So, a red dragon drops in on the party, breathes fire, most PC's have total cover from being inside tents so I rule that they don't have to save but are now in burning tents. Dragon proclaims that now she has branded them as her property with her divine flame, that they must kneel before her and accept her as their Great Leader and pay tribute to pass through her territory. Rogue is like, "Screw that," and attacks. On the dragon's next turn, breath weapon doesn't recharge and I figure that she's not interested in dealing with these lesser beings and is instead going to take her tribute and leave. She swoops down on the party's Shield Guardian, and carries it off. Because we're using variant encumbrance, we sort-of roughly figure out that she's heavily encumbered so her speed is reduced by 20'. This means that she's just slow enough for one of the members who is flying (aasimar) and another member's summoned giant vultures, to continue attacking her. They manage to get her down to like 40 hit points and so she drops the shield guardian and zips off at a pace too fast for them to stop her. However, at the same time, her breath weapon recharged. I decided that even though she could easily kill the vultures and the flying aasimar, and then just recharge and lay waste to the rest of the grounded party, that again, she's not interested and simply flies off.
Now, I decided that she left initially not because she was defeated, but simply because she wasn't interested in a drawn out fight and just wanted her due. In my mind, she wasn't defeated so I didn't give XP for it. I could've easily killed the entire party with two more breath weapon attacks (even if they pass the save, the aasimar couldn't have survived one breath weapon and would've fell out of the sky to be insta-killed, and the rest of the party were grouped up and again, would be insta killed even on a successful dex save) but again, I just felt she wanted her treasure. Some players disagreed and said they should get XP 'cause they got her close to death and could've kept going to finish her off and that she ran away to survive.
So, verdict?
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"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
In short, it was an experience for the party so you should probably grant experience for it. They spent resources (and lost physical resources) in the encounter. Maybe you don't give them the full amount of the experience for defeating a red dragon, but most published Adventure League games tend to give 100 or 200xp here and there for what are effectively social encounters or for fulfilling certain quest requirements. You could give them a few hundred token xp for their trouble.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
The dragon didn't deal damage to the party, or even try to, which means that its effective CR for that fight was 0 (0 XP). The loss of the shield guardian is merely an adventure hook.
Well, I rolled a 1 on Investigation to successfully read the post.
What is the purpose of the encounter? The Dragon was demanding tribute to let the party pass, the party resisted successfully. Nothing in completing an encounter requires killing everything, and that's a BAD mentality to put into your players. It's how you encourage players to be murderhobos, and it's not their fault at that point. I could actually see why the party would be pissed if you said "should you get any XP"
Tasks they Accomplished: They reduced a ????? Red Dragon to 40 hit point, driving it off. (you don't say what lvl the PCs are and what age the dragon is) They protected their Shield Guardian They didn't have to pay the Dragon gold.
The Dragon was down to 40 hp, in the dragon's mind it took a tactical retreat. No intelligent creature with the option not to, fights to the death. In the PC's mind they the dragon away without casualties. Both people consider they "won" the encounter. In my mind the Dragon is "a bandit" and they drove it off.
It would have been a coin flip. 40HP is low enough that a lucky crit probably would have dropped the Dragon. That said 1-2 Breath Weapons would have dropped the party.
If you really want, cut like 20% off of the top of the XP of the dragon for "not killing it", but like I said at the top. You're encouraging murderhoboing and saying encounters can't end with living characters.
There are not rules for this exactly. You can give XP for whatever you want, and how you do it can affect what sort of game you are all playing. Assuming you are not using milestone levelling, then the only thing that usually always comes with XP is killing a 'monster'. Completing a quest of some sort also generally gives XP. However, if that is all you are handing out XP for, then you risk training your players to be murder-hobos; arriving in town, collecting and completing side quests, then murdering everything that moves to hoover up those valuable XPs. Another option is to assign XP to an encounter and then reward some or all of those points if you judge that the players managed it "successfully". That might mean sneaking past the orc guard post, using guile to convince the bandits not to attack, disabling the Cyclops with magic and stealing the golden statuette while it sleeps, or driving off a red dragon using bravado and derring-do.
To me it sounds like the party did a pretty good job of not dying against that dragon. They deserve a reward, be it XP, cool trinkets, or just the respect of the populace. However, I think they might also find they have made a powerful enemy in that dragon. They tend to have long memories and a significant ego. This one wouldn't likely be putting up with having her plans thwarted. Sounds like the party is gonna get another chance to extract some XP from her lifeless corpse...
