Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why isn't xp rewarded for locating/disarming traps ?

If we get xp for dialogue, exploration why not for having the appropriate character who disarms and locates successfully.

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My personal preference is for all successful environmental challenges to provide XP... however, 5e did away with the 4e's 'non combat encounters' rules and left just some vague info. It's up to the DM if they want to give xp for this sort of thing or just add it up at the end of an encounter.

Seeing as you need a successful perception check to even find the traps and then a successful disarm on the first try for it to not blow up in your face, I'd like if it awarded xp (not just the satisfaction of not getting blown up).

Atm, murderhobo playstyles still award more XP than diplomatic ones, and deceptive playstyles more than murderhobo ones (disguise, do a certain faction's quests for items+XP, start killing ppl off in stealth/invis/bribing for items+XP, double profit).

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As a counterpoint one may argue that:

- we already have plenty of sources of exp (arguably maybe even too many, as we are leveling up at a very fast pace).
- you may want to reconsider the idea of rewarding the grinding of every single trap on your way, rather than the ability to reach a certain goal. Otherwise you'll end with something like Deus Ex (human revolution) where getting the password for a computer was sub-optimal because you were still rewarded more exp for hacking it manually anyway.

EDIT- Frankly if it was up to me I'd move away from exceedingly granular exp systems that reward single actions or kills and move entirely toward a "goal driven" system, like in Vampire Bloodlines: you get exp for accomplishing goals (and what counts as a "goal" can come in a lot of variety, from just finding an item to reaching a place to obtaining an object or killing someone in particular) and how you get there doesn't really matter that much,

It's more than a bit dodgy that you can get the exp reward for solving a quest peacefully through diplomacy and THEN maximize it by slaughtering the encounter you were skipping and getting the kill exp, too.

I am conflicted. There is a lot of content packed into the single act we are given, and I reach level 4 maybe 20% of the way into and spend the rest of the act "capped," but I also go around and completely clean out any and all encounters. In one of my saves, I actually collected every single plate, crate, box, cup, etc, and organized it in my camp.

If I were more inclined to hurry to my goal (I'm not, which is sort of a problem in and of itself, but that's another topic), I'd very likely level much slower. I wouldn't find as many encounters, I wouldn't talk to ANY NPCs beyond those I have to. For people who want to go around soaking up all that experience that the world is rich with, I don't see any reason why they couldn't.

A solution to the abundance of experience sources would be an increase in difficulty regarding the day-to-day living and recovery. Free rests and instant travel with no time constraints means I have no reason to hold spells, carry food, conserve consumables, and so on. No one will chance upon my camp and steal my stuff, no one will pick my pockets and take my money, and even if my character never eats, they will never starve, so I have no reason not to just leave tons of loot in a barrel at my camp.

If long rests and travel actually used up my time rather than being 10 second cutscenes and instant travels back to my camp, I wouldn't use them after every encounter. If I only had so much food, I'd be less willing to spend days in search of experience. If food didn't restore hitpoints, I'd have to source some healing from spells, potions, scrolls, or wands.
It's worth noting that you could make opening the door what rewards the experience rather than picking the lock. If you found the key, bashed it open, or convinced someone to open it for you, you get experience. If you convince a party of enemies not to attack, you get experience equal to what they'd be worth if you killed them. If you kill them afterwards, you get no experience, because you already 'defeated' the encounter. The experience being awarded is for completion of a goal, as you suggest in your edit, rather than a particular action or kill that yields the experience.

That was exactly my point.
Which is precisely why I insist that the system should ideally reward the goal (i.e. "enter the room X") rather than each of the various alternate means to reach for it (i.e. lockpicking, finding a key, getting the key through dialogue or pickpocketing, disarming the trap in front of the window and jumping from there, etc).

Take the tomb robbers you find in the starting ruins. Currently you can have a minor exp bonus for scaring them away and STILL freeze to turn based mode and kill them to double the exp reward.
Now, putting aside that this MAY have other minor implications in the final game (i.e. maybe Gimblebock or whatever he's called is someone you could meet again later on in the game if left alive) I think that ideally there should be a FIXED amount of exp for getting rid of them, regardless of how, and NOT exp reward on top of it for killing them.

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