Does it really matter how fast your characters level up?

[3catcircus]

Hm, I find it strange how these threads seem to pull the 'extremely' opposite viewpoints out of the woodwork.

We have people who like to level at a pace similar to molasses and others who want something FASTER than the admittedly already fast leveling of 3.x. To each their own I suppose.

Personally, 3.x is just fine. It's quick enough that it gives the players a sense of accomplishment and slows down enough at later levels that the PC's CAN get to know their own abilities rather well. In a game that only levels once every 3 months+, I'd quit in a heartbeat. That type of game simply isn't fun for me and the lack of mechanical 'growth' with my PC would be unbearable.

Mostly this is due to the fact that I have yet to have a character get past level 10. Ever. I'm damn sick of fighting orcs and goblins and, as a DM, I'm sick of having the PC's fighting orcs and goblins. Give me a dragon, a powerful outsider, a lich, an evil cleric warlord, or anything over yet another entourage of level 1 warrior goblins and orcs.

Faster leveling might be fine, but I don't think I would really like to level every session. That seems a bit too fast.

I'm happy with 3.x since my rarely played characters feel like they're actually getting somewhere...

One thing I've noticed is that once you get up around 11th-12th level, things go from "too easy" to "too hard" because the players always equate enthusiasm with capability. I can recall, being a player in a campaign that *started* at 12th level. A few of the other players were complaining that they were levelling so slow (4-5 sessions and hadn't advanced to 13th level) since we were mostly fighting orcs, giants, treants, etc. So - the DM threw a level-appropriate encounter at us using a single monster (a dragon in an underground cavern, IIRC) and it creamed us - we ended up running away.

Granted, we *started* at 12th level, but even still, you generally blow through the 1st 10 levels and usually still haven't figured how best to use your PCs resources and work as a team.

Typically, when fighting a horde of low-level beasties that is level-appropriate, the PCs easily win out. When fighting a fewer number of tougher, but level-appropriate monsters, the PCs usually get their asses handed to them.

 

[barsoomcore]

XP are for DMs who lack the nerve to just TELL their players when they go up a level.



But seriously, I don't use XP. Waste of my time. I just tell my players when they've gone up a level. If they think it's time for them to go up a level, they suggest it and I decide. I mean, since you get to decide how much XP they get per session, how is it any different? It's just removing that layer that pretends the process is objective and mathematical.

As fast as I want. No futzing around with calculations or tables or whatever. Fits my story/threat plans perfectly. You can't beat it.

 

[Ibram]

My players go up every 4-5 sessions I think, sometimes more. In game that usualy means that over a year has past. I prefer it that way, having major problems with characters who go from 1-20 in a single in-game year.

If you go up to quickly then it can be hard for a DM to create challenging campaings, to slowly and the players might lose intrest.

 

[toberane]

I see no evidence that the assertion "it's not that hard to adjust them" applies to everyone and every game.

Your "viewpoint" is limited to you and your game.

It is true, my viewpoint is limited to my, er, view point, I suppose. I don't have much I can base my opinions on other than my own experiences.

However, my experiences are drawn from gaming for more than 20 years with groups that enjoy nearly every style of play. I've played with power gamers, gamers who enjoy only "evils" campaigns, gamers who REALLY get into the miniatures wargaming aspect of the game, gamers who roleplay so much that we wouldn't see combat for 3 or 4 gaming sessions, gamers who enjoy combat so much that the term "role-playing" could barely be applied to them. I've gamed with groups that frequently leveled up 2 or 3 times per session, and other groups that leveled up a couple of times per year.

I know I'm not the only one with such a wide rrange of experiences, and I'm sure there are several posters ere who have enough gaming experience to make me look like a newbie, but with my range of experience in Role Playing, I'll stand by my previous assertion that it's not that hard to adjust your encounters to fit the party's level.

3rd edition went out of its way to make this easier than it ever was before in previous editions. You can easily add character levels to intelligent monsters to make them more difficult. You can advance both intelligent and non-intelligent monsters to increase the challeng for the party. You can increase difficulty classes on skill checks. There are pregenerated NPCs of every class at every level right in the DMG. 3rd edition introduced the Encounter Level system to make it easier to determine whether the challenge involved in the encounter is equal to your party's abilities.

