Every quest has a set base experience value. Casual gives half of what Normal difficulty gives, with Hard and Elite giving a small (<7%) more than the previous difficulty. This though, is base. From the moment you step in until the moment the quest is fully completed, all your actions will effect this value.

There are two categories of bonus that effect this:

• First is a generic "This is the first time you completed this quest on this difficulty. Your first time on Casual or Normal gets a +25% bonus. Your first time on Hard gives you 40% more experience. Elite turns that up to 80%.
  
• The second bonus is what's referred to as Bravery. This is when you enter a quest for the first time, and choose to do it on Hard or Elite. This requires you to be either a VIP, a reincarnated character, have bought a one-time pass from the store, or be in a party with someone that can open it for you (be it filing the previous requirements, or having simply just done it before). This gives either 10% more experience on Hard, or 20% on Elite. This further increases if you do this repeatedly, creating a Bravery Streak that caps out at the 5th time, for a total of 35% for Hard streaks, and 70% for Elite. Stacking with the first, this can grant an impressive 150% bonus to experience for each quest if you do an Elite Bravery Streak

Beyond this, there are bonuses to experience based on actions taken in the dungeon. Only the highest value of a catagory is used for that catagory.


The greater the percent of genocide, the greater the reward. Kill many, it's Aggression (10% bonus). Kill most, it's an Onslaught (15%). Kill them all, it's a Conquest (25%). Slaughter their family, wear their skulls as helmets and parade around in their skin dyeing the streets crimson, and you might get extra loot[ddowiki.com].



Sometimes it happens. You rushed, you skipped a section, whatever. Point is you left someone alive. A lot of someones. Since some kobold-lovers whined this was a valid playstyle, there is a reward for that. Depending how few you kill, you can earn a 5% Discreet, 7% Devious, or even a 10% Insidious Cunning bonus to experience. Naturally it doesn't stack with killing bonuses.



Smashy Smashy. Coin, potions, even armour...and now, experience. Destruction of many is Mischief (8% ), of most it's Vandalism (10%), and all (or almost all) a hefty 15% Ransack bonus.



Not all dungeons have this bonus, and many don't let you get its upper tiers. There are three: Tamper (8%), Neutralization (10%) and Ingenious Debilitation (15%).



FINDING secret doors, is a bonus to experience, be it by searching or magic. A lever to open it however, forfeits it if you didn't spot it. Additionally, the bonus is for the finding, not opening, so if the secret door is really a huge spike trap (e.g. Foundation of Discord), you can leave it closed without losing your chance at bonus experience. Provided there are enough doors, there is an Observance (8%) bonus, Perception (10%) bonus, and a Vigilant Sight (15%) you can get.



Contrary to common outlook, dying is NOT an experience penalty. What it is however is the removal of a bonus. If no one dies, there is a 10% Flawless bonus to experience. When the thief drags his henchie into a death trap, that's dropped to a 5% Survival bonus (Henchies died, no player died). When the thief then falls into the trap himself, there is no bonus, just a score card of who needed rezzing (A player death removes flawless entirely, even if no henchies died). This been changed and is on an invidual basis: no longer is your death counted against others' exp. Only the corpse suffers now. More incentive to party the...living-impaired.



If no one leaves the dungeon, there is a 10% Persistence bonus to experience. Anyone reentering removes this bonus for the entire party. In addition whomever re-entered incurred a 20% penalty for themselves only. This will stack each reentry until a 90% penalty is reached upon your 5th time.


The first time you run a dungeon that day, you get a +20% bonus. This applies to every dungeon - if it's the first time you run it that day, the bonus is yours. It's to promote variation, instead of repeating the same dungeon 5 times, run 5 different dungeons instead, receiving a +20% on each.


Turbine refuses to turn this on all the time, so far. Instead, occassionaly there will be a bonus for forming a group. For every person (not hireling) in the party past the first, a bonus of 5% of the base exp is added to the total. This does not apply to raids.

