Barb xp penaltyFollow

(Bolding mine)

My understanding is that they removed the class penalties since they determined that class penalties were silly (something we'd been telling them for years). They didn't remove the class bonuses because they were minor (5%), and would constitute a "nerf" (as Joph's quote shows).

Racial penalties and bonuses are still in effect since (again as the quote shows) the advantages based on race do apply across the board. Iksar inate AC/Regen is a straight advantage. Troll regen is a straight advantage. Ogre unstunability is a straight advantage. Barbs only get better stats then other races, which is minor, but so is the Barb penalty.

No one really knows why halflings get a racial bonus. I tend to agree that they intended to give humans the bonus due to their relative mediocrity, but someone made a coding error and gave it to halflings instead and no one ever wanted to fix it.


The class penalties (not just hybrid) were fixed by giving them an offsetting bonus to exp gained when killing a mob. They did this because the penalties/bonuses were not multiples to exp gained. They actually set different exp amounts needed for each level. I used to know the formula for this, but have since forgotten it (Something like 100*C*R*(L^3) where C is class mod (9.5 to 14), R is racial mod (.95 to 1.2), and L is current level). Ok. Maybe I didn't totally forget it...

In any case, the calculations affected the exp needed to gain each level. It would have been really really difficult to adjust those formula since it would essentially give some classes a bunch of levels all at once (you'd have more exp then needed for your current level with the new formula). They didn't want to change anyone's level or current progress through a given level, so they chose to keep the formula intact (so I believe it's still working) but just adjust the future exp gain to account for it. So a hybrid would multiply his share of the exp by 1.4 to account for the increased amount he needs to gain a level. The end result means that hybrids gain more exp per kill, but need an exactly proportional amount more exp to gain their next level. In terms of relative exp (tics/bubbles), they'll gain the same amount as any other class of the same race and level.


They avoided the exp soaking problem by changing how they divided exp up in a group. Originally, what they'd do is take the amount each character in a group needed to gain the next level and divide the exp up in proportion to those values. So a higher level character would get more of the exp (cause he'd presumably need more exp to gain the next level, right?). The problem was that a hybrid would take 40% more exp then anyone else, even if everything else was equal purely because he needed that much more exp. So in groups, hybrid penalies were offset somewhat but at the expense of other groupmembers (which hurt hybrids because people were hestitant to bring them along since they would gain exp slower as a result).

What they did was change the group exp splitting formula to only take into account relative level and nothing else. First they multiply the exp the mob gives by the group and zone bonuses. Then they divide based on relative level (using a "straight" formula that does not take class/race into account). Each character then gets his exp. That value is then multiplied by an amount to counter that characters class exp penalty and that character gets that much exp. So now, even though a hybrid is getting more exp per kill (but needs more), that exp is not being taken from the group. It's being generated on the fly (it's free!). It works out pretty well even if it is a bit whacky...

Isn't (wasn't) your rogue a barbarian? The 5% barb penalty would cancel the 5% rogue bonus and make it a wash with the paladin.

But...nitpicking the details is how you become l33t and ub3r 70+ 500AAs in just 5 days played!!@$$1`OMG

Er...ahem. Sorry, just casting my own aspersions on min/maxers (as they were called in D&D P&P RPGs)

I myself prefer to view it as a game instead of a complex mathematical formula to be cracked. But to each their own.

Hey! My primary alt is a human wizard, so I'm in the same boat as Joph there (hehe. I picked that race pretty much exclusively because I wanted to use the human model with the eyepatch cause a wizard with poor depth perception just seemed like lots of RP fun to me!). Knowledge is power though. It never hurts to know the formulas behind the game mechanics. At the very least, it allows you to make an informed choice. You certainly can choose to play a less then min/maxed character if you want (and many people do because it's a game and "fun" should have some importance), but it never hurts to know *why* your character maybe doesn't level quite as fast as another.

It's useful to know this stuff if for no other reason then some people want to know it, and if you know it, then when they ask a question like: "Why does my Iksar not level at the same rate as my Half Elf?", you'll be able to give them an answer. Kinda why this forum exists...

Edited, Wed Feb 9 16:34:34 2005 by gbaji

1/2 ling's are freaky any way will never play one... LOL...

So basically all beastlords get an xp penalty? Harsh...

What are you useing to display exp Ticks, for a more accurate display of exp?

No, there's no class penalties and Beastlords were introduced to the game after the penalties were removed, if I recall so they shouldn't even have any lingering problems.

I think his point was that all the BST capable races are races with racial xp penalties.

Was just using the tick marks, but the numbers came out exactly as people had predicted. Anyone who finds flaw in my method is welcome to test for themselves under their own conditions and post the results. At level one, the amount of xp needed to do anything is so low that you don't have the same range issues to fill a tick like you do in the higher levels.

You are levelling slower than a Vah Shir BST. Ogres have a 15% penalty compared to the Vah Shir 5% (? - I never tested VS, just going off word on the street).

Pay attention to the whole quote though. I personally don't think VS have any racial experience penalty. I've heard people say that they do, based solely on them being a large race, but I've heard others say they don't because they don't get an innate slam ability AND they eat twice as fast as any other race, therefor no need for a large race penalty. Of course I haven't tested it myself. If someone feels the urge to really know, they can use Joph's method to figure it out for sure though.

If this is the case at level 1, I can't perceive this being true at higher levels as well. I don't exactly analyze my xp gains down to the nitty gritty, but I would think that my 20% (or even more when around those getting the penalty you bring up.) better xp rate would be quite noticeable when grouped with friends and others.

I'm not saying im 100% certain of this, but that amount just seems like it would really stand out.