I currently DM a group of 7 players, varying in levels from about 5 (maybe 6) to 8. Some players can’t always make it, and the way we’ve been dealing with absent players is to hand wave them as just sort of disappearing into the background, only to reappear next time the players shows up. He also misses on the XP for that session. Sure, fading into the background requires a bit of suspension of disbelief, but at the end of the day we are grown men pretending to be elves, so who cares.
One side effect of this however, has been the growing inequality of levels amongst the party. Some guys are d&d fiends who make it all the time, while others have cranky wives that limit playtime for little Timmy. So what happens? We have low level defenders who can’t defend, or low level strikers that can’t strike. By limiting the XP, and not following the advice in the DMG that says to award XP even if the guy doesn’t show up, I’m doing more harm than good to the party. Nevermind my intentions of rewarding the players that bother showing up, the way the game is designed with so much emphasis on balance, players need to be on an equal playing field with each other in order to succesfully play their roles.
Now, I come from the school that says “You don’t show up, you don’t get XP.” And while I’d love to be able to keep rewarding players that come, I think I’m going to have to take the advice of the DMG, even if I do it with a bad taste in my mouth.
Per the DMG, a hard encounter can include monsters 5-7 levels above the party. That means that a party at mid Heroic, let’s say 6th level, could end up fighting 11-13 level monsters. Let’s look a closer look at that.
I’ll use a 6th level version of my party’s Warlock as the example. Using a +1 Magic Rod as an implement, and the implement expertise feat, he does a +9 with his Eldritch Blast. A Banshrae Dartswarmer at 11th level , out of the first MM, has an AC of 23. The Warlock needs an 14 to hit his AC. Now, we have a Ranger who was 4th level when the Warlock was 6th. If a 6th level PC can, in theory, fight an 11th level monster, then the 4th level Ranger would be at the edge of that range there. But imagine a 4th level PC attacking a monster 7 levels above his. A 4th level ranger hitting a 23 AC? Very, very hard.
"You, Dwarf, you check out the broom closet back here. You can't help us against these monsters anyways."
So, what if you’ve noticed this very same thing in your game? As a DM, you have several options. The most obvious one is to gimp your encounters and spread lower level monsters that mysteriously drift towards the lower level PC’s all the time. That’s kind of crappy, because you are forcing your encounters to take on a tone you may not want. You can also bring everyone up to the same level via handwave. This may be the most ideal way to deal with the situation, as it makes the playing field equal to all, and may make your DM’ing life easier. Another thing you can do is boost up the lower level guys via magical items. Although you may get some resentful higher level PC’s asking for their share of free stuff.
Another situation that may develop with multiple levels of PC’s is the magical item/treasure parcel situation. 4th Ed. assumes the party is of equal level, and it makes it so that the distribution of magical items is dependant on this. Now obviously then, the treasure parcel system falls apart when not everyone is of equal level, so that’s another argument for simplifying your life and making the players all be equal.
Ultimately, you’ll decide what’s best for your game. Me, I’m leaning towards changing my XP attitude, and seeing it less as a reward and more of a necessary evil to give even absent players their share.
So now I ask you, 4th Ed. DM’s and players, have you encountered this situation? What does your group do?
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Plot hook of the day: A snake oil salesman comes to town, and people immediately fall for his shtick. Some in town say maybe too much. He hangs out for a few days, and gains a quick following. But you don’t fall for his nonsense, his forked tongue and slight reptilian features give him away as a a Snaketoungue Cultist. He’s got half the town following his every move thanks to that crap he’s peddling, and rumor is he’s going to start building a temple of some sort with their help. What’s that “oil” he’s selling? And how do you convince the town this guy’s bad news?
www. Newbie DM .com 
Pobman
June 2, 2009
The way I see it is that XP isn’t the reward for turning up to the session. The fun you have playing the game is the reward for turning up. Penalsing people that are probably annoyed about missing out on a session has never sat well with me, but I understand why DMs do it.
Steve
June 2, 2009
I agree with Pobman. My players hate missing just because of the fun that they miss out on. We all pretty much live for game night these days. Also, I found that it’s just easier to track total XP if everyone has the same amount.
Mike
June 2, 2009
My players gets XP for any combat their character helps with, whether the player is present or not. We have it set up so that we have access to the important parts of each character sheet so if someone’s not there, they can just a basic attack on their turn to do some damage and get XP. They miss out, though, on the story and any bonus RP XP.
Ameron
June 2, 2009
We’ve tried both methods you’ve described. We used to award 1/2 XP if you weren’t there in order to minimize that gap. The problem was that the same people kept missing the game so they kept falling further behind. Eventually the gap became too wide and we just said screw it and leveled everyone to the same level.
Now use the system presented in the 4e DMG and every gets XP whether you’re there or not. However, it does hurt character development. One guys commented this week that he never got a chance to play his PC at 8th level since he missed three games in a row. Fortunately he’s playing a Fighter so it wasn’t too hard to imagine what he missed. (“I kill it with my Great Axe.” Yep, that sounds like 8th level to me.)