Every quest has a base level. This is the level it's considered when on Normal difficulty. Hard adds one to this level, and Elite adds two. Casual lowers it by one. This level is then compared to the highest party member's level that entered the dungeon. If they leave, they still count. If they never entered, they do not count.
If the party level is below the dungeon, you're golden. Likely die messily in a trap, but at least it's not levels that will dock your exp. :P
Provided no one in the party is more than one level over the adjusted quest level, there is no penalty.




There is a mechanic in place to prevent higher level characters from carrying low levels through difficult context. They'll still be able to get loot, but their experience is garnished. If you are four levels below the highest leveled person in the dungeon, your experience is halved. If you are five levels apart, it's quartered. At six, you suffer a -99% penalty to experience, and seven levels different and you cannot gain experience. This penalty only affects the low-leveled character.



Ransack was changed with Shadowfell Expansion. Now, subsequent runs accrue a -20% penalty to exp. This is waived if it's the first time running it on a new difficulty (i.e. Normal->Hard->Elite). The special thing now is it returns at 50% per day - no longer can farming a quest drive it into negligable experience forever, nor can repeating Heroic quests hurt your experience later when you come back to run it on Epic difficulties.

Re-entry

See Persistence under Bonuses.



There is a penalty assessed for showing up when the work is half done. You have a ten minute grace period (in case of short quests), but after that, the time you entered is compared to the time in the dungeon the others have spent. If you've been in for less than a quarter of the time? 80% penalty. Less than half? 50%. Once you've been in the dungeon for at least half the total time the dungeon has been active, you have no penalty.

Mind you, the display only updates when something happens. Kill mobs, break items, etc. Things that update the quest tracker, will update the late penalty status. It will stay stuck on 80% until you do something.

Of course this doesn't apply to challenges and things like crystal cove. There you have 3 minutes to get in, and if you don't? Tough. Your penalty is... EVERYTHING mwahahaha :P

Do note: OPTIONALS in a quest are factored from the base, do NOT get any bonuses listed above, but DO suffer the penalties. They often get pushed to NO XP before the quest does.

Several things can be learned:

• Level range is 3 --> If your party has a level range of three (e.g. a 4th and a 6th character are partying up), just pick quests within one level of the highest in the party for no penalty. If you are the lowest and don't mind 10% or 25% experience lost, picking quests of your level and up works. The higher levels would have lost that experience running the quest anyways from being overleveled.
  
• Repetition is good, to a point --> There are actual tactics for repeating for 'maximal experience' by the anal retentive: Normal*3->Hard->Elite being the quick and efficient route, with Elite*3->Normal->Hard being harder but yielding the most. Of course the easier method prevents streaks. They are also boring to do, especially consistently. Some quests it's worth it (Shadow Knight for instance), many it is not.
  
• Steaks are nice...ish --> Streaks are nice, but half the bonus comes just from going in on a harder difficulty the first time. Keeping a streak unbroken is not that great a deal, especially since would generally require you waiting for someone to open it for you - rather imposing of you. You can wait an hour for a quest to open, or you can run 3 quests, up to you.
  
• Murder and mayhem await --> killing and breaking things is good for xp
  
• Minor bonuses are minor --> Getting Every kill and Every breakable... will only add a few percent to exp. If it's inordinate amount of time and you've a limit, pass. 30 minutes of running around to eek out 5% more isn't worth it.
  
• Optionals are optional, especially with penalty. --> If you're getting a -75 ~-99% penalty from over leveling or such, optionals are not worth it. Sure the main quest is still giving you 5,000 experience... but the optional was only worth 10% of base, and with penalties and such comes out to 65 xp. Hardly worth the 15 minutes extra to do. Exceptions: lewt, optionals worth 100% of base, fun optionals
  
• With enough bonuses, even a quest 6 levels lower than you can be worth a large chunk of exp
  
• Stay your stupid henchi --> Even though they no longer cost the bonus for flawless, just keep the idiots out of trouble :P
  
  
  tl;dr: don't sweat the numbers. Just stay alive, make mobs stop being alive, and have fun breaking stuff. Party people close to you in level, and pick quests closer to the higher level people in the party.