Granting XP

[Trenloe]

My point is I think once you get to a certain level you should not be getting experience that is from things that are so far below your level. A tenth level fighter walks through a barn kills 4 ponies and says DM ok give me my 100 XP now. I would say no you learned nothing from it but the books would side saying that cr 1/8 creatures are worth 25 XP each.

That’s why you need more XP to reach higher levels - so the lower level creatures defeated have less and less impact, in the end close to zero, on actually leveling up.

Your group can obviously house rule this if required.

[LordEntrails]

My point is I think once you get to a certain level you should not be getting experience that is from things that are so far below your level. A tenth level fighter walks through a barn kills 4 ponies and says DM ok give me my 100 XP now. I would say no you learned nothing from it but the books would side saying that cr 1/8 creatures are worth 25 XP each.

As you are aware, perhaps the most important rule for any and every DM, and expressed explicitly in the DMG from every edition is, that except for this rule, no rule in any book is absolute and they are always up to the DM to decide when and how to use.

I agree, I would not give a tenth level fighter experience for something that does not threaten or challenge them. But, even if I did give the 10th level fighter a 100 xp for killing some 1/8 CR creatures, it won't matter. The character needs 21,000 XP to level up, are you going to give them 84000 ponies to kill? Of course not. You are not incompetent. Are your players going to want to roll attacks and damage to kill 84,000 ponies? Of course, not.

I'm not saying this to upset you, and I think you know and hopefully will agree with this at some level, but your question is moot. Its never going to happen anywhere but in someone's imagination.

In short, I don't worry about giving XP for weak/unchallenging opponents. Sure, I'll award it if I remember, but because they are weak the amount of XP they give will be inconsequential to the story. Maybe, just maybe it means they will level up one long rest than if I did not give it to them, but rarely is the difference between leveling and not that small.

[Marquis_de_Taigeis]

for the horse analogy,
if the horses pose a threat to the players, then awarding the xp would be justified
if the players went out of their way in order to kill relatively defenceless animals, but did it in a very role play/story advancing manner then xp may be awarded but most likely it would be an arbitrary figure based on how it helps with the story
if they were just doing it to try and farm xp, i would happily have them roll all the attacks and damage, gain no xp and then throw in consequences for these actions, maybe a city wide man hunt for the horse slaughterer, which would then add a story issue where they might be able to survive and gain xp from other encounters, but nothing from the horses.

and if ive read it correctly and based on the way fantasy grounds semi-automated xp awarding is done,
1 player tries to gain the system or even the whole party partakes in trying to gain xp this way
4 horses = 100xp (4x25xp) this would then be evenly split so say average party of 4-6 players, an individual might get between 18-25 xp for a lot of effort

so this is definitely not worth the time

so in my opinion xp should only be awarded if a challenge to the party is overcome be it through combat (not necessarily killing, also knowing when to run away) or character based roleplay (information gathering, tough negotiations), and trying to farm the xp is a waste of time.