Topic: Experience Multipliers

[jaranka]

I find myself rather confused when I try to understand how to apply multipliers to experience.  Especially the effect of the "Uniqueness" multiplier (first time skill used/foe defeated, etc) with another multiplier.  Are you supposed to multiply all the multipliers together?

Let's say I cast a spell for the first time and a foe is defeated as a result.
First time multiplier x5
Foe defeated as result of spell: x5
Assuming the foe is the same level, that 100 experience could turn to 500 or even 2500 if you multiply the multipliers.  It seems way out of whack but its how my group is currently doing it and it just seems unreasonable to me.
I'm guessing its an additive effect, adding the x5 and x5 to get x10.

Multipliers within the EXP categories are also exclusively applied.  Meaning only one multiplier per category can be applied.  You couldn't get both a 2x and a 1.5x bonus for killing a foe thats both the same race as you and an "intelligent" creature. Is this right? If not, are the multipliers additive or multiplicative?  And then add a 5x for the first time.  I don't know how to interpret this.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Aaron

[yammahoper]

Add the multipliers.

You will also add them when spells and talents and the like ask you to multiple hits by x2 while the troll already does x2.  This would be x3 hits, not x4.  A titan does x5 hits.  If he recieves a Strength Spell for x2 hits, he will deliver x6 hits, not x10.

[Marc R]

Easiest way to do it is:

Subtract 1 from each additional modifier and add it:

x5 + x3 + x2 =
5 + (3-1) + (2-1) =
5 + 2 + 1 =
x8

[Ecthelion]

Let's say I cast a spell for the first time and a foe is defeated as a result.
First time multiplier x5
Foe defeated as result of spell: x5
Assuming the foe is the same level, that 100 experience could turn to 500 or even 2500 if you multiply the multipliers.  It seems way out of whack but its how my group is currently doing it and it just seems unreasonable to me.
I'm guessing its an additive effect, adding the x5 and x5 to get x10.

The Rolemaster Rulings, a collection of official rulings, say that "If more than one multiplier applies to an experience point gain, multiply them all together". So multiplying is the correct way. A very lucky spell casting if you succeed to defeat a foe with a spell of your level cast for the first time.

An important question in this context is how fine-grained you track the first time, second time and routine multipliers for each action. Is it the first time you cast any kind of spell that the first time multiplier gets applied? Or is it per spell? If so, then you basically would have to track how often every spell gets cast per PC. The same is true for maneuvers, killed monsters etc. I don't know what the rules designers had in mind here. What we did in our group was to ignore the multipliers for first time, second time and routine for all XP types except for monster kills. For the latter type we tracked the number of kills per race, i.e. how many orcs, skeletons etc.

Multipliers within the EXP categories are also exclusively applied.  Meaning only one multiplier per category can be applied.  You couldn't get both a 2x and a 1.5x bonus for killing a foe thats both the same race as you and an "intelligent" creature. Is this right? If not, are the multipliers additive or multiplicative?  And then add a 5x for the first time.  I don't know how to interpret this.

I would indeed multiply all these numbers, so that killing an intelligent foe of the same race for the first time would yield 2 x 1.5 x 5 = 15 times the normal XPs. At least that's what IMO the rules say.

[Kristen Mork]

We tracked:

• Spells by list (so Projected Light was likely to eat up the x5 multiplier long before you one-shot a bad guy with Lightning Bolt)
• Maneuvers by category
• Crits/kills by C&M monster block (so orcs and goblins were grouped together, all fey, all giants, etc.)

Then, we gave up on tracking EP and switched to story rewards.

[Ecthelion]

Then, we gave up on tracking EP and switched to story rewards.

Yes, a goal-based EP system or such story rewards are IMO the better choice.

[rdanhenry]

An important question in this context is how fine-grained you track the first time, second time and routine multipliers for each action.

This was the most brilliant feature of the Rolemaster experience rules. By modifying how broadly or narrowly you took the scope of actions for multiplier purposes, you could control the pace of advancement without changing to an abstracted experience system. If you want to de-emphasize combat, interpret actions broadly for combat experience types ("So, this is the second time you've killed a humanoid life form...") and narrowly for others ("This is the first time you've climbed a brick wall in the rain...").

