30th level at 21

[adwyn]

When using the episodic method mentioned above I find it helps if there is some interuption of the game itself, for example switching to another game system or DM, even if its just for a one shot.

Alternatively if I don't want to disrupt things that much I'll often switch scenes and have the players run henchman or NPC's tasked to do some thing that would otherwise have occured with off camera as it were.

The forced break helps players wrap their minds around the DM waving away time.

 

[the Jester]

At present in my epic campaign, the party has a list of things they want to accomplish. There is a dungeon that killed them all a while back that they are thirsting for revenge against, there is another quest several of them are on to overthrow a big citadel, and they're just starting to put together the threads of a 'big picture' that has been developing for about a decade of real time and for about 270 years of game time.

That said, the last few games have covered more time than many collections of twenty games running for this party. An epic party can really set the pace. "Well, we want to go to place X a thousand miles away... no sweat, dispose of enemy A. Now let's go to place Y and dispose of enemy B." They can do it all in one day if they want.

One thing that I'm finding likely to slow down the pace is the time it takes to create epic items, or to research epic spells.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Meetings eat time. Heroes arrive in the capital to see the king. They send a messenger requesting an audience. The chancellor intercepts it, being his job, and arranges to meet the group in three days. He listens to the group, prepares a summary for the king, and arranges a meeting a few days later. The king decides to ponder the issue, possibly summon a few nobles for advice. Poof, there's another week down.

Item acquisition. I don't use magic shops but most cities have enough artisan mages to handle the needs. Of course, they are busy often enough to be a nuisance. Want a magic sword? Okay, it's going to have to wait the two weeks for him to forge a masterwork. Magic boots? Lets do a fitting and it'll be three days until the leather has dried from the dying process and are ready to be enchanted.

Travel. You can't teleport places you haven't seen. Scrying works to a point for targeting but sometimes you need to bring cargo or large groups. Stealth may also require traditional modes of travel to avoid pesky questions.

In general, my players spend several months per game year on these things. So my game, which seems rapid paced to me, goes through 18 levels in 5 years.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I like this too. Do you mean that 12th level PCs wait 12 years to the next adventure? That seems a bit long to me, I find 1-4 years is about right.

Ha! Um no, it does look like that though given how I wrote it. No, all I mean is that to reach 20th level a character is likely to age 20 years.

This is significant given that we use the aging rules, especially for physical type characters - of course I give them a break (elixirs of vitality, pools of inherent bonuses ... err ... youth). However, some players like to plan their progression and not be dependent on DM hand-outs (myself included).

It makes demi-human lifetimes more special and reinforces the undead temptation for aging human champions.

 

[sniffles]

It doesn't seem as bad for characters to level up so fast if you stop to think that they're basically living in a medieval society in your standard fantasy campaign - despite magical healing, your average person probably still only lives to be 60-ish, and most people are considered adults by age 14 - 16. Try not to apply real-world standards of age and maturity to your PCs. OTOH, this also means that your 20-year-old PC probably looks like he's 30, due to the rough life he's been living.

In a game I'm currently involved in the GM required us all to have an actual profession other than our classes for our PCs, which we must try to practice whenever we're not traveling. For example, my PC's class is fighter but his profession is horse trainer. It takes a lot of time to train a horse. You could also give them a home base that they can return to between adventures. Have family or other NPCs who will involve the PCs in things that take time, but won't really contribute to gaining XP - helping a relative or friend start a new business, serving in the local militia, studying for the requirements of a prestige class, etc.

 

[Xath]

One of my DMs sucked a Human Cleric into a time vortex to solve this problem. He aged so much that the group had to polymorph him into a Drow to allow him to survive.

 

[CZHorse]

I like the DM mandate of downtime idea.....

Though it is not going to work for my group right now, as I started running WLD, and they are going to be day to day delving for the next two years of game time and real time. If they live they will probably be 20th level by the time they hit 20.

 

[VirgilCaine]

It doesn't seem as bad for characters to level up so fast if you stop to think that they're basically living in a medieval society in your standard fantasy campaign - despite magical healing, your average person probably still only lives to be 60-ish, and most people are considered adults by age 14 - 16. Try not to apply real-world standards of age and maturity to your PCs. OTOH, this also means that your 20-year-old PC probably looks like he's 30, due to the rough life he's been living.

That's a good point! I hadn't realized that.
So, a grizzled veteran soldier in D&D is really only 25 or 30 and not 50 or 60 like IRL.

 

[Banshee16]

Personally, I enforce travel times, and training times. So anytime the group is leveling up, they're often using up 10-12 weeks of time. As a result of those techniques, in the time it's taken the PCs to get from lvl 1 to 12, about 5-6 years or more have passed.

I kind of like the idea of PCs aging, becoming vets as they gain levels etc.

Banshee

 

[Psion]

Yeah, ever since a player informed me that his cleric was a 16 year old high priest, I decided I needed to be a bit more explicit with the passage of time.

Travel time works well (viva la seafaring campaign!), but I also have a more artificial rule of thumb that limits advancement to every (current level x 10) days, barring special training.