Question about low level group XP

[SCI-kick]

So recently our BG group of blood thirsty mercs had a little adventure in Cloakwood. We had a 4th level cleric, a 3rd level fighter, a lvl 2 rogue/ranger, and a level 1 bard. We had great fun, taking on a literal horde of goblins and wargs. We used a ton of supplies, and all got near death at some point, with the bard going to negative HP, but revived.

But, alas . .. none of us got any XP for goblins.

I don't want to get into a complaint session, but it seems to me at least the Lvl 1 and 2 PCs should have got some XP for their part. Even just 1XP each.

It was still fun, but still . . . What's the point in making a cool RP/action party if the XP system is rigged against you?

[Zelknolf]

XP was calculated for those goblins as less than 1 XP -- the calculation going like so...

A goblin is worth about 5 xp, depending on the specific goblin, to a soloer at level (well "at level" -- common goblins are less than CR 1, so you're never "at level")

You apply the danger factor to that, which is based on party level, which is probably 4th (might be higher, if your 4th level party member has a level adjustment), which means the danger factor is 0.1

So that goblin is worth 0.5xp to a level 4.

But you're in a party with four members. Which is actually on a bell curve: because you were in a party, that goblin was actually worth 1.45x as much XP. Which is 0.72.

But when you change data types in programs, the extra bits are just truncated. So if you take a decimal value (e.g. 3.38957) and then say "Make this an integer" you just get the whole number digits (e.g. 3).



Now, that just explains why, in terms of the code. And I would probably assert that if your party actually just jumped one lonely goblin and bashed it over the head, they don't deserve any XP for it. Even incompetent parties of that composition are winning that fight handily.

One might argue that a group of goblins isn't six CR 0.33 fights, but is instead one CR 2-3 fight (~5 xp per member of your described party). Which is fair; I've argued that before, and noted that it makes low-CR creatures less farmable and gives better rewards to the groups which are closer to the CR, but the original combat XP implementation didn't do this because monsters don't, by default, have a concept of being in a party that can be defeated (part of what makes the default AI so crazy is that individual monsters tend to barely if ever notice that there are other monsters helping them). In current implementations, the problem is lack of use and/or approval of the systems that do understand the concept, and it's thus hard to make policy based on things that we can't assume are present.

[SCI-kick]

Thanks Zelk. The whole wilderness / dungeon crawl was actually very challenging for our party to continue due to attrition. We all just felt a little slighted on XP / reward for the whole thing.

[Zelknolf]

Yeah, I know it's not very satisfying to hear back the reason why it kinda sucks and that we don't have an easy fix. Unfortunately, the best answer I can say is that progress toward making it good continues to happen, but we're not there yet and it'll probably be a long time getting there.

[kid]

Who was in the party?

[SCI-kick]

Praten of Greatwyrm (dannm), "Shank" (me), Rook (OGR), and Stephon (Duck)

[kid]

Well, till tech will fix all our woes I'll see if I can give you lot a token bump at least
(To the lower levels mainly).
I'll try and set some encounters for lv1-4 during the week for you to do.

[SCI-kick]

Thanks Kid . . . Not wanting to seem like I'm begging for XP compensation though.

Zelk explained it pretty well. But, on the other hand ... If you entered the area in question with a party that did get XP for the goblins, some or all of the party would likely not survive. So, basically you have to wait until you are considered too strong to get XP in the area, to even enter the area without getting your party killed.

Right when things are actually challenging without being suicidal, XP drops way off, or not existent.

[Veilan]

Thanks Kid . . . Not wanting to seem like I'm begging for XP compensation though.

Never fear - if you had come off as doing so, kid wouldn't have offered the tokens .

[shad0wfax]

Well, till tech will fix all our woes I'll see if I can give you lot a token bump at least
(To the lower levels mainly).
I'll try and set some encounters for lv1-4 during the week for you to do.

Thanks kid.

I'm a firm believer in appropriate challenges resulting in XP gains, whether or not a DM is present. Until we have DMA guidance to increase reward for static risk (and TA implementation of that guidance, which should be fairly easy), I support DMs rewarding known situations and also supporting the players who group up for this stuff.


Stephon Reigh {DuckOne} [BG] has been rewarded.

[Zelknolf]

static risk (and TA implementation of that guidance, which should be fairly easy)

Wait, what?

Treating monsters as groups instead of as individuals is orders of magnitude more complex than what we do now. That's why we didn't do it in the first place.

[vergin_sacrifice]

Suddenly reminded of the Director of marketing deciding that our call center could handle x2 calls without any additional resources, and gave us 3 work days to figure out how to 'get it done' for the contract he approved that required calls answered within X# of seconds. Fun.

[oldgrayrogue]

I want to add some perspective to this situation and thanks Sci for bringing it to light and Zelk for the response.

The reality is that most of the time the less than CR 1 goblins attack in groups of three or more. At least half the time those groups seemed to be positioned within perception range of each other. That meant we were fighting two or more groups at once. 6 to 9 goblins attacking our group at once was a considerable challenge. At one point we encountered a large group of 12 to 15 goblins hunkered around the corpse of a bear. This made for nice RP but again the challenge was significant. In other parts of the cloak wood, and later in the cave we were static questing to, the goblin groups of 3 to 5 were joined by 1 to 3 wargs. Again considerably greater CR. The wargs did give XP. I think 11 Xperia each for my level 2.

This situation is not limited to the cloak wood proper. Goblins in the cloak wood hills, at which several low level statics are located, also attack typically in groups of 3 or more. Sometimes they are accompanied by dire animals or even undead.

So if I was the DM running this as a wilderness and dungeon "crawl" I would have awarded XP in the high hundreds to each party member with GP to match. Notably, only 1 or maybe 2 of us had the static we were doing (and we're able to take it at all) so the others got no XP for that. In terms of loot most of it was mundane. I was sort of the "designated looter" for the group and sold off everything for less than 30 GP I think. Dan's PC did pick up a CLW potion.

As Sci pointed out, Dan's cleric and Duck's Bard used up all of their healing spells. My level 2 ranger used 2 LV potions and a CLW potion if I remember correctly. That is 150 GP in resources just for me. I think other party members were similarly depleted.

Our group of crazies had a lot of fun on this adventure. It was great RP and very tense at parts and exciting. I'm sure we would all do it again, and will, despite the negative returns but I think we are rare among NWN2 players especially new players who might try ALFA out.

DMs offering XP and loot to make up for this is an easy fix to account for the tech difficulties noted by Zelk. Like Sci I am not begging for XP either but I bet most players would like rewards for risk which is a cornerstone of DND IMO. Perhaps DMA in conjunction with the HDMs can institute a program where parties (not solo players) are awarded XP an GP for a "reported" adventure. Maybe even a clipped log? It is more "work" for DMs but as long as we don't get caught up in strict mathematical XP and GP formulas I don't think it would be too much of a hardship.

Again the above is offered for perspective and hopefully as an aid to addressing the current state of affairs on BG not at all as a complaint.

[shad0wfax]

static risk (and TA implementation of that guidance, which should be fairly easy)

Wait, what?

Treating monsters as groups instead of as individuals is orders of magnitude more complex than what we do now. That's why we didn't do it in the first place.

My comment is in the context of increasing XP at the DMA level across the board for static encounters, do that the sum of the individual creature rewards is more appropriate, not to try to originate a new group XP algorithm.

An increase to XP should be no lore than an integer or float change.

[Zelknolf]

I suspect that this suggestion doesn't take into account the behavior of the existing algorithm.

Increasing the anchor won't work, and will cause likely-unintended side effects.