Experience penalties are shared because the game awards experience based on how much experience a character has. That level 54 Troll Shadow Knight has much higher total experience than a level 54 Halfling Cleric, hence the SK receives much more experience per kill (resulting in the other guy feeling like he's leveling slower than usual). Racial penalties multiply it, so that Troll SK has a combined 68% penalty. Some confusion might result because the penalties were originally (incorrectly) self-only when P1999 first opened, and it was changed to the classic system later on. I much prefer the shared penalties, even with the occasional discrimination, but some folks prefer it the other way. Note that a majority of classes in the game have experience penalties--not just hybirds. Monks carry a 20% penalty and intelligence casters have a 10% penalty.
Several months into Velious we'll see a patch which will remove class penalties and make the racial penalties self-only.
Danth
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