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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Marley" data-source="post: 5222852" data-attributes="member: 89537">Consider the scale of the map you are playing on, the speed in which the PCs move, the type of terrain the PCs are crossing, and the frequency in which encounters occur. In my current Pathfinder campaign the map is scaled at 25 hexes by 25 hexes with each hex equaling 2 miles. The terrain is mostly forests, hills, and mountains with a few areas of farmland. With the exception of one small area overland movement is either by trails or trackless. The slowest PC is the party fighter with a 20 foot movement. Random encounters occur at a 10% chance per hex. Applying the appropriate modifiers means that the PCs are moving between 8 and 16 miles per day -- depending on terrain -- and averaging about 12 miles (or 6 hexes per day) overall. With a 10% chance of encounter per hex they should average just over 1 encounter every two days. (Note: party tactics and strategy will effect the actual rate) As it takes roughly 13 encounters (fast experience chart) at APL to reach the next level; I can expect the PCs to level every 26 days. My PCs are currently part of a military organization (Cheliax); a lot of their quests tend to be things like scout this ridge, deliver this message to the General, escort this shipment of foodstuffs to a nearby unit, etc. Being part of the military they are also given furloughs from time-to-time. In addition, they are required to spend a lot of time in the castle training. These activities add to the average from above. They also give me a nice in game justification as to why the fighter just acquired a spellbook and learned magic. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />My expectation is for the party to reach level 5 in about 1 year game time. At this point, the campaign world will begin to expand for the PCs. At this point they will be asked to undertake more dangerous quests which are further away from their home base than they previously have been. Here I plan to change the scale of the map so each hex equals 12 miles while leaving the frequency of encounters the same. In game justification being that the PCs have done a good job making the area safer to travel. Now, this pacing may still be too fast for what you want -- it satisfies my problems with zero to hero in three months -- however, the underlying principles remain the same. Changing the scale of the map, frequency of encounters, and types of terrain the PCs must deal with can have a large impact on how fast (in game time) they level.Happy gaming!</blockquote>

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