6 levels in 1 year?

[demon_jr]

Would you say this is a good rate of progression for a campaign?

Our group has decided that we would like to be able to raise a level every 2 months. We meet once a week, averaging 3 times a month.

It doesn't seem so bad when we actually play a game and we look towards the next upcoming level, but stepping back and looking at the grand scheme of things, by itself, 1 year is a very long time.

One of our campaign goals is to reach Epic Level, but at this rate it may take anywhere from 1 year to 2 years, depending on if we can prevent our characters from being killed.

I think the difficulty lies in finding the happy medium of feeling that levels have been "earned" but at the same time, staying away from the feeling of being "handed" levels or from "zipping" through levels.

There are differing opinions within our group, with some favoring an enhanced speed of progression, while some want to "savor" their levels.

 

[Dreaddisease]

That is a decent rate. It may slow as you gain levels. 6 levels one year, 5 the next, 4 the next, just depending on how things go.

I did 6 levels in 3 months with my group. I think that is a bit fast, but I was averaging 4 - 5 combats per session. (Same amount of sessions as you, once a week or 3-4 times a month.)

 

[Dimwhit]

I figured out my progression recently, figuring in about 2 years of playing, one session a week on average, 4 hours or so each session. When looking at all the characters, in all the campaigns, at all level, I average a level jump every 3 sesions (it was actually 3.x sessions - don't remember exactly). That varies slightly with the campaign (heavy combat vs. heavy roleplaying), but it holds fairly true for us.

I think it's a good progression. Not too fast, not too slow. Six levels a year seems slow to me, but I'm a little impatient...

 

[Destil]

Sounds fine to me. I'm rushing my group through levels 3-9 or so now, just so they can qualify for some interesting things like PrCs and have some better multicasting options, and intend to slow down to about that speed or mabye even slower after that, though it's only a bi-weekly game.

If you're leveling every 6 sessions you'll want to award at least:
((Current Party Level) * 166 XP) / session / party member

(Add to that extra XP for magic item creation or other drains)

If you use the CR system for XP, 2.22 encounters / session with a CR of the party will provide this with the default XP rewards.

Myself, I like the nice simple: "You get so much XP per session" method, with added awards for role-playing and achieving major goals. It can really curb some of the worst types of meta gaming (We're close to the next level, there has to be someplace we can start a fight...). I'd most likely award 140*level XP / session on that sort of schedule, and try to award about a 50*level XP bonus on average. You can mix and match these numbers depending on what sort of game you want to encourage.

I love 3E XP =D

 

[Unseelie]

>(We're close to the next level, there has to be someplace we can start a fight...)

The worst case of that I ever saw in my old D&D days was when one of the PCs was 5xp short of leveling. He asked the GM to give him the 5xp so he didn't have to wait another session and the GM wouldn't do it.

We were in town, so the PC quickly straps on his weapons, goes outside the tavern and kills one of our mules.

It's pretty funny, in a way, and we did refer to him as mule killer forever afterwards, but...

 

[the Jester]

The group I'm currently running- at least the lower level members, they vary widely- is advancing quickly. The 11th level pcs got ~8000 xp each last game (!!) and I halve monster xp. Of course, they fought three CR 13 monsters at various points....

 

[Dagger75]

Holy Cow!!!!

My group made 21 levels in 1 year playing twice a week about 4-5 hours a session.

Then again 3 out of 4 us bought the Epic Level handbook and where dying to play a Epic Campaign.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, advancement- especially at high levels- is much faster than it used to be.

 

[tburdett]

My players are just now reaching 21st/22nd level after 13 months of play. We meet every Saturday and each session runs from 5pm to 3am. Level progression doesn't seem to slow down at all if you use the Exp/CR system as it is printed.

 

[Fenes 2]

We level very slowly, by choice. One weekly campaign started back in 2E, switched to 3E when it came out at level 5, and is now at level 11. Another weekly campaign started 1.5 years ago at level 6 or 7 and has now reached level 14.