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What's the difference between XP and adjusted XP in D&D 5th edition?

doppelgreener
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user50863
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1 Answers1

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"Adjusted XP" is for determining encounter difficulty; actual XP is what you give to the party for beating the encounter

The difference between XP and adjusted XP in determining the difficulty of a combat encounter is explained in the guidelines on building combat encounters on Basic Rules p. 165 or in the corresponding section on DMG p. 82.

Step 1 and 2 of evaluating encounter difficulty is to determine individual XP thresholds and then add them to get the party's XP thresholds. Step 3 is to simply add up the monsters' XP, giving you the regular experience totals for the encounter. Then comes Step 4:

4. Modify Total XP for Multiple Monsters. If the encounter includes more than one monster, apply a multiplier to the monsters’ total XP. The more monsters there are, the more attack rolls you’re making against the characters in a given round, and the more dangerous the encounter becomes. To correctly gauge an encounter’s difficulty, multiply the total XP of all the monsters in the encounter by the value given in the Encounter Multipliers table.

For example, if an encounter includes four monsters worth a total of 500 XP, you would multiply the total XP of the monsters by 2, for an adjusted value of 1,000 XP. This adjusted value is not what the monsters are worth in terms of XP; the adjusted value’s only purpose is to help you accurately assess the encounter’s difficulty.

When making this calculation, don’t count any monsters whose challenge rating is significantly below the average challenge rating of the other monsters in the group unless you think the weak monsters significantly contribute to the difficulty of the encounter.

\$\begin{array}{|c|l|} \hline \textbf{Number of Monsters} & \textbf{Multiplier} \\ \hline 1 & × 1 \\ 2 & × 1.5 \\ 3–6 & × 2 \\ 7–10 & × 2.5 \\ 11–14 & × 3 \\ 15 \text{ or more} & × 4 \\ \hline \end{array} \$

In short: adjusted XP determines the true difficulty of the encounter, considering action economy. Regular XP is the actual amount given to the party for beating the encounter.

5e co-creator Mike Mearls explains the reasoning here:

Hi Mike. Players are asking me why actual xp is given instead of adjusted xp. What was design purpose of this?

it's kind of hacky - adjusted XP is there only for comparing difficulty. it's not "real" XP.

Making me wonder what "xp" represents now.

the system really shouldn't use XP as a measure - it muddies the issue of its meaning.

Thanks for the reply! If adjusted xp says something is more difficult, shouldn't players get more xp then?

not necessarily - the system is trying to capture the inherent difficulty in fighting more than 1 foe

2 years earlier, he also responded to a question asking about house-ruling that the amount of XP given out was equal to adjusted XP:

Thinking of houseruling that adjusted encounter XP = actual XP. Any reason why this isn't RAW? Any pitfalls to be aware of? Thx!

it makes hordes of weaker creatures a more appealing fight, if players metagame that. not game breaking

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V2Blast
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    I've read that entire section and if I had understood it then I wouldn't be asking now. – user50863 Dec 20 '18 at 08:23
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    @user50863 Could you elaborate what part is confusing you? – kviiri Dec 20 '18 at 08:26
  • The adjusted xp part? If it's used for determining encounter difficulty, how do you use it correctly so you don't kill your entire party.? – user50863 Dec 20 '18 at 08:29
  • Do you understand how XP thresholds are used to determine encounter difficulty in the first place, without considering "adjusted XP"? – V2Blast Dec 20 '18 at 08:30
  • "Step 1 and 2 of evaluating encounter difficulty is to determine individual XP thresholds and then add them to get the party's XP thresholds". You calculate the total party XP treshold, and then use the adjusted XP value to see what kind of encounter it would be. If it's a deadly encounter, there's a good chance you are murdering your party. If it's an easy encounter, you can add some more enemies and recalculate the adjusted XP and compare it to the party threshold again, depending on how hard you'd like the encounter to be. – Theik Dec 20 '18 at 08:31
  • Yes I do understand the xp threshold. Thank you for taking the time to read my question, but I will try to figure it out on my own and hopefully not kill my party. – user50863 Dec 20 '18 at 10:18
  • @user50863 It is as much art as science, since CR is not an exact measure of NPC monster power. Example: my party has a bard, a fighter, and wizard, and a rogue. They encounter six zombies. That encounter is a different kind of "difficult" for them than it is for a party with a cleric, a Fighter, a wizard, and a rogue due to the Turn Undead ability of the cleric to mitigate the "zombie horde" problem. Yet for a level 2 party the "adjusted XP" would be the same. – KorvinStarmast Dec 20 '18 at 14:18
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    @user50863 As an exercise in understanding, try to create three CR 1 creatures using the DMG "how to create a custom creature" section (Between pages 82 and 90) and make each one significantly different in HP, AC, damage, etc. Then make 2 different CR 4 creatures. It helped me. – KorvinStarmast Dec 20 '18 at 14:21
  • Now how do I like your answer @korvinstarmast? – user50863 Dec 20 '18 at 14:33
  • @user50863 I am glad that the comment was helpful. :) The comment was to follow up on your comments with Theik, and it can't answer your question since it is about CR rather than XP/adjustment. (This all may get moved to chat soon ....) If you do a search for [dnd-5e] and [challenge rating] and [encounter] we have a number of questions and answers that delve into great detail on that part of the game. – KorvinStarmast Dec 20 '18 at 15:16
  • I don't know how to use this app but thank you, so you're basically saying that just because ive made a deadly encounter according to the adjusted xp, which I still don't get, that doesn't mean my players will die, because encounters are just as much about the players PCs strengths as the monsters NPCs . – user50863 Dec 20 '18 at 15:21
  • @user50863 "that doesn't mean my players will die, because encounters are just as much about the players PCs strengths as the monsters NPCs" Yes!! You've got it. :-) The Deadly is a guideline ..A related monster / CR design bitg is here – KorvinStarmast Dec 20 '18 at 15:22
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    Thank you, you've been super helpful wish I could ✔️ all your comments. – user50863 Dec 20 '18 at 15:25
  • @V2Blast I suggest adding an example calculation to your answer to show the difference between adjusted and actual xp. As I read it now, I cant follow the links where I am, to me it could either be you only get the XP for one of the enemies no matter how many there are, or you only get 1 times the XP per enemy but use the multiplier to figure out how hard it actually is(which I think is the correct reading). – Chris Dec 20 '18 at 15:44
  • @user50863: This isn't an answer to your question, but have you come across http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/Encounter_Building.pdf. This is an alternate way to build encounters that does away with all the XP calculations. Its a bit more "rule of thumb" but I find it much easier to use. – PJRZ Dec 20 '18 at 16:39
  • @PJRZ: I think that content actually ended up being published in Xanathar's as well. – V2Blast Dec 20 '18 at 20:04
  • @user50863 Why hasn't this answer been accepted? – GPPK Feb 19 '19 at 19:19