D&D 5E Relative Difficulties of Advancing in 5e

OptionalRule

Adventurer

• Mar 1, 2021

• #1

I wrote a bit about the difficulties of leveling at different points along a characters lifetime in 5e. Not earth shattering but I was surprised to see that 11-19 was about HALF as hard to level as 10th level and this made me reconsider pacing in experience based games, or even expectations on pacing for milestone based games.

5e Advancement Difficulties

 

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commandercrud

Hero

• Mar 1, 2021

• #2

The XP chart in 5e makes no sense whatsoever.

 

OptionalRule

Adventurer

• Mar 1, 2021

• #3

commandercrud said:

The XP chart in 5e makes no sense whatsoever.

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Sure, one of the reasons I was like "What does this even mean?". I tired to stay away from a value judgement on it. I personally would have expected a regularly increasing difficulty. I guess by level 11 they're just like "Okay, lets get this over with"

 

pukunui

Legend

• Mar 1, 2021

• #4

The designers, Mike Mearls in particular, talked about the XP leveling chart quite a bit in the early days of the game.

The idea is that the first few levels go by quickly, then things slow down through the middle of the game so you have more time to enjoy that "sweet spot", then it speeds up again at the point where the game generally starts to bog down (past level 10) so as to keep people engaged.

 

delericho

Legend

• Mar 1, 2021

• #5

One of the topics I wished they'd addressed in the DMG was the number of encounters required to level up by level (breaking down and explaining the chart linked from the OP). From there, they could easily have gone into a discussion about how to easily speed up/slow down advancement to suit the individual group. Even just stating why some levels need more encounters to advance than others would have helped.

 

Stormonu

Legend

• Mar 1, 2021

• #6

A couple of things to point out:

By D&D's surveys, most campaigns last 6 mos. to a year, ending between 9th-12th level.

Most of D&D's monsters are CR 9 or lower.

When you start getting into the higher levels, it's less likely you will be facing same-CR monsters and more likely you will be facing multiples of lower level opponents, save for the occasional sub-boss or boss. If you go by the encounter building guidelines, with its multiplier for # of creatures, when you actually add the XP up, it will be lower than par-CR opponents, thus slowing your advancement.

So the 1.6 you have for par-CR opponents might be more like 2.0 to 2.5 when you look at the likelyhood that the party is facing "lesser" but more numerous opponents at higher levels.

 

pukunui

Legend

• Mar 1, 2021

• #7

In case you can't see the Twitter post, it's from Mike Mearls and it reads "Level 10 - 11 XP: It's by design. Data shows campaigns stop at 10, we're trying to speed up 10+ a bit so groups can reach 20 in a campaign".

It's from July 2014.

 

R_J_K75

Legend

• Mar 1, 2021

• #8

pukunui said:

The idea is that the first few levels go by quickly, then things slow down through the middle of the game so you have more time to enjoy that "sweet spot", then it speeds up again at the point where the game generally starts to bog down (past level 10) so as to keep people engaged.

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If they recognize that the game bogs down after a certain point why not just design that part out of the game? Here's an idea, just get rid of levels 11-20 or make them fun and worth playing. I'd be all for a restructuring of the level and advancement system in future editions of the game. One where there are fewer levels but more options per level, and a balanced progression would be fine with me. As it is now in 5E isn't just about every other level one where you get nothing?

 

OptionalRule

Adventurer

• Mar 1, 2021

• #9

delericho said:

One of the topics I wished they'd addressed in the DMG was the number of encounters required to level up by level (breaking down and explaining the chart linked from the OP). From there, they could easily have gone into a discussion about how to easily speed up/slow down advancement to suit the individual group. Even just stating why some levels need more encounters to advance than others would have helped.

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I found that either difficult or not helpful for 2 main reasons:
1. If you look at official modules, it's pretty common to face a higher CR creature. Recently MUCH more common, so how do you pick a mid-point.
2. With the difficulty multiplier of multiple foes, it gets really fuzzy.

This is why I backed off exact numbers and out to "what are they trying to tell me here."

 

pukunui

Legend

• Mar 1, 2021

• #10

R_J_K75 said:

As it is now in 5E isn't just about every other level one where you get nothing?

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Every class gets something at every level. Sometimes it's just access to a new spell level or an ASI/feat, but there's always something. There are no "dead levels" in 5e.