Does it really matter how fast your characters level up?

[jmichels]

Hmm I had a problem with the PCs leveling too fast but I solved it with just making appropriate level encounters more sparse. So they still come across a Wyvern flying above the area the Teleported to but my ECL 14 party just smashes its face in. They then get either a really small amount of exps or none at all.

This keeps the vermisilitude of the world intact. The Wyvern will attack anything that looks edible to it. It doesn't see their ECL 14 and run for it but looks for a quick meal. Also monsters flee from the party all the time if they can't hope to hurt them after they have given up trying. This gives the PCs a feeling of power when they are beating down stuff that was scary for them back in the day.

So this means the PCs need to actively search for encounters that are correct level for them. So it gets them to persue the grand plots, search for dragons lairs, or visit the ruins that no one has returned from. Luckily FR seems to have alot of high level content for the party to explore.

 

[National Acrobat]

Not Really

It doesn't matter to me how fast they level.

However, I have a different problem in my group. My players love low-level adventuring. They don't like to play characters or campaigns where the level gets above 9-10, and they've been this way since 1E days back in the late '80s. So, I award xp far less, and just decide when it's time to level up for them, because they really enjoy low level play.

Others may find that odd, but my players know what they like.

 

[Celebrim]

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

For the record, I don't enjoy it as a PC either. Things seem too rushed. It's true that I mostly DM, but the one long term PC I've had in 3rd edition - a cleric - would acquire new spells and new feats and then I wouldn't even get a chance to cast them before I was acquiring even more new spells and powers. I didn't get a chance to savor anything. Each level offers its own different set of joys and challenges. I just felt like I was being rushed... like when the entree arrives and you haven't even finished your soup, and you've got this salad setting there that you've barely touched. Come on, give me a chance to enjoy this.

I know that 3rd edition lets challenge scale far better than earlier editions, but for me that isn't really the main issue. I think its really cool at early levels when you don't have many magical tools and you have to improvise solutions using more mundane things. I'm happy with high level play too, but I want to enjoy the journey and not just the destination.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Second, as a DM, I enjoy having nearly everything in the toolbox at my disposal. At lower levels, there are a lot of monsters I can't use. At high levels, I can simply advance lower level critters I still want to use. As a player, I enjoy the greater variety of things the DM can throw at me.

I agree. Using orcs and goblins gets old. Just once I'd like to throw a Great Wyrm at my players, or a Fallen Solar. And create the stories that would require such baddies.

Third, as a character. I like having a multitude of different options to play around with. Its much more fun for me to have to decide whether to use a feat, a skill, a special ability, a spell, or a great item. At high levels, there are many to choose from. At low levels, I essentially have one or two class abilities, a couple of feats, a few low skill ranks, and a few items to use. It gets stale quickly for me.

I agree again. I've played countless hours at 1-7th level. I'm a master of 1-7. I'd like to play around with 15-20 occasionally as well. Now, I'm not a wargamer, so I do enjoy developing characters in the low levels. A lot of the things that happen at low levels help define a higher-level character's career. But I certainly don't want to spend the majority of a campaign stuck at the bottom of the ladder.

Finally, I enjoy the grandness of the scale of adventures at high levels. I'd rather chase a balor across several planes to retrieve an artifact than go into the goblin cave to recover the farmer's stolen sheep.

Again, well-said.

I'd also like to add that while I am a serious roleplayer, advancement is a part of the fun for me in D&D--both as a player gaining powers, and as a DM handing them out--as well. Buttercup mentioned a game that was 18 months+ that had just reached 4th-level. I would not enjoy such a game, because no matter how great the story, the complete lack of advancement (1 level every SIX MONTHS?) would remove one of the ways I enjoy D&D.

Some DMs have also made the point that players need the chance to "get to know their abilities." I find this to be competely untrue unless you're playing with very new players. For instance, I think that most of the people who post here on ENWorld would be familiar with any class at any level between 1-7's abilities within five minutes of writing the character up. So the claim that the players need "time to adjust to their new abilities" is, IMO, illusory.

I can understand the DMs who are unhappy with a fast ingame progression for characters. But as others have already pointed out, that inconsistency is fairly easy to address.

 

[The Shaman]

*snip*

I like encounters like this as well, and for the same reasons - it's quite fun for the players and their 10th level heroes to be accosted by a gang of 1st and 2nd level brigands or a band of no-class-level goblins. I agree that these sorts of encounters add depth to the game-world as well.

