D&D 5E How long does it take to reach level 20?

[DnD Warlord]

How many encounters would you get per session?

Some times only 1 some times 2 or 3...

We sucked though, we all had low stats well below average magic items and we had 1 guy I swear was fudging his dice to miss

 

[DnD Warlord]

Some times only 1 some times 2 or 3...

We sucked though, we all had low stats well below average magic items and we had 1 guy I swear was fudging his dice to miss

I was a warlock and my 1st magic item was at level 6ish a clock of protection... I was InTeens before I got a +1 implement

 

[dave2008]

We have been in the same campaign since the beginning of 5e (so 6 yrs) and we are just about lvl 16. I did the math once it has been about 400hrs of game play.

 

[Rhuarc]

Got my group to level 20 this spring (level 22 now), after a bit more than 3 years with (mostly) weekly 3-hour Fantasy Grounds sessions and normal XP progression.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Slow going.

Combat light or short sessions?

• We average about 4 hours per session.
• About 2/3 of our time is spent in combat.
• 5 player characters, some with pets, so combat can be a bit of a grind.
• We also just went through a phase with a lot of NPCs on each and every adventure, so that slowed things down.
• The most recent arc featured a three-part climax where we "cut away" to NPCs that were played by the players, which obviously slowed progression.

Tier 1 went really fast, Tier 2 went really slow, and Tier 3 was somewhere in the middle.

I've started awarding story XP more aggressively because I don't want the players to feel like they're not progressing if the adventure is focused on exploration or roleplaying.

In my next longterm campaign, I think I'll aim to reach level 20 within 100 sessions. That feels about right to me.

 

[the Jester]

I've been running 5e since day 1. I run about twice a week, and with characters moving in and out of different groups, so it's hard to be precise, but two of the pcs in my game have attained 20th level so far with a bunch more of them in the 15th-19th level range. I'd guess if I had been running a consistent group of pcs once a week, starting over after they reached level 20, we'd be almost there with a second party by now, but that's just a guess.

 

[Asisreo]

That’s impressive 26 sessions with a level almost every 3 hour session.

If you like high level play though, but don’t want to skip early levels of development (which brings its own problems) why not.

The campaign was somewhat of an anamoly. Everyone participating knew D&D already and we were able to squeeze roughly 2 levels on our first real session (after session 0). It was probably a bit later than 6 months exactly, though.

For games where I don't know the people personally or they need to learn, it is usually close to a year.

Longest it's ever taken me is 3 years with 2 hour sessions (there were a few pauses in-between, though).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Like the owl that never finds out how many licks it actually takes to get to the center of the tootsie roll, I've never made it (or had players in a campaign I ran) make it to 20th level in 5e. Those campaigns have ended before then. I'm just not a big fan of high-level play. The last time anyone hit 20th level in a campaign that I was a part of was in the BECMI days, and it probably took a year-and-a-half. But then again, in a 1e-2e campaign, it took three-to-four years for someone to hit 16th.

 

[Kinematics]

Just passed the three year anniversary for a single game, and we've reached level 14. However, we only play 2 out of every 3 weeks because of job schedules, and we've missed a bunch of sessions in the last few months because of covid. If translated to weekly sessions, about 2 years' worth got us to level 14, so another full year's worth should be able to get us to 20. This is at about 4-5 hours per session. Probably do more sneaking and exploring and social stuff than combat, too, though that's hard to judge.

 

[BlivetWidget]

I cant speak for your DMs math, but I assure you the math behind the XP per level chart is designed to go super fast 1-3, slow for 4-11 and then 1 level per session from 12th onwards.

You actually need less XP to go from 11th to 12 (and 12th to 13th, and 13th to 14th) than you do to go from 10th to 11th.

Bearing in mid over those levels you're dealing with higher CR threats (that give a lot more XP) and the progression speed up past 11th level is really (really) noticable.

Took my group like 5-6 sessions to move from 10th to 11th. Then it was like 2 sessions per level thereafter, and rapidly sped up from there (while you need more XP after 14th level, the XP awards are substantially higher at those levels).

If I was doing double XP from 11th level, PCs would be levelling at least once per session!

This may interest you: if you do the math to on Leveling Up (PHB 15) with Adventuring Day XP (DMG 84), it's supposed to take about 34 "adventuring days" to go from 0 to 20.

Level	Experience Point Total	XP to Reach Level (delta)	Adjusted XP per Day per Character	Adventuring Days Total	Adventuring Days to Reach Level (delta)
1​	0​	0​	300​	0​	0​
2​	300​	300​	600​	1​	1​
3​	900​	600​	1,200​	2​	1​
4​	2,700​	1800​	1,700​	3.5​	1.5​
5​	6,500​	3800​	3,500​	5.74​	2.24​
6​	14,000​	7500​	4,000​	7.88​	2.14​
7​	23,000​	9000​	5,000​	10.13​	2.25​
8​	34,000​	11000​	6,000​	12.33​	2.2​
9​	48,000​	14000​	7,500​	14.66​	2.33​
10​	64,000​	16000​	9,000​	16.79​	2.13​
11​	85,000​	21000​	10,500​	19.13​	2.33​
12​	100,000​	15000​	11,500​	20.56​	1.43​
13​	120,000​	20000​	13,500​	22.3​	1.74​
14​	140,000​	20000​	15,000​	23.78​	1.48​
15​	165,000​	25000​	18,000​	25.44​	1.67​
16​	195,000​	30000​	20,000​	27.11​	1.67​
17​	225,000​	30000​	25,000​	28.61​	1.5​
18​	265,000​	40000​	27,000​	30.21​	1.6​
19​	305,000​	40000​	30,000​	31.69​	1.48​
20​	355,000​	50000​	40,000​	33.36​	1.67​