My viewpoint comes from making these adjustments myself as a DM and experiencing these adjustments as a player. I appreciate that your viewpoint my be different from my own, as long as you can appreciate that your viewpoint is just as limited as mine (meaning limited to your own "point of view").

 

[toberane]

Dozens of reasons, ranging from PC capabilities to narrative imperative, and not least including simply not enough time to accomplish all these things before they top out at 20th.

If you are putting a level cap of 20 on your game, then I concede that you have a point. If you can't go any higher than 20, then there is little reason to continue playing those characters.

But as I stated before, I enjoy the epic "hero out of myth and legend" kind of adventure, and don't see any reason to stop the fun at 20th level.

 

[toberane]

*SNIP*

Very eloquent post. I agree with everything you said.

 

[Pants]

Granted, we *started* at 12th level, but even still, you generally blow through the 1st 10 levels and usually still haven't figured how best to use your PCs resources and work as a team.

That's not really been my experience. We played for a year using the standard 3.x advancement before they got to level 11 and this was with story award XP. By the time they hit levels 5 and 6, they knew their roles in the party. As they gained more and more spells and abilities, they adapted... rather quickly sometimes.

Then there were the times they made stupid mistakes and got creamed for it, but that could've happened at any level. And... it did happen sometimes...

Typically, when fighting a horde of low-level beasties that is level-appropriate, the PCs easily win out. When fighting a fewer number of tougher, but level-appropriate monsters, the PCs usually get their asses handed to them.

Welll....
Pretty true I think, but there have been times where the PC's have plowed through a couple of tough, level-appropriate monsters with relative ease. There have also been times that I've challenged the level 11+ PC's with intelligently played low-level mooks (most of which didn't grant XP).

Single, powerful monsters usually get creamed super fast... especially when the group prepares. The PC's were planning on ambushing a powerful Necromancer that was about 5 or so levels higher than their level. The guy was buffed up and only got off two spells before being forced to retreat. He returned later on a couple of times until the party rogue went after him solo and killed him with a single Sneak Attack.

 

[I'm A Banana]

XP are for DMs who lack the nerve to just TELL their players when they go up a level.



But seriously, I don't use XP. Waste of my time. I just tell my players when they've gone up a level. If they think it's time for them to go up a level, they suggest it and I decide. I mean, since you get to decide how much XP they get per session, how is it any different? It's just removing that layer that pretends the process is objective and mathematical.

As fast as I want. No futzing around with calculations or tables or whatever. Fits my story/threat plans perfectly. You can't beat it.

This is exactly my system.

It does when you want the game to be slow enough to build the plot threads that lead the PCs to challenge the high level NPCs *when* they are high enough level to challenge them.

Slow how? In the number of sessions you play? Or in the amount of in-world time that goes by? Because it's pretty easy to say "you do nothing important for a few years -- you fight a few goblins. Anything you want to accomplish in these five years? Make your checks." If that's when the next appropriate event happens, no one is rushing you through then.

If it's the XP/session rather than the XP/in-world time frame that's the pain...then the problem is leveling up about once a month (ish). The system handles slowing this down fine by allowing you to throw weaker enemies at the party for less XP. You don't have to match their EL every time. In fact, throwing in "lesser encounters" that serve only to hint at the deeper plot threads is generally part of the campaign, ne? Where the challenge isn't so much to their life and limb as it is to their goals and plans.

If the progression of experience wasn't slowed down by the DM, then maybe the PCs discover the who and what, but not the why - which may lead them to ignore potential plot threads.

I don't understand how this flows from fast level advancement at all. What's stopping the PC's from taking on a challenge of a lower CR for information purposes? What's stopping them from finding out the why? Why isn't the why important? How can they ignore it? Because they're high level?

I want to fully develop as many different threads as possible - and the only way to do that is either through a slower xp progression or to spoon-feed the PCs information that they should be figuring out on their own. I have no problems dealing with PCs who have high-level abilities - it is the fact that those abilities mean nothing when the driver for your campaign has little to do with daily combats.

