Level Up (A5E) How to reach 20th Level in 45 days — An analysis of "adventuring day" per character level

[Ondath]

I'm honestly surprised by people's negative reaction to the XP curve. Ever since I first discovered it, I thought it was a clever piece of design. What you call "blurting out stuff", I call "giving the players the chance to actually see high levels for once".

It's not like 5e is singular in not giving proper support for high levels. For older editions, the XP requirements for level 11+ were so high that a lot of people never attained them despite years of playing. Even Gygax's own group had reached only level 14 or so after 5-7 years of playing, IIRC. And 3e and its variants had the problem of numbers going so high that you'd have Fighters having +15 BAB to add to a d20 roll. Bounded accuracy and the XP curve, both 5e's innovations, help higher level play stay more viable. Both of my 3-year campaigns were able to see Tier 4 and be playable thanks to those. And if it took both my parties 3 years to even see level 17, I really don't think the speed of level up from 11 onwards is as problematic as people make it.

That said, does 5e have problems at high level? Absolutely. No official adventure support, a small number or high level threats (even for something like Spelljammer, which to me screams high-level play), and things that break bounded accuracy and thus make high-level unplayable (expertise doubling proficiency bonus, spell save DC items introduced in Tasha's etc.). But the XP curve is not one of those problems.

 

[lichmaster]

thirty per--? jesus CHRIST.

For reference, check this thread https://www.enworld.org/threads/dragon-cr´s-too-low.36664/

 

[lichmaster]

I'm honestly surprised by people's negative reaction to the XP curve. Ever since I first discovered it, I thought it was a clever piece of design. What you call "blurting out stuff", I call "giving the players the chance to actually see high levels for once".

A better design choice IMO would be to specify the desired number of encounters per level (or per each level), and build the character XP progression based on that. No one size fits all choice.

It's not like 5e is singular in not giving proper support for high levels. For older editions, the XP requirements for level 11+ were so high that a lot of people never attained them despite years of playing. Even Gygax's own group had reached only level 14 or so after 5-7 years of playing, IIRC.

I surely see that issue. Again specifying the xp per next level and xp per encounter (or per monster) results in a given number of encounters per level, and that result may be unsatisfying for some.
Since the pacing of advancement is ultimately given by encounters, that's what should be the main design entity, not xp. I'd rather have an "XP" table where 1XP = 1 encounter, so the number of encounters per next level is at the forefront, and you just design encounters on the easy/medium/hard as usual, and easy encounters can count 1/2 or 1/3rd etc. Much simpler and more flexible

And 3e and its variants had the problem of numbers going so high that you'd have Fighters having +15 BAB to add to a d20 roll. Bounded accuracy and the XP curve, both 5e's innovations, help higher level play stay more viable. Both of my 3-year campaigns were able to see Tier 4 and be playable thanks to those. And if it took both my parties 3 years to even see level 17, I really don't think the speed of level up from 11 onwards is as problematic as people make it.

Bounded accuracy definitely solves that issue, although it also results in characters and monsters being much more "mundane", with less of a JRPG-like progression. Surely it makes the math a bit easier to control.
But again, the progression is an entirely separate issue.

That said, does 5e have problems at high level? Absolutely. No official adventure support, a small number or high level threats (even for something like Spelljammer, which to me screams high-level play), and things that break bounded accuracy and thus make high-level unplayable (expertise doubling proficiency bonus, spell save DC items introduced in Tasha's etc.). But the XP curve is not one of those problems.

I'd rather have at least a clear paragraph on the DMG specifying that the XP curve was designed so that high characters are meant to be played for mostly 1 shot adventures and doesn't work in the same way as it works for level 1-10.
OR, I'd have something customizable.

 

[Xethreau]

A better design choice IMO would be to specify the desired number of encounters per level (or per each level), and build the character XP progression based on that. No one size fits all choice.

4e's approach in this reguard I think is the best. 10 standard encounters per level, with lots of room for modularly customizing what "10" and "standard" means. For example, you can replace standard monsters (1:1 with PCs of their level) with minions with a ratio of 1:5 (easy to remember at every level), or standard monsters with elites (2:1) or solos (5:1). You can also replace any number of encounters with any number of quests which reward XP on completion; minor quests equal minion XP, and major quests offer standard monster XP. Each level has approximately equal length, with modularity that makes it easy to design adventures from the top down. Yet it also inherently rewards exploration and RP. (Oops, I just explained the whole system!)

This is the kind of system I was attempting to recreate when I stumbled upon how 5e XP really works.

 

[Distracted DM]

Has anyone looked at how 5e adventures that go to high level handle this XP curve? I know there aren't many.
Especially WotC or WotC-adjacent products... the only two I can think of are Dungeon of the Mad Mage and the recent DMsGuild Go-to-Hell/Avernus follow-up adventure.

Now I'm wondering how the 10-20 Vecna adventure will handle it...

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Has anyone looked at how 5e adventures that go to high level handle this XP curve? I know there aren't many.
Especially WotC or WotC-adjacent products... the only two I can think of are Dungeon of the Mad Mage and the recent DMsGuild Go-to-Hell/Avernus follow-up adventure.

Now I'm wondering how the 10-20 Vecna adventure will handle it...

Tyranny of Dragons too

 

[lichmaster]

4e's approach in this reguard I think is the best. 10 standard encounters per level, with lots of room for modularly customizing what "10" and "standard" means. For example, you can replace standard monsters (1:1 with PCs of their level) with minions with a ratio of 1:5 (easy to remember at every level), or standard monsters with elites (2:1) or solos (5:1). You can also replace any number of encounters with any number of quests which reward XP on completion; minor quests equal minion XP, and major quests offer standard monster XP. Each level has approximately equal length, with modularity that makes it easy to design adventures from the top down. Yet it also inherently rewards exploration and RP. (Oops, I just explained the whole system!)

This is the kind of system I was attempting to recreate when I stumbled upon how 5e XP really works.

I really need to find the draft I talked you about, it was all there, with an additional translation of XP since so many people love them. I'll get back to you with it

 

[Xethreau]

Now I'm wondering how the 10-20 Vecna adventure will handle it...

My educated guess:
7 pieces of the rod, each requires 1 game session / level to find. At 20th level, Vecna encountered after a long rest because there is no reason not to. Everyone goes nuclear because there is no reason not to. Downed in 3 rounds or less because 20th level isn't the sweet spot and the rules are too complicated to entertain them any longer.

 

[Xethreau]

Now I'm wondering how the 10-20 Vecna adventure will handle it...

Apparently most WotC adventures use Milestone leveling.

 

[Distracted DM]

My educated guess:
7 pieces of the rod, each requires 1 game session / level to find. At 20th level, Vecna encountered after a long rest because there is no reason not to. Everyone goes nuclear because there is no reason not to. Downed in 3 rounds or less because 20th level isn't the sweet spot and the rules are too complicated to entertain them any longer.

That's not terribly exaggerated from previous modules- except realistically a lot of groups will take 2 sessions or more since they're starting at level 10 and made new characters and aren't sure of everything they can do.

Still, I'm hoping to be surprised despite my own cynicism.