An observatrion...

Racerblue · Post by **Racerblue** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 2:38 am

On Saturday, my now dead toon teamed up with several others to complete a couple of scripted tasks. During the adventure, quite a few undead were killed..and as best I could tell, my PC never got a single XP for it...what gives? Is there a script firing that keeps xp from being gained when the overall level of the party is too high?

darrenhfx · Post by **darrenhfx** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 3:59 am

Others may have a better idea than I on the exact payouts of the XP award system, but; were you partied up, did you actually "kill" any of the undead, were the other receiving xp?

Sintaqx · Post by **Sintaqx** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:01 am

If the overall party level is too high then the xp payout can drop to nothing. Likewise, higher level characters get a larger chunk of the payouts that do occur, so lower level members can end up receiving nothing that way as well. Sucks in some ways, makes sense in others. There's a whole thread somewhere around here discussing it.

Racerblue · Post by **Racerblue** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:14 pm

Wow..that's really a catch-22 for the low level guys then. Party-up and survive, or go solo or near solo and run a greater risk of dying. Additionally here, I have no way of knowing the level or approximate level of those I'm about to set out with..

I know the rules say it should be so, but the pen/paper game is designed much differently than our computerized version. Perhaps some small adjustment..like at least 1xp per for low level party members teamed up with higher level guys killing weak monsters.

I cannot say with any accuracy if my toon killed any of the undead or not. I can say, he dealt damage to several.

Just a thought.

AcadiusLost · Post by **AcadiusLost** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 5:30 pm

That may actually be a bug with the current module version- there were some alterations to the death scripts made on a number of creature types, including a few undead IIRC, which may be keeping them from being calculated for XP. Usually you are going to get at least an XP or two unless it's a truly massive party of high-level PCs.

dergon darkhelm · Post by **dergon darkhelm** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:03 pm

Hey AL.......just anecdotally I've noted complete lack o exp from grunt orcs, gobbies, etc with a party of 2 4th levels.

I am not sure if this is the way its supposed to be but just pointing out.

The exp awards really do seem to be all over the place.

SOme orcs giving me 17 exp solo per....and they're not that tough.

Just pointing out some observatrions

Rick7475 · Post by **Rick7475** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:02 pm

AcadiusLost wrote:That may actually be a bug with the current module version- there were some alterations to the death scripts made on a number of creature types, including a few undead IIRC, which may be keeping them from being calculated for XP. Usually you are going to get at least an XP or two unless it's a truly massive party of high-level PCs.

HDM Darrenfx asked for a repeatable script in the cemetary so I wrote one up.

The death scripts in the undead skeletons were all altered so that they could drop undead bones to be collected by the priest of Kelemvor. Each bone would be worth about 5 exp and 5 gold. This is similiar to the quest in the Silverymoon Catacombs. I'm not sure if that one works any more either.

I also wrote the Rivermoot Guard Sergeant bounty script where he collected orc ears and kobold fangs. Unfortunately this proved to be too much gold and exp making people upset, so the death script was removed. It appears all other similiar death scripts I made were also removed. It takes me quite a few hours to design those statics and write the death scripts, adding them to the creatures. There are 5 other static quests that I wrote that somehow are not working in the current mod and I hope I can have the chance to fix them. In fact, I could fix all the broken scripts.

Unfortunately, when I write the scripts, testing on a larger scale is difficult. So when there is a bug, the approach is to shotgun the script, blow it away, so that PC's do not take adavantage of the bug and gain wealth. Of course, I wrote it, so I should be the one to fix it. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen this way. There are probably 10 or so broken statics, so that are bugs I haven't had a chance to fix, and others were broken due to emergency fixes to bugs by someone other than the author of the script.

Brother Humphrey · Post by **Brother Humphrey** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:28 pm

might i suggest reinstating the statics and death scripts but reducing the rewards to 1 or 2xp/gp per item? that should make it easier to digest, but still give something to those who take the effort to keep rivermoot and the Marches safe from scum.

*edit*

How much should we get for turning in Banite ears?

Kest · Post by **Kest** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:21 am

Where can I find the previous discussion on this? Can never find anything on ALFA boards - there are too many of them.

It seems very strange that with the left hand you discourage solo play by making it very dangerous, and with the right hand you discourage group play by giving lower levels no rewards. What is the focus here?

DarkHin · Post by **DarkHin** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:39 am

Brother Humphrey wrote:might i suggest reinstating the statics and death scripts but reducing the rewards to 1 or 2xp/gp per item? that should make it easier to digest, but still give something to those who take the effort to keep rivermoot and the Marches safe from scum.

*edit*

How much should we get for turning in Banite ears?

You need banites in order to get banite ears. You don't find a lot of incentive to play when you're tucked away in WE.

Sintaqx · Post by **Sintaqx** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 2:04 am

Kestenvarn wrote:What is the focus here?

What is this focus thing you speak of?

Ideally most xp will not be combat. Statics, RPXP, and DM-granted XP should outweigh anything you would get from combat. Key word is should. We have great DMs here, but not enough of them, especially when Real Life gets ahold of them. So DM xp is unfortunately scarce while life and building is in full force. RPXP is slow, but a nice boost (and is reflected in DM awards). Statics... I don't know much about them other than if you solo them you will probably die. I've not done many of them myself.

psycho_leo · Post by **psycho_leo** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 2:14 am

Kestenvarn wrote:Where can I find the previous discussion on this?

Here

Kest · Post by **Kest** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:56 am

thanks

Sintaqx wrote:What is this focus thing you speak of?

I was referring to statics and combat experience... scripted battles. Bringing up rpxp and dmxp is kind of irrelevant, they are not the issue here.

If you are going to have combat give experience at all - doesn't it seem illogical to first tell the player to bring a group, but then penalize him for bringing a group?

Keryn · Post by **Keryn** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:08 pm

Well it doesnt if you look at it this way.

If you gather a group of your level, you will be learning with them at the same rate has you all will be experimenting new things, etc...

And its actually challenging for all.

If you bring in a high level suddenly the challenge is none probably the high level will do anything there is to be done, as has such the quest becomes easy too easy. The high level will wack most things and probably tell the weaker guys to stand back avoid this and that.

Which means his actual experience is alot less.

In terms of pure cmobat I think this script was placed to avoid power leveling, with high levels kiling stuff and low levels tagging along just to get the easy XP. This way the chunk the low level gets is much less then the higher level wich is supost to disencourage people from doing this.

I THINK these are the main reasons things are how they are.

Racerblue · Post by **Racerblue** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:23 pm

I have no problem limiting the xp gained from an overbalanced party killing off weak monster types..I don't think the level ones should receive 0, but I'm not in charge, and I respect the folks here who've had to make the decisions on how to do things. I do wish low levels would get at least a single xp out of an encounter like this.

Should players ooc "what is your level?" before they party up? I don't like that either, and you MIGHT not get an honest answer. Some players don't want you to know what their level is..that is their perogative and IC your toon probably wouldn't have a reason to withdraw or holdback a invite.

Pen/paper rules were designed to have groups of like leveled characters adventuring together. It's really, really hard on any server to gather up 5 level 1..or level 4 or level 8 characters and set out.

As an FYI, my cleric killed several of these skelies by himself *gasp*

..and he got what I consider a proper xp reward for it..so the script seems to be firing as designed.