Session time and level advancement (ie, how many hours gametime for a level)

[DEFCON 1]

My last groups were usually 4-6 sessions per level, each session was about 3 to 3.5 hours, and they each played bi-monthly. So on average they were usually at around 15 hours per level of gameplay over the course of two to two-hand-a-half months or so.

 

[Harzel]

We've played about 40 sessions that have probably averaged about 5 hours, so about 200 hours of session time. The PCs just got to 6th level, so that's 5 level ups, which works out to 40 session hours per level up. A bit slow perhaps, but the group is large (7 players) which lengthens the time required for both group decisions and combat (the latter exacerbated by the presence of two familiars and a ranger's animal companion, not to mention the pet mimic and the mule who also sometimes get involved - all good fun, but it does slow things down a bit).

 

[iserith]

Because I have a player pool and more than one character per player that can be swapped in and out, it's a little hard to say. Based on the most consistent player and character in my town-to-dungeon campaign (two campaigns ago), it's probably something like 80 hours of play to get from 1st to 8th level. That campaign was exactly 20 sessions, each 4 hours long, over the course of 6 months. In game time, this was 20 weeks.

In my current Planescape campaign, it was consistently 8 hours of play to get from 1st to 3rd level which is consistent with the aforementioned town-to-dungeon campaign. From 3rd level to 7th level, the most consistent player and character would probably have clocked in 14 more sessions at 4 hours each or a total of 56 hours of play. That seems about on track with the pace of the other campaign.

I also play in a Tomb of Annihilation game where we started at 3rd level. We're now approaching 8th level and Session 19 is this Friday. Assuming we rack up some XP this session and level, we're looking at about 15 hours per level. Which makes some sense since we skipped 1st and 2nd level. The speed at which those levels are attained would skew the hours per level lower.

So yeah, probably clocking in at 10 to 12 hours per level on average from 1st to 10th level, more or less, using standard XP advancement. Or leveling on average once every 2.5 to 3 sessions. There are five PCs per session, usually. I imagine the average time per level will continue to drop past the "sweet spot" as I understand it's faster leveling as you get into the higher tiers.

 

[the Jester]

I run a hardcore sandbox in which the players have a significant amount of control over their risk (and therefore reward) level. So for us, it really varies. Sometimes pcs advance a level per session (or more, if very low level), sometimes it takes like a dozen sessions to level up.

 

[BookBarbarian]

In my game it's about 1-3 sessions to level. A session is typically 3-4 hours. Ballpark then would be 7 hours per level. less at low and high levels, more in the middle.

 

[akr71]

I recall a letter in Dragon magazine (Leomond's Tiny Hut) where it was mentioned it should take two years of real time to reach seventh level assuming playing 8-12 hours one weekend a month.

Well then my Roll20 group is right on track! Two years together, playing every second week (we're human - there's the odd dry spell and missed session) and we are closing in on level 9. We started at level 2. We fart around, lots of RP and mess things us - we can go several sessions without any combat, especially when we're in a city. We're supposed to be saving the world, but some sessions we're plainly just making things worse.

My home game with my wife & kids is a slow slog too. Typically once a week, sometimes longer, but short sessions (2 or 3 hours) and they just hit level 10. I switched to milestone leveling, but we've at this campaign for a little under 2 years.

 

[Shiroiken]

Leveling came fast and furiously when I ran my epic AP style campaign. On average 4 hour sessions, and leveled about every 2 sessions. My West Marches style game had a much slower pace, with about 1-2 sessions to get to level 2, 2-3 to get to level 3, and 3-4 to get to level 4 (no one has reached level 5, but the two closest have 4 sessions built towards it).

 

[77IM]

This seems like pretty reasonable advice:

SESSION-BASED ADVANCEMENT
A good rate of session-based advancement is to have characters reach 2nd level after the first session of play, 3rd level after another session, and 4th level after two more sessions. Then spend two or three sessions for each subsequent level. This rate mirrors the standard rate of advancement, assuming sessions are about four hours long.

 

[Yes]

1 to 2: one session
2 to 3: two sessions
3 to 4: Three sessions
4 to 5: four sessions
5 to 6: five sessions
6 to 7, and each subsequent level : 6 sessions

 

[Mr. Wilson]

This campaign my players started at 3rd level and just dinged 13th at the end of last session. The game started in May of 2017 and we play 4-5 hours every weekend, but have cancelled for various reasons, so it really works out to 3/4 weekends a month in general.

When the party hits my dungeons, they level fast as I generally like to have about 15-20 encounters in a dungeon. When they mess around in towns and go over plot stuff, they advance slower (we had a 3 session run recently where they accumulated 0 experience points).