[Cormac Doyle]

You've got to be kidding me

1st level character - 10,000 Exp's required to get to 2nd level

Attempts to climb a 30' wall ... fails (no experience points) and falls
30' fall : Medium Fall/Crush attack

lets roll the bones:

Fred our intrepid (and inept) 1st level thief does not get a Qu-based DB ... can't dodge a fall; he has 40 hits; as a thief climbing a wall ... he better not be wearing armor or he'd never make it up the wall in the first place...

Attack roll is 86 ... for a total attack of 116
That's an 36D Krush

lets assume he whiffs the actual critical damage (+2 hits) ... we have now received

38 hits = 38 experience points
D critical = 400 experience points
Near Death (this one admittedly is marginal, you might rule that since he has 2 hits left he's not "near death", but why not give it to him? = 40+20+100 = 160/2 = 80

Thats 518 experience points.

lets assume that its the first time he's nearly killed himself falling off a wall ... that increases the number above x5 ... so in the first dice roll of a night's session ... Fred the Inept has received 2590 experience points ...

At that rate, he'll have gone up a level before anyone else even gets a turn!


Using the more abstracted Goal based systems makes much more sense ...

[jaranka]

Well it looks like there is some debate over this.  Wracking my brain last night I came to the conclusion that it was supposed to be the way Marc R had suggested.  But it's very hard to argue with the official rulings that Ecthelion showed.

My beef with multiplying the multipliers is two-fold:
1) It encourages meta-gaming. "I'm not gonna cast my new spell until it's a dangerous situation so I get x15!"
2) We are getting so much experience that we level so fast we get new skills and spells so often we never run out of first time abilities to get mad exp from.  It's self-perpetuating. Very rarely do we get the routine x0.5 multiplier.

I guess it's really up to the GM to determine how fast he wants the progression to occur.  We play once a week and level about every other week.  I'm certainly excited when I level up but it just feels wrong.

Thank you all for your input.

[Ecthelion]

Fred the Inept has received 2590 experience points ...

At that rate, he'll have gone up a level before anyone else even gets a turn!

What's so special about these 2590 points? If a 10th level PC kills his first vampire and this happens to be a greater vampire, then this earns him 15500 points (2400 * 5 for the "J" XP code from C&M + 700 * 5 std. kill XPs, using the Alternative XP system from RM2, which became the standard XP system for RMSS/RMFRP; using the RM2 basic system it's a few 100 XPs less). So kill your first vampire and your first troll and welcome to level 11.

But, as said before, it all depends on how fine grained you track all these first-time actions.

Using the more abstracted Goal based systems makes much more sense ...

I agree, but not because of the progression rate (that just depends on how many of the goal-based XPs you hand out) but because such a system IMO yields similar or even better results with a much reduced effort for tracking XPs.

[rdanhenry]

You've got to be kidding me

1st level character - 10,000 Exp's required to get to 2nd level

Attempts to climb a 30' wall ... fails (no experience points) and falls
30' fall : Medium Fall/Crush attack

lets roll the bones:

Fred our intrepid (and inept) 1st level thief does not get a Qu-based DB ... can't dodge a fall; he has 40 hits; as a thief climbing a wall ... he better not be wearing armor or he'd never make it up the wall in the first place...

Attack roll is 86 ... for a total attack of 116
That's an 36D Krush

lets assume he whiffs the actual critical damage (+2 hits) ... we have now received

38 hits = 38 experience points
D critical = 400 experience points
Near Death (this one admittedly is marginal, you might rule that since he has 2 hits left he's not "near death", but why not give it to him? = 40+20+100 = 160/2 = 80

Thats 518 experience points.

lets assume that its the first time he's nearly killed himself falling off a wall ... that increases the number above x5 ... so in the first dice roll of a night's session ... Fred the Inept has received 2590 experience points ...

At that rate, he'll have gone up a level before anyone else even gets a turn!


Using the more abstracted Goal based systems makes much more sense ...

