I wrote yesterday about the ongoing adventures of Aury and Mattie in the Scarlet Horizons setting. I ran that battle with the hunting party of a dozen lizardmen. Jasyn the dungeoneer naturally gave a good accounting of himself. He is, after all, an expert whom the PCs are paying handsomely to guide them to the Barrowmaze and, once there, through it.

It really is robbery, what Brother Jasyn is charging the two Seekers — not the 3 chroma per day: his expertise is worth that. But seven additional chroma for any day on which he sustains injury, and another seven if he must engage in combat.

Still, if this dungeoneer proves equal to his reputation, he'll be well worth the expense. Brother Jasyn sucked up 60% of the experience gained from the lizardmen encounter, but this proportion will shift, because the Seekers will level up more quickly than he will. Besides, his presence prevented the Seekers from significantly more serious injury.

You could read about this particular encounter, but if you haven't been following the story, you'd likely be better off starting at the beginning.

Update: I’ve converted the XP advancement system so that it’s not fractionally based.

Of course, treasure XP may still be fractional since 1 spent gp translates to 1 XP.

If I recall correctly, a day or two ago, I began spit-balling a way to determine fractional experience values for defeated monsters in Scarlet Horizons.

Here, I refine my thinking a bit more:

0.001 (per Hit Die) If AC < 7 add 0.00010 If AC < 4 add 0.00015 If AC < 1 add 0.0002 Special ability (attack or defense) add 0.0003 per ability/quality

I've attempted to apply this to aboleth spawn.

Steady progress is being made in developing the Scarlet Horizons setting and rules. I'm up to thirty-eight Heroic Deeds and five spells. I have sixteen character classes — four of them core classes, the others subclasses of one of the core classes.

Eleven character classes are at least marginally complete, and five others need my attention. In the rules I'm creating, I'm incentivizing multi-classing in a number of ways, and in some limited ways creating a disincentive: what long-term player wouldn't eventually want his PC to take 20+ levels in the Fighter core class, given the bonus hit point those levels offer?

It's now been three days since I did any work on furthering the escapades of Matthias d'Slaytonthorpe — scholar-mage and his cleric-mystic fellow Seeker — Aurioch 'Aury' d'Rosenberg.

It's all well and good to develop the Scarlet Horizons setting and rules, but I don't want to miss out on the actual game play. Our heroes have, after all, only recently survived an ambush by froglings in the bog southwest of Helix, near The Blackened Forest.

I'm going to have to figure out a way to convert defeated monsters and treasure into Experience. Matthias and Aury need a total of 2.0 Exp to attain 2nd level. Let's consider possible ways to translate defeated monsters into Exp.

Warning: spit-balling section below:

As a starting point, let's say that for each HD that a defeated monster possessed, we'll assign a starting fraction of 0.001; if the monster had any special resistances, we'd add 0.00025. And perhaps for each attack per round beyond one, we add 0.001.

If the monster was particularly weak or mediocre, subtract 0.00025.

Armor class below 7? Add 0.00010; below 4? Add another 0.00010. Below 1? Add 0.00015.

What does this give us in composite for a single frogling?

0.001 (per Hit Die)
subtract 0.00025 (weak vs robust creature HP/saves)
AC 6 (add 0.00010)
Special ability 'Jump' (add 0.00015)
Attacked as part of a group (add 0.00015)
PC(s) harmed by monster or compatriots at least once (add 0.00015)

This yields 0.0013. Multiplied times ten froglings: 0.013.

End spit-balling section

I did land on Fractional Experience values for defeated froglings.