4th edition's default rate of advancement

[ThirdWizard]

If the group would just winter every year, and count travel times, etc. it could take them five years or more to hit the point where they could teleport with any frequency. I made a half-assed stab at it in my current game and it took them a year without them doing much at all for downtime and my hand-waving of some travel times, etc.

About halfway through my longest running 3e campaign, I started tracking time more seriously, and I've found that an average adventure takes about two months of game time to run, including PC prep work, travel time, the confrontations themselves, and the wind down afterward. Add in magic item creation, upkeep on towers, keeping NPC contacts happy, and all that other good stuff that they have to do in downtime, and years can start to pass in game time with only a half dozen sessions.

 

[Hussar]

OTOH, in my World's Largest Dungeon game, they went from 1st to 17th in about six months because there was ZERO downtime. (Ok, that's a lie, there was about two weeks of downtime when they holed up in the Angel's garrison). No travel time, no crafting. Nothing but adventuring 100% of the time.

But, let's face it, that's very much a corner case.

I know that in the Eberron Campaign we're playing right now, we've gone from 1st to 6th in about six months, mostly because travel times in Eberron can be pretty long.

In game speed of leveling will entirely depend on your campaign. Age of Worms takes about a year in game. I can see Savage Tide taking many years easily if you want it to. Just whack in a few months of downtime between adventures.

 

[Gundark]

The only thing is that as a working adult with a partner and all of that business who only plays fortnightly I really don't have to time to spend 3 years getting a character in a game to 14th level or what have you.

Levelling every 2 to 4 sessions sounds idyllic to me.

QFT. I think this level of progression will fit most age demographics (no data to back this up unfortunetly). Honestly I don't wanna take a year to get to level 10, and I think new players could be more attracted to a game that they get faster pay-offs

finally truth be told this probably isn't the hardest thing in the world to house-rule to your liking.

 

[FireLance]

Just a tangential point: why are we using the "session" as a basic unit of measurement, anyway? It seems to me that the number of "sessions" you take to gain a level would depend on too many factors, such as session length and number of encounters per session, to make it a useful measure.

Would the number of "standard encounters" be a better measure of rate of advancement?

 

[Flynn]

Using the quotes mentioned above in regards to WOTC's words on the progression rates, instead of 13.33 encounters per level, it appears that we're looking at something like 8.75 encounters per level. Considering how I run the more action-packed of my sessions, that could be two sessions per level or less. More likely, that will be around 3 sessions per level for my gaming style.

This corresponds with the advancement rate of Savage Worlds, so I'm not that worried about it.

Considering that my serious D&D campaigns tend to last two years or more, at approximately 48 sessions a year, that's about 21-22 months to hit 30th level, assuming the challenge of the encounters keeps pace with the character levels. At higher levels, it is likely that the pace won't be maintained, and that can stretch things out another half year to a year, maybe.

It would appear that my serious 4E campaigns would see characters go from 1st level up to 25th to 30th and beyond (if we can go beyond 30th), if my estimates are correct. If I only dabble for a campaign, that might only take a year or so, and that would mean characters would go from 1st to 13th-15th over the course of the game.

Not bad, but that's only based on my gaming style and thoughts on advancement rates. I won't mess with house ruling changes, though, until I've actually played the system through a test campaign from 1st to epic levels. I kinda like to know what the system is supposed to do before I start making too many changes.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[kennew142]

It doesn't matter much as advancement is one of the easiest things in the game to houserule, whether you prefer it faster or slower.

This is my opinion as well. Most players prefer faster advancement, and it is really convenient to short-lived campaigns. For those of us with stable gaming groups, it is extremely easy to house rule.

IMC, I treat each level as 3-4 adventure points. Short adventures are 1 point; medium adventures are 2 points; long adventures are 3 points; and very long adventures are 4 points.

 

[Asmor]

Just a tangential point: why are we using the "session" as a basic unit of measurement, anyway? It seems to me that the number of "sessions" you take to gain a level would depend on too many factors, such as session length and number of encounters per session, to make it a useful measure.

Would the number of "standard encounters" be a better measure of rate of advancement?

The basic assumption is that a typical session is 4 encounters on average. Individual games will differ, but that's the accepted average. The reason it's a useful metric is because it allows you to guess at how much real time of play is required. So if we go with a somewhat conservative estimate of 3 sessions for level up, that's 90 sessions for level 1 through 30. Alternatively, we could go with 12 encounters per level up, which means 360 encounters for level 1-30, but that's not quite as easy to grok in your head, not to me at least.

 

[Lanefan]

Depending how many new powers a PC gets each level and how complex they are, bumping every 2 sessions might lead all but the most experienced and-or meticulous players into a bookkeeping morass from which they would never emerge. Either that, or lead to some of those powers being ignored due to the overload factor.

Call me a complete numbers nerd if you like, but I've actually got data here on every adventure we've played in our various games...that's about 250 adventures all told, over 6 or 8 often-concurrent campaigns over 26+ years...except the length of time is recorded in real-time months rather than sessions (we didn't track session numbers for most of that time). A short or small adventure takes 1-2 months. A large or long one takes 6-8 months. Rarely, a single adventure will take over a year to play, either because it is very complex or (more commonly) because something happened that disrupted or cancelled lots of sessions. The average is around 4-5 months, the median is around 3-4.

Now, unless you've got people bumping more than once per adventure, you're looking at maybe 3-4 levels per year at a 1-level-per-adventure pace in that system; 30 levels could easily take 8-10 years. How you do it in 2 years defeats me, unless you're running 3+ sessions a week or each session is 12 hours long (both good), or you're handwaving a huge amount of detail (bad, in my view). Even if we were nose-to-the-grindstone players that never got distracted at all during a session, I can't see us getting to 30th in under 5 years.

As for generating downtime, a simple answer here: training rules If they have to train 30 times and it takes a few weeks each time, there's a year or two right there. A less-simple but often effective second answer: there is nothing for the heroes to do. (this is best used when you've just finished a story arc and there's no loose ends left; the arc finished in the fall but the event that triggers the next arc doesn't happen till spring)

Lanefan

 

[Stalker0]

Seconded. XP gain and advancement is so easy to house-rule to fit your preferred rate that I couldn't care less whether 4e suggests PCs advance every session, every 4 sessions or every 253 sessions.

And if its true that xp is no longer spent on spells and magic items, this will be even easier!!

 

[Rechan]

I just hope that the advancement doesn't go so fast that it puts PCs out of the range of lowerish level monsters too fast.