One rule the group I play with has been using is that Craft/Strength experience is awarded for defeating ANY encounter which requires you to roll for combat. So, for instance, when randomly encountering in the Crags, Woods, Cave etc. and fighting the mentioned beast, players still receive that amount of Strength/Craft just as if they had a card with that amount on it.

We've also been doing the same for players, up until the last game we played in which we quickly realized this made the Assassin hugely powerful and able to level up like once per turn just by freely stabbing whoever was within range.

So, do you award experience for killing random, non-card encounters?

Players?

No, only Adventure cards with the keyword "Enemy" can be taken as trophies.

Yes and No. When it comes to Enemies without cards (what we call the "Trophy-less Trophy" rule) their Strength and Craft can be counted as Trophies if...

• S/C points of defeated non-card Enemies are exchanged for S/C skill tokens by the end of the turn in which they are gained.
• Any shortage in such points necessary to gain a full Strength or Craft token must be made up with standard Trophy cards alreadyI held.
• If either of the previous two criteria are not met, non-card Trophy points are lost after the turn ends

We've discovered various problems along the way when in came to flat out awarding of experience points as you call them. For one, awarding them just for Battle and Psychic Combat pushes Talisman even further into a boardgame knock off of an FPS deathmatch video game. Until such points can be gauged and awarded in a balanced fashion for all Strength and Craft related activities / successes, the e.p. approach does not work.

This was why we came up with the "Trophy-less Trophy" rule above. It allows some possibility for extra gain without letting it get out of hand or having to throw in more RPG rules on top of it. Talisman is not an RPG game, irregardless of superficial similarities; it doesn't have the necessary structural mechanics for such.

I have played with JCH's rules for trophy-less trophies and it has been working well. Then we realised that a S10 or so character could quickly increase his or her strength by crossing and re-crossing the Sentinal's bridge. A lucky Troll could win very quickly this way. This would not be such a problem if there were a similar option for Craft-dominant characters.

In third edition, we can gain experience points for that

But with trophies from second edition, it don't work..

Pinky said:

You raise a good argument with the Sentinel. I thought it a little unfair if you was to fight an enemy on a space and not gain the trophy points, but with complications like this, I'd rather stick to the rule as Dam pointed out.