20 levels in 3 months? NOT THIS TIME!

[Spatula]

Have you never heard of the Siege of Troy? The Siege lasted 9 years I seem to remember.

And it took the besieging army a couple of years to get going (waiting around for Achilles to show up & then some false starts), before they even got to Troy...

 

[Sytonis]

The next campaign my group will play will be using 4e and will take part in the same campaign setting as our current one. It will likely be decades into the future post the end-war.

We had discussed time being more of a factor this time around, the current campaign's niche was 'staying in one geographical location' to see how ones actions changed things. The new campaign will continue this, but time will be more important.

To give us a framework, we've looked at the levels and approximated how long it could take to level, in game time.

Level Time
0 1 day (likely 1 set encounter)
1 1 week
10 5 Years
20 20 Years
30 50 Years

This is just a baseline, who knows how this may turn out. Open to numbers from anyone else and reasons for those numbers.


Sytonis

Shameless bump from page 5. This is something I could really use comments on. What in game time could pass between levels? Do my numbers above look completely out, if so, why?

Sytonis

 

[JoeGKushner]

Never work in an adventure path.

Hell, some of the old APs ended with you going directly into the next adventure.

 

[The Ghost]

Shameless bump from page 5. This is something I could really use comments on. What in game time could pass between levels? Do my numbers above look completely out, if so, why?

Sytonis

I am looking at something similar for my next 3.5 game. While the edition is different I think some of the ides may also work well for you.

1. Leveling up. 3 months for martial characters and 6 months for casters. The theory being it takes times to learn new combats techniques; it takes time to learn new spells. This will easily add 10 years onto a 3.5 campaign and 15 years onto a 4.0 campaign.

2. Travel. It takes a good deal of time to walk from adventure site to adventure site. Make sure to add in things that slow down travel like rain, broken wagon wheels, paths that are only accessible during certain times of the year.

3. Weather. Rainstorms, Snowstorms, Hail, Tornados, Hurricanes. These have a tendency to stop the adventure for short periods of time. Use them. You can even use them during the wrong time of the year as a catalyst to adventure. Why is a snowstorm occurring in the middle of summer?

4. Seasons. It is winter here in Minnesota. For 4 months we don't do a whole lot. The same can hold true in the game world. Winter is great for stopping the adventure for periods of time. Planting seasons, rainy seasons, etc. also work well.

5. Gathering Information. It can take a lot of time to talk to people or research information. The more that the PCs have to do this the longer it will take them to go from level to level. I always found it strange in 3.5 that gathering information was done by rolling a d20, adding a modifier, and comparing it to an arbitrary DC. And you learn everything in 1d4 hours! It should take much longer in my opinion. For quickly learning information that is a fine mechanic but if the PCs want to do it right it should take a couple of days if not weeks to learn the information.

6. Family. Play it up. Have the PCs meet love interests. Have parents, siblings, and other relatives for the PCs to visit. Maybe there are special days important to the family, tribe, clan, whatever that the PCs are expected to be at.

7. Jobs. Adventure is what they do when they are not being a baker, farmer, judge, etc. Maybe they are just everyday people who get caught up in adventure from time to time.

I hope some of these ideas work for you. They have certainly helped me alleviate the 20 levels in 3 months problem I faced.

 

[iwatt]

Never work in an adventure path.

Hell, some of the old APs ended with you going directly into the next adventure.

You sure about that? I've been doing exactly this with pathfinder's Rise of the Runelords. At the end of each book, I arbitrarily say X years have passed, what have you been doing with your time? It hasn't caused any problems for me.

Between Chapters 1 and 2 I had the Pcs attend Aldern's wedding. During the time they begin to develop contacts, train, etc... About a year later I ahd them start overe again.

Between Ch 2 and 3 I had them hear of other towns that had dealt with similar cases like those of the Skinsaw murders, and had them continue to add contacts and train. 2 years in a half passed very quickly. The bard's brothels were prospering

Now I'll handle the transition from chapter 2 to 3 having tourneys, running the Fort, running research, battling ogres. I expect another 2 years to pass

 

[JoeGKushner]

I was talking about the old Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide. Haven't run the new ones yet and to be honest, don't even think of them as 'AP' as it was started in Dungeon mag.

