D&D Encounter Level and Experience Point Calculator

Setup

Terrain	Desert Desert, Dunes Dungeon Forest, Deep Forest, Medium Forest, Sparse Hill, Gentle Hills, Rugged Marsh, Moor Marsh, Swamp Mountains Plains Urban Water, Clear Water, Murky

The Monsters

Enter the number and CR of each opponent the party faces.

Note: CR's may be entered as fractions (2/3, 3/4, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/8, 1/9, 1/10).

#	CR

The Party

Enter the number and ECL of characters in the party.

Note: For PHB races ECL = class level.

#	ECL	CR Based	Difficulty Based
Uniform XP

Results

Difficulty
Advice
Treasure Value
Spot Check Distance
Effective Party Level
Average Party Level
Encounter Level
% of Encounter to use

Experience Point Awards per Character

• CR based Individual XP (listed per ECL) uses the 3.5 DMG rules and numbers to calculate XP based on the actual character levels (treated as a minimum of 3), individual opponent CR's, and the number in the party. This grants higher XP to lower level participants, allowing them to catch up to their higher level comrades.
• CR based Uniform XP uses the 3.0 DMG rules with 3.5 DMG numbers to determine XP based on Average Party Level (treated as a minimum of 3), individual opponent CR's, and the number in the party. Analysis proves this only really works for a party of four with the same ECL's.
• Difficulty based Individual XP is based on the idea that it should take 13 1/3 typical (ECL = Average Party Level for a party of 4) encounters to advance a level. However, using this method, differing level companions will never catch up in either XP or level.
• Difficulty based Uniform XP uses the guidelines that 13 1/3 typical encounters to advance a level. However, because Average Party level is used as a multiplier instead of the individual character levels, differing level companions will eventually catch up in level (but not XP).

Notes & Observations

• Effective Party Level and Average Party level will show the difference in the 'CR' of the PCs if the group has more than 4 characters. Once there are more than 4 Effective Party Level will start to go up even if the extra members are lower level and thus drive the average down.
• % of this EL to use shows how many encounters in a balanced adventure design should use ELs of this difficulty. This along with Difficulty and the Advice to Party provide tools for gauging encounter design.
• A further caution: EL and CR become less and less reliable the further the PCs differ in stats from '25 point buy / standard array'. However there's no agreement on exactly how much of an impact this has.

Version Notes

Version	Author(s)	Notes
4.02	Alistair	Modified for support on mobile devices
4.01	Arcady
3.13	Tiera Starr
2.1	John Dells