Playing with no henchmen - XP question

limorkil · Post by **limorkil** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 10:38 am

I finally decided that I was sick of the henchmen. I have nothing against summoned creatures or familiars, but that is because they are way less irritating and are easier to replace. The henchmen drove me nuts with their poor pathfinding, zero battle AI and annoying, repetitive dialogue ("Hokey-dokey" anyone?). The best henchmen are the ones with the simplest tactics - the monk and the big half-orc. Unfortunately they are the two I need the least; I was stuck with Tomi "Let me disarm this chest in the middle of the beholder pit" and Linu "I have no turn undead for the wraith because I used them all on weak zombies".

So I started a monk/rogue character. I only want the rogue levels to increase my disable trap, open lock and search skills, so I'll probably end up something like monk (16) / rogue (4). I'd prefer to go ALL monk, but blundering into every trap and bashing open every lock quickly gets annoying.

Starting out was tough. I went to the Beggar's Nest first because the zombies are the easiest foes - especially since you can often shoot them all before they get to you. After clearing the streets I went to the Peninsula and did the same. That was a lot harder, mainly because there are a few tough 'special' prisoners dotted around the streets (e.g. the Gang Leader). I actually think the monk is one of the hardest characters to start with solo because she is weak at the start and does not have any summons/familiars to take the heat. The whole thing would have been a breeze with a fighter/rogue.

My progress was slow. With a henchman I could have done all four city quarters in the time it took my lone monk to do the Peninsula and Prison. However, what I noticed was that seemed to get to level 4 pretty quickly, and level 5 not too long after that. By the time I got to level 6 I had bought quite a few monk-related items and I was a lot tougher. In fact, I got through the remainder of the Beggar's Nest and Blacklake with no problems, except for a very tough 'bloated dire spider' that had a challenge rating way lower than what it deserved (I examined it as "Challenging" even though it was WAY tougher than any "Overpowering" foe I had fought.)

Getting to the point: what I noticed as I levelled was that the experience I was getting per kill was going UP as I levelled, not DOWN as you would expect. So, for example, at level 3 I was getting 17 experience per kill for a weak zombie or an escaped prisoner. At level 4 this went up to 23, and then 28 at level 5. This makes no sense to me. I thought that experience was alloted by comparing 'challenge ratings' like in D&D. What that means is that you get more XP the tougher the foe gets compared to you. Well, what I was seeing was my XP going UP as the foes got relatively EASIER!

This trend was true across the board. When I was level 4, a tougher zombie or prisoner would be worth 33XP and 50XP respectively. At level 5 they were worth 40XP and 66XP.

I did notice that the XP per kill goes way down if I use a wand of monster summoning. Once I summoned a Dire Boar my XP plummetted to about 12 per kill. Which also led me to another realization: I can use scrolls and wands even though I have ZERO Use Magic Item skill (and -1 charisma modifier). I thought the only people that could use these things were wizards, sorcerors and bards/rogues with the Use skill. Apparently not.

I've seen many posts on how the XP system works. I thought what people had worked out made sense, but now I am confused as to whether the system is bugged or not.

Ares2382 · Post by **Ares2382** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 10:48 am

I don't know if it's bugged but it's certainly screwed up. It might work exactly as Bioware inteded it to work, but for some reason they decided that they will make it so that it's a mystery to everyone else.

BlackJesus666 · Post by **BlackJesus666** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 10:52 am

XPs in NWN are just randomized by multiplying your system time with your WindowsRegistration code.

That´s what I "experienced".

Some have the same, others got different values...

Sirius_Sam · Post by **Sirius_Sam** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 10:56 am

...offset by a variable of the square root of your current working patch version number, cubed

S_S

BlackJesus666 · Post by **BlackJesus666** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 12:37 pm

Could have something to do with Earth curvature.

Just need more time to figure out...

jim0525 · Post by **jim0525** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 1:21 pm

you can't forget about the atmospheric pressure at the time and place the game is being played. that is a must.

Datt · Post by **Datt** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 1:32 pm

Don't forget to multiple the tempeture of any solar flares in Kelvin going on at that time.

Nygma · Post by **Nygma** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 6:16 pm

...offset by a variable of the square root of your current working patch

... of course, if you're currently using a non-working patch, the formula becomes no longer straightforward and plunges into depths of complexity rarely seen outside a doctoral thesis on stochastic processes.

