An observatrion...

[Sintaqx]

Unfortunately you can't use a PnP outlook on NWN/ALFA XP gain. In PnP you always have a DM, you can skip through the boring stuff, and combat exp is gained per encounter, not per creature. Encounter Exp is not really possible in NWN, so it needs to go off of the individual creatures, so that skews the single creature exp either up or down depending on if it's supposed to be in a group or not. As such most exp is set as though the individual creature is encountered by a small group. One of the best examples of how this doesn't really work is in high CR encounters like a pack of 4 wolves or a single brown bear. Both are fairly comparable encounter levels, but a higher-level character will get nearly nothing from the wolves because individually they are too low. In the case of static quests this imbalance can be addressed by the actual quest award, but then you run into the problem of some builds being able to solo the quest and getting alot of combat exp along with the quest award.

Then you also have the level-weighted split of combat exp. This is another double-edged sword as it prevents higher-level characters from easily power-leveling lower level characters since in addition to the exp reduction from a higher group level you have the bulk of the combat exp going to the higher level. But it does mean that the low-level characters in the group may be exposed to death constantly in order to get a pittance of exp. The risk vs reward of combat exp is sharply skewed, enough so that unless you are willing and able to hunt solo or with maybe one other person it's not going to be worth much, especially if there is a large level difference.

Perhaps the combat exp split should be equal across all members, it still won't solve the problems though, just introduce other problems.

[Racerblue]

It's a thorny question to be sure. Personally, I'd like to see a system whereby each contributing party member got a simple percentage of the xp value of the creature, with the minimum being 1xp. I think this is pretty close to being what we have now..just don't want to see the level 1 guys getting nothing...unless of course, they do nothing in which case I'd assume the other party members wouldn't be particularly happy.

[Magonushi]

Right now it sums up the levels and divides the XP accordingly.

Say you have a level 4, 2 level 2s, and 2 first level toons in your party. You kill something worth 50xp this is what happens. The reward is snipped up into 10 pieces since that is the sum total of levels in the party (4+2*2+1*2) then given out proportionately. The level 4 gets 10xp, the level 2s get 5xp each and the level 1s get 2 xp each since the calculator seems to round down not up. This effectively means that every member of the party advances toward their next level up proportionately for killing the same thing. In essence if a level 4 and level 1 only work together clearing out the wilds and the unguarded roads each will reach their next level at the same time.