Wow. I discuss how the system allows you to tune pace of development, so you immediately go to the far opposite extreme of what you apparently want and claim that it's broken. If you don't want to reward falling off the wall, hey, you fall a lot in practice. It's routine. Half experience. Showing you can get results you don't like with a flexible system does not undermine the claim of flexibility.

I prefer session-based for abstract experience. Goal-achievement is its own reward. You get your abstract experience for showing up and for playing. Also, free food for the GM.

[providence13]

I agree with adding the multipliers; whether RAW or not.
This discussion is part of the reason I stopped using an experience point system.
Now there are no kill steals and first timer fights among players. They level as the story requires.

The Humpty Dumpty Thief above is rewarded even more if "dead in x rnds" even if averted through healing. IIRC, the xp is doubled again.

Perhaps there should be a cap on that game mechanic. If you uber crit an opponent with awesome damage, there is a cap on xp for you defeating that creature. Maybe there should be a cap on maneuvers based on their difficulty?

[smug]

The question is whether each multiplier really means something like "this award of 500xp should have an extra 1000xp (ie, x2) attached to it because X". If so, then the multipliers should add. If it really means what it looks like on the face of it, "because of X, this award of 500 is worth twice as much", then multipliers would multiply.

I don't really have a problem with either interpretation, nor with the idea that taking a really bad fall would be an excellent learning experience.

[yammahoper]

You've got to be kidding me

1st level character - 10,000 Exp's required to get to 2nd level

Attempts to climb a 30' wall ... fails (no experience points) and falls
30' fall : Medium Fall/Crush attack

lets roll the bones:

Fred our intrepid (and inept) 1st level thief does not get a Qu-based DB ... can't dodge a fall; he has 40 hits; as a thief climbing a wall ... he better not be wearing armor or he'd never make it up the wall in the first place...

Attack roll is 86 ... for a total attack of 116
That's an 36D Krush

lets assume he whiffs the actual critical damage (+2 hits) ... we have now received

38 hits = 38 experience points
D critical = 400 experience points
Near Death (this one admittedly is marginal, you might rule that since he has 2 hits left he's not "near death", but why not give it to him? = 40+20+100 = 160/2 = 80

Thats 518 experience points.

lets assume that its the first time he's nearly killed himself falling off a wall ... that increases the number above x5 ... so in the first dice roll of a night's session ... Fred the Inept has received 2590 experience points ...

At that rate, he'll have gone up a level before anyone else even gets a turn!


Using the more abstracted Goal based systems makes much more sense ...

This actually makes sense to me.  Learning from pain and failure is a fact.  Success is not the only teacher.

[Marc R]

The default multiplier logic is add them, but as Ecth pointed out, there's an officially sanctioned exception. . .

I'd assume one's fallen a lot. . .

Uniquely nasty monsters, the kind the GM would  need to have a really crazy world to toss more than one on you of over your career, can be worth quite a bit. . .Nothing says experience like killing Moloch. First time ever, usually a near death experience, often bust out your whole bag of tricks including things you've  been holding in reserve so never used before.

The only time I penalize this is if you get a table conversation like:

Player "Let me kill the second ogre, never killed one before, and you already killed the first one!"

[smug]

The default multiplier logic is add them, but as Ecth pointed out, there's an officially sanctioned exception. . .

The default mathematical logic would be to multiply them, I would say; it'd need to be defined more clearly to lead me to add them by default.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

The default mathematical logic would be to multiply them, I would say; it'd need to be defined more clearly to lead me to add them by default.

Uh, no, Marc and Ecth are right. The default mathematical logic is to add and remove 1 to each additional multiplier after the first one.
Indeed, in all cases here where multiplying applies, xN is in fact +(N-1)x100%, as logic dictates since the circumstance for which the multiplier applies individually (meaning there's an addition to the original element quantity).
E.g. +100% = x2
     +200% = x3

Multiplying the modifiers would be a mathematical logic error because you'd be adding the original element to itself every time after the first.
E.g. Let's say that CircumstanceA acts as a x2 and CircumstanceB acts as a x2. Both circumstances can apply individually and independantly of each other. Let's call the original element quantity OEQ.

