Question about XP

Pakio

Hi, I have a question regarding experience in IWDEE.

I was playing with a classic group of 6, but I was a bit unhappy and I decided to restart with a group of 4 like I played the original game back in the day.

I know that XP are distributed between characters, so a group of 4 will level up faster than a group of six. But I noticed something more.

I compared the saved games at the same point of the game, just after the vale of shadows and before heading to the forgotten temple, and the difference is big. My group of 6 had collected 25.000 XP each so around 150.000 XP for the whole party, while my group of 4 collected 45.000 XP each so 180.000 XP the whole party.

This is 30.000 XP difference which is a lot at that point of the game. I am playing with the normal difficulty and the only quest I missed the first game was the ogre with headache, which gave me 1.800 Xp in the second game, so that not explain the 30.000 XP difference.

So, do you get more XP when playing with less characters or I am missing something?

jsaving

You can farm an unlimited amount of XP by resting, so you can end up with very different XP totals in runs where you rest more often. You might have needed to rest more often in your 4-person run which could have unintentionally generated the extra XP (through the random encounters you would have fought).

Pakio

No, I don't think that I had much more resting with the 4 party. Definetly not enough to collect 30.000 extra XP from skeletons in the vale.

In later stages of the game, yes, you can add a lot when resting, specially from the Yuan-Ti, and the like.

Maybe there was a bug in my previous game and didnt got the XP from some quest, but still is a lot for a quest at the beginning of the game.

ElysianEchoes

Well, if you level up faster, your average level goes up faster, and maybe some monster spawns change the higher your average level? Kinda like a few levels in BG2 could add an adamantine golem to an encounter that only had two clay golems for lower level parties?

Edit: autocorrect needed correcting

Pakio

It is possible

I didnt noticed an increase in the number or strength of monsters, but I found the battle with Lysan to be harder.

In the first game I killed her easy with arrows before she could cast any spell, but in the second she was inmune to the arrows

sarevok57

Pakio wrote: »

It is possible

I didnt noticed an increase in the number or strength of monsters, but I found the battle with Lysan to be harder.

In the first game I killed her easy with arrows before she could cast any spell, but in the second she was inmune to the arrows

you are indeed getting some strange results, since lysan is immune to non magical weapons

are you playing with mods?

also your level has no indication of rest spawns, although depending on how many times you travelled between kuldahar and the vale of shadows there are sometimes 2 shadows that will spawn which are worth 375 XP each i believe

are you still playing on normal? or is your "extra XP based on difficulty" button on? i dont remember what the difficulties are called in game, but on the easiest diffuclty you gain double xp, on the 2nd difficulty you gain x1.5 and on the third difficulty ( core rules? ) you gain no xp bonus, and on hard x1.5 and insane x2

so perhaps you were bouncing difficulty around a bit maybe?

Pakio

Yes that' it, in the previous game I was playing core rules, and in normal with the new party. I didn't knew that it affects the xp, I thought only the hardest modes will give you more xp.

sarevok57

yup, you can turn off the xp bonus for difficulty in the options if you want

Balrog99

IWD is a slog so I usually play on insane with the XP bonus. You're totally able to play that way with no XP bonus if you want to though. It's a simple toggle in the game options.