Tell me more ×
Role-playing Games Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for gamemasters and players of tabletop, paper-and-pencil role-playing games. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 10 down vote favorite

I've done a few combats recently where the PCs and their enemies were not the only participants in the fight. I wasn't sure how to budget XP in this case.

In the case of an NPC ally I see two options. Draw the NPC up as a PC and increase the number of members in the party. Or draw the NPC up as an NPC and take its XP into account when budgeting. I'm not sure if either option is correct.

What about if there's more than one side in the fight and nobody wants to team up? I'd rather not treat it as one combat budget divided over two factions. Unless the factions immediately unite, it's going to be an absurdly easy combat. Would I be better off budgeting for two encounters than happen at the same time, and hoping that no PC gets ganged up on too much?

share|improve this question
I've put some more thought into the amount to budget. My current thought is to add a fraction of an encounter's XP, determined by that group's position in the combat. What I mean by that is that the first faction adds full XP to the budget. Second faction adds half. Third faction adds a third. So if a single fight is worth 1000, a fight pitting the PCs against two separate groups would be 1500 (so each group is 750). Against three groups would be 1833 (giving each group 633). I think that's as far as any other formula I'm likely to find. Comments? – valadil Nov 22 '10 at 16:19

1 Answer

up vote 6 down vote accepted

As far as the allied NPC is concerned, I think you are correct. The other option is to simply increase the amount of XP by whatever he would take, and then still give them the same XP.

For the multi-fight combat, you can set up the scenario to make it less likely the NPCs will all gang up on the PCs. For their experience, you can give them the experience for NPCs they personally kill/knock unconcious, or ones they do a percentage of the damage to, or give a percentage of XP per NPC based on the percentage of damage they do (this last one requires a LOT of bookkeeping and math - just to be forewarned).

As for XP budget, I would definitely make it more than the standard encounter. How much more I think depends more on the set up than anything else. If it is likely that the PCs will only be fighting about half of each force at a time, make it double (or even more if you want to be really mean). Otherwise, you should budget it based on how many of the individuals you think are likely to focus on the PCs at any given time.

Hope that helps.

share|improve this answer
I hadn't considered adding up XP after the fight is done. That's probably a good idea if the fight doesn't go how I planned (ie, if the party successfully allies with one group immediately and slaughters the other group, I'd give them the fraction they did earn (plus a bonus for quick thinking and diplomacy)). It doesn't really tell me what to put on each side of the battle though. – valadil Nov 19 '10 at 20:39
For the other idea, does doubling it work? I feel like they'll face a potentially bigger threat. But if they're only fighting half the force at once (effectively a normal sized fight), they'll deal with that and then finish off what remains from the other half of the combat. Full XP in that case seems high. Maybe the second half is only worth half as much? – valadil Nov 19 '10 at 20:41
@Valadil: That was kind of my thought was that they would only get the XP for what they had effectively killed (your opinion on what "effectively" means stands, of course ;) ). They could face a larger threat, but part of the encounter is to deal with that potential threat, correct? At which point, maybe giving them some extra XP (say, 10% of people they don't kill, or the equivalent) may be worth while. I think that you would need to structure the size based on the % of enemies you think the PCS will likely face during the battle. – aperkins Nov 19 '10 at 21:13

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.