I'm actually of two minds about this. On the one hand, handing over the XP of a dragon when they didn't actually defeat it seems super generous. On the other hand, they're called experience points, not victory points or kill points, and shouldn't only be rewarded for combat defeats. My DM once threw a couple of ogres at us (at our level at the time, that was pretty intense), but I managed to cast a spell on them (can't remember what) that let us just slip right past them. Because he had really only designed them as a gatekeeper encounter, he awarded us the full XP for "defeating" the threat.
If you feel that the PCs learned something from the encounter, or in any way should show some growth from the encounter, then giving them something for their trouble would be appropriate. If, however, this is just the precursor to something far larger in the near future (like the party tracking the dragon down to retrieve their shield guardian), then save the XP rewards for the actual encounter.
I feel like a token reward is necessary, for all the reason stated above.
They drove off the dragon, they didn't die, they had to deal with a rough situation, they made an enemy, they did something rather than hiding. Consider an encounter where every creature is killed except for one, which has been captured for questioning. The encounter should reward 400xp, but do you remove 50 xp because the one critter never died?
I do, however, believe it should only be partial XP, something proportional to the damage vs death. lets argue that the dragon had 200hp and they dropped it to 40, that's 80%. So they get 80% of the total xp that would have been awarded on a kill. I generally give a maximum 50% of the xp of an encounter if the party runs from combat because they bit off more than they can chew (reward for being smart).
The dragon didn't deal damage to the party, or even try to, which means that its effective CR for that fight was 0 (0 XP). The loss of the shield guardian is merely an adventure hook.
Not quite. It dropped out of the sky in a direct free-fall, and surprised the party with a breath weapon attack while they were in camp. All but one of the PC's were asleep. The awake PC on guard duty got reduced to 1 hit point in the initial breath weapon attack. An NPC (scout) was obliterated. Technically, the only reason they survived that initial onslaught was because the other three PC's were in tents and I ad-hoc ruled that the thick, water-drenched canvas (Chult) was enough to protect them against the initial blast.
To me it sounds like the party did a pretty good job of not dying against that dragon.
If I had decided to have her fight then all I had to do was fly her up, wait for a breath weapon recharge and strafe, and there's no way the PC's would've survived (4th-level, 27, 31, 31, 36hp, and the 36hp pally was on 1hp), even with readied missile attacks (at that point, she was still at something like 140 odd hp and even with every single one of the party and the NPC's critting on those attacks, she still would've been fine). The only reason they got her down to 40 health was because I decided she just wanted a nice shiny and couldn't be bothered with fighting them.
If, however, this is just the precursor to something far larger in the near future (like the party tracking the dragon down to retrieve their shield guardian), then save the XP rewards for the actual encounter.
She dropped the shield guardian because of the vultures (60 ft. fly and the weight of the shield guardian slowed her to 60ft.).
She did visit them the next day, however, and asked for a truce and a deal for them to clear out Hrakhamar for half the treasure there plus a ride both to Hrakhamar and if they were successful in clearing it out, to Omu (they already knew the rough location of it and were on their way there).
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"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
So, a red dragon drops in on the party, breathes fire, most PC's have total cover from being inside tents so I rule that they don't have to save but are now in burning tents. Dragon proclaims that now she has branded them as her property with her divine flame, that they must kneel before her and accept her as their Great Leader and pay tribute to pass through her territory. Rogue is like, "Screw that," and attacks. On the dragon's next turn, breath weapon doesn't recharge and I figure that she's not interested in dealing with these lesser beings and is instead going to take her tribute and leave. She swoops down on the party's Shield Guardian, and carries it off. Because we're using variant encumbrance, we sort-of roughly figure out that she's heavily encumbered so her speed is reduced by 20'. This means that she's just slow enough for one of the members who is flying (aasimar) and another member's summoned giant vultures, to continue attacking her. They manage to get her down to like 40 hit points and so she drops the shield guardian and zips off at a pace too fast for them to stop her. However, at the same time, her breath weapon recharged. I decided that even though she could easily kill the vultures and the flying aasimar, and then just recharge and lay waste to the rest of the grounded party, that again, she's not interested and simply flies off.
Now, I decided that she left initially not because she was defeated, but simply because she wasn't interested in a drawn out fight and just wanted her due. In my mind, she wasn't defeated so I didn't give XP for it. I could've easily killed the entire party with two more breath weapon attacks (even if they pass the save, the aasimar couldn't have survived one breath weapon and would've fell out of the sky to be insta-killed, and the rest of the party were grouped up and again, would be insta killed even on a successful dex save) but again, I just felt she wanted her treasure. Some players disagreed and said they should get XP 'cause they got her close to death and could've kept going to finish her off and that she ran away to survive.