What stops a PC from finding out information when they are high level on their own? Why does being high level have to equal "kill the BBEG now?" You have a theoretically unlimited number of levels to deal with......just because they reach the level at which you can kill the BBEG doesn't mean they have to go kill the BBEG. If they stall, the BBEG can grow along with them. If they rush right in because they *can*, then the threads seem to be irrelevant as far as the PC's go, and that's pretty much the only reason the campaign exists -- for the PC's. If they don't care about the threads they're missing, that's not an advancement problem, I'd think...

Because that is not "realistic" (yeah, yeah - I know it is a fantasy game - I don't make them roll a d20 to determine if they got everything off when they wipe their behinds...) 1st level PC's aren't, and shouldn't, be the most important entities in the world. They *can* be the most important in their little corner of it, but until they have earned enough levels to be political movers and shakers, then they will be relatively unimportant to the world at large. Sure, at 1st level, they may be giving a headache to an orc tribe that is in the hills outside thier little town in Amn; but does a Amnian merchant who's livelihood is made from the sale of Maztican cocoa beans in Athkatla really care about that? Not at 1st level. Maybe later on, the fact that the PCs have eliminated an orc tribe means that a road is safe enough for the tiny little town to get it's first taste of these "cocoa beans of which you speak," at which point maybe the PCs are noticed by said merchant and asked to be caravan guards or go into business with him, or whatever...

What's wrong with a world of commoners, where the BBEG is an orc with 2 levels of barbarian? That's the biggest monster around. Period. Ever. In the entire world. Maybe he even rules it, with an iron fist. And these 1st level PC's come and kill him, thus saving the world from slavery.

You don't need to be high level to have epic adventures.

And you can also get into things that levels alone don't measure. At what level do you become Pharaoh of the Universe? What if it's FIRST? What if one of the PC's is elected to that post, and must thwart the GREAT FIEND EVIL FROM BEYOND SPACE AND TIME (e.g.: a tiefling with the numbers filed off)?

by doing whatever it takes to ensure that my players don't grow faster than the plot hooks they've generated can support them....it is about keeping their growth in line with their storyline - a storyline that they are developing.... I don't want the players to redefine certain things in my campaign

This seems backwards to me, but it might just be a different philosophy. I think it's my *job* as a DM to provide plot hooks that can support the characters. I'm not tied to a specific level range. If my PC's are level X when they need to face the BBEG, I'll make sure that the BBEG is X+2. I let the mechanics help tell the story, but I never let them get in the way of it.

If they're developing the storyline, why can't the storyline adjust to their development? Why do they *have* to take on this particular aspect of the story at this particular level? Shouldn't they be able to take on whatever aspect of the story they go to at whatever particular level they're at?

If they choose to try to redefine certain things in your campaign, isn't stopping them making sure that they don't develop the story line?

 

[S'mon]

One thing I've noticed is that once you get up around 11th-12th level, things go from "too easy" to "too hard" because the players always equate enthusiasm with capability.

I very much noticed this in my last campaign, which started around 5th/6th level. The first 5-6 levels went fine (and very fast), but once we were up around 11th-12th everything was either trivially easy or the PCs were getting slaughtered. The worse it got, the more PCs died, the longer they were stuck at these not-fun levels. It became extremely frustrating. I don't think this is an uncommon experience, judging by comments I've seen on the modules designed for this level (eg City of the Spider Queen, later part of Temple of Elemental Evil, etc). I think the 1e paradigm where 9th level PCs were retiring from dungeon-crawling to develop baronies, thieves' guilds, wizard schools, temples etc actually worked far, far better than 3e's attempt at Diablo-style endless dungeoneering. And this is a good reason, if you like dungeon crawls, to start low level and not speed through the single-digit levels waiting for the 'good stuff'.

 

[S'mon]

I'll stand by my previous assertion that it's not that hard to adjust your encounters to fit the party's level.

Mechanical adjustments are not difficult, but then you get the "12th level bandits with half-baatezu half-dragon bandit chief taking over small village" effect - the numbers may be high, but it's still a low-level plot. I'm pretty contemptuous of this kind of high-level-crunch low-level-plot scenario, especially as a published scenario. It offends my suspension of disbelief, it makes the players feel that their achievements are pointless since they're still doing the same stuff they were doing at 1st level, and the crunch makes it much harder to GM than a low level scenario without any increased payoff in drama or interest.