D&D 5E XP Tables Across the Editions

[JohnLynch]

Looking at how much XP you got for "encounters" or "monsters" across the editions, I thought it interesting to translate those XP advancement tables to 5th edition. Here's the guidelines I've used:

• AD&D (1e and 2e): roughly assumed each PC fought 3.33 "at level" monsters per level until around level 7 and 8 at which time it assumed you fought 6.66 "at-level" monsters per level.*
• 3rd ed: Assumes each PC fought 3.33 at-level monsters per level from levels 1-20.
• 4th ed: Assumes each PC fought 10 at-level monsters per level from levels 1-20.
• 5th ed: No consistent progression. It's all over the place to emphasise certain levels over others.

* This is based on research conducted by others on these forums who have examined how quickly players progressed through certain modules and compared that to 3.5e. The research found that in both AD&D and 3.5e characters typically levelled at roughly the same amount until around 8th level and then it halved for AD&D while 3e continued consistently.

Level	AD&D XP	3rd ed XP	4th ed XP	5th ed XP
1	0	0	0	0
2	700	700	2,000	300
3	2,200	2,200	6,500	900
4	4,500	4,500	13,500	2,700
5	8,200	8,200	24,500	6,500
6	14,200	14,200	42,500	14,000
7	21,800	21,800	65,500	23,000
8	41,100	31,500	94,500	34,000
9	67,100	44,500	133,500	48,000
10	100,300	61,100	183,500	64,000
11	139,700	80,800	242,500	85,000
12	187,600	105,000	314,500	100,000
13	243,600	133,000	398,500	120,000
14	315,000	165,000	500,000	140,000
15	390,000	205,000	615,000	165,000
16	475,000	250,000	745,000	195,000
17	575,000	300,000	895,000	225,000
18	695,000	260,000	1,075,000	265,000
19	830,000	425,000	1,275,000	305,000
20	975,000	495,000	1,495,000	355,000

So there you go. 4th ed is the slowest progression of all. I expected it to be AD&D, but I would take this surprising turn of events to be a result of stingy DM's in AD&D not handing out as much treasure as the modules did (NOTE: If you were to include non-monster XP than the AD&D XP advancement table would multiply by 4 or 5 times).

So if you don't like how quickly 5th edition advances levels, you can use one of the above alternate XP advancement tables to emulate prior editions.

 

[delericho]

So there you go. 4th ed is the slowest progression of all. I expected it to be AD&D, but I would take this surprising turn of events to be a result of stingy DM's in AD&D not handing out as much treasure as the modules did

Ah. In that case, you probably need to split AD&D 1st Ed and 2nd Ed into separate columns - 2nd Ed didn't grant XP for treasure by default where 1st Ed did (it was an optional rule in 2nd Ed, and the DMG gave dire warnings that using it would break your game). As you note, that difference has a major impact on advancement.

 

[CapnZapp]

Sorry if this was supposed to be clear; but your table has recalculated old edition tables into using a consistent monster XP value for comparison purposes, yes?

I don't get your conclusion "4th ed is the slowest progression of all". Don't you burn through much more monsters in that edition? Edit: And the level progression goes all the way to 30! I would naively have assumed you get to 30 as quick as you get to 20 in other editions, which suggest 4E is the fastest edition instead of slowest.

For AD&D, do you average Fighter/Wizard/Thief advancement?

 

[CapnZapp]

So if you don't like how quickly 5th edition advances levels, you can use one of the above alternate XP advancement tables to emulate prior editions.

I wonder if you take into account how low-level monsters stay much more relevant in 5E than ever before?

Meaning that if fighting against lowly Orcs isn't made trivial as you level up, this suggest a lower rate of advancement than the mere numbers suggest. (No matter how quickly you dispatch the Orc hordes, your XP per hour played will be very low as long as it is merely Orcs you dispatch.)

Specifically: the assumption you fight X monsters always on your own level might have worked for 3E, but it risks overestimating the levelling rate of 5E.