So, verdict?
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
In short, it was an experience for the party so you should probably grant experience for it. They spent resources (and lost physical resources) in the encounter. Maybe you don't give them the full amount of the experience for defeating a red dragon, but most published Adventure League games tend to give 100 or 200xp here and there for what are effectively social encounters or for fulfilling certain quest requirements. You could give them a few hundred token xp for their trouble.
The dragon didn't deal damage to the party, or even try to, which means that its effective CR for that fight was 0 (0 XP). The loss of the shield guardian is merely an adventure hook.
Well, I rolled a 1 on Investigation to successfully read the post.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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What is the purpose of the encounter?
The Dragon was demanding tribute to let the party pass, the party resisted successfully. Nothing in completing an encounter requires killing everything, and that's a BAD mentality to put into your players. It's how you encourage players to be murderhobos, and it's not their fault at that point.
I could actually see why the party would be pissed if you said "should you get any XP"
Tasks they Accomplished:
They reduced a ????? Red Dragon to 40 hit point, driving it off. (you don't say what lvl the PCs are and what age the dragon is)
They protected their Shield Guardian
They didn't have to pay the Dragon gold.
The Dragon was down to 40 hp, in the dragon's mind it took a tactical retreat. No intelligent creature with the option not to, fights to the death.
In the PC's mind they the dragon away without casualties.
Both people consider they "won" the encounter.
In my mind the Dragon is "a bandit" and they drove it off.
It would have been a coin flip. 40HP is low enough that a lucky crit probably would have dropped the Dragon.
That said 1-2 Breath Weapons would have dropped the party.
If you really want, cut like 20% off of the top of the XP of the dragon for "not killing it", but like I said at the top. You're encouraging murderhoboing and saying encounters can't end with living characters.
There are not rules for this exactly. You can give XP for whatever you want, and how you do it can affect what sort of game you are all playing. Assuming you are not using milestone levelling, then the only thing that usually always comes with XP is killing a 'monster'. Completing a quest of some sort also generally gives XP. However, if that is all you are handing out XP for, then you risk training your players to be murder-hobos; arriving in town, collecting and completing side quests, then murdering everything that moves to hoover up those valuable XPs. Another option is to assign XP to an encounter and then reward some or all of those points if you judge that the players managed it "successfully". That might mean sneaking past the orc guard post, using guile to convince the bandits not to attack, disabling the Cyclops with magic and stealing the golden statuette while it sleeps, or driving off a red dragon using bravado and derring-do.
To me it sounds like the party did a pretty good job of not dying against that dragon. They deserve a reward, be it XP, cool trinkets, or just the respect of the populace. However, I think they might also find they have made a powerful enemy in that dragon. They tend to have long memories and a significant ego. This one wouldn't likely be putting up with having her plans thwarted. Sounds like the party is gonna get another chance to extract some XP from her lifeless corpse...
I'm actually of two minds about this. On the one hand, handing over the XP of a dragon when they didn't actually defeat it seems super generous. On the other hand, they're called experience points, not victory points or kill points, and shouldn't only be rewarded for combat defeats. My DM once threw a couple of ogres at us (at our level at the time, that was pretty intense), but I managed to cast a spell on them (can't remember what) that let us just slip right past them. Because he had really only designed them as a gatekeeper encounter, he awarded us the full XP for "defeating" the threat.
If you feel that the PCs learned something from the encounter, or in any way should show some growth from the encounter, then giving them something for their trouble would be appropriate. If, however, this is just the precursor to something far larger in the near future (like the party tracking the dragon down to retrieve their shield guardian), then save the XP rewards for the actual encounter.
It's your call, really.
I feel like a token reward is necessary, for all the reason stated above.
They drove off the dragon, they didn't die, they had to deal with a rough situation, they made an enemy, they did something rather than hiding. Consider an encounter where every creature is killed except for one, which has been captured for questioning. The encounter should reward 400xp, but do you remove 50 xp because the one critter never died?
I do, however, believe it should only be partial XP, something proportional to the damage vs death. lets argue that the dragon had 200hp and they dropped it to 40, that's 80%. So they get 80% of the total xp that would have been awarded on a kill. I generally give a maximum 50% of the xp of an encounter if the party runs from combat because they bit off more than they can chew (reward for being smart).
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.