Henchmen and Treasure XP

I'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to work in the rules.

PCs get XP for treasure and Henchmen get 1/2 XP.  Simple enough.

We have had occasions where some henchmen stay in one place, while others travel with the PCs.  Sometimes those trips are specifically to go to larger markets to sell expensive loot, and thus earn treasure XP.  In that case, I have given XP to the PCs and 1/2 XP for the Henchmen who joined them.  The ones that didn't go don't get any.

Now the adventuring company is reaching appropriately large old-school party sizes: 6 PCs and 7 Henchmen, with probably a couple more to be hired soon.  The PCs are now reaching the point where they want to go adventuring with some of the Henchmen, and send the other Henchmen off on journeys on the highways to do busy work - like going to larger markets to sell the party's loot for them.

Using the rule I've been using, the Henchmen should get all the XP for loot sold! Obviously, this isn't going to work.

How was this intended to work in the rules? Any suggestions about how I should handle this? TIA.

You don't get experience points for loot sold, you get experience points for loot brought back to civilisation. For example, if you drag an ancient gold idol back to the podunk hamlet you operate out of and then put it in a box in the attic without selling it, you get expeirence for having brought it home.

The only exception to the above is magic items. Magic items do only grant experience at the time of sale, and then only if you haven't used them for anything before selling them.

The above information is from page 113 of ACKS.

[quote="GMJoe"]

You don't get experience points for loot sold, you get experience points for loot brought back to civilisation. For example, if you drag an ancient gold idol back to the podunk hamlet you operate out of and then put it in a box in the attic without selling it, you get expeirence for having brought it home.

The only exception to the above is magic items. Magic items do only grant experience at the time of sale, and then only if you haven't used them for anything before selling them.

The above information is from page 133 of ACKS.

[/quote]

Fair enough.  I wasn't aware that the rule was as formalized as this, but there it is.  (It's 113, BTW.)  OK.  I'm going to continue doing it the way I've been doing it because it definitely keeps my players hungrier to have to unload gems and artifacts to get their XP, but this also means there is no rules precedent for my situation, which means I'm going to have to answer this one myself, I guess.

I'd award XP to everyone, unless I had a pressing game reason to incentivize the entire party visiting large cities regularly. Which I might, if I started having lots of good ideas for urban scenarios that start with "So while you're relaxing and waiting to hear back about your golden idol..."

Now, this is just my own ideas, but I award XP as follows:

  1. XP from kills is awarded immediately; no waiting, you get your XP.
  2. XP from gold and trinkets (cheap auto-sell stuff) is awarded as soon as the party hits civilization - Class VI market or above.
  3. XP from expensive loot is awarded as soon as the item can sell (a gem worth 50k gp won't grant XP until they reach the capital).
  4. XP from selling magical items only applies if the players are willing to sell it without using anything beyond presonal knowledge (Loremastery, Collegiate Wizardy, Religion, etc.) to identify it.

Thus far, my players have opted to identify everything (irritatingly so, in the case of clever cursed items I've placed), choosing gold over XP. And, though they elected to keep some fine fur coats they found, they got the XP from them as soon as they got back to town.