D&D 5E Actual play experience with 5e XP system - does speed of progression change at 11th level?

[S'mon]

I've ran a game up to level 19.

Levelling is MUCH faster from 11-16. Easily noticeable. Slows down after that though.

Thanks.
I think that while I wouldn't DECREASE xp awards after the PC hit 11th, so they will definitely progress faster to 12th & 13th, after 10th I'll aim to be fairly conservative in terms of non-combat XP, plus I may look to be using mostly groups of lower CR foes with only occasional 'party level plus' types, so that the rate of advancement does not increase too much. I have a lot of material for this campaign (Shattered Star + Rise of the Runelords) and I'd like to use most of it before the PCs reach 20th though I am happy enough to run 'Book 6' of both APs at 20th level if necessary.

 

[Shiroiken]

Was levelling slower at 5-10 than 11-13?

Not sure, so let's do the math. Levels 3-8 was the Temple of Elemental Evil, which took about 34 weeks, which would have been 17 sessions. This comes out to about 1 every 3 sessions, so slightly slower.

Levels 9-10 were slower, as they they were The Lost Caverns of Tsocanth and the Forgotten Temple of Tharzidun. They took 18 weeks (9 sessions) to gain 2 levels, so 1 every 4-5 sessions.

As I said, I'm a bad example because of how I'm running my campaign. XP was different in 1E (monsters were less and you got XP for gold), and I'm running a semi-AP using 1E adventures. If the party reaches a certain goal and has not reached their minimum level, they just level. They haven't needed this since early in the Temple, however, as they gain XP like crazy

 

[CapnZapp]

I used to think my leveling preferences were just bc I was only a player, and then I started DMing, and holy crow, do I hate the party leveling slower than once every 4 sessions. I wish the DMG let me be lazy, and just gave us multiple XP tables for different rates.

Of course, you could always level your party every 4 sessions.

Hard to beat that suggestion for laziness...

 

[CapnZapp]

Of course leveling becomes faster when the XP requirements go down...

...or when you get more xp...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Of course, you could always level your party every 4 sessions.

Hard to beat that suggestion for laziness...

I wish. My players don't like that, bc it makes them feel like the things they do don't matter.

 

[Inchoroi]

I wish. My players don't like that, bc it makes them feel like the things they do don't matter.

Yeah, my players wouldn't like that, either. They like the incremental rewards of XP.

On the same token, they'd kill me if I changed how XP is done, although I'd enjoy having a slower progression for levels.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, my players wouldn't like that, either. They like the incremental rewards of XP.

On the same token, they'd kill me if I changed how XP is done, although I'd enjoy having a slower progression for levels.

yeah, the long wait between character advancement is the big downside, for us, to level based systems.

 

[Tony Vargas]

IF you follow the daily exp budget in the encounter design guidelines, your part will level up from 1st to 2nd in a day, likewise, 2nd to 3rd. Third to 4th is a day and a half. Through 11th it'll be over 2 'days' per level. After that it drops back down to around a day and a half, which is faster, but may not be noticeably so.

Corresponds roughly - and, I have to think, intentionally - to the 'sweet spot' classically experienced by D&D groups, when the game just plays best through 'mid' levels (though exactly what those were varied with edition and opinion). For 5e, whoever came up with the encounter guidelines and exp tables seemed to think it'd be nice to linger at levels 4-10, and that 1 & 2, in particular, were just something you should blow through as quickly as possible.


Anyway, mitigating against the lower relative exp requirements of higher levels is the ever-increasing complexity of the characters, themselves, and the possibility of them facing really large or complex challenges. You might take fewer encounters to level, but they could take longer to play through, making sessions-to-level different from 'days'-to-level.

 

[l0lzero]

According to this http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?367079-5e-XP-Chart-Progression-Question it takes 6 encounters/level in tier 1, 15 encounters/level in tier 2, 10
encounters/level 11-20. I've certainly seen how progression slows from levels 1-4 to 5-10,
but I was wondering if people with actual play experience find that the speed of levelling does increase after 10th? Or does eg fighting more lower level foes keep it about the same?

My tabletop 5e Runelords/Shattered PCs are currently 7th level and levelling about every 5 sessions, which I like. I'm a bit concerned they could be levelling every 3 sessions after 10th if I don't tweak the system, and that this might feel too quick. Tweaks would probably be to lower non-combat awards and use mostly enemies below party CR. What's your experience?

Our high-level game saw some slowdown from the 5-11 range, and then after that last power bump at 11 it picked right back up to the point where the DM had to throw absurd encounters at our party to pose a challenge to us, which resulted in us gaining a level every other session for levels 12, 13, 14, and 15, and then we switched to milestone leveling where the DM would grant us a level after certain objectives were met because 20 was rapidly approaching and there was much, much more storyline left.

If you are worried about leveling happening too quickly, use milestone leveling. Initially you want the party to level up pretty quickly, and then you can slow down the pace of leveling. For level 1-5 it should happen fairly quickly, and from 6-20 it should be rather slow. For the first few sessions, I would say a level a session (1-3) and then every other session (4-6) and then keep spreading it out over multiple sessions. The first three levels are meant to come quickly, and then take ever increasing amounts of time as you approach cap, whereas in actual play the pace picks back up quickly thanks to relative power from the moment you ding level 11.

 

[S'mon]

If you are worried about leveling happening too quickly, use milestone leveling.

I'm using individual XP - 5e works well with PCs at varying levels - & wouldn't want to go over to milestones.

From what I can tell the most common view is that advancement does naturally increase after 10th level. In order not to hit 20th level too fast I reckon I'll be more conservative with noncombat xp awards after 10th, but I think I'll also accept that advancement is likely to be faster at least 11th-16th. 5e doesn't seem to have 3e type problems with high level play and I don't really mind if we play a lot at 17th-20th level and then at 20th, the Runelords and Shattered Star high level adventures (books 5 & 6) seem well suited to that.