Experience division - query for you experienced CKs

[Geleg]

i need some advice. last session the party (foolishly) divided itself, and the rogue went off by herself, fell in a pit trap and ended up fighting a giant crayfish (smallish) by herself. While this was going on the rest of the party were blundering about attempting to kill kobolds.

so the question is this ... should the EP for the crayfish go to teh Rogue alone, or should I divide it between all the players who were present on the adventure, even though the rogue killed the monster by herself with no one else present?

thanks in advance for your advice
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[TheMetal1]

The rogue did all the work so I say EPs to the Rogue.

Now that being said you could always take the Hackmaster protege approach. This is where a party memeber has another character in the wings that travels with they but stays out of the dungeons - watches the horses or camp, etc. When the PC returns to camp or gets out of the dungeon they tell the protege about the experience and then basically the protege gains actual exps (maybe 1/4 or 1/2 of what the PC did). In the end when the PC dies, they have another one waiting in the wings that they can use.

In your case, you could just wait to divy out the exp until the end. If the Rogue shares the experience with the players over a drink at the tavern (or on the way) - how it was killed, where its weak spots are and all that, then the Rogue only gets say half the experience points and the rest could be divided up amongst the party as they've learned from a 'teacher' on how to fight and kill a giant crayfish. Or give the Rogue all the EPs but divy out 1/2 of total Eps to the rest of the party.

[James M. Ward]

The British navy had the exact same problem in the 1800s with enemy prize ships. Enemy ships captured in battle were a great source of revenue to the captain and crew of ships. When there were fleet actions, but only one or two of the fleet ships took part in the battle, naturally the other ships in the fleet said they should get part of the prize money while the two ships that did the work said they were the only ones who should get the prize money. It was finally decided that any military ship that saw the start of the battle or participated in the battle for the prize should get the prize money.

I believe the other characters could say that if they were at the beginning of the battle the enemy "crayfish" could have reacted to them even if they didn't take part in the battle. Since they weren't in the pit, only the Rogue should get the exp.

Problem solved.

James M. Ward

[Relaxo]

I too say the Rogue gets all the XP for the crayfish since they were alone w/ it.

That said, if the others rescued the rogue mid-battle, i'd divide it evenly.

[Go0gleplex]

Another for the rogue only crayfish xp. Conversely, the rogue would get no xp for the kobolds killed by the others during her absence.
Off topic a bit... rule #1, never split the party; when violated both groups should suffer equally and/or terminally thereby making the issue of xp moot.
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[Geleg]

thanks, guys. I appreciate it. The rogue is a fun player, but liable to doing hot-headed things (like charging into a kobold lair by herself!). I was shocked when she critted the crayfish and escaped with 1 hp left. It was pretty dramatic and fun. Also annoying, given the excellent advice about splitting parties up.

Since it's early in the campaign I decided to split the EP evenly. But I may make a more general ruling for future quasi-solo kills.

Last night the entire group had to work hard to knock off a mummified crocodile. no worries about EP sharing there ...
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The only thing you find in the middle of the road are dead animals and dumb Americans - Anton Newcombe

[Fiffergrund]

I participated in a system once where all players kept notes of their accomplishments during the session, including kills/defeats and solo kills. At the end of the session, the CK would gather all of the notes and based on the player's overall contribution to the game and goals of the party, a weighted XP award would be given.

In essence, the XP for the crayfish would be split, but the rogue would get a little extra on the side for the solo kill, as a bonus.

It's a very subjective system, which has it's negatives, but it worked well enough, I guess. I'm not sure I'd do it that way now because it tended to encourage "XP Farming," but some variant might be workable.
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[Geleg]

Fiffergrund wrote:
[on weighted EP system]

I'm not sure I'd do it that way now because it tended to encourage "XP Farming," but some variant might be workable.

I worry about this as well. I have a bunch of 1st-time players, and I want to encourage cooperative play. As a result I've decided that the ep are best shared equally .... within limits, of course.

I do ask the players to vote on the best roleplaying moment from each session; then I give some extra EP to the character that they select. The idea is to encourage the newbies (mostly crpg types) to do more than roll dice. I think it's working, although the voting aspect may prove to become divisive over time (i.e., the couple of more 'dramatic' players are likely to garner more votes than the noobs). I'll see how this works out over the next few sessions.

I also ask all the players to tell me what they liked best and least about each session. At first I thought this would be directed at me, the CK, or at the adventure/plot, but it has played out in interesting ways - instead of focusing on me, they are using this opportunity to encourage each other ... and to police themselves. For example, last night 3 of the 6 players admitted that their least favorite moment was the the hotheaded rogue's capricious decision to attempt some cat burglary at exactly the moment when the group was trying to regroup for the next foray against the kobolds. So the rogue's player came in for some gentle critique at the end for (rather selfishly) sidetracking the group from its goals. That pleased me, since it let me off the hook a bit. Hopefully the rogue will get the hint. [I recognize that I could have ended her shenanigans earlier, and probably will the next time. But still ...].
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The only thing you find in the middle of the road are dead animals and dumb Americans - Anton Newcombe

[CharlieRock]

When the party splits up I have often awarded all a portion of the XP in the following manner:

All pit traps, other obstacles, riddle rooms, and monsters award XP only to those participating.

All treasure, end of quest, or story/plot XP awarded to the entire group.

The reasoning is simple (if perhaps flawed): the lone adventurer may have overcome the obstacles but the entire team worked towards the end result.

Dividing up the loot however remains entirely up to the players.
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[Omote]

TheMetal1 wrote:
The rogue did all the work so I say EPs to the Rogue.

*ding* Agreed.

~O
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[Sundog]

See, I find all this far too pernickerty, which is why I adapted the broad-brush aproach of the Alternity system, which suits my tastes much better. You get your points for a satisfactory conclusion of the adventure, and that's it. It also helps to stop people looking at innocent bystanders as XP-fodder.

Of course, there's no requriement for CKs to reward such behaviour, but the approach nips it in the bud.

[serleran]

I do not award experience. I award levels. And, these are based on doing something that makes your character better, and makes the game more interesting. So, it is likely that nothing, other than bragging rights and maybe some loot, would be earned by the thief. Otherwise, I could care, but choose to not.
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[angelius]

To keep the n00b party together I would split the EP.

If the party was more experienced and liable to typically play together - I would give the rogue all the EP.
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[Wasgo]

My question is, did the rogue kill the crayfish fairly, or due to GM intervention? If you had to intervene (secretly or otherwise), I think the XP should be split as you were trying to avoid penalizing the rogue for a bad decision. If the rogue killed it without any GM help, I think the rogue should get it all.

[Geleg]

the rogue killed it fair and square. i did mentally scale down the encounter a bit (lower HD and HP), but I don't consider that cheating (at least in my world). The rogue got a lucky crit and I rolled badly for the crayfish. So I can say that the rogue earned the kill.

still, following the same line of thought as Angelius above, I went with the sharing of ep to send a message about collective play to my noobs. There are also potential issues with the player of the rogue, who has a penchant for wandering off on her own. were she to get lots of ep for crazy stunts, even if they were fun, it would get old pretty fast (and the other players would rebel at her taking all my time on solo encounters during group time). so I think (retrospectively) that there were good reasons for splitting the ep. I'm pretty happy with the way it worked out, and no one complained. so far so good.
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The only thing you find in the middle of the road are dead animals and dumb Americans - Anton Newcombe