 

[JohnLynch]

Sorry if this was supposed to be clear; but your table has recalculated old edition tables into using a consistent monster XP value for comparison purposes, yes?

Yes, that's right.

I don't get your conclusion "4th ed is the slowest progression of all". Don't you burn through much more monsters in that edition?

If you look at how many "at level" monsters are required to be defeated to attain a new level in the PHB and DMG you'll see that from levels 1-20 it is consistently 10 at level monsters per PC = +1 level.

HOWEVER here is a potential flaw. I'm using the "standard" monster XP progression for 4th ed. 3.5e I used "same CR" to work out how many monsters needed to be defeated. Is a CR 1 3.5e monster = Level 1 Standard 4th ed monster? Or is a CR 1 3.5e monster = Level 1 Solo 4th ed monster? That could explain the surprising result.

For AD&D, do you average Fighter/Wizard/Thief advancement?

The data I am working off averaged 6 classes (paladin and monk being the other two I believe).

Ah. In that case, you probably need to split AD&D 1st Ed and 2nd Ed into separate columns - 2nd Ed didn't grant XP for treasure by default where 1st Ed did (it was an optional rule in 2nd Ed, and the DMG gave dire warnings that using it would break your game). As you note, that difference has a major impact on advancement.

2nd ed handed out XP for:

• Killing monsters
• Contributing to the table's fun
• Surviving
• Story XP
• Optionally (and what made 2nd ed XP awards unique from AD&D 1e and later editions):
  • Having a clever idea
  • Having an idea that saves the party.
  • Roleplaying well
  • Encouraging others to participate
  • XP for specific actions dependent on class

I've hand-waived all those different awards to be "probably equal to what AD&D 1e players got for XP for gold and magic items" (which was an optional rule in 2e as well as an alternative to the above). If anyone has a measurement on how much this other type of XP contributed towards people's leveling up I'd love to see it. Otherwise I'm assuming it's "somewhere between 3/4th to 4/5th of the XP for levelling up."

 

[JohnLynch]

I wonder if you take into account how low-level monsters stay much more relevant in 5E than ever before?....Specifically: the assumption you fight X monsters always on your own level might have worked for 3E, but it risks overestimating the levelling rate of 5E.

Nope. Nor have I taken into account assumptions on how 3.5e adventures are being populated. When 3e first came out adventures had lots of low level monsters with few at level or higher than at level monsters. By the end of 3.5e Paizo were optimising their adventures to such a degree that they would absolutely murder a group of 2000 era 3rd ed PCs and Paizo assumed it's audience equally had the optimisation skills required to handle the adventures. Nor am I looking at how many hours could be dumped into a single fight in 4e which would mean it could take 6 months to get through a single adventure that in 3.5e would be expected to take at most 3 months.

We could make a whole raft of analyses. But at the end of the day we have guidelines from the creators themselves:
Gary Gygax expected Level 1-10 to take roughly 1 year and for progression to significantly slow down thereafter.
WotC in 3e expected Level 1-20 to take roughly 2 years.
WotC in 4e I've got no idea what they were thinking but it was a tough slog no matter how you look at it unless you extensively houseruled.
WotC in 5e expect 1-20 to take 1 year.

These guidelines (with the exception of 4th ed where I have no guidelines) seem to ring true for a lot of groups based on internet research that I've conducted. The only odd ball out is reports of AD&D being much slower than analysis of the adventures would indicate which I believe is due to the adventures being overly generous in gold that was handed out.

 

[CapnZapp]

Okay, so the collective experience of 4E was that the advancement tables made for a noticeably slower levelling? (I wasn't aware; we've moved over to "you level when the DM says so" a long time ago*)

I mean, based on actual play experience - my only objection is that you can't conclude anything about "levels per hour played" based on xp ratings alone).

Other than that, very interesting work done. Thank you!


*) I hope you don't consider doing away with xp-based levelling "extensively houserul[ing]"? It's a houserule alright, but it certainly isn't "extensive" as in requiring a lot of rules language...

