GameBanshee Forums

In a previous game my Rogue 3 / Monk 2 / Sorcerer 2 received 19 xp's for killing a fire beetle (15 with a henchman), for example, but in my latest game as a Barbarian 4 / Sorcerer 1 / Red Dragon Disciple 2, I only receive 7 xp's for killing one, despite the total number of character levels being identical - can anyone explain why?

I came across this after deliberately playing without a henchman to try and get more xp, but noticing that I still had almost exactly the same number of xp's at the same point in the game (ie close to the end of Chapter One, having done everything in the same order) - very annoying

Are you playing a human or some other race? Human and half elf got favored class any, while lets say a dwarf got fighter. If you don't include any fighter levels in that dwarf char and he got the other classes he is going to get a penalty. I know it could be described better, but I don't got the time right now

Sorry, meant to say, current character is half-orc so barbarian is favoured-class (therefore should be no penalty). NB the difficulty settings are the same in each game too.

Update - I have just noticed that I still get 19 xp's as a rogue 3 monk 3 sorcerer 2 (ie 8th level character, one higher than the barbarian character).

Putting aside the possibility of an xp penalty for multiclassing (I think I have obeyed the rules to avoid xp penalties), 2 possible reasons come to mind:-

1) Because the barbarian class is 4th level, and therefore higher than any of the classes in my r3/m3/s2, perhaps this results in a lower xp award [no longer viable - see 2nd update below]; or

2) the game somehow calculates that my barbarian etc character is more powerful (eg based on attack bonus / damage) and therefore awards fewer xp as the beetle is deemed to be less of a challenge.

2ND UPDATE

I went back to previous saved games til my character was just a barbarian, and unbelievably even at level 2 I only received 17 xp's (at level 3 it was down to 7 xp's). The only area where this barbarian character was better than the other one was in damage (better weapon, higher strength; the attack bonus was similar but only one attack compared with two for my r3/m3/s2. This seems very odd, and a potential flaw in the game to me. Any explanations/comments?

There is a mechanisme build into the game which awards different XP to different classes.

As I understood from the time I played (a long time ago, so this is not excat, but to get the jist of it) spellcasters would get more XP against meele opponents and meele opponents would get more XP against spellcaster opponents.
Somewhere in between the rogue (and monk?) lurks.
This is quite visible in the lower levels of the game.

I was wondering why I get different experience based on that. I'm assuming cleric's would be shoved into the same slot as wizards and sorc's for fighter/mage experience breakups?

Wouldn't that leave it so magic-using people would end up getting more experience faster as there are a large number more fighter types than anything else in the game?

Actually - I'd think that the classes are placed somewhat on Hit Die, perhaps D10 and D12 as the same.
So I'd expect a cleric to be classified between a wizard and fighter.

But I've not tested it (don't have the game installed)

I just played through the beholder caves with a 18/6 cleric/fighter and the beholder mages gave me significantly more than the standard beholders. Now, that's the first time I've played through that area, so that could be standard, but I just noticed a difference between 40 xp for a standard one and I believe upwards of 1500 xp for the mages.

I don't think I saw much difference between the drow warriors and wizards though. It might be the cleric ends up evening the two out rather than one higher and the other lower.

Well - I'd think it would be relative easy to test, using a new character and the first area of OC NwN.

I don't know the exact differences (it's been a while since I played), but Xandax is right. It depends on your class

Thanks all - much appreciated.

It does seem a bit daft to me, though, considering the fact that, in the case of my characters above, the higher level character can hit his opponent more easily (and has two attacks), can still inflict enough damage to kill it in one blow, and has superior armour class / skills, but still gets more xp!!!!