Party-Wide XP For Scroll Writing/Trap Disarming

Mush_Mush

Does anyone else think it's odd that the entire party gains XP when a mage learns a new spell? I always felt this was weird. It would, imo, make far more sense if only the spellcaster writing the spell gained XP but not the entire party. And for that matter nowhere near as much as BG2 - you can literally soar through level ups in bg2 simply by buying up all the scrolls you can get your hands on.

I think there should be a consistant xp reward but just for the thief/spellcaster and closer to BG1 rates. Perhaps greater for really tough traps and high level spells ie writing a level 1 spell would award the caster 25xp but would increase slighly more exponentially so at level 5 you'd be getting 500xp and level 9 would be more like 3000xp. And simliar process for thieves. I realize that casters and rogues would potentially then pull ahead in xp but I dont think it would be a significant lead.

Anyway I'm curious on people's thoughts and wondered if anyone agrees with me.

[Deleted User]

It's odd, but if you want to go that route, warrior classes should probably get extra XP for killing monsters and priest classes should get extra XP for...converting heathens?

magisensei

I always thought it weird that you got xp for things like writing a spell and certain thief abilities (like lock picking) but not all of them. I also don't think it exists in pnp in AD&D rules.

On a quick side note I had Imoen just go around and unlock doors and chests in BG1 just for the xp she got (and she didn't take a single thing while doing it mostly.) - free xp without a fight is always nice.

As for mages - if you dismiss all your party members and then write all of your scrolls then you can easily go up a level maybe 2 or even 3 levels (especially if you are dualing) if you have enough of them - you can even spam this by erasing what you know and relearning the mid to high level scroll assuming you have enough scrolls to do so. If you had to give xp for scroll writing make it considerably less than what it is now of 1000 x level of spell is way too much and easily abused in the game; make it like 25 x level would be a lot more reasonable.

But you notice only mages and thieves get these extra xp for doing something in their class - clerics and fighters get nothing for doing something that is naturally done as part of their class. Imagine getting bonus xp for healing someone; or a druid for charming/taking care an animal or growing a plant; or a fighter for practicing his sword swings or sparring.

mlnevese

All classes in 2nd edition had bonus XP for doing something. Warriors, for instance, received extra xp/HD of any monster they defeated.

BG implementation is nowhere close to the PnP rules in this regard though. That bonus was actually individual.

GreenWarlock

@mlnevese close - warriors got and xp bonus for monsters they defeated in single combat, if the party was backing them up, no bonus!

Basically, each class gets bonus xp for playing to its theme, as a minor encouragement to reward players for playing to their role, and move the game on from a straight kill-the-monster-for-xp fest. And for the original poster, yes, it is odd that the xp is spread across the party rather than rewarding the specific thief/mage, but without the similar bonus for each other class, they might be seem as having an unfair bonus - and mages are probably one of the classes least in need of further bonuses, and thieves don't really have a problem with leveling too slowly...

(without an xp cap, keeping these bonuses with the acting character would be awesome for the multi-classes though - and a different game!)

Pteran

I agree, it's a little odd that the party gains XP for what the Thief or Mage does. It makes sense that a Thief gets more experienced as they utilize their skills. And spells are difficult to master, so a mage should get XP for learning how to cast it.

To remove the XP farming, maybe a mod so the mage only gains XP the first time they learn the spell? I'm ok with the XP rates for spells in BG2, and I'd actually like it if they went up from 10x to 100x the level. When you need 20k XP to level, it doesn't seem unreasonable to get 500XP for mastering a high level spell (relatively, for BG anyway). Unless you're playing with mods or chugging expensive potions, you can still fail to learn the spell and should be rewarded for succeeding.

DJKajuru

It is done for balance reasons, but AD&D player's hanbdbook also explains that even those who don't get directly involved in combat, such as the mage or bard, deserve XP for many reasons:
1) backing up is also a job : a monster could flank you or you might need a potion , in fact we do that in the game and on pnp too.
2)You learn from watching : by watching the thief disarm a trap or the mage learn a spell, even though you don't know anything about it, you must learn somethibg from it.

In the end of the day, you level up not only because you fought mpnsters, but because you have a great notion of adventuring and all its challenges. That is true experience.