Does it really matter how fast your characters level up?

[toberane]

I have just started posting here again after more than a 2 year absence, and I find it interesting that despite all the new faces and new campaign settings, accessories, rules supplements, etc., some things just never change.

As long as I remember, DMs have been complaining about how fast the player characters level up. Well, maybe not complaining, but it at least seems to be an ongoing concern that they are getting too much experience, that they are leveling up too fast, and that it is difficult to keep challenging them.

I know from experience that, regardless of how high your character's levels are, combat and adventuring can always be challenging. Particularly since the advent of 3rd edition, where it is easy to add class levels to pretty much any intelligent creature, it should be easy to keep the adventures exciting.

I've played in epic level campaigns where the battles were as tough or tougher than they were in lower level campaigns. Additionally, the players always enjoy gaining new levels, spells, feats, and abilities.

So, is it really so bad if the characters are leveling fast?

 

[Chimera]

So, is it really so bad if the characters are leveling fast?

It might be if you have a certain level range that you really enjoy playing (as a GM) and your PCs zoom right through that range.

It can also make it tough to come up with appropriate challenges if you design a big adventure and you're not sure what level they'll be at what point in the adventure.

So in short, it can be. Doesn't need to be, but it can, depending on your preferences and needs.

 

[toberane]

It can also make it tough to come up with appropriate challenges if you design a big adventure and you're not sure what level they'll be at what point in the adventure.

Oh, you're talking about organized DMs who plan the whole thing out ahead of time... I'm sorry, I don't know any of those.

Actually, we usually plan the adventure out, but the actual encounters are planned on a week by week basis. That way, even if you have reccurring "theme" mosters like orcs, goblins, etc, you can always atart throwing ones with levels of fighter, barbarian , cleric, or sorcerer at them. That way you retain the flavor and still keep the reccurring bad guys together.

You can even take a page from computer based RPGs and make your Big Bad Guys tougher each time the party has to face them. The PCs are going up in levels, why not the Bad Guy, too?

 

[ender_wiggin]

I find that the biggest I have with PCs leveling up is not the fact that it becomes difficult to challenge them, but because it becomes unrealistic.

Others may feel the same way, but I don't think a group of adventurers should be able to amass a fortune and a lot of power in a few months (i.e. go from level 1 to 9 in 2 months of game time).

 

[Saeviomagy]

At a guess, the problem is that many DM's simply cannot cope with the massive paradigm shift which occurs past about level 10.

At that point, your average dungeon is not really going to work any more. With any sort of magic user, there tends to be very little to make your party actually go through the dungeon as opposed to scouting the whole thing very quickly and then going straight for the goods.

So you have to change the game.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

You also have the issue of rules mastery to think of.

Characters should in part level up after the player has gotten to grips with the characters powers. If they have not mastered this it compounds the next levels mastery. At worst, this 'corrects' itself by the character dying and being raised to 're-sit' the previous level, perhaps many times.

This is all my opinion but two players sprin to mind that had to 'resit' levels 9 & 10 and levels 10 & 12. Of course that was then and we've solved that situation since.

 

[Crothian]

No, as long as I have fun my characters can zoom up in levels. It doesn't bother me.

 

[Nellisir]

One thing I've tried and had work was designing adventures not around encounters, per se, but around how much XP I wanted them to accumulate. Is it a big dungeon? It's a "2-level", and I plan for roughly 26 encounters of the appropriate EL (spreading them up and down as I feel like). A quicky? It's a 1/2 level, or even 1/3 -- 6 encounters, or 4.

This works really smoothly with the variant XP system from UA, since the xp amounts become fixed in regard to the CR/EL levels, and you can just add up the totals until you get to however much XP you want to hand out.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[FireLance]

I find that the biggest I have with PCs leveling up is not the fact that it becomes difficult to challenge them, but because it becomes unrealistic.

Others may feel the same way, but I don't think a group of adventurers should be able to amass a fortune and a lot of power in a few months (i.e. go from level 1 to 9 in 2 months of game time).

Depends on what you are trying to achieve with your game, really. DMs that want their PCs to be "average joes" that gain power and wealth slowly will probably find that the core XP and treasure award system advances PCs too quickly.

DMs who want to model naturally talented youngsters (e.g. Luke Skywalker) who quickly surpass their peers or who want to portray the meteoric rise of a band of heroes will find the core system more to their taste.

 

[Obscure]

I try to make sure that it takes about four sessions or so (approx. a month) for my players to level up. I find they experience a greater sense of accomplishment and invest more in the characters emotionally this way, rather than levelling really quickly. "Gee, those three hours I spent at level 2 were really fun...."

Of course, if they are levelling too quickly for you, you can always kill them off or send in some wights, succubi, and vampires...