In article <1169263972.905247.232620@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Will in New Haven <bill.reich@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Wouldn't you feel within your rights giving him more EXP for them than
>the rules provide? I might not _do_ it myself, as they had the Silence
>"antidote" to the Grimlocks, but I used to do so in other situations.
If one has agreed to play "by the rules" it's hard to do this, though
in the end we did go back and give what we both considered to be the
correct (but non-book) EXP.
There are some strange decisions in the Monster Manual; I hoped they
would fix them all in v3.5 but they didn't. It's particularly a problem
since spells like Polymorph, plus the ability to take monster races as
PCs, mean that the players may directly stress any bad decisions in
the Monster Manual.
My first _City of the Spider Queen_ game was almost completely determined
by the mis-leveling of one of the angels (planetar? solar? I forget) which
allows the PCs to summon it with a modestly powerful spell, even though
it's much more powerful than that. (A 16th level cleric is CR16. I don't
know how something with the full spellcasting of a 16th level cleric,
plus a whole bunch more special powers, could be CR15. I guess some of
the AD&D game designers think of clerical casting as useless, but that
has not been my experience.)
>I would probably have REALLY angered him because I would
>probably give lots of EXP to the character that did the Silence and
>less for the others.
You're right, that would really have angered him. Me, too. I'd take
the GM's unspoken message to be "I'm puni****ng you for using that tactic,
don't do it again" and I'd wonder why.
What would you be trying to say or do with this? If one PC is
dispro****tionately powerful and effective, surely giving them more EXP
than the others is not really moving toward a solution. Are you
trying to enlist the other players into forcing that player to tone
down his PC? (Wouldn't work in a one-player dynamic, of course.) Or
is it purely a realism consideration? Do you think the PC who cast
the Silence learned more than the PCs who took advantage of it? (The
PC who cast the Silence then hung back and did little or nothing all
fight.)
I don't ever give differential EXP. I have found this to be a source of
bad feelings, even in single-player games and much more in multi-player
games, and not much else. But my own preference (in contrast to my
player's) is not to give EXP at all but to give levels when it seems
appropriate. The player won't accept this because it interferes with
use of AD&D's magic-item-creation system and he is interested in the
resource-management aspects of that system.
I rather like being able to say to the GM, "My PCs have finally taken
up the responsibility of being heroes, not just adventurers; I think
they should go up a level now." (That was 9th level in SCAP.) Or,
just as often, "Nothing has really changed, and they haven't settled
into the current level yet, so don't."
Might be a bone of contention in multi-player, though. I haven't tried
it there.
Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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