You sure about that? I've been doing exactly this with pathfinder's Rise of the Runelords. At the end of each book, I arbitrarily say X years have passed, what have you been doing with your time? It hasn't caused any problems for me.

Between Chapters 1 and 2 I had the Pcs attend Aldern's wedding. During the time they begin to develop contacts, train, etc... About a year later I ahd them start overe again.

Between Ch 2 and 3 I had them hear of other towns that had dealt with similar cases like those of the Skinsaw murders, and had them continue to add contacts and train. 2 years in a half passed very quickly. The bard's brothels were prospering

Now I'll handle the transition from chapter 2 to 3 having tourneys, running the Fort, running research, battling ogres. I expect another 2 years to pass

 

[Sytonis]

I am looking at something similar for my next 3.5 game. While the edition is different I think some of the ides may also work well for you.

1. Leveling up. 3 months for martial characters and 6 months for casters. The theory being it takes times to learn new combats techniques; it takes time to learn new spells. This will easily add 10 years onto a 3.5 campaign and 15 years onto a 4.0 campaign.

2. Travel. It takes a good deal of time to walk from adventure site to adventure site. Make sure to add in things that slow down travel like rain, broken wagon wheels, paths that are only accessible during certain times of the year.

3. Weather. Rainstorms, Snowstorms, Hail, Tornados, Hurricanes. These have a tendency to stop the adventure for short periods of time. Use them. You can even use them during the wrong time of the year as a catalyst to adventure. Why is a snowstorm occurring in the middle of summer?

4. Seasons. It is winter here in Minnesota. For 4 months we don't do a whole lot. The same can hold true in the game world. Winter is great for stopping the adventure for periods of time. Planting seasons, rainy seasons, etc. also work well.

5. Gathering Information. It can take a lot of time to talk to people or research information. The more that the PCs have to do this the longer it will take them to go from level to level. I always found it strange in 3.5 that gathering information was done by rolling a d20, adding a modifier, and comparing it to an arbitrary DC. And you learn everything in 1d4 hours! It should take much longer in my opinion. For quickly learning information that is a fine mechanic but if the PCs want to do it right it should take a couple of days if not weeks to learn the information.

6. Family. Play it up. Have the PCs meet love interests. Have parents, siblings, and other relatives for the PCs to visit. Maybe there are special days important to the family, tribe, clan, whatever that the PCs are expected to be at.

7. Jobs. Adventure is what they do when they are not being a baker, farmer, judge, etc. Maybe they are just everyday people who get caught up in adventure from time to time.

I hope some of these ideas work for you. They have certainly helped me alleviate the 20 levels in 3 months problem I faced.

Need time to think on these, thanks.

 

[TerraDave]

Its an old problem...its also important to distingiush between speed of leveling in real time, and in game time. Some posters are really touching on real time...but the distinction is key...back in older editions, leveling could be slow, you could have gobs of real time pass, years of it, but the game time for an entire campaign might still be a year or less.

"Solutions": time to train, to heal, to travel, intermix slower moving RP stuff. I used a 10 days per level at level rule way back when, ie 50 games days at level 5. but as noted, the real solution is down time. Huge chunks of it, either seasonal or just months or years passing between sessions. You can even give XP for it, or other benefits. Also, as noted, you need the right adventure structure. Some natural breaks need to be built in.

Oh, and raising starting ages is also not a bad idea.

 

[the Jester]

...back in older editions, leveling could be slow, you could have gobs of real time pass, years of it, but the game time for an entire campaign might still be a year or less.

I certainly didn't find this to be true pre-3e. The rate of natural healing (and relative paucity of magic healing resources) meant that, especially in 1e, a high-level fighter might be laid up for months healing his wounds. This is an effect that I really enjoyed and kind of miss, honestly!

 

[RangerWickett]

I was talking about the old Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide. Haven't run the new ones yet and to be honest, don't even think of them as 'AP' as it was started in Dungeon mag.

I honestly think I should have stretched out the timeline better for War of the Burning Sky. As written, the war takes about a year. I think I should have put in more buffer nations that could fall to the enemies while the PCs took down-time, and to force the PCs to cover more distance.

I think the timeline of the war was believable. What was less believable was the 'inherent to D&D' problem of people being able to ever go from common people to demi-gods.