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

[ptolemy18]

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.

@_@ That's really how fast it's supposed to be?! In a five-year D&D3.0~3.5 campaign, playing once a week, we got from about level 1 to level 15.

(Of course, everyone lost at least two or three characters, and got bumped down a level in the process, but still...)

Not that I'm complaining. It was an awesome campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

By the rules, if 3e is anything to go by, it'll be far too fast.

But, this is one thing the DM has some control over, in that you can arbitrarily adjust the bump points any way you like. 1000 ExP too few for 2nd level? Make it 1500, and adjust all the other levels to keep the same ratio of difference between them.

The only knock-on effect at least in 3e in doing this is it tends to throw the wealth-by-level guidelines out the window for long-term groups, as the party gains wealth faster than they gain levels; but if you can live with this, no worries. And we're not even sure if 4e is going to have such a thing as wealth-by-level...are we?

Lanefan

 

[Surgoshan]

I'm guessing wealth by level is out the window, too, since the guidelines for magic items and the like will be based solely on level (as in a flying carpet, at level 18 is appropriate for a group at level 18 and not for level 10) rather than cost.

 

[arscott]

as long as your party can't buy gear at a magic store, Wealth-by-level probably won't matter that much.

After all, there's not much advantage in having two +2 flaming greatswords instead of just one.

 

[Morrus]

Leveling rate is one of the easiest things to tweak, though. Especialy now with flat XP awards. Just apply a constant modifier to all XP award, either faster (x1.5, x2) or slower (x0.5, x0.75).

You don't even need to tell your players you're doing it if you don't want to!

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Well, I would say that these new developments (no level drain, no more XP as currency) can empower a DM to eschew XP points entirely and develop his/her own criteria for XP rewards for Quest/Skill/Social/Combat encounters, based on what behaviors he/she wants to reward the group for.