D&D 5E XP Chart and High-level NPCs

[S'mon]

I find it nearly impossible to justify anyone going from 1st level to 20th level in 7 weeks. Anyone in the game world is going to see the PCs do that and want to duplicate it. I mean, how can you begin to argue that a 1st level wizard just out of his apprentice diapers is casting time stop and meteor swarm in 7 weeks? It's simply ludicrous!

I understand the PCs are the heroes of the story and that the rules for them don't apply to NPCs, but still some amount of internal verisimilitude is necessary in order to have immersion and suspend disbelief.

My current 3.5 campaign is in its 7th real life year of running and the PCs are just hitting 18th level (we play every other Saturday). I did this by:

1. Halving XP rates
2. Enforcing time off for the PCs (i.e. you simply cannot adventure and put your life on the line for week after week without taking a break...you will collapse emotionally and physically and mentally)
3. Having the PCs have to take time to do things like sell or buy magic items
4. Greatly increase the magic item crafting times (45 times longer!).

I guess I do #2 and #3 in my 5e game, though PCs can't generally buy or sell magic items IMC, there's not much of a market. Not any routine item crafting either, so no #4. I haven't reduced XP awards but I run an online text-chat game which is a slower format, PCs who have been there from the start are 8th level after 39 sessions. 39 game sessions has been just over 3 months of game time, campaign first session was 20th March 2015 so 6.5 months of real time.

I think your approach is more necessary for 3e/Pathfinder than for 5e. 3e/PF is the only system
where the default rate of advancement really does feel silly-fast to me.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I think your approach is more necessary for 3e/Pathfinder than for 5e. 3e/PF is the only system
where the default rate of advancement really does feel silly-fast to me.

Have you found level advancement slower in 5e than in 3e?

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Have you found level advancement slower in 5e than in 3e?

I've not run the whole range of levels yet, but thus far it seems that the relative speed of gaining levels changes over time:
from 1st-2nd level speed seems equal, and neither takes more than a few encounters unless you try really hard to ensure that it does.
from 2nd-4th level 5th edition seems faster by a small amount.
Starting at 5th, and so far as I have seen (circumstances of my gaming schedule have conspired to make it so that 7th or 8th level is the highest in any of my campaigns so far) 3rd edition goes a bit faster - which is a weird thing to say because I am meaning that 3rd edition involved less encounters and objectives in gaining those levels than 5th edition has, even though in terms of play-time spent 5th edition has required less hours in gaining those levels than 3rd edition did.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...I'm still not seeing how the unfairness is in the player's favor. Getting hit 10x more often than normal more than cancels out any benefit from ignoring critical hits.

That sounds like you are thinking of the ruling only as applies in the precise situation of the character having a cloak of displacement, and not also considering that the ruling applies to the army of kobolds that have enough allies to get some near you and give all of them that can see you advantage on their attacks even if you weren't so lucky as to have found a way to provide disadvantage.

As I said before, the overall effect is giving up the ability to inflict disadvantage upon the attacking mob in exchange for removing their ability to gain advantage against you and their ability to score critical hits - that's a net gain.

 

[S'mon]

Have you found level advancement slower in 5e than in 3e?

I'd say it's faster levels 1-2, about the same 3-5, slower 6-8. My game's highest level PCs are 8th currently. But the biggest difference is 3e/PF PCs double in power every 2 levels, 5e PCs don't. They are more like 4e PCs, doubling every 4 levels. My 8th level PCs are still seriously threatened by CR 1/2 monsters, and this looks likely to be the case for the whole level range.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That sounds like you are thinking of the ruling only as applies in the precise situation of the character having a cloak of displacement, and not also considering that the ruling applies to the army of kobolds that have enough allies to get some near you and give all of them that can see you advantage on their attacks even if you weren't so lucky as to have found a way to provide disadvantage.

As I said before, the overall effect is giving up the ability to inflict disadvantage upon the attacking mob in exchange for removing their ability to gain advantage against you and their ability to score critical hits - that's a net gain.

