Experience Points: How Does the Game Distribute Them?

Carl_L

Hey,

So... up until this point I was under the impression that XP gets distributed evenly among each party member. Evidently, this seems to not be the case as I was looking through all my people trying to determine who the next person to level was going to be and I noticed that Khalid had more XP then Imoen (roughly 90,000 to 88,000) despite the fact that Imoen has been around longer and I've never removed her from the party. I think it's fair to say that Khalid has had more kills then Imoen, so maybe that factors into it somehow? It's nothing I'm all that concerned about, but just curious about the game's mechanics. Thanks.

Cherudek

Your original assumption was correct, xp is distributed evenly. Khalid probably had more xp than Imoen already when you recruited him.

meagloth

The person in the leader position actually gets +10% XP, or so I've heard. I think it even applies to solo runs, so actually get 110% XP. I've never tested that, but CHARNAME always seems to have more XP.

Blackraven

Doesn't the party leader receive extra XP?

TJ_Hooker

I don't think the leader gets an XP bonus. I think the leader ends up with more due to the way the game handles remainders from the division of XP. I believe that in cases where the XP gain is not evenly divisible by the number of people in the part, the remainders are distributed in a 'trickle down' manner. So if there is a remainder of 1, the party leader gets an extra XP. If the remainder is 2, the first two characters get an extra XP, etc. Over the course of the game people higher up in the party order end up with a bit more XP.

SionIV

They don't always have the same experience when you recruit them and if one of your characters die they won't get any experience for the monsters you kill or quests you complete while they are dead.

It's very rare for characters to have the same amount of experience points.

Cherudek

Dead characters still get xp, I think. I know I've had characters leveling up after being raised, more than once. (Ah, dragon fights...)

SionIV

Cherudek said:

Dead characters still get xp, I think. I know I've had characters leveling up after being raised, more than once. (Ah, dragon fights...)

They don't, unless the quest experience from BG2 somehow works on dead people as well.

Gotural

Party leader doesn't gain more XP, at least not in BG:EE. A simple way to verify this is to complete all the quests in Candlekeep which awards you 345 XP. You can count how much XP you earn in the feedback or in your character sheet, both numbers are going to be equal. You can also create a multiplayer party of 2 characters and do the same, and you will see that the party leader will only have a few XP points above the second character because of divisions (When you kill the rats for example, I don't think the second character can earn XP as they only award you with 1 XP).

And I can definitely support @SionIV‌ when he says that dead characters don't earn XP from fights.

SharGuidesMyHand

I've recently been playing BG2:EE with BG1 party members imported through multiplayer. Both my charname and Kivan started off with the exact same amount of XPs, but my charname soon surpassed him with XPs, even though Kivan was never dead or out of my party during that time.

So at least in BG2:EE, it seems that charnames do get more XP than party members, for whatever reason.

atcDave

SharGuidesMyHand said:

I've recently been playing BG2:EE with BG1 party members imported through multiplayer. Both my charname and Kivan started off with the exact same amount of XPs, but my charname soon surpassed him with XPs, even though Kivan was never dead or out of my party during that time.

So at least in BG2:EE, it seems that charnames do get more XP than party members, for whatever reason.

I've noticed a few quests award more experience to the PC. I'm not sure how many, or what the final total might be, but I don't think it ever adds up to a lot (10K a couple times?)

Chnapy

The experience is distributed evenly between party members as long as it is possible, but when the amount cannot be divided by 6 integrally, the remainder, or modulo, is distributed between the first party members.

You kill a kobold, and get 7 xp.
7 / 6 = 1 : Every party member get 1 xp
7 % 6 = 1 : The 1st party member get 1 bonus xp
Total is 2+1+1+1+1+1 = 7

You kill a Kobold Commando, and get 35 xp.
35 / 6 = 5 : Every party member get 5 xp
35 % 5 = 5 : The 5 first party members all get 1 bonus xp
Total is 6+6+6+6+6+5 = 35

This can easily pile up to 2 or 3k xp between your first and last party member with all the little xp you kill in the wild, plus the traps, spells and chests in the first BG, causing your first party members to level up slightly earlier than the lasts.

In BG2 though, it becomes trivial.

Tresset

What @Chnapy‌ says is definitely true. I started a game with 6 PC characters at 0 XP and the people in the front quickly started to get more xp than the people in the back.

Erg

@Tresset, @TJ_Hooker also said that one month ago in this same discussion:

TJ_Hooker said:

I don't think the leader gets an XP bonus. I think the leader ends up with more due to the way the game handles remainders from the division of XP. I believe that in cases where the XP gain is not evenly divisible by the number of people in the part, the remainders are distributed in a 'trickle down' manner. So if there is a remainder of 1, the party leader gets an extra XP. If the remainder is 2, the first two characters get an extra XP, etc. Over the course of the game people higher up in the party order end up with a bit more XP.

Doesn't he deserve a promote too ?

Demonoid_Limewire

Evenly it is. But if you have multiclass character, one multiclass character, is treated as if it had been 2 or 3 different characters. Gets half (or 1/3) xp in comparison to a single or dual class one.

Tresset

@Erg‌ Why not? I'm actually surprised he didn't have one until now.