Pace of level advancement in 4th edition D&D

[fba827]

Once you get the hang of the game you should level up after about every 10 hours of actually playing.

That is a good approximation of our groups experience as well.
About 10 hours of playing is about the time we level. Mind you, the highest we've gotten to is about 4th level so I don't know if later levels get harder to achieve.

(Well, for us it's technically a little longer than 10 hours but once you take out pauses we take for food and jokes it boils down to about 10 hours of actual encounters (be they combat or noncombat encounters).

 

[MrBeens]

Feh. Ignore the XP charts. Figure out how quickly you want your PCs to advance, and level them up at exactly that rate.

I am leveling up my PCs at a rate of 1 level per adventure because I am running a monthly game. If I were running a weekly game, I would probably level up every other adventure (roughly once per 4 sessions, so again once per month).

We do this also. Our DM only uses the XP values for balancing encounters - we then level up when he deems it appropriate. We are currently running through the H series of adventures, so we level about twice in the course of the adventure, then once again at the end.
It's amazing how well this works - no tracking numbers, making sure the DM accounts for every foe slain, begging him for RP rewards etc.

 

[Lord Ernie]

Feh. Ignore the XP charts. Figure out how quickly you want your PCs to advance, and level them up at exactly that rate.

I am leveling up my PCs at a rate of 1 level per adventure because I am running a monthly game. If I were running a weekly game, I would probably level up every other adventure (roughly once per 4 sessions, so again once per month).

This. I strongly dislike differences in XP between my players, don't like having to count the XP, and I feel leveling people up at story-appropriate moments makes for a more 'cinematic' feel, anyway. I usually go with one level per 3-4 sessions, sometimes slower, depending on what happens.

 

[Baumi]

Leveling is based on 10 Encounters per level.

This is based on Encounters on your level, if they are higher or lower than it will take less or more encounters. Also don't forget that things like Skill-Challenges count as Encounter and you can get Bonus-XP for ending Quests.

In my experience it means that you roughly level up ever second to third Session (4-6 hours Playtime per Session).

 

[Jack99]

164 hours played in my campaign, and my players just hit level 11. We probably spend 40-50% of our time on combat and the rest on roleplaying.

 

[Bran Mak Morn]

Hi,

I find the pace of advancement a little too fast.

Let me explain briefly. It is not as matter of PCs gaining too much power in short time but a matter of story development. Let's take the first two published adventures, KOTS and TL. PCs may take 1 week (in game's time) to explore the Keep and complete any missions therein. TL may take a little longer, but no more than 2 weeks exploring the labirinth. After that, PCs are already 7th heroes. They're close to become Paragons. In the Paragon tier this appear to be much more evident. I compare the Paragon tier to the Companion levels of basic D&D. PCs are great heroes known in civilized lands, at least in they're home regions. Let's take the figher, he may become a little leader of a small barony at 11th and then end at 20th as the legitimate ruler of a kingdom (by way of example). Can a DM properly handle such a PC's history in 10 levels? It's three adventures the size and complexity of KOTS. I think it's a too short time to develop a viable story.

All this said, given the limited time of playing for my group (one time a week), we are all appreciating the pace of advancement so far, but I foresee it shall rise some problems for the DM (me) in the future.

Best

Bran Mak Morn

 

[Holy Bovine]

I have found leveling happens slower then it did in 3.5

My experience as well. Which surprises me. I figured we would be levelling much faster given the changes to the XP chart. My 4E game that started at 1st level in September is now 3rd (we play every week for 4 hours, minus about 4 sessions over that time due to holidays etc) so approx 60 hours playing for 3 levels. That is a lot slower than any 3E game i ran but faster than any 1E/2E game. Suits me just fine.

 

[Rel]

Yeah I'm with those who say "ditch XP". In 4e it serves no purpose except for tracking what level you are. You don't have to spend it to make magic items and stuff like that anymore.

I'm planning to just level them when it feels right.

On the other hand I will say that XP is kind of handy for roughly guaging encounter building but I can use the Encounter Builder tool from DDI and it handles that for me. And also XP alone is a poor indicator just like CR alone was a poor indicator in 3.x. Much wiser to look at a monster's abilities compared to the PCs since there will be variations from party to party.

 

[77IM]

I'm deliberately speeding up advancement: PCs earn 2x XP at levels 1-5 and 1.5x XP at levels 6-10. I think it's fun to start at low levels, but there aren't enough interesting monsters at low levels. Since most of the fun stuff seems to be in the paragon tier, I'm speeding my players there. Even with this increase, PCs still level up after about 10 hours of game play for levels 1-5 (it's a tad slower now; they are around level 6-7).

-- 77IM

 

[Herschel]

I'm deliberately speeding up advancement: PCs earn 2x XP at levels 1-5 and 1.5x XP at levels 6-10. I think it's fun to start at low levels, but there aren't enough interesting monsters at low levels. Since most of the fun stuff seems to be in the paragon tier, I'm speeding my players there. Even with this increase, PCs still level up after about 10 hours of game play for levels 1-5 (it's a tad slower now; they are around level 6-7).

-- 77IM

??? Even kobolds are very interesting now. Shifty is downright annoying and the little buggers can lay some hurtl.