In fact, it's a large net loss for the PCs, because it's easier for PCs to gain advantage, impose disadvantage on foes and avoid receiving disadvantage than it is for monsters to do the opposite. Removing advantage/disadvantage from the equation is a nerf to PC capabilities and makes combats more dangerous.

It removes the PCs' ability to usefully do things like Dodge, drop prone against missile fire, fight at long range, use Fog Cloud to impede enemy missiles, use Devil's Sight + Darkness, call in Dancing Lights missile strikes, cast Blur, cast Foresight, etc. Most of good tactics is about manipulating who gets advantage and disadvantage against whom, and by taking good tactics off the table you virtually ensure that PCs will regress to the mean. Which probably means they die, since tactics are how PCs survive against superior opposition.

 

[Dausuul]

The idea that XP represents the standard way people improve their skills in the game world has always been ridiculous. For one thing, it's far too quick, and for another, why should whacking kobolds make you any better at picking locks?

As I see it, the PCs are marked for a heroic destiny (which is why threats to the world and artifacts of phenomenal power always seem to fall into their path). Their stunningly rapid advancement is that destiny manifesting. Of course, nothing's guaranteed; heroes can die before ever realizing their potential. But most people advance the way we advance in the real world--through hard, slow, painstaking effort, and even then, very few of them ever reach the level the PCs can achieve in months.

It sucks if you're not a PC, but there it is. On the other hand, you also don't get the fate of reality dumped in your lap on a regular basis.

 

[MostlyDm]

I'd say it's faster levels 1-2, about the same 3-5, slower 6-8. My game's highest level PCs are 8th currently. But the biggest difference is 3e/PF PCs double in power every 2 levels, 5e PCs don't. They are more like 4e PCs, doubling every 4 levels. My 8th level PCs are still seriously threatened by CR 1/2 monsters, and this looks likely to be the case for the whole level range.

Yeah, I think this is a big point. As we sort of touched on in the conversation that spawned the "solo AC-min/maxed fighter vs. an army" scenario, due to Bounded Accuracy the relatively rapid level acceleration just doesn't feel that out of balance to me. High level characters are powerful, but they are far from gods. And there's no specific reason every high HD NPC is going to 1) have 100% of the class abilities that a PC gets, and more importantly 2) have the same amount of magic items, optimal feats, optimal spell choices, etc.

For example: A 20th level NPC fighter with no magic gear who wields a brace of rapiers is intimidating as hell, and could tear up a couple of people in a duel. Certainly. But he's far from a universal problem-solver or PC-invalidator. Or, let's look at a 20th level magic-item-less sorcerer whose high level spell list is, let's say.... L6: True Seeing, Move Earth; L7: Plane Shift, Reverse Gravity; L8: Earthquake; L9: Time Stop. He's got plenty of power (and a fun earth/physics theme!), but again, he is hardly a show-stopper powerhouse that can solve every problem himself.

It's all in how you build the NPCs, the world, and the encounters.

But then, I probably would think that. Even when I played 3e in the early 2000s, I would challenge an 8th level party with heavily optimized over-geared 1st and 2nd level mercenaries, or 16th level badasses that lacked some key items or optimization in order to bring the AC or damage or whatever down to earth. 5e just makes stuff like that something closer to the default.

 

[MostlyDm]

Also on the subject of the 20th level fighter vs. the army... It's a fun thought exercise, and I'm definitely of the opinion that he really stands no chance. Bounded Accuracy in action.

However, I want to be quick to add that I don't think this means the 20th level fighter is massively, irrevocably diminished. He's no Immortal or God... but he's still damned impressive. And I think if you gave him an army of, say, 300 MM Veterans, with a few unique lieutenants, and some strategically useful position... he could probably stand against an army of dramatically larger size.

Just a thought.

 

[MostlyDm]

(If you're a stickler for historical accuracy you can also give him an extra 700 or so MM Guards or Thugs or something.)