No, they don't give bonus XP... why would they? The bodies multiplier is their kludge to work out the difficulty for the fight, but you still get the XP for each monster in the fight.tussock wrote:The XP system is all over the place.
Like, the number of fights per level runs ...
6, 6, 10, 14, 17, 16, 15, 15, 13, 14, 8, 10, 8, 9, 9, 8, 9, 8, 9.
If you use single monsters of the same level (which is a medium or hard fight at random). The charts are all over the place for the designed encounters, but numbers of monsters mean you add a fuck-ton of fights.
The encounters with extra monsters I noticed DO NOT GIVE BONUS XP TO PCs. It's just for determining encounter "strength". Which really means the patience of the PCs in knocking the fucking thing over..
As far as your fights per level list goes, that actually makes sense to me as a deliberate thing. 3rd to 10th level has always been the real meat of D&D, so giving the most time to those levels makes some sense.
There are hints that a larger explanation is in the DMG. Which is kind of fucking terrible retro-think, and I still have no idea if it contains meaningful numbers.virgil wrote:PostPosted: 13 Aug 2014 03:48 pm Post subject:
I flipped through a few pages of it at the local gaming store, and I couldn't help but notice that there wasn't a skill system; there were notes that you get your proficiency bonus on ability checks, and that making the DC (completely out of the DM's arse) higher makes the task more difficult. I guess this must be old news, but seeing it in living ink makes it more real.
Thinking about it, it may be a reaction to the skill challenge debacle for 4th. This lets players work out what the numbers should be, and they can slot them in at the last minute before printing.
Pretty much. Though there may be some bullshit distinction between an attack roll and an ability check, which affects some spells and abilities. Like the Guidance cantrip affects ability checks, but Bless affects attack rolls and saves.From what I could tell in that short time, there was no such thing as Base Attack Bonus, you just make an ability check against their AC and use your proficiency bonus if you know how to use the weapon; which goes up by a whole 3 points over 15 levels. I still don't know how PCs get proficient with saving throws or whatever.
Proficiency with saves comes from class. If I understand it correctly, they've adjusted them in the final version (from the playtest and alpha doc) so that every class gets one good saving throw (meaning one that matters: Dex, Con or Wis) and one bad one (Str, Int or Cha, which collectively come up less often than any one of the others). You can also pick up other saving throws through a feat (Alpha: Resilient feat: +1 to a stat and proficiency in that stat's save). The alpha rules didn't give you saves for multiclassing, which actually makes sense- picking up good saves at limited cost would be an obvious reason to dip.