*poll* Exp reward system, bane or beauty?

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Ok, what are your opinions on how exp is worked out for kills.

I, personally, don't like it. Ive always prefered it where no matter what your lvl, you get the same exp for the same creature, and that whether it is worth killing is up to the amount of exp you need for the next lvl.

Ive only played Ad&d before, so it might be a D&D thing, but still, whats your view on the topic.

 

the idea is good...but i think it doesn't work that great.

ie. i imported a lvl 8 fighter into chapter 2, made him walk directly into the host-tower, every single foe i encountered had a challenge rating of "challenging" or above...

...i ended the game being a lvl 15 char, and quite dissappointed that leveling up wasn't going any faster. i thought the bonus xp you get by killing high lvl creatures would help greatly, it just didn't. this sucks.

 

Perhaps because in BG there wasn't many of the same characters (etc. in NWN there's all those escaped prisoners and zombies) But in bg nearly every creature could be spoken to, there wasn't that many random created encounters as in NWN. So in BG the exp would differ from each of the NPCs. But in NWN it's just some computer controlled enemy who just awaits its death. I'm sorry if you don't understand this but it's 7 AM som I am bit tired.

 

Trillex,

What on earth are you talking about? Hardly any of the monsters in the BG series were neutral when you encountered them. And there are far more 'randomized' encounters (all those travel ambushes, etc) in the BG series than was put in the NWN campaign. Are you perhaps reversing your game names or something?

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

I started to get annoyed when I was only getting about 3 experience for killing a fire giant which could almost kill me - I was thinking this creature is challenging but when I looked back over the game I think the experience system worked out reasonably well.

I finished the game at lvl 19 having tried to do most quests (didn't quite make them all) and I found some creatures/npcs with high challenge ratings which I beat in a couple of seconds and others with low challenge ratings but were hard to beat (Bodaks with their death ray) but I levelled up at a seemingly constant rate and almost made the level cap by the end of the game (I'd like to know how anyone reached the level cap by start of chapter 3).

I think different encounters would be harder/easier depending on the class you choose - the Bodak was hard for me because I was a fighter and had a low will score but I rarely got poisoned due to my high fortitude. I was disappointed by the XP I got for the Bodak however I got too much for the Ettercap.

Overall I thought the game was well balanced and although they can't get every encounter right for every character/player Bioware have done as well as they possibly could.

 

Vormaerin dear friend.

What I'm saying is that you meet a lot more random monsters in NWN than in BG2. There are simply more of them in NWN.

 

i think the game is all messed up now. today i wanted a friend to join my game, so he created a sorcerer and started off lvl 1 in the middle of chapter 2.

why did he get like 4xp for a creature, where i got 250xp? i did the killing most of the time (lvl 14 char). i thought everyone in the party gets the same xp?

 

The xp reward system in 3rd edition dnd balances out nicely I think. No, you don't get as much experience for killing lowly beasts at high levels, but one must remember, it also doesn't take as much experience to get to those high levels as it did in earlier versions of dnd.

 

This is something I don't get either. As a DM at least one can balance that annoying feature. For one, why -as was mentioned in the beginning of the thread- would a higher level character get less exp from a low-level enemy than when he was low-level himself? It makes no sense since this high-level character requires so much exp to reach the next level anyways.

And the most annoying thing is that the singleplayer campaign really is singleplayer. First, only the person who is talking gets the first 2 levelups in the prelude. Then even after that, some exp's or reward items are only awarded to the one finishing the quest. This destroys the partygame entirely. My friends and I never even played any further than chapter 1. All 3 of us got utterly bored and enraged over the game and the fact that one of us had just gained his 2:nd level, I was about to get my 3:rd (I had gained the first lvlup in prelude). And the third player was well on his third level (gained the other lvlup -> 3:rd). When fighting in the prison, the most experienced of us gained about 20-27exp per enemy, I got 11-15 or something. Maybe the difference isn't really that big since you gain levels relatively faster even though the exp is not us much as with a higher-leveled char (I didn't know this at the time). But as you see through the quest encounters and rewards, and through the common fighting, that the game favors others over others in the same party.. Well let's just say that I won't be thouching that until it will be about a DM making it fair for everyone. Got tired of that save/load every time after doing a quest just so you could balance the exp for a less experienced player.

 

Well, lets say I'm a lvl. 15 fighter and needed 12000 XP to reach lvl. 16. If the game didn't have the XP sliding scale, I could go around to any CRYPT in CH.2 and level up on the endless supply of undead. Let's say each one gave me 150XP, I would have to kill around 600 of them to reach my next lvl. That's not too hard when I'm killing them in a single hit!

Now, since the game only gives me like 32XP per undead I kill, it would take a hell of a lot longer to level up now wouldn't it?

This way you're "incouraged" to go and fight harder enemies so you can level up faster, rather than sticking around a certain area and killing off the weak enemies.

 

Yeah I understand the idea. I just don't understand why? Just raise the amount of exp required to gain a new level and keep the exp's gained from an enemy unchanged. It's annoying trying to calculate what it would take to lvlup in different circumstances when the exp profit is ever changing.

I get the idea of not getting any exp for just punching down an "enemy" (with one shot) that can barely even try to hit you once in a year. But this system... I just don't like it in a D&D game. Didn't even like it in Angband or DAoC. Somehow it hinders the gameplay.

 

please someone answer my question!

 

Massive, sounds like a scripting error, the server was considering the two of you as seperate PC's and awarding you your friends pts. and your friend your pts.

That being said let me try to clear up how exp. pts are awarded in 3rd ed. All creatures have a Challage Rating(CR) that is based on the basic toughness of the creature and their level. The amount of exp. you get is then tied to the CR and not the creature. This is done to allow creatures to advance in levels, so forex you could have a level 10 goblin shaman that could summon a dire tiger. This CR is then compared to your total level or the average level of the party to generate an exp. pt. modifier. This modifier is then used to determine how much exp. you will get from killing the creature. So if you are level 6 and fighting a CR 6 creature then the modifier would be 1, if however you were fighting a level 4 creature then the modifier could be .9. This works the other way also so if you manage to defeat a level 8 creature then the modifier could be 1.1.
I hope this helps explain a little better about how the exp. pts. are now handled.

 

I really like the new system, it's a great idea. Means you can't lvl up

[This message has been edited by Z-Layrex (edited July 08, 2002).]

 

So how does the xp get modified by henchman/summons/familiar? Do I get more xp by killing monsters if I unsummon my familiar and kick out my henchman?

 

I totally agree. I love the new Exp. system.

 

Having a henchman will actually get you more exp. pts. since they are at least a level lower then you thus lowering the parties CR. Animals, familiars and summoned animals can either raise or lower the parties level depending upon what level they are at when summonded. So for max. exp. pts. kick your henchman out of the party before you level up and never tell them to level up.