3e XP: how fast is too fast?

[jasper]

A year and third of real time play.
7 months game time
Avg 1 level per game month.
Of course I game maybe 2 a month for about 4 hours.
I think the orginial party which started Sunless is down to 3 members. The rest dead or switched characters.

 

[hong]

Apparently, that module takes PCs from 10th to 18th level in 2 months of GAME time, not real time. (ie. 2 month pass in the Forgotten Realms, not two months spent playing the game).

I'm still having trouble getting over this. 8 mid-high levels in 2 months.

Seems a bit... I dunno... bizarre to me.

Something to think about nonetheless.

Heh. My party went from 1st level no-names to 8th level heroes in three months (game time) of Baldur's Gate, the CRPG. They then went from 8th level to 17th level superheroes in another four months of Baldur's Gate 2. They then went from 17th level to 30th level legends in a month of Throne of Bhaal, the conclusion to the BG saga. Damn, but that series was some of the best gaming I've done in the Realms.

And in Planescape: Torment, you go from a literal 1st level nobody (doesn't even know his own name) to a 30th+ level demideity in four weeks. That was some of the best gaming I've done in any medium, p&P or computer, ever.


Hong "not being ironic" Ooi

 

[Psion]

Apparently, that module takes PCs from 10th to 18th level in 2 months of GAME time, not real time. (ie. 2 month pass in the Forgotten Realms, not two months spent playing the game).

I'm still having trouble getting over this. 8 mid-high levels in 2 months.

Seems a bit... I dunno... bizarre to me.

IMC, I put a time limit on advancement. The fastest a PC can advance a level is once in (10 x current level) days. This time can be collapsed by intensive training.

This house rule came about because of some player who assumed that all my adventures were back to back and told me that their 13th level monk cleric (this was 2e) was still starting age. To which I said "yeah.... right."

 

[Zappo]

In my opinion, the solution is fairly simple. The PCs (and choice NPCs) do advance a lot faster than everyone else. Everyone else has the 'not a hero' tag, which reduces by 90% all the XP they receive.

D&D is supposed to simulate action/adventure fantasy, and if you watch any such movie or read most such books, you'll see that heroes and main villains all seem to be of vastly higher level than even professional soldiers or mercenaries, even though often they've been 'in the trade' for less time. There are many examples where in the space of a few months a character goes from "farmboy" to "can take out the town guard captain no problem", despite having only had real fights in chapters 2, 4 and 7. And there are also examples where in a comparable time a character goes from "farmboy" to "unstoppable engine of death".

 

[Bryan Vining]

Nice ideas, Psion

Yes, I too have decided that 3E characters advance awfully fast. If you have a combat-heavy session and efficient players, they can easily gain a level in a single 6 hour session! It all depends on your group and how much they role-play. Lots of role-playing means less experience, but more fun. OTOH, a bunch of players who aren't really into the role-playing (which is okay, if that's how they are) will tend to level up quickly.

For me, levelling about once a month (for a weekly game) seems about right, so I like the time-based variant as well. It gives a steady progression, which is nice.

Incidentally, I once ran a 2E campaign wherein the party went from 1st level to an average of 13th in 8 months. We usually played at least twice a week, usually including one extra-long session (12+ hours) on the weekend - sometimes two. I used individual XP awards, too, which sped up the progression, so, yeah, 3E characters advance faster than their 1e and 2e counterparts.

 

[S'mon]

In my opinion, the solution is fairly simple. The PCs (and choice NPCs) do advance a lot faster than everyone else. Everyone else has the 'not a hero' tag, which reduces by 90% all the XP they receive.

D&D is supposed to simulate action/adventure fantasy, and if you watch any such movie or read most such books, you'll see that heroes and main villains all seem to be of vastly higher level than even professional soldiers or mercenaries, even though often they've been 'in the trade' for less time. There are many examples where in the space of a few months a character goes from "farmboy" to "can take out the town guard captain no problem", despite having only had real fights in chapters 2, 4 and 7. And there are also examples where in a comparable time a character goes from "farmboy" to "unstoppable engine of death".

I agree Zappo, there's no need to assume that off-camera NPCs advance at the same rate as PCs. For one thing, NPCs don't get bonus XP for roleplaying, or for any routine activity, unless you want them to. Aside from the case of the veteran mercenary company fighting a major war, there's no reason to think NPCs will go up level from one year to the next, or even one decade to the next.

 

[Yonshalmnu]

I like the idea of gaining quickly early on and slowing it down as level increases.

 

[Leopold]

in the early games I was throwing EL 3's and 4's at them when they were level 1 and 2. They were advancing fast and i had more and more people play hence making bigger encounters. I think the average was about 1 level every other week, with some people gaining levels once a week. Now that I have gone to the FR way of divying up XP we have finnally slowed down the level of progression to one every 3 or 4 sessions. That to me is fine and fair way to do it as I don't like tossing out a EL 5 or 6 at a party made up of 9th levels.

My PC's HATE (and i use that term accurately) lots of lil encounters that just piss away their time, they like the big boys one on one to them, they like the challenge the daring that a big mob brings on to them. I usually give them EL's on par or 1 higher or lower than the avg party level. They like the rapid advancement and I have slowed down the rate of encounters (one time it was 10 encounters per session..now i've learned better!) and the PC's are blowing more and more spells and new tactics on random encounters..just wait till i hit them with several probing raids...

 

[Psion]

Zappo wrote:
In my opinion, the solution is fairly simple. The PCs (and choice NPCs) do advance a lot faster than everyone else. Everyone else has the 'not a hero' tag, which reduces by 90% all the XP they receive.

And that solves the problem how? The problem isn't that my NPCs are advancing too fast. The problem is that I don't buy PCs are advancing so fast.

Leopold wrote:
My PC's HATE (and i use that term accurately) lots of lil encounters that just piss away their time

I'm not too fond of them myself. We only have a limited amount of time; I don't have the patience to include encounters that don't advance the story or aren't interesting in their own right. In published adventures I often end up either
1) Editing out nuissance encounters, or
2) Combining them into a more challenging encounter.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'd probably half the exp at least. The party I'm running has adventured for around 7 months in game time and are 9th level. I would expect a lot more high level NPC's on Oerth. Sure the PC's are heroes, but that's a little too fast. In the Living Greyhawk Journal #2 they list Yrag, one of EGG's old PC's as a F13. He is said to be 200 yrs old and to have adventured with the Circle of Eight and Mordenkainen. But all this and he's only 13th? I would think that any solid adventurer who has been around for 10 years or so would be epic. My group is going to be at least 11-12 after they hit the one year mark.