Smaller party = more XP?

[Radiac]

Does doing the game with a party of only 5 get you enough extra XP to get to level 20 well before the HatEoT? Has anyone done this, and if so, when did you hit level 20?

[Gresh]

Smaller party = more XP if you turn off experience sharing in the options menu. Otherwise you will share XP with characters in reserve as well as your party.

I don't have an answer to the specifics of your question. I can tell you that with XP sharing on you can expect to hit roughly level 17-18 at the end of the game.

Turning XP sharing off should make it much easier to hit 20 with your core group, maybe even by the time you reach House at the End of Time. It depends on your skills (for some very large XP checks), how many side quests you do, etc.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by Dulce:

Smaller party = more XP if you turn off experience sharing in the options menu. Otherwise you will share XP with characters in reserve as well as your party.

I don't have an answer to the specifics of your question. I can tell you that with XP sharing on you can expect to hit roughly level 17-18 at the end of the game.

Turning XP sharing off should make it much easier to hit 20 with your core group, maybe even by the time you reach House at the End of Time. It depends on your skills (for some very large XP checks), how many side quests you do, etc.

Really? I always figured xp sharing meant that you'd level slower, since the characters that weren't doing the skill checks wouldn't get the xp for those.

[Gresh]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

Really? I always figured xp sharing meant that you'd level slower, since the characters that weren't doing the skill checks wouldn't get the xp for those.

There are 2 experience sharing settings. One where only active companions receive experience and one for only the skill user receives skill check experience.

If you have <6 party members they will level up at a faster rate with the former setting. The latter setting will likely skew EXP gains towards your speech and trickery characters, as those are some of the larger EXP boosts. (The Pitax tournament has some pretty crazy EXP speech checks, IIRC, and traps are fairly common)

[Outpost Omega 5]

SPOILER WARNING. I WILL MENTION LATE/END GAME CONTENT. DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS

I just completed a play through. As far as I'm aware, I "completed" every side quest (I technically failed one or two, but only because I thought "completing" them was the worse choice story-wise). I wasn't aware of the direct correlational of skill check DC to XP rewards until the later half of the game. I just thought the XP awards were fixed to the event itself, so I wasn't playing for maximum XP in the first half.

Playing in this manor, with XP sharing on, I reached level twenty in the final quest, "The cursed King/Queen" after completing all four of the sub-events the weaken and ultimately negate the curse the the quest is name for (I didn't plan it that way, but there was a certain amount of poetic appropriateness to the timing). This left me with the three (your count may vary) optional sub-events and the final assault to against the Lantern King to play at level 20.

[Immortal Reaver]

If you have share EXP turned off then yes, you get more EXP the less party members is in current party.
If you turn off sharing EXP, anybody who is not in party will not gain any EXP.
If you solo, you will get lvl 20 in cca middle point of game.
Animal companions do not affect EXP gain in any way.
Note party members are set to have same EXP as you when they join your party if sharing EXP is on, but if it is off they join with only same lvl (in early game you can do it to exploit sharing EXP, by turning share EXP on before they joind, then turn it off again).

[Radiac]

In all of my now three runs of this game I have had it set such that everyone, including people who do not party actively with the main traveling team will level up with XP mirroring whatever the main character gets (except mercenaries, they end up with an XP offset which I won't go into). I feel I need to do it this way in order to level up my kingdom advisors, if nothing else, and I like to be able to sub people in and out of the party over time. It also helps, when doing different people's personal quests, to have leveled them up the whole time, because they need those levels to fight the Technic League or whoever.

But I've noticed that I seem to get the team to level 5 faster if I roll with just 4 people on the active party before taking on the Stag Lord, whereas if I roll with 6 I don't get to level 5 as fast. That COULD be an illusion based on my expectation of what the XP is doing, I don't know. But from what you're telling me, I'm not going to get to level 20 any faster if I use a 5 person party (from Troll Trouble forward) as opposed to a team of 6, is that right?

Edit: Ok I just did a test. I took a team of 6 to the Lone House and killed 2 bandits, got 27 XP each, with only 5 people, still 27 XP each. I had to check it myself to be sure, and thanks for the replies.