
Data scientist, video game analyst, astronomer, and Pathfinder 2e player/GM from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Hmm. Something seems a little out of wack, as XP doubles every 2 levels, but you're scaling things linearly here. One Level 1 creature is worth 40 XP to a combat vs a group of 4 Level 1 PCs, so things work out here. But a Level 2 creature is worth 60 XP, not 80, and 60 * 4 = 240, not 320.
If you're indexing the creature XP to Level 1, the XP curve looks like this (where Approx XP uses a 240 baseline for Level 2 as they do in the books, and XP is using exact scaling):
Level | XP | Approx XP | Linear Scaling |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 160.0 | 160 | 160 |
2 | 226.3 | 240 | 320 |
3 | 320.0 | 320 | 480 |
4 | 452.5 | 480 | 640 |
5 | 640.0 | 640 | 800 |
6 | 905.1 | 960 | 960 |
7 | 1280.0 | 1280 | 1120 |
8 | 1810.2 | 1920 | 1280 |
9 | 2560.0 | 2560 | 1440 |
10 | 3620.4 | 3840 | 1600 |
11 | 5120.0 | 5120 | 1760 |
12 | 7240.8 | 7680 | 1920 |
13 | 10240.0 | 10240 | 2080 |
14 | 14481.5 | 15360 | 2240 |
15 | 20480.0 | 20480 | 2400 |
16 | 28963.1 | 30720 | 2560 |
17 | 40960.0 | 40960 | 2720 |
18 | 57926.2 | 61440 | 2880 |
19 | 81920.0 | 81920 | 3040 |
20 | 115852.4 | 122880 | 3200 |
21 | 163840.0 | 163840 | 3360 |
22 | 231704.8 | 245760 | 3520 |
23 | 327680.0 | 327680 | 3680 |
24 | 463409.5 | 491520 | 3840 |
25 | 655360.0 | 655360 | 4000 |
26 | 926819.0 | 983040 | 4160 |
27 | 1310720.0 | 1310720 | 4320 |
28 | 1853638.0 | 1966080 | 4480 |
29 | 2621440.0 | 2621440 | 4640 |
30 | 3707276.0 | 3932160 | 4800 |
Using Level 1 indexed XP (let's call it XP_1, for the sake of brevity), your example above becomes 560 XP shared between either 4 equally levelled characters (140 XP) or 3 unequally levelled ones, with it being unclear how exactly to divvy up the reward.
I'm not convinced your use of level as weight works, due to the fact that level power does not scale linearly. Instead, I would look to the players' contribution to the party's XP pool. PCs have an encounter XP budget that's the same as monsters', by level, which means the mixed party has 160+240+240 = 640 XP between them. The Level 1 character contributes 160/640 = 0.25, or 1/4 of the party's XP, so they should probably receive 1/4 of the XP reward.
560 * 0.25 = 140 XP, which is what they would get if it was a party of 4 Level 1 PCs.
The other two characters each contribute 37.5% of the party's XP, so they would each receive 560 * 0.375 = 210 XP, which would scale to 150 XP in the standard rolling XP window.
I've been kicking this math around for a while now on scrap paper. There's been a small spike in questions around XP and balance over on r/Pathfinder2e, though, so maybe I'll work through his a little and make it a little more accessible/searchable.