 

[TerraDave]

John, you seem quite confident in wherever you are getting this... but I will put my 2 coppers in regardless.

1E advancement is based on treasure. Monster XP could be tiny. There was no expectation of monsters per PC that you imply. It makes your basis of comparison problematic to say the least. I think some modules let you get a few levels a module with all the treasure found. There would be like 40 or so encounters in one of these things. (It is really amazing what they can pack in in like 32 pages). Using your rough approach, that is 20 or so encounter equivalents per level. Not all of which have to be fighting, BTW, but you will need to get most of them to find enough treasure.

However for a lot of 1E or 2E, nothing says that much treasure is there. And that was an optional rule for 2E. Those other categories don't compensate, not even, and are also optional. You needed thousands and thousands of extra XP. A lot of 1E and 2E games saw a lot of play at each level, and never got past levels 8-10.

3E was about 12-13 encounters, this was codified in the DMG (it was not in the older editions). However, for some groups it could play a lot slower, so could be slower then 1E or 2E, but you will see huge variation here. Again, very few games made it into high levels. But there are lots of reasons for that.

4E had 10 encounters per level. In terms of just ratio of monster XP to needed XP it was the highest. It could also play a bit faster then 3E (though that depends) and was more robust at higher levels (though you could argue it was less interesting.) I think you would see a wider level range in a average campaign.

I think one issue is you are doing this "per pc" math that does not fit any edition that well. I think its easier to think in terms of number of encounters, then maybe work back to the math.

I am also not sure where monster #s come in. Old modules were not single creature fight after single creature fight. You could have dozens or hundreds of monsters in these things. (But the XP was still coming from the GP).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Okay, so the collective experience of 4E was that the advancement tables made for a noticeably slower levelling? (I wasn't aware; we've moved over to "you level when the DM says so" a long time ago*)

It was noticably slower for me, though not as much as the raw numbers might suggest.

I mean, based on actual play experience - my only objection is that you can't conclude anything about "levels per hour played" based on xp ratings alone).

There's a rough approximation you might do - 4e was VERY tightly scheduled so that combat would take about an hour, each 4-hour session would thus have 3-4 combats in it, and with 1 session/week, you'd be leveling about once a month (3-4 weeks). One of the truly remarkable things about 4e's design was how it REALLY paid attention to play time and how that translated into levelling and the rate at which they wanted the game experience to change.

3e wasn't so tight (actual combat speed varied quite a bit more), but it was close, and its target was about 1 level/month, too.

Before 3e, I think the variance was quite a bit wider.

In 5e, I think we've got a wider variance, but not so wide as Old School. Combat speed seems pretty consistent, in line with 4e's tight design, but much faster. The intent seems to be to play through 1 adventuring day (6-8 encounters) in each session, which would fit with the overall vibe of 5e's combats being about two per 4e encounter.

It'd be interesting to see how many adventuring days it takes to get to each level in 5e. Because those use adjusted XP and not actual XP, though, things might get a little knotty - a day with 6 Medium encounters is a different XP total than a day with 3 Hard encounters. I bet there's some standardization WotC used - I'd be interested in learning it!

 

[Magil]

HOWEVER here is a potential flaw. I'm using the "standard" monster XP progression for 4th ed. 3.5e I used "same CR" to work out how many monsters needed to be defeated. Is a CR 1 3.5e monster = Level 1 Standard 4th ed monster? Or is a CR 1 3.5e monster = Level 1 Solo 4th ed monster? That could explain the surprising result.

I suspect 5E CR1 = 4E Level 1 Solo (or 4 regular monsters) is a better equivalent. A level 1 monster in 4E does not translate into CR1 in other editions. A "moderately challenging" encounter in 4E is supposed to be one equal level monster per PC, and as I understand CR, a CR X creature is supposed to be a "moderately challenging" encounter for a level X party. In both cases, "moderately challenging" means that, assuming a roughly fair fight where neither side has surprise or some significant advantage, the PCs are expected to win but do so by spending some limited resources (whether it's spell slots, hit dice, healing surges, or whatever else).