a) Sordrun, not Sandro… b) Why not introducing Mana instead of non-regenerating HP? non-regenerating HP sounds very dangerous within a battle…
– Daniel B 2008-10-07 06:57 UTC
He’s right, I didn’t think about that easy solution yesterday. I would give the mana concept a try.
– Marcel 2008-10-07 07:17 UTC
Hmm, whats the reason that doubling the enemies doesn’t double the XP’s gained? Actually it should “more than double it”, since it’s harder to kill them all at once instead of killing them sequentially.
– Marcel 2008-10-07 07:28 UTC
XP: I assume that the idea was to have the XP proportional to the danger, and danger (in D&D 3.5) is measured in encounter levels (EL), not challenge rating (CR). It’s a strange quirk in the D&D 3.5 rules that you design encounters based on EL (which uses the log scale of +2 for every doubling) but grant XP based on the number of foes and their CR (linear). The original M20 author probably felt like “fixing” this.
Mana: I think one of the reasons for using the current solution is that right now we don’t need different hit dice for different classes. Therefore, everything for a wizard to a battle mage to a rune warrior is possible: It just depends on the number of spells you cast. The more you cast, the weaker you are in combat. If we separate the two, then you can cast all your spells and still be a melee fighter. What we could do is this: Spellcasters have to split their hit-points between hit-points and mana-points. It’s more inflexible but makes “tracking” it easier.
I remain unenthusiastic.
– Alex 2008-10-07 08:37 UTC
XP: In D&D: 2*CR = (CR+2) (=EL). Meaning it turns out the same (not really a quirk, imho). EXCEPT: no XP for low level thingies. That’s why they need that awful table and this EL/CR concept. Thats what I always thought.
Mana: I see the point…
– Marcel 2008-10-07 09:06 UTC
I don’t understand: Two CR 6 creatures make an EL 8 encounter. Do you base your XP on the EL 8 or on 2xCR6=12? Currently the DM picks monsters based on EL (8) but hands out XP based on number of critters (12). The only reason this isn’t surprising is that often there but one high-level boss and the other XP are negligible.
The table is there to apply the same sort of log reward: If your current level is two levels below the average party level, you get 50% more XP. The rest is interpolation and rounding. We don’t do that in M20.
Maybe we just need a notation for spell casters.
This is what it would look for a single fight:
| HP | Max | Comment |
| 20 | 20 | Start |
| 14 | 20 | Hit by a spear |
| 10 | 16 | Cast a favorite 2nd level spell |
| 6 | 12 | Cast a favorite 2nd level spell |
| 12 | 12 | Got healed by a cleric but cannot go over 12 this fight |
The next fight you will start again with 20/20.
It doesn’t look too complicated, I think.
Also, regarding XP: I don’t mind either way, I guess. If we change it to “based on HD” then I’ll just change the rules. I’m still hoping that pushing the story forward as well as finding and wasting treasure is going to provide a lot of XP.
– Alex 2008-10-07 09:32 UTC
Example in D&D: assume a Level 6 Party will encounter 2 level 6 monsters:
So actually it doesn’t really matter how you award XP in D&D. (There are a few exceptions for CR 1 and 2 for low class levels)
– Daniel B 2008-10-07 10:43 UTC
Yes, Marcel also pointed it out to me via Email.
Issue resolved: XP based on HD of monsters slain (and their treasure wasted)!
– Alex 2008-10-07 11:26 UTC