3e Character Advancement Too Fast?

[Saeviomagy]

Two rivals at a dueling school are both 1st level Fighters. Every day they fight each other with padded weapons, hoping to defeat the other. We'll assume they're pretty evenly-matched, so they'll each win half the time. Since the damage being dealt is subdual, they'll heal up quickly enough to fight against the next day.

So, after 8 days, each of them has won 4 times, defeating 4 CR 1 encounters, each worth 300 XP. Each has thus earned 1200 XP, making them both 2nd level.

6 days later, with 3 more wins each (1800 XP more), they'll both be 3rd level.

8 days after that, they're 4th level.

Every few days they change up they're duels. Sometimes they fight blind-folded, sometimes with their off-hand, sometimes on dangerous precipices, or with different terrain, in harsh weather, at night, with different weapons, etc. This way their training covers

I think we figured out that 140 days of daily training, these two fighters would both be 20th level. Sure, they wouldn't have any magic items from adventuring, but they have tons of experience fighting. Even if we use the General Downtime variant option in the DMG, where you have to spend 1d4 days per level resting whenever you level up, that's still merely an average of 525 more days. So after 665 days of training and study, not even two years worth of time, you have 20th level fighters. Sound a little fast to you? [/B]

OTOH, they've been fighting every single day in a fairly serious fight (ie - beating each other unconscious). Personally I'd have a little bit of a problem if they got to two years of doing that daily, and weren't a pair of tough mofos... It takes significantly less than that to train up olympic gold-medal winners for instance.

Additionally, 3.5 MAY incorporate the rule from d20 modern which reduces the XP award if the situation holds less than real danger - like if your opponent intends to capture and not kill you, then your XP is reduced by 1/2. If he just intends to beat you unconscious and leave you in the street, then the encounter's XP is reduced to 1/4.

So the time for your example would be bumped to 8 years.

 

[Mark]

The beauty of it now is that advancement is more uniformed and makes more sense. In that way if someone feels it is too fast, they can lower the percentage of given XP by a set amount and slow it uniformly (90% of experience, or less, is given). If they want it to advance increasingly slower as levels get higher, they simply lower the percentage at each level (100% through first, 95% through second, 90% through third, etc.) If someone feels it moves too slowly, the DM just gives one hundred and ten percent....like he expects from his player...

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

Voted just right. Maybe should have voted a little too slow... as a player I find that my PC's take their sweet time to gain in power

TS

 

[Buttercup]

My players advance every third or fourth session, and that's fine with me. But then, I tend to award XP for completing tasks rather than basing it on how many monsters are killed.

 

[Halivar]

I rose from level 1 to level 16 in about six months.

Of course, I happen to live with my group, so we play 2-3 (sometimes 7) times a week, with at least one 12 hour gaming bonanza a month.

Nope. Nothing is wrong with the XP system. My social life... now that's a little different...

 

[Hygric]

I said that it is way to fast. No sooner have I (as a pc) gained a levels worth of new things to play with than I am getting another level. Of late, my wizard in CotSQ has been lucky to cast a spell that she has gained once before leveling up again.

As a GM, I find it makes it harder to run for higher level characters as their abilities change so rapidly that I have trouble keeping up with what the party can and cant do.

Half XP (and treasure awards to) from now on please!

And just to put it into a bit of context, my group games for about 12 hours each week, but generally two different games for about 6 hours each.

 

[molonel]

I voted just right.

I played 1st Edition, so I'm in the camp with the folks who say, "Exactly how many dragons do we have to kill to level?"

Characters level faster in 3e, particularly if you are used to playing 1e or 2e. I think that is where a lot of this perception comes from.

But there's a whole different level of the game. I am soooooooooo tired of playing 1st through 5th level. I've killed orcs, orcs, orcs by the truckload and more goblins and kobolds than I can count. I've cast Cure Light Wounds so many times.

I know someone is going to say, well, it sounds like you were too combat oriented blah blah blah.

But you know that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying as a player I want to experience ALL aspects of the game. I want to know what it feels like to cast 7th, 8th and 9th level spells. I still haven't played Epic yet - grrr! - but I want to.

And it's not because I want to steamroll some poor shlep of a DM with my kewl powerz. I want to play with a DM who can design challenging encounters, if and when it comes down to combat.

But I've had enough of low level play. And if someone told me that I was going to have to climb through 3 years or more of weekly play just to see the upper levels of the game, I'd probably look somewhere else for a game, at this point.

 

[allenw]

Vastly too fast, for all the reasons previously mentioned, plus gameworld logic: why are the low-to-mid-level PCs the ones off fighting the evil, when virtually every person of significance in the society older than 22 or so (scaled for racial longevity) should be 20th level, and thus make the PCs efforts irrelevant (either by squashing the low-to-mid-level evil like a bug, or by squashing the PCs like a bug)? If it's because they're too busy fighting each other, why hasn't the continuous 20th-level conflict destroyed civilization by now?

 

[Marimmar]

I voted 'a little too fast' because the magic items gained during an adventure cannot keep up with the level progression of the characters. By the time they actually find a +2 weapon, chances are they are already engaged in combat with critters they cannot hit. On the defense side, the AC is way too low for characters of their levels when buying magic items is not allowed or impossible due to the campaign they are in.

~Marimmar

PS: I consider the party to be 2 levels higher than they actually for XP and EL purposes.

 

[Fenes 2]

I voted too fast, although with the caveat that this was said regarding a rate of 1 level every 4 sessions.

IMC we level up when we feel like it. One campaign started back in 2E, and got converted to 3E at level 5. We played weekly until the start of this year, when we switched to bi-weekly, and have recently hit level 12.

Another weekly campaign was started in 2001 at level 6 or 7, and we have been level 14 since half a year, after we went from level 12 to 14 in the last 6 month.