How often should PCs level up?

[S'mon]

For games with levels like D&D, how frequently do you think PCs should advance, given typical
play? How do you use the XP system to facilitate that, if at all (group XP, individual XP, level by GM fiat)?

I was just musing about how my 5e DMG suggests PCs should level up every 2-3 sessions, which seems very fast to me. I ran a Pathfinder AP (Curse of the Crimson Throne, converted) using Pathfinder Medium Track XP (party xp), the campaign went from level 2 to level 14, and for most of it the PCs were levelling up every 2 sessions on average, about 8 hours of play. This meant their power was doubling about every 4 sessions; I felt this rate really harmed the game, pushing the PCs up into the double digit levels where the system really breaks down. With my 5e tabletop 'Runelords of the Shattered Star' game (mashing up the Paizo APs Shattered Star & Rise of the Runelords) I'm aiming for a level-up rate about once per 5 sessions, or about 20 hours of play, about half the advertised rate. I think this should work well for long term play; I would like this campaign to run maybe 4 years, about 90 sessions or so, at 5 sessions/level that should take the PCs to 20th, though I'm fine if they cap out lower or we play awhile using the Epic Boon rules in the DMG. The default 5e system seems to support this sort of progression rate ok just by using mostly lower level monsters, using individual xp, and not being too generous on bonus XP; currently the PCs are level 5 after 15 sessions, with rapid progression to 3rd then slow thereafter.

Both those campaigns (Crimson Throne & Shattered Star) run/ran fortnightly. My recently resumed 4e D&D Loudwater campaign runs fortnightly, evening sessions so shorter, 3 hours or so, and the PCs (using party xp) have levelled up about every 4 sessions/12 hours for a long time - currently just hit level 27 after 96 sessions. 4e is so slow that we only get 1 fight per session and I have to give a good deal of bonus XP to hit that rate; it's still slower than the recommended 1 level per 10 hours of play, or 2.5 typical sessions - same recommendation as 5e.

I also have a couple weekly games:
The Ghinarian Hills is an online text-chat 5e sword & sorcery themed game with individual xp, I use standard monster xp and a fair bit of xp from other sources. After 74 sessions the highest level PC is 15th, so a bit over 5 sessions to level. The other PCs are in the 12-13 range. This rate works pretty well for online game, maybe a bit fast.
Finally there's my weekly tabletop Classic D&D Karameikos campaign. After around 13 months of weekly play the PCs are in the 8-11 level range, though the highest couple had been played previously in an earlier campaign and came in higher. A recently retired Thief PC who'd played from the start at 1st level hit 10th level. Typical advancement rate is about 1 level per 5 sessions, which is the recommended rate in the Rules Cyclopedia. I find this works well; I tend to get this through bonus XP rather than huge piles of treasure, though.

Overall I'm finding in my games that about 1 level per 5 sessions seems to work best, which fits with the norms in older games (eg Gygax recommended that a year of weekly 1e AD&D play should get a successful PC from 1st to 9th), a bit quicker with 4e. But this is about half the default rate recommended by the GM guidance in 3e/PF, 4e and 5e, which all seem to recommend 2-3 sessions to level and 20 levels in about a year of weekly play. What do you find? What works best for you?

Edit: I posted in 'General D&D Discussion' since this is not edition specific, but it occurs to me that poll result may be biased by this also being ENW's "old school/non-5e/non-PF" forum. Hopefully there'll be a mix of 3e, 4e and old school people reading.

 

[Dandu]

I can't say that there's a good answer to this. For me, it depends on the sessions: a session packed with combat and exploring is going to contribute much more to leveling up than one spent building political alliances, crafting weapons, and managing settlements.

 

[delericho]

It depends on the edition, and the campaign, and personal tastes, and a bunch of other factors. But I've found once every three sessions (regardless of session length) to be about right.

 

[S'mon]

I can't say that there's a good answer to this. For me, it depends on the sessions: a session packed with combat and exploring is going to contribute much more to leveling up than one spent building political alliances, crafting weapons, and managing settlements.

Me too, generally (a big political achievement should get decent XP IMO) - but think of it more as how many levels you'd expect the PCs to advance in 20 sessions, say.