I also take a similar approach with respect to encounters at higher levels - there's simply less to challenge higher-level characters in my game-world, so they typically end up getting involved in other things that would come under the general heading of world-building until either they find more about one of the 'powers behind the scenes' or something else rises to sufficient level to challenge them.

 

[S'mon]

For me, it isn't really about levelling, so much as making it to the end of the story arc. Since many of our arcs are designed to have the BBG face 18th-20th level characters, that means levelling quickly before we end up changing campaigns for one reason or another (several players take a "summer hiatus" to spend weekends at the beach, for example. :\ ) If a story arc were designed to conclude at 8th level or what-have-you, that would be fine, too - I just like to give my characters some sort of resolution.

Thanks - good point! I had this problem running Lost City of Gaxmoor, a CR 20 BBEG = lots of frustration as the PCs try to get high enough level. If I'd reduced him to CR 13 things would have gone much better.

 

[Bront]

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.

Generaly, I know I tend to award exp more as a function of story and plot than I do mechanicly by encounters. I weigh in challenges as well as RP, but exp awards tend to flow with the story, so the PCs are generaly no more experienced than I want them to be at any particular point.

However, that still means that every few sessions, you're likely to make a level. (Faster at lower levels, then trailing off a bit after that). I don't care for the epic levels though, and our campaigns tend to wrap up as the players close on 20th.

 

[RSKennan]

My problem with exceedingly low-magic worlds is that if I wanted to play one of those, I'd play D20 Modern or one of the low to non-magic systems. When I'm playing D&D, I want high-fantasy, mortals wielding powers that are beyond what we use every day, and heroes out of myth and legend. playing in a world where leveling happens very seldomly and rewards are given out sparsely seems to defeat that point.

I already have a place where I can get little recognition for my accomplishments, advance at a very slow pace, and have to work hard to eek out minimum rewards for my efforts. It's called work.

Dude. You need to join the Morningstar playtest. See my sig for a link. That is all.

Edit: Less 'enthusiastic' translation of the above: Mayhap, kind sir, you would find interest in the Morningstar playtest that is occuring verily as we speak. Should you find it worth your while to travel to the site mentioned in my signature and toss your bowler in the ring, as it were, I should be most pleased and wouldst rejoice.

Man, it's late.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It is probably often only a matter of style and personal taste...
I like it when I as a player level up regularly (once per session, usually, though our sessions usually last 6-10 hours, which might be more then for others). As a DM, I sometimes can´t wait till the characters level up (so I can throw the interesting challenges and the world-shaking events at them), sometimes I´d prefer them to level slower...

I guess part of the problem is that you need character advancement in roleplaying games to keep it interesting. 1 adventure or 1 session is usually enough to get experience with your current abilities - you want more, you want a reward. But that´s not really possible without gaining a new level in D&D.
If you could buy skills directly with experience points, a slower advancement wouldn´t hurt so much - if you can increase a few skills each session, the change has not the same magnitude as gaining a level, but there is a change and improvement...

 

[Scorch]

Hi Dave (this is my Lost City of Barakus campaign) - I agree with all this, I'm not unhappy at PCs reaching 3rd in 5 sessions, which if anything is probably slightly slower than most groups' experiences of the very low levels, but I would prefer a rather slower rate from now on & I'll keep an eye on XP awards. Last session set the 2nd level party up against, in 1 encounter:

1 Clr-5 High Priestess, 2 Clr-2 Acolytes, 1 Ftr-2, 1 War-1/Rog-2, 11 War-1, I think it worked out around EL 8. . XP worked out at 925/PC, given that the session also featured lots of roleplay & investigation I awarded 1000 XP for the session.

Ah yes, I know exactly the encounter of which you speak. This led to probably one of the most fun 8 hour sessions we ever had in my Barakus campaign where they laid siege to the temple. It was one long tactical combat with miniatures and a little temple built out of Hirst Art blocks.

The players in my campaign have only just reached 4th level and have finished session 19 of Barakus. They have all but cleared out the first and second levels. Barakus has the built in 50% XP mechanism and with 6 to 7 players at any one session it has kept them at about the level I need them at. They recently were able to take down a CR6 Wyvern. Random encounters are becoming a problem since they are hanging out on the first level hoping to lure a competing party of evil adventurers into an ambush. I have had to start modifying random encounters to make them more challenging for them rather than throwing a "ho-hum another 6 dire rats" encounter at them.

I have been running XP on straight CR, not even bothering with EL since it seems to be more of an art than a science applying that.

Scorch