I think that the penalty for the PC having extra speed should probably still remain as-is for balance reasons. Otherwise, I agree entirely.

If you remove the penalty for low speed, you would remove the penalty for high speed. I would rather the XP bonus be capped for low speed.

I see nothing wrong with removing the invisibility XP boost...it comes into play for maybe three monsters and is otherwise just abused.

Removing this bonuses seems unnecessary for me, this would just limit possible options, which ADOM is about. They need to be fixed to prevent abuses, however - they are supposed to reflect difficulty of combat, but currently they can be abused in special cases.

Speed bonus should use maximum PC speed observed starting from first PC or monster attempt to attack each other. This way even one missed attack from greater moloch with 120 PC speed will grant same exp as 120 speed PC even after reducing current speed to 40 and dealing killing blow to said moloch. Kiting with high speed inbetween also would be impossible - observed speed will be used.

Same with invisibility - even if you saw monster just one time - it would give non-invisible experience. Have fun wandering around on cat lord level without SeeI, if you want that exp.

I agree that not giving any extra xp for a monster being invisible is completely needed: You can build the extra xp from the few monsters it would apply to (cat lord, invisible stalkers, etc) into the base xp gained, as their being invisible is part of their "challenge kit."

It's not practical to have to track the PC's speed throughout battles. Applying an equivalent xp penalty when the PC is affected by Slow Monster and getting rid of Invisibility benefits entirely seems both practical and sufficient.

Why you want to rid of Invisibility benefits and why you are willing to close only Slow Monster exploit, but leave boots of slow shuffle as a possibility?

Maybe removing the boni completely is a bit too radical. I paste here the two possible solutions that I suggested in the cat lord thread:

1. Apply the invisibility bonus only for early and mid-game chars: it should go away after level, say, 20. At that point almost any character has a means of SeeI, or if they don't have it, they're doing it wrong. And regarding the speed bonus, make all speeds below 90 equivalent to 90 for this purpose. I like the feature that gaining lots of speed is bad for XP, because it's a tradeoff, but on the other side of the spectrum, if a player has 40 speed when killing a powerful monster he's likely just scumming.

2. Leave the boni as they are but cap them such that a monster can never give more than double its base XP. For the cat lord, 1.4 million sounds much more reasonable than 3.5 million.

Boots of the slow shuffle is auto-cursing, slow monster spell has a duration. Experience level 45 takes a long grinding game to reach when you character is blessed with high base speed.

Using these exploits is often the fastest(pun intended) way to reach experience level 45.

A player has to find the spellbook, be able to learn it and put his character at mortal risk using this exploit. There is no way to remove the effect of the spell. It is risky business.

Invisibility you are welcome to remove the bonus, but please don't hastily remove bonus from being slow.

It is actually not true. You can pray to remove effect.

I have a simpler solution. For speed. Remove the ability to cast slow monster on oneself. There is not practical application for it other than XP abuse. Other ways of deliberately decreasing your speed you can leave as they are.

In this simple way you will also remove bug cave exploit. Without the ability to reduces ones speed by half player will think twice before abusing bug corpses to increase ones speed.

AS for invisibility I agree that it should be built into XP gained for the monster and it shouldn't be a large increase by all means. There are only a few of them trully invisible in the game. Other ones are just a result of game mechanics abuse.

Doesn't that leave the frost bolt spell for drakelings and characters with the cold blood corruption?

I believe frost bolt cannot be cast upon oneslef. You can only do it using wand of cold. I know fire bolt can't, so I guess frost bolt cannot be cast either.

The only way left to manipulate ones speed with spells would be to cast improoved fireball on oneself while having cold blood corruption. Due to significant cost of improoved fireball this is hardly abusable.

I am also thinking that not to penalize speedy characters too much it might be interesting to increase availability of boots of slow shuffle. These are very rare currently.
Maybe some kind of item should also be added like: ring of normality that would set your speed at exaxctly 100. Not to make it abusable it could be only removed by some NPC in the game - maybe in Dwarf Town or destroyed... Player would have to decide whether he wishes to engage monster being speedy - but with less xp points... or whether he wishes to engage monster with speed 100 which bear more risk. It wouldn't be possible to fight while speedy and then do a final blow with reduced speed.... or it could be a scroll or potion that would be relatively easy to find....

Agreeing on both counts. I should add that I've learned that it is theoretically possible to cast Slow Monster on yourself by reading about increased xp gains somewhere here on the forums. I wouldn't even think about doing something like that during the game if not for external information.

Same is true about invisibility because it is not apparent from the gameplay at all: all monsters that do it in the game by themselves almost always give double experience so an unspoiled player will associate xp gains as base for them.

Hmm, You asked me a riddle once. Returning the favour, what monster can you kill with a prayer?

I'm hoping the new quests and locations and bosses add enough resource for xl 45.

I don't. I didn't think of them. Language is an imperfect tool. Don't just read the words, think about the intent. If someone didn't mention something that also happens to be a remote detail that wasn't broached in any matter of significance, it's more likely that they simply forgot.

As for getting rid of invisibility benefits, I think that for the scant few creatures that are or can make themselves invisible (ogre magi, invisible stalkers and such) that should be reflected in the xp they grant innately - that allows us to ignore the invisibility state in the calculations altogether, and remove all benefit from player-induced invisibility. The rationale behind an xp bonus for killing an invisible monster, to keep that in mind, is that such a monster is harder to fight - but if the PC applies it, that doesn't hold water. Even if the fight does actually get more challenging as a result, that's the PC's own damn fault and doesn't need to result in equivalent xp reward. In the rare case that a creature finds an invisibility potion and drinks it - that's an occasion a one-time xp bonus for killing the creature could and should be coded in.

Potions of invisibility is quite common. So, it's fine to drop the potion in hopes that the xp giver will drink it, but throwing is out?

Good point there. Scratch that one too, then.

This is an intended effect. There is supposed to be a tradeoff between speed and xp. The fact that there are ways to circumvent this is a pretty big exploit.

There are lots of ways that you can fail at an ultra. I don't see why the game needs to give a pass to players with high speed--compared to other failure modes for ultras, it's a remarkably easy error to recover from. You just have to fight more.

Haha ... when I read previous post I was about to write exact thing but you were faster. My mind is in constant state of exploit finding ;).
I believe that NOT getting a few extra xp points for invisible orc or gremlin, compared to how creative players can abuse it, is a fair enough sacrifice.

I don't think it's enough of a balancing factor to be worthwhile. No one ever refuses to increase their speed because of the xp hit, and not just because it can be circumvented. Getting speed above 150 isn't very easy anyway.

I say remove the ability to cast Slow Monster at yourself, and remove the invisibility bonus if you can see invisible. Maybe also cap the xp bonus at 200% or 150%. I don't want the speed ratio bonus nerfed too much, otherwise quicklings and such give disproportionately low xp. Invisible stalkers and ogre magi are very tough for low-level characters, and should give an appropriate reward.

On the other hand, I think disabled monsters (blind, confused, stunned etc.) should have a severe xp penalty.