 

[The Fighter-Cricket]

I scraped the concept of XP a while ago while DMing 4e. Until a few years back I had a 4e campaign where I wrote down every single XP the group got from encounters, quests, skill challenges etc. When they were at a point in the story where I wanted them to fight against, let's say, Zombie hulks I realized they haven't been gaining enough XP in order to level up and the episode with the higher level zombies would have been too tough. So I tried to squeeze in some additional fights to let the group earn their XP. It felt very forced and the additional fights/encounters were needlessly hindering the party to move the story forward.
Now I just listen to my party and discern the right time to allow them to level up. Sometimes they wait 5 sessions for a level up, sometimes only 2. It also depends heavily on the story side of things.

 

[S'mon]

Now I just listen to my party and discern the right time to allow them to level up. Sometimes they wait 5 sessions for a level up, sometimes only 2. It also depends heavily on the story side of things.

If it's 2-5 sessions per level about even distribution then you should be averaging around 3.5/level over time.
BTW 4e is designed so you can level up or level down your zombie hulks to make a
decent encounter.

 

[The Fighter-Cricket]

BTW 4e is designed so you can level up or level down your zombie hulks to make a
decent encounter.

Yes, that is one of many things I learned back then when I was figuring out 4e. It falls right into the same time when I realized that I don't have to be so strict about XP and don't have to worry so much about leveling and the proper amount of fights/encounters.

And sure: my average should be 3.5 sessions per level, you're right.

 

[D'karr]

For me it depends on the pacing of the game, and the theme of the game. There will be times when leveling should be really fast (once per session), and times when it should be really slow (once every 8-10 sessions. Most leveling happens somewhere in the middle (3-6) sessions.

I like real quick progression at levels 1-4 (1-2 sessions per level). Moderate and long progressions as the meat of the game is happening at levels 5-15 (3-10 sessions), and back to real fast progressions for the end cap at levels 16-20+ (1-2 sessions per level.

Mostly it depends on the particular campaign. I like that 4e was so adjustable and still allowed the DM to keep a "danger zone" for the characters no matter the level.

 

[ccs]

The last PF game I ran I used the milestone method. Each AP has a chart in the front of the book that tells you the party should be x lv going into the next section. So I just used that & never counted a single point.

For our current Sunday 5e game I'm (currently) setting the advancement rate at # of sessions = to current lv.
The first few levels will zip by.
If I stick to this though the later lvs will take forever as we only play every other week.

 

[Celebrim]

100 4 hour sessions = 400 hours / 9 levels (highest a PC has obtained) = 45 hour, or every 10-12 sessions (every 5-6 if you have 8 hour sessions).

I actually hold to the belief that the time to level up should slow down as you get higher in level. I have no problem level up a 1st level character after 4 sessions or so, but going from 10th to 11th might take 25 sessions or so. This is partly because the pace of challenge relative to the level slows down as you increase in level, and partly owing to the fact that as you move into higher levels more and more of your characters adventuring time is related to things like politics, where the XP is earned more solely (in both game time and real time) than in combat.

In general, the pace of leveling should be such that a player gets an opportunity to explore the new abilities of his character before gaining additional abilities. That's part of the reason I think that in general, characters should get some tangible new ability every level - a new feat, a new spell, a new class ability, an ability score boost, an extra attack, a more reliable skill usage, or whatever. I can remember being in games as a player where my PC spellcaster leveled up so fast, I never got a chance to cast my new spell slots or spells before hitting the next level.

Another aspect of the ideal pace of leveling is that a high level character should have a sense of scale and history. A character should never reach 10th level and look back and say, "Do you remember when we were 1st level... Oh wait a minute, in game that was last week." A high level character should have the sense that a huge amount of living has transpired, and a lengthy series of adventures is now behind them, and that indeed something significant has been obtained.

There are other good reasons for adopting a slow pace of leveling. For example, D&D in every edition can be observed to have a 'sweet spot'. That's true of most other systems as well. There is no good reason for quickly leveling out of your system's sweet spot. If you find high level play a headache, why were you in such a hurry to get here?