I have noticed that as my party advances in level, they receive fewer and fewer experience points for doing the same things they did at lower levels. I have to believe that this is by design? A few examples: A) if I disable a trap on a chest, I generally get a little experience. This became reduced at level 8 and became nothing at level 9. B) a random encounter against 8 hobgoblins and 2 bugbears would give me experience until my party reached level 9. After that level, I have found that they get nothing. Perhaps, they were getting less and less with each level and I only noticed when it reached nothing. C) The same is true for my party (who is all level 9) in the first level of the temple and battled the room full of undead in the top, northern most room. I believe it is like 12 ghouls and ghasts in there and they received no experience. How come?
Experience is based on the CR of the encounter .vs the party level. A CR 3 encounter is not going to be difficult for a lvl 9 party so you don't get XP for it. This is per D&D 3.5 rules.
It has ti do with the level of your enemies and situations. The higher level you go the tougher the monsters you need to fight to get the equivalent XP. Killing off kobolds will net you little or nothing at 9th level while taking out Drow will get you higher stuff. It is the same if you take out the Giant from Emridy Meadows at 1st level rather than 6th. Ther is a more involved explanation but I am too lazy to look at the SRD to share. Hope this helps a little. edit-Vectner got in as I was typing- oh well.
Isn't it based on individual levels, say, if you have a two level 8 characters and three level 9's, would you get exp for the level 8 characters even if you do not get any for the level 9's? Or is it based on some obscure party level stat? :x
Ironically, this happened to my party. I had 2 at level 9 and 3 at level 8. The 2 had just a few more xp than the 3 so it was really close. I ran out and had a random encounter. Afterwards, the 3 level 8s went up to level 9. However, the 2 level 9 characters received no experience from the battle. So before the battle, the 2 were ahead on experience, after the battle, they were behind the other 3. It might be by the book but that doesn't mean that it isn't stupid. Oh well. I'm not going to fight this one. Just thought it was weird and had to ask.
There's a graph somewhere in the forum that explains everything, but I have no clue where it's located.