Andreas Davour
June 2, 2009
I’m not a 4th ed DM, so take my advice with that in mind. The way I’d do it is to let the players go find the adventure, not let the adventure find them. If you scale all adventure so that the world “knows” that the party level is 5, and only throws level 5 encounters at them you have a problem.
Instead, set up an environment with threats of different levels and give the PCs History and Diplomacy check to find some rumours about the site and its inhabitants. That way they’ll learn about what they might be powerful enough to take on, and it wont be your problem to scale things. Also, empowering the players us usually appreciated by most players as well!
wscar
June 2, 2009
I think everyone makes good points, here. I’d further add that the group members who are missing games probably don’t feel great about it. Slapping them around by holding back the XP, resulting in underperforming characters who can’t help the group, seems to me more likely to drive them out of the group rather than get them to come more often. “Honey, if I don’t go tonight the rest of the guys will level up without me” cuts no cheese with wives who don’t like this hobby much anyway.
Lou
June 2, 2009
@wscar AMEN BROTHER!! I can’t make it to all of our games, not playing is what I dislike the most. I’m currently lower level then the rest of my group because of that and I have contemplated not playing due to the frustration of being ineffective. I had to adapt and choose my powers/play my defender as a support character, it does me no good to be the main defender and hold the front line when I’m two levels lower then the rest of the group. Yes it sucks when your fellow dwarven cleric and fellow warlord are the main damage takers when your the defender and should be the meat sheild but then again the alternative is not playing at all.
Icosahedrophilia
June 2, 2009
I DM for a group that is now up to eight PCs if everyone is present. We recently abandoned XP altogether, and now I give out levels as treasure. I prefer to keep all the PCs at the same level precisely so that players who miss out on the fun of Session N don’t also have less fun at session N+1 by lagging behind the others in power level. So far, it’s working out fine.
xerosided
June 2, 2009
My game’s currently on hiatus, but I’ve been toying with the idea of separating magic items from the regular D&D economy. Now I know this sounds off-topic, but bear with me for a minute.
See, I like that magic items are carefully balanced, but I dislike that this tight balance means most players will be stingy with their money when it comes to other things. Why buy new clothes that have no mechanical effect when that money can go toward a new +1 sword?
So, to fix this (and indirectly, to encourage more roleplaying through way of frivolous spending), I’ve made magic items priceless in the game world. Their acquisition is now governed by metagame “magic item points” (which roughly equate to the parcel system in the RAR), and gold is given out more or less liberally depending on many factors. Since gold is no longer essential to the game balance, you can give good players more gold, and bad players less gold… just like you used to do with XP. Now your XP can remain balanced (or be removed altogether, which we have also done), magic item distribution is more tightly controlled by the DM, and the players get to celebrate their victories by buying as much useless junk as they want. And you still get to reward players who show up consistently without ruining the game.
As an aside, I mean to encourage this foolish spending by figuring out a gold replenishment system vis a vis some sort of simple formula. The more a player spends on flavor and role playing, the more gold they end up with.
Roger
June 3, 2009
I was a bit skeptical of this communal-XP since I’m from the old-school, but the game mechanics have changed so much that this probably makes the most sense. Furthermore, I think it would suck to be the guy who has to sit back and let his comrades take on the boss because he needs to roll a damn 18-20 to hit the guy. But I definitely feel that the guys that do make the session should have dibs on any magic items and don’t need to share any of the gold or other treasures found. The bottom line is that if the party is tight enough–the other PCs are gonna end up getting the hand-me-downs anyways so they won’t miss out on too much either way and like some of you have pointed out the reward IS the playing.
@Lou – you forgot to mention the “confused” Warlock that thinks he’s a Paladin.
Andreas Davour
June 3, 2009
xerosided,
That sounds like the best system hack I’ve heard of in a long time. Way cool!
DrOct
June 3, 2009
I’m not sure how well this would work in 4e, (I’ve just started playing it), but in our 3.5 game, we use action points (that don’t go away when you rest, which may be a key difference), and have tended to use them as rewards for things that some DM’s might use XP for. We have a campaign wiki set up, and get extra action points for doing work on it. Seems to me maybe you could work out some way to give the players that show up more often some extra action points, instead of XP. That way they can do more heroic things, but don’t actually become more powerful. Maybe have a pool of action points that they can save between rests? They get one per session they show up at or something?
Tony
October 30, 2009
I scale 4th edition xp similar to how it was done in 3.5, where lower level characters get more xp than higher lever characters. I have not come up with a perfect formula, but for starters I use the percent difference in level as a bonus multiplier for the lower lever character. So if a 3rd level character is playing with 6th level characters, he or she would get a 50% bonus to the xp. This allows characters to eventually catch up without giving away ‘free’ xp.
Simon Newman
January 20, 2010
Prior to 3e D&D the lower-level-PC problem was self-correcting, because the XP to level doubled each level, so new PCs would rapidly catch up. In 3.5e D&D lower level PCs earn more XP from the same encounter per the RAW, so they also level up quicker. For 4e I have a simple fix: PCs below the highest level PC earn double XP from the encounter. So players who miss sessions may drop a level, but can catch up quite quickly.