D&D 5E What Level is the Party after 56 Sessions?

[Reynard]

For me, 56 sessions (of about 3-4 hours) is about two years. I would expect that should get a party to about 12th level or so - about time to stop the campaign and move on to something else.

So YOU'RE why there are no high level adventures...

 

[Reynard]

It depends entirely on how many encounters the party is having per session and how difficult those encounters are. But, if you follow the guidelines in the DMG closely, you should level up to 2 and 3 in one session each, and approximately every other session thereafter. So, level 20, plus 10 epic boons.

You're going to have to cite that "level every other session" claim.

 

[payn]

So YOU'RE why there are no high level adventures...

Oh no, its the poster who picked "less than 3" and I have a good idea who

 

[GreyBeardDM]

we are on session 84 and are level 11, we have some shortish sessions sometimes only 2 hours of actually gaming.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't think the DMG specifies per session like that.

What if a session is 1 hour? Or 8?

I expect 1 long rest every 2 (3 hour) sessions in my games.

Well, it doesn’t specify exp per session, but you can work out an approximate exp-per-session rate based on the encounters per adventuring day guidelines. That is of course assuming one adventuring day per session though. I suppose three hour sessions is a little shorter than the 4 hours I tend to see, so maybe this hypothetical group only gets through 3/4 of an adventuring day per session on average? That would give us approximately level 20 after 56 sessions with no additional epic boons.

 

[Reynard]

That is of course assuming one adventuring day per session though.

I have never seen this be a reliable metric. Play is just too variable.

 

[Charlaquin]

You're going to have to cite that "level every other session" claim.

If you go with the encounters per adventuring day guidelines and cross reference the experience per encounter with the experience required to level up, it’s almost exactly one level every other adventuring day. Obviously it will take more sessions than that if you have fewer encounters per adventuring day than the guidelines suggest and/or fewer than one adventuring day per session, which is why I said it depends entirely on how many encounters the group is having per session and how hard those encounters are.

That said, a level up every other session does at least seem to have been consistent with the designers’ intent at the time they were originally designing those guidelines. Mike Mearls said on a Happy Fun Hour that this was their intention, and that he highly recommends groups try leveling up at that pace. I’d cite it if Happy Fun Hour weren’t defunct.

 

[Charlaquin]

I have never seen this be a reliable metric. Play is just too variable.

Right, which is why I prefaced my answer with “it depends entirely on how many encounters per session and how hard those encounters are.” But, I can’t make an estimate of level after a given number of sessions without making some assumptions about average exp per session, so I went with the assumption the designers originally used. It’s probably not consistent with the reality of most groups’ play, but no assumption would be, since as you observe, play is too variable.

 

[Zardnaar]

If you go with the encounters per adventuring day guidelines and cross reference the experience per encounter with the experience required to level up, it’s almost exactly one level every other adventuring day. Obviously it will take more sessions than that if you have fewer encounters per adventuring day than the guidelines suggest and/or fewer than one adventuring day per session, which is why I said it depends entirely on how many encounters the group is having per session and how hard those encounters are.

That said, a level up every other session does at least seem to have been consistent with the designers’ intent at the time they were originally designing those guidelines. Mike Mearls said on a Happy Fun Hour that this was their intention, and that he highly recommends groups try leveling up at that pace. I’d cite it if Happy Fun Hour weren’t defunct.

I remember them saying level 20 should take a year. 2.5 sessions on average at that rate.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I use a rule of thumb that each level lasts a number of sessions equal to the next level.

So Level 1 lasts 2 sessions. Level 2 lasts 3 sessions. Once they reach Level 8, each level lasts 8 sessions.

To me, this gives the right amount of time to explore and have fun with that level's features before moving on to the next level.

I've run campaigns before in which I do this really arbitrarily, with characters leveling up after the appropriate session no matter what happens during the adventure.

In other campaigns I've just used it as a guideline in planning adventures.

Based on my rule of thumb, the characters would be around 11th Level.