3e XP: how fast is too fast?

[Cougar]

I have found that I HAVE to do something like what MerricB does. Otherwise my players would gain a level every session. That is TOO fast, in my opinion.

We have played 6 sessions and the players are almost to level 7. I am halving their XP now so we can get to the three sessions per level that seems to be the ideal.

 

[MerricB]

The best way to reduce XP for each session is to limit the threats the PCs face.

If you have a 9th level party, DON'T keep giving them EL 9 encounters. That's not how it's meant to work.

It be far better to give them ten EL 5 encounters, show them that they have progressed, and then one EL 9 encounter.

Case in point: five PCs went through a 7 hour session last Sunday. They are each about 11th-13th level. Result: 200 XP each. (Well, it would have been 600 XP each if I hadn't applied the modifiers above).

Why so little XP? Because they were facing lower-level threats: orcs, zombies, the occasional shadow or wraith.

But they had a lot of fun.

Cheers!

 

[Kaji]

I don't usually reduce. If anything, I tack on some extras for clever ideas or extra interesting roleplaying. Obviously, the first several levesl go by pretty fast (one level per session) but once they hit 5/6th it tends to slow down a bit. In my campaign, that's got more to do with the story progressing and growing (hence, less hacking and more thinking) than I think anything else, but it's more fun for me and them I think. The disadvantage of 1 level per session is that players don't really get to explore each levels benefits as much, seeing as how they are always anxious to try out their newest most powerful ability, so a couple of sessions at each level allows a little more exploration time for abilities and ideas.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Wow...

I have no idea what you peeps are throwing at your PCs.

I run the XP by the book, with additional story awards for cleverness and roleplaying, and I find that the advancement rate is a level every 3-4 sessions on average. Depending on who can show up, there are between 4 and 6 people in the party, so I can stick pretty close to EL guidelines too (upping them a bit if necessary when I have 6 people).

I find the levelling rate to be just fine, personally. Plus, even more importantly than how levelling "should" be, both myself and my players are happy with it (well, except when they end a session needing a mere 100 or so XP to the next level..then they gripe a little bit..haha), and it makes the game fun. They get to use their new 'kewl powerz,' save the day and get some treasure.

And that's what it's all about, isn't it? Having fun?

 

[S'mon]

Uaing by the book XP, I find the PCs level up about 1 every 2-3 sessions, of ca 6 hours each. This translates to about 1/month in real time, which seems right to me. 'Too fast' would be more than 1 level/session. I've never seen characters get more than about 6000 XP in a session at ca 7th-9th level - haven't played over 9th yet - so no problem there. Typical awards are 2000 to 3000/session. My only problem is that characters in this range get rather too much XP for weak CR1- opponents, until they hit 9th where they suddenly get nothing, or almost nothing. I typically give 9th level PCs 10 XP for CR1 opponent, as an ad-hoc award.

 

[reddist]

It depends on the sort of game I'm running. In one-offs or purchased modules, I'll give out XP as they earn it, with no adjustments. We ususally play these games with "one-off characters" when we know we're going to be missing more than 1/3 of our group.

For my long-running campaigns though, I slow progression pretty dramatically. Other wise, in game-time, they'd start out adventuring in the spring as 1st level neophytes, and by late fall they could take down demon princes and go toe-to-toe with avatars. Seems odd that a PC can go from nobody to saviour of the world in less than a year.

But I tell them this before the game starts, and everybody is on the same page when we begin. Ideally, I like my long campaigns to run 10 or more years in game time (maybe 2 yrs or more real time), and it should take them most of that to gather enough secrets and power to make gods shake in their boots.

-Reddist

 

[Psion]

Does anyone here who DM's make adjustments for XP downward for players because you think they are progressing too fast in leveling?

Yuppers.

I don't use the CR system. But I use a slowed-down version of the time-based XP variant in the DMG that supposedly results in the same rate of advancement. The alternate system in the DMG recommends 75 xp per level per hour of play; I do 50 xp per level per hour of play.

Hmmm... perhaps if you want a more 1e feel, you could do 75 xp per (level ^ .5) per hour of play. Hmmm.

 

[Celebrim]

I generally find that if you focus on dungeon crawling, a party can gain a level for every 9 hours of play or so. For some groups, that's a level every session. Most groups play once a week, so you are talking about some groups reaching 20th level after 5 months. Of course, most groups will spend a portion of time role playing, and might spend only 6 hours a week, but even so a campaign might reach 20th level in just over a year at that rate.

In first edition, if you focused on dungeon crawling, you might have some characters reach 20th level in 5 years of play.

I generally find that advancement is too fast if it is so quick that players don't get a chance to really explore thier newly gained abilities before gaining new ones, or if the DM is unable to really explore the challenges he can pit against the players at a given level before they advance to a new one and require new challenges.

In first edition, you generally could count on facing every foe appropriate to your level before moving on to a new level if that was the DM's desire. Consider modules like B2, in which essentially EVERY standard monster in the game was faced between levels 1 and 3 and players pretty much had to face all of them to gain sufficient XP to advance. I'm not suggesting B2 was optimally designed, but to a certain extent it is nice as a DM to be able to throw a diverse set of challenges at a group and let them learn to cope with each given thier limited abilities, before moving on to new and better ways of coping when thier abilities expand.

Most of my observation of this comes from running one offs and other short term less serious campaigns. I've yet to decide on a 'fix', but I will probably appy one before attempting a full blown campaign (whenever I get the time for that. ) One thing I have noticed is that 'fixing' the calculation of CR, party level, and encounter level tends to slow down the advancement of the party after a certain point. By 'fixing' the calculation of EL, I mean that multiple weak foes do not have as high of EL as is suggested by the standard rules, nor do class levels necessarily add CR on a 1 to 1 basis. Generally, I find that if the CR of a creature is more than one below the level of the party, that doubling the number of foes adds only 1 to the EL not 2. For instance, if the party is 5th level, a EL 5 meeting with standard orcs is closer to involving 32 orcs than it is to involving 8. Eight orcs is no real challenge to a party that can cast web and fireball, has fighters with cleave, and high end AC's around 22 or more. Likewise a 10th level warrior is more like a CR5 challenge than a CR9, and a single Druid, Monk, Rogue, or Bard or other support character probably has a CR somewhat below thier character level. I generally consider a Druids, Monks, and Bards CR character level-1 for low levels, and rogue CR character level-1 unless it is part of a group. Multiclassed spell casters (Cleric/Wizards or some such) tend also to fall below character level in terms of challenge provided.

I also increase effective party level if the party has more than 4 members.

That tends to slow XP inflation down a bit, but even so I might be tempted to half awards from thier present level.

 

[Crothian]

Re: Re: 3e XP: how fast is too fast?

Yuppers.

I don't use the CR system. But I use a slowed-down version of the time-based XP variant in the DMG that supposedly results in the same rate of advancement. The alternate system in the DMG recommends 75 xp per level per hour of play; I do 50 xp per level per hour of play.

Hmmm... perhaps if you want a more 1e feel, you could do 75 xp per (level ^ .5) per hour of play. Hmmm.

So, that comes out to 20 hours of play per level. How long is your average session?

 

[Moon_Goddess]

How fast is too fast?


As a test of the rules I ran a shadowchasers game over the past 3 months or so... So that the rules could be experienced they gained 2 levels per game session. No experience just "You all level up now" That's too fast!