Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback XP and Non-Combat Resolutions

I'm sure this has been stated, but bringing it up anyway, just in case. Talking your way out of a combat or situation, should award xp. In pnp, the dm will usually award xp for "resolving the encounter". This can be through killing the enemy, or just getting them to go away, or your party leaving the area without aggravating the situation. Now, running away, from combat, no. But if you talk your way out of it, either through good rolls, or dialog choices, then you should receive the full xp for that encounter. Hell, when I dm, I specifically throw in encounters that the PC's can't win through combat, and I will still reward xp, if they are able to resolve the situation without fighting and clever thinking.

Very much agreed - Resolving an encounter, should reward XP, otherwise players are going to feel pushed towards violent answers all the time.

It would nee dot be managed as an individually isolated thing, however - an encounter is blocked to contain a certain number of hostiles if triggered into violence, and pays, between them, a certain amount of XP; that's as normal... but you'd need them to have internal flags as to wther they have "paid up" xp already at any point, so players don't feel tempted to 'double dip' with a peaceful resolution, followed by a murderous heel-turn, just for double XP.

Fortunately, Larian already have this in place, or a working version of it, in their one-time-XP only knock-out mechanic... so there's seemingly no reason for them NOT to be awarding XP for social or clever resolutions.

(As an aside, this doesn't go into the manifold ways in which their current knock-out system is ridiculous and badly designed...)

Yes, there have been few thread about this already.

And yes, once again I agree, I think any modern RPG should go for a "goal-based" reward system rather than giving exp on single kills/actions.
Basically, assign exp to "solving an encounter" in general or reaching a certain goal (which does not need to be anything major. Even finding a secret or getting rid of someone specific can count as "goal", if a minor and optional one).
And of course, it's perfectly fine to have a specific solution pay more if it's blatantly better than the other two-three options for the same goal.

As a virtuous example of a game that shown everyone how well this type of system can work, I always think of Vampire Bloodlines.

Agree, this is on my list.

Fun fact: if Larian took advantage of the idea of giving exp rewards based on "encounters" or "goals" instead of kills, they'd also solve their current problem of struggling to keep the amount of exp in check.
Right now, aside for the arbitrary level cap in alpha, I've noticed that there's something a bit wonky about the amount of exp paid by certain creatures. It's more than a bit suspicious that killing a minotaur pays as much as two goblins (100xp vs 50xp) and so on, plus the whole issue of not giving exp for pacific resolutions OR the fact that even if those were paying exp the player could still exploit the system getting the pacific resolution and then killing everyone, too.

It's very surprising that this is not something implemented from the beginning in an rpg likes this one. Is it also something coming straight from Dos2 ?
Exp rewards by goal/encounters (not the random ones, if they are implemented at some point) is a good idea.

I would definitely support goal/accomplishment-based XP instead of kill XP.

Why choose. Take the total xp for combat of mobs and simply give it to the character when those mobs are pacified through means which do not involve combat. Viola.

Because, we can kill friendly NPCs and get exp for them. So with exp for talking through and killing being 2 separated things, we would be able to get twice as more and go overpowered. Need the third way, the third way is "achieved a goal = got exp, everything else = no exp".

You are doing two separate things, you should get twice the dividend. I fail to see a problem with that.

Look experience is exactly that, what you learn from doing things. If you defuse a situation with dialogue you have gained some insight and honed a skill set. If you then kill those people you had previously negotiated with, you are doing something else and learning from that. Is it game breaking? Sure, potentially, who cares. If people want to break their game let them. If people want to mini max rather than make role playing characters let them. RPGs are about nothing if not choice and consequence, not xp, not loot. I saw a post on another forum about a fellow who played New Vegas for the first time and in the first five minutes murdered everyone in Goodsprings and didn't understand why they didn't respawn and thought the game was stupid but finished it just slaughtering everyone he came across without doing any of the quests. In the end he said it wasn't that bad and to this day I still can't imagine what he got out of it. People should be allowed to find fun where they may. They are paying for the experience just like we are so they may as well get something out of it.

Maybe-maybe... You're right. But welp, here is another problematic case for you: what if I'm role-playing as super-stealthy, avoiding talking and killing as much as possible, while completing quests. If exp is giving via talking or killing, I wont get most of it. In the same time by your logic I did something (stealthed around) and learned from it.

I'm 100% for non-combat resolutions being "worth it".

That being said, they need some additional measures to prevent over leveling. Whether they cap each chapter, implement diminishing returns, or something else. I hate it when I'm incentivized to do extra murder hoboness to "get that xp" that I don't really need. TBH, milestone XP would make a lot more sense to me across the whole game.

I have played a couple games that would give you XP rewards for eluding enemies usually capped at half the XP you would earn from killing them that was subtracted from the XP you would receive from killing them. Lionheart did this and it worked really well. The XP rewarded would vary according to the distance the player was from the enemies, and as that happened the chances of them spotting the player also increased -if I am remembering correctly, it has been years since I played that title. Most games don't bother with that sort of thing, the reward of stealth is usually being able to see what sort of fight you are in for and being able to prepare accordingly which is fine as that can lead to drastically reducing the difficulty of many encounters in and of itself

This should definitely be a thing. Killing everything is often the easy way out, being creative should always be rewarded.

To avoid overleveling they could make it where whatever you do in the first encounter with something awards the xp and the majority of xp should be earned through quests and overall encounters.


Not really a fan of this. Stealth xp should be equal to regular xp, there is usually more tactical thinking that goes along with it rather than just rushing in. Punishing people for using their brains is pretty bad. Was there ranged and melee damage too? This would be even worse, a stealthy ranged player would never level.

This whole thread seems to imply you get no XP for dialog options. Haven't any of you gained a level after a dialog? Minor spoiler - like the fisherman tricked into digging out the Mind Flayer. Obviously, you get XP (and some weirdly underpowered gear) if you kill them, but you also get XP if you send them away without killing them. I have not paid attention to the amount, but you can get from level 1 to level 3 just doing a lot of exploring and dialogs with little fighting. So this thread seems weird like I could see discussing the amount of XP, but it seems to imply there isn't any which is untrue.

Do you get XP if you send the rival adventuring party away from the ruins without combat?

You get exp for some dialogs at the moment. But for some reason (maybe work in progress) not for all of them and less for peaceful solution than for killing. Plus no exp for stealthing your way around.

Decided to test this, and I was totally wrong. What I was seeing was XP given for starting/advancing a quest. So like when you come across Lae'zel and talk the Tieflings into walking away instead of killing them, you get XP for Advancing the Lae'zel quest. You get nothing for avoiding fighting them. Avoid the fishermen and temple raiders...same no XP for avoiding the fight. So...yeah I agree that there should be.