I'm in Chapter 2 in the dwarven town, i'm level 24. I haven't been farming xp - but i have done a lot of running back and forth to do quests, I passed a quest in and got a level. then i noticed that i wasn't getting any XP from the Harpies near the "place of power" or drowned dead in the same area - i passed the quest item back in and didn't get any xp for the quest either... so i passed in the dwarven mine quest (i had trouble working out that i didn't need beehive bombs i needed grapeshot) and i didn't get xp for that either...

I was wondering if there is a XP cap on certain areas? or chapters?-- or is it something else.

so far i love the game - but if i'm not getting xp I don't find it as fun because i'm worried it might be a bug...

There's a level cap on the game as a whole. There isn't a cap on any act, or region, but the game sort of acts as if there were:

(1) Most of the XP you can earn comes from quests. Obviously, there's a limited number of quests, and this limits the XP you can earn.

(2) The way XP for killing enemies works, you don't get much of it to begin with, and even that falls off as you fight weak enemies at higher levels. Once you've made some levels, common Harpies are so far below your level that you get zero XP for killing them. It's not a bug.

The designed intent is to discourage level grinding and monster farming. That is not what the developers believed the game should be for, and the game design discourages it by limiting the reward that can be obtained that way.

i thought I would be something like that for the monsters --- but i guess i should have got quest XP then -- i'll try an earlier save and see it it happens again.

thanks though

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Frankly I'm not sure abotu how XP is handed out per chapter but what I have noticed is that if you do the quests, you should be of the correct level for any given chapter. Moving from Chap 2 to chap 3, I did notice I gained several levels (not sure why). I ended the game at level 35 iirc. That was a bump from level 28 to 33 just going from chap 2 to 3.

Again, I'm not sure of why. I do get the impression the game will make sure you're at the right level for the chapter and that the xp gains aren't all that important in the long run.

I get the idea of the game, but it kinda irks me that I kill 20 harpies and get nothing, but a few cutscenes pass and I jump up 2 levels for a conversation. I mean, like the OP suggested, it seems like there's a built in level cap for each act, and that, uh..., irks me.
Why even have the monsters respawn at all? To waste my time? I always felt like you should always get experience for defeating foes - diminishing returns is fine, because you learn less about a foe after killing them time and time again, but you gotta get something for your time, y'know? And then why the unending respawns?
And if there's no way to get past a certain level point, it starts to feel like it's all been predetermined, and that eliminates some of the fun - like, you will be level 15 after act 1, level 25 after act 2, and so on, and that's that.
Some players want to farm and explore every nook, whereas some folks will just stick to the main plotline and avoid all the extra encounters and exploring. And in the end, they're both the same level? Does seem kind of unfair, y'know?
Hey, I'm not taking any hardline here b/c this is a very story-driven game and I get that, but I'm more appreciative of a more open-ended, less restrictive (level-wise and customization-wise) game. Again, not that Geralt isn't awesome and the game isn't great (yadda-yadda-yadda), but I'd like to actually get xp for all the stuff I'm willing to do that someone else might not be - even if that boils down to me farming and level grinding (or whatever it's called).
Well, that's my 2 cents. Peace out.

almost all of your exp are from quests, so the amount of exp you get per chap is set in stone