Does it take longer to gain levels at higher levels?

[xigbar]

In most of the games I play, to save time for book keeping, you automatically save at the end of a significant part of the adventure. The portions would be longer and more difficult, to reflect that a higher level group is able to handle more strenuous situations. It SHOULD take longer to advance farther beyond already existing strength.

 

[Celebrim]

Here's a simple question about OD&D / AD&D / B/XD&D / RC D&D. (I imagine the question would apply to more recent versions of the game too; it isn't really a system specfic topic).

In terms of sheer numbers, it takes far more XP to level up the higher up a character goes. Using Cook's D&D Expert (1981) rulebook, consider a simple example: the Fighter. He needs 2000 XP to get to 2nd level, but 120,000 XP (!!) to go from level 8 to 9. Just looking at the numbers, it would seem rather obvious that it takes him WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY longer to go from 8 to 9 than it did to go from 1 to 2.

This really depends on the DM and how it runs his game. Prior to 3e, in most campaigns, far and away the largest percentage of XP that a player would earn would come from treasure. In campaigns however where a fairly large percentage of XP came from monster killing (say about half) leveling up would be very slow. So the rate at which a player leveled up depended in large part on to what extent the DM made treasure available.

At one extreme, the adventure paths of the day - Desert of Desolation, Against the Giants, Temple of Elemental Evil, etc. - had been designed so that sufficient treasure was available to ensure that the party would level up in time to face the next episode of the adventure path. A DM running players through these modules or emulating them - as was a very common practice - would very likely not see any change in the rate of advancement over time. In this way, the game would run as 3.X was designed to run by default.

But on the opposite extreme, a DM adhering to the random treasure generation tables in the back of the monster manual, and which was careful to take the advice in the pages of the DMG both in terms of not making treasure too abundant, discounting the XP for treasure obtained when the challenges were weak relative to player level, and of rarely placing treasure which was ungaurded and unhidden, would likely see a drop off in the rate that PC's leveled up over time starting around 8th level and then becoming even slower at 10th level both because of the increasing amount of XP required and because of the diminishing returns of an average encounter relative to the players. Just because you leveled up didn't make wealthy monsters automatically less rare, though of course lower levels of the dungeons and further reaches of the wilds were more likely to contain powerful (and hense wealthy) monsters. This same DM also probably saw a much slower rate of advancement across all of play, and if the DM was really strict and adhered to a very low level of play its quite concievable in 1e AD&D play not not expect anyone to ever level up (see math below). While I didn't ever play in a group where getting to second level was a challenge in itself, I can recall playing in campaigns where as you reached name level, you gained a new level roughly every 25-30 sessions. It was a big deal to level up once you were high level.

Somewhere in the middle would have been using the treasure generation and placement suggested by the random dungeon generator in the appendix's of the DMG. I typically played 'in the middle' as it were, and I never played in a campaign with truly strict exceedingly slow leveling at all levels even though the text could be construed at times to encourage it.

So, lets look at the math. Obviously, if the goal - like in an adventure path - is to ensure leveling up, that's easily enough done - just plop down the treasure and goodie bags. But the 'natural rate' suggested by the rules was very different.

A typical low level foe, like a goblin was worth on average 9 XP, or 11 XP if it had a missile weapon. It's share of the tribes treasure combined with its personal wealth worked out to on average: 6 cp, 16 sp, 1 ep, 0.4% chance of 1 gem, 0.2% chance of 1 jewelry, and 0.09% chance of 1 magic item.

The coins themselves are worth only a little more than a g.p., or 1 XP, but the jump between the value of coins and gems, jewelry, and magic items is enormous in 1e. To the extