D&D 4E 4ed Pace of advancement... do we know anything ?

[bramadan]

I am writing a synopsis for the 4ed campaign I plan to DM and am getting to the point where it would be very useful to know how fast are the PCs expected to gain Levels (in terms of number of encounters).

Does anyone know anything about this or care to speculate ?

 

[frankthedm]

30 levels in the time 3E took for 20.

Kinda fast, but it because most campaigns don't go on for years.

 

[hopeless]

advancement

Going by previous editions I'd say as fast as you want them to be.

However given this is 4th edition only time will tell and whilst that might not be helpful I'd hedge my bets that as each adventure consists of encounters of set xp then it should be only as fast as you prefer.

Anyway best of luck with your adventure, let us know what unfolds as it would be great to get more idea on how games in 4e play best!

 

[Stormtower]

The 3E calculus for leveling speed, IIRC, was based on some market research done by WotC. It was approximately this: given a campaign constituted of single, weekly four-hour games, the average group could expect to advance from level 1 to 20 in approximately one year of play time.

So, what FranktheDM said for 4th edition, except it's now approximately 1 to 30 in one year of playtime. It remains to be seen how many encounters/session that will break down to, etc.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Levelling at the end of each session isn't a bad model, but as long as XP is *only* used for levelling (please let this be true!), levelling can occur exactly as fast as the DM wants.

The problem with 3.5 is that if you started handwaving levelling, you get smacked by the crafting rules. Annoying, to say the least.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think leveling every session is too fast, but I'd be fine with every other session.

Fitz

 

[Surgoshan]

We know it takes 1000 XP to get from first level to second and that each encounter should net a PC 100 XP. Thus we get 10 encounters to level. If you squeeze in three or four encounters a session, that's three or four game sessions to level. So level thirty could be reached, based on that, in as little as 90 sessions or as many as 120. That's about two years if you game weekly. If you put in more encounters per session, then you can follow strict progression and level faster. Or you can wave your hands and level at the end of every session and get to the end of an adventure in 30 sessions.

 

[arscott]

hmm. If that 10 encounters/level number I've seen floating around is accurate, then WotC expects us to get through more encounters per session than previous if they're shooting for the same time frame.

3e: 13.33 encounters per level * 20 levels = 266.67 total encounters
4e: 10 encounters per level * 30 levels = 300 encounters.

 

[hong]

If and when I start a long-term 4E game, I'll probably do the same thing as in my last game, which is give out XP whenever it feels right. "Feels right" being determined by me getting bored or the players throwing dice at me, whichever comes first.

 

[Spatula]

We know that there are three adventures being published by WOTC per 10 levels, at least for the first 20 levels. So 3-4 levels per adventure.