Case1) CircumstanceA can apply: the result is OEQ x 2,
Case2) CircumstanceB can apply: the result is OEQ x 2,
Case3) CircumstanceA and CircumstanceB can apply.
If you multiply the multipliers, you obtain OEQ x 4, meaning you added 300% of OEQ. According to Case1 and Case2, each can only add 100% of OEQ; from where does your additional element quantity come then? The only explanation (that is, aside from it being a mathematical logic error... which it is) would be that Case2 applies to what element quantity Case1 adds but that would cause a problem of logic precedence (is that Case2 that adds an element quantity to what Case1 adds or the reverse?). It only becomes worse as you add circumstances, of course (i.e. multiplying factors).
If you add the multiplier and remove 1 to each additional multiplier after the first one, you obtain OEQ x 3, meaning you added +200% of OEQ, which is coherent since each circumstance affected OEQ, adding +100% of it. Of course, there's also no precedence problem.

Therefore, stacking a x2 on a x3 on a x1.5 on a x4 gives x(2 + (3-1) + (1.5-1) + (4-1)) = x7.5 = +100% + 200% + 50% + 300% = +650%

[smug]

The default mathematical logic would be to multiply them, I would say; it'd need to be defined more clearly to lead me to add them by default.

Uh, no, Marc and Ecth are right. The default mathematical logic is to add and remove 1 to each additional multiplier after the first one.
Indeed, in all cases here where multiplying applies, xN is in fact +(N-1)x100%, as logic dictates since the circumstance for which the multiplier applies individually (meaning there's an addition to the original element quantity).
E.g. +100% = x2
     +200% = x3

Multiplying the modifiers would be a mathematical logic error because you'd be adding the original element to itself every time after the first.
E.g. Let's say that CircumstanceA acts as a x2 and CircumstanceB acts as a x2. Both circumstances can apply individually and independantly of each other. Let's call the original element quantity OEQ.

Case1) CircumstanceA can apply: the result is OEQ x 2,
Case2) CircumstanceB can apply: the result is OEQ x 2,
Case3) CircumstanceA and CircumstanceB can apply.
If you multiply the multipliers, you obtain OEQ x 4, meaning you added 300% of OEQ. According to Case1 and Case2, each can only add 100% of OEQ; from where does your additional element quantity come then? The only explanation (that is, aside from it being a mathematical logic error... which it is) would be that Case2 applies to what element quantity Case1 adds but that would cause a problem of logic precedence (is that Case2 that adds an element quantity to what Case1 adds or the reverse?). It only becomes worse as you add circumstances, of course (i.e. multiplying factors).
If you add the multiplier and remove 1 to each additional multiplier after the first one, you obtain OEQ x 3, meaning you added +200% of OEQ, which is coherent since each circumstance affected OEQ, adding +100% of it. Of course, there's also no precedence problem.

Therefore, stacking a x2 on a x3 on a x1.5 on a x4 gives x(2 + (3-1) + (1.5-1) + (4-1)) = x7.5 = +100% + 200% + 50% + 300% = +650%

I stated pretty clearly that it was my opinion, which is a concession you appear not to want to make about yours. But, in any case, in my opinion, if you say Y is a x2 and Z is a x3, the standard YZ composition, mathematically, is x6. I am not talking about anything following from your "logic dictates" -- I was talking, as I said, about standard mathematical logic -- which is contextual, I'm talking about the standard composition rules for arithmetic operations, which are (in my experience) that applying two multiplications produce a multiplier that is their product.

As I said in my post above (before the one you quote), I don't have a particular problem with either interpretation in light of the game, because I think that both are defensible; my point here is just that if you provide modifiers unadorned, the default would be, in my opinion, to use the standard mathematical composition rules for arithmetic operators.

[Ecthelion]

my point here is just that if you provide modifiers unadorned, the default would be, in my opinion, to use the standard mathematical composition rules for arithmetic operators.

Fully agreed.

[Marc R]

The default multiplier logic is add them, but as Ecth pointed out, there's an officially sanctioned exception. . .

The default mathematical logic would be to multiply them, I would say; it'd need to be defined more clearly to lead me to add them by default.

If I were operating in any other context, I would agree. . .the default RM logic in terms of multipliers is to add them, the experience multiplier being the exception to the general RM rule, which is an exception to standard math procedures.