Some more food for thought:

My cleric, at level 3 with no summons or henchman, lured 11 weak zombies together and blasted them with turn undead. The console listed seven instances of a weak zombie slaying with 75xp, then a notification that I had gained enough experience to level, followed by four more instances telling me I had gained 42xp for killing a weak zombie. Ok, level up, lose experience, makes sense.

Down in the warrens, at level five, still solo. 53 xp for blasting a weak zombie. Ooookaaayyy. 75, then 42, then 53, all without any summons or henchman?!?!?

With the same character, except I now had Tomi:

Lvl 6 - Diseased Thug, 31 xp; Rabid Dog, 56 xp

a couple minutes later...

Lvl 7 - Diseased Thug, 33 xp; Rabid Dog, 49 xp

one gains, one drops, same party makeup.

I'm not sure solar flares would account for this kind of unpredictability. I think BioWare may have come up with something new, conceivably a new branch of mathematics, something on par with Improbability Theory and Bistromathics!

Ares2382 · Post by **Ares2382** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 11:26 pm

hey you guys know how most of the loot in this game is randomly generated, well I'm guessing here, but maybe Bioware in their infinite wisdom decided to make XP random too.

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Sat Jul 27, 2002 1:47 am

There certainly is a bistromathic algorithm hidden deep in the code of the game, nevertheless there are constant values able to override it. No matter what you do and who you are, as long as you're a ranger of course, you get the take-your-beloved-familiar-into-the-dungeon bonus worth 8,5 times the base XP score added to your account, with best wishes from the WWF I suppose. And in my most personal and humble opinion this makes perfect sense because all those technology loving computer game players finally learn to care for animals this way.

"Always take your pets into battle with you but don't let your pets get slaugthered by zombies or your future life will be miserable, you'll advance slower than others, you'll get bad grades in school and a low wage at work." is a clear and animal loving message from the gaming industry to all the gamers out there and I highly appreciate this effort.

I'm 100% certain that Bioware will rake in all major media related wild life protection awards in the near future and let's be honest: They deserve it.

limorkil · Post by **limorkil** » Mon Jul 29, 2002 11:52 am

More weird findings

My post above lists some examples of solo XP. Here are some more, for different characters and levels. These are all without henchmen or summons/familiars/pets:

Rogue(1) - Weak Zombie gives 20XP

Rogue(2), Fighter(1) - Weak Zombie gives 42XP

Rogue(2), Fighter(2) - Weak Zombie gives 26Xp

Rogue(3), Fighter(1) - Weak Zombie gives 20XP
(note - multiclass XP penalty 20%)

It just gets stranger and stranger.

For a start, my level 1 rogue gets half the XP of my level 3 rogue/fighter (R/F). You would think higher level would give you less XP.

When the R/F got to level 4, the amount of XP went down, but 26 is still pretty high. My rogue/monk character got 26 XP per weak zombie at level 3, whereas this character gets 26 XP at level 4.

I thought that the amount of XP might be tied to the hit dice of your highest level class, so barbarians would get the least XP (d12) and wizards/sorcs would get the most (d4). However, my findings with the R/F don't really support that. I saved the game before I levelled up to char level 4. When I went R2/F2 I got 26 XP. When I went R3/F1 I got 20 XP, but that combination gives me a -20% XP penalty because my char is an elf. So, adding back on the 20% would give me 25 XP, which is close enough to 26. This makes me think that my choice of class for the 4th level doesn't make any difference.

As for giving 42XP per kill to a level 3 char compared to 20XP per kill to a level 1 char - that's just nuts.

It's not that I really CARE what the formula is, I'd just like to know what to expect. I made a non-favored multi-class character in order to try and get the XP penalty so that I level up less quickly. Instead, I find that the character with the XP penalty actually gets MORE XP at the same level as a character with no XP penalty. Grrr!

I'm really beginning to believe that it IS random, or at least based on some odd race/class related dynamic that is very imbalanced.

Eriks · Post by **Eriks** » Tue Jul 30, 2002 4:25 am

I have noticed many cases in NWN each monster is individually created and that is why one "weak zombie" might be different from another. Or it could be a bug or a mystery, I am just guessing