefully. They and the hippogriffs solved the problem peacefully.

If these were encounters that could have been resolved either by fighting or by something else, and they chose the something else, there would be no question in my mind – that calls for full xps. But that’s not the situation. Defeating a hippogriff, or four wolves, at first level without an ambush, is nearly impossible. I didn’t expect them to consider that an option, and they didn’t. Therefore using that idea to calculate xps seems … irrelevant.

[OK, yes. They could have attacked, and the wizard could have cast a sleep spell. If the hippogriff fails its save, they beat it. If it makes its save, most or all of them die. I didn’t consider that a reasonable possibility, and neither did they.]

But with a combination of wild empathy and non-threatening gestures (along with one player who bowed like Harry Potter facing Buckbeak) they earned the first hippogriff’s trust, and rescued the injured one. So I should measure the difficulty of doing that.

I automatically split experience points for an encounter they are all involved in; the reason only Niclas acted was the initiative order; the wolves were turned aside before the others got to act. And they were all in the same risk.

But it’s still possible for individuals to earn bonus xps for brilliantly figuring out clues or puzzles. So milestone XPs won’t work for my game. [Besides, I don’t like it aesthetically. I have no objection to other DMs using it, but if I did, it would feel (to me) like I was trying to avoid learning the experience rules.]

Dimers's breakdown seems mostly right. Treating these encounters like traps, rather than like battles, is much more appropriate. I'll go with his suggested XP totals.

Everybody, thank you for the comments. I’ve learned more about D&D by reading several different approaches.

[Fizban]

They would have endangered any villagers in their path. The PCs successfully diverted them away from the village. [One of them already had a large tree branch is his hands. He ran in front of them waving it, and I assumed that panicked wolves would run away from anything big and unusual. . . .
That’s not the same as defeating four wolves, but it did save the villagers. Five 1st level PCs defeating four wolves would be worth 240 xps each, but that seems too much for one action by one PC.

My question is, why would these wolves have endangered the villagers if they were so easily redirected by an action that any of the villagers could have taken themselves?

If we consider based on risk and resource expenditure: it cost them nothing, they did not even suffer any attacks which could have cost them hp, nor does it sound like they made a roll that could have failed and cost them one of the above, so it might not be worth anything more than "feel good" xp.

[No, I will not give all the xps to the one PC who got to act. Similarly, when a single sleep spell defeated half the goblins the next day, the wizard doesn’t get more than half of that encounter’s xps. They were all there, sharing any danger.]

That is the standard, yes.

Later, along their way, they found a huge tree down blocking their road. A hippogriff was standing vigil on it, and would not let them over it. Eventually they discovered that its mate was trapped under the tree with a crushed leg. They dug it out, provided as much healing as a first level party can (not much), and left.

How many experience points is that? Defeating one hippogriff would give them each 120 xps each; defeating two would give them 240 (according to the d20srd encounter calculator). But they didn’t defeat them; they dislodged a stone and dug a hole. And really, the CR of the hippogriff doesn’t matter, beyond the fact that they could not defeat it in a fight. If it had been a CR 10 monster, the danger would have been just the same.

My gut feeling is to say they actually faced one hippogriff, not two, and to cut the xps in half – 60 xps each. But this game is sufficiently different from AD&D or original D&D that I don’t trust my gut feelings yet.

Did they have to use any resources or class abilities or make any rolls in order to succeed? I would expect an animal guarding their mate to attack unless calmed through use of some ability. If they successfully used such an ability to avoid the fight*, I would count that as one hippogriff defeated. If they did not have to, then once again they took on no actual risk nor spent any resources and the "encounter" was almost entirely roleplaying fluff, to which I would not normally award xp (but again, if I'd made that scenario they would have had to "fight" one way or another, violently or non-violently).

I consider the 1/2 guideline for encounters that are guaranteed to not result in PC death- it's mentioned specifically in Complete Warrior for non-lethal tournaments and such. Said encounter must still have something on the line for it to really matter. If you determined that you would not have the hipp attack the PCs unless they attacked first, but they still needed to clear the road, then that might suffice, though again if they both had no risk and spent no resources (the spending of which increases risk if they have to fight something later) it comes off as just roleplaying xp to me.

*I see further down that you say they used some Wild Empathy, but I also expect it must have involved lots of ad hoc ruling since hipps are magical beasts so their bonus at 1st level would likely be negative. So either they were given a low DC or a large roleplaying boost (making the encounter easier) or they got a very lucky roll.

[Quertus]

So, Angry would say, they didn't defeat the wolves, they bypassed them. The wolves are still there, and could still be a threat. Half XP.

The helpless Hippogriff is worth 0 combat XP. The other Hippogriff, Angry would say that the party bypassed it, it still exists, and could still be a threat. Half XP (for 1, 0 for the other).

I would say... bypassing the wolves intelligently is worth one-and-a-half times XP of fighting them, especially if this is in character, or done to appease a stupid green PC/NPC that wants wolves near a human settlement. (EDIT: Also, any villagers that the wolves kill, the PCs earn full XP for, *if* that was their intention in leaving the wolves alive).

Rescuing the helpless Hippogriff is worth puzzle/RP XP. Not dying to the other Hippogriff could be worth half or full XP, depending (was there a risk that it would turn violent while you were extricating its mate? Is it a threat to you / people in the area, or is it as non-violent as cattle / pigs / other "livestock-worthy" large animals?)

[Zanos]

My general opinion is to award full xp if an encounter could have reasonably been resolved with combat and the PCs circumvent it. This breaks at the seams; of course the party isn't getting full XP if they find a trapped pit fiend and go find a level 20 wizard to kill it for them, so you need to use good judgement.

I ran my first 3.5e game (as a DM) and am now counting up experience points. I’d like some advice on a couple of encounters.

There has been a major disaster (a meteor-like object striking earth). Soon after, 4 panicked wolves ran towards the village. They would have endangered any villagers in their path. The PCs successfully diverted them away from the village. [One of them already had a large tree branch is his hands. He ran in front of them waving it, and I assumed that panicked wolves would run away from anything big and unusual. The most obvious path to run was parallel to the stream, avoiding the village.] No combat, one round of action.

You should have asked for a handle animal or intimidate roll, I think. Handle animal makes more sense since the person is trying to use the instinctive behavior of animals to their advantage. Then other PCs can jump in with an aide another check or something like that. That said I would award full XP for this, the combat was avoided because the DM made an overly generous call, but combat was still a realistic conclusion to this encounter that would have solved the problem. It's very difficult but not impossible for a level 1 party to fight off four wolves. However, if the wolves are so easily frightened they flee from a tree branch being waved, wouldn't they have ran the first time one of them took damage as well? You should consider what the combat would have looked like if it came to that and awarded XP based on that; if the wolves would have fled on being lightly wounded also, it makes sense to reduce the XP.

[No, I will not give all the xps to the one PC who got to act. Similarly, when a single sleep spell defeated half the goblins the next day, the wizard doesn’t get more than half of that encounter’s xps. They were all there, sharing any danger.]

Fully agreed.

Later, along their way, they found a huge tree down blocking their road. A hippogriff was standing vigil on it, and would not let them over it. Eventually they discovered that its mate was trapped under the tree with a crushed leg. They dug it out, provided as much healing as a first level party can (not much), and left.

How many experience points is that? Defeating one hippogriff would give them each 120 xps each; defeating two would give them 240 (according to the d20srd encounter calculator). But they didn’t defeat them; they dislodged a stone and dug a hole. And really, the CR of the hippogriff doesn’t matter, beyond the fact that they could not defeat it in a fight. If it had been a CR 10 monster, the danger would have been just the same.

My gut feeling is to say they actually faced one hippogriff, not two, and to cut the xps in half – 60 xps each. But this game is sufficiently different from AD&D or original D&D that I don’t trust my gut feelings yet.

Any advice?

I think you have framed this incorrectly. A hippogriff is a dangerous animal, this situation should involve danger because you're trying to help a wounded animal that is a naturally aggressive predator, which should have involved the possibility of failure and combat by agitating it. A CR 10 version of this encounter would be more dangerous because failure should involve the possibility of combat with an even more angry and dangerous animal, or two, depending on their proximity.