Goodman Games

This question has likely been asked a number of times, but i cannot find an answer on here. My question is, since XP is awarded based on encounter, how do you define an "encounter"? is it a single combat, or a whole level of a dungeon? or an entire adventure? What is an encounter?

If you're running the published adventures, then basically each keyed area would constitute an encounter. So Portal Under the Stars in the back of the rulebook would have 9 encounters. Area 9 is a treasure vault and likely poses no threat, no loss of resources (rather an uptick in resources!), etc. would mean 0 XP.

If you only handed out 0 to 4 XP for an entire adventure, character progress would be greatly slowed. But I guess that might be appropriate for some campaigns.

super insightful. thanks for the feedback.

Yeah, I like to think of "Encounter" as being things like... traps, hidden doors, combat encounters, finding treasure, solving a puzzle, unlocking a locked door/chest. If you're in a long term campaign I also like to think of like... having a useful discussion with an NPC where you learn a lot of useful information, or develop some relationship milestone with a town/character, as an encounter. Throwing a party with carousing counts as an encounter

Encounter is very subjective. So I suggest getting creative with it, if you only count combat as encounters it could take forever to level up if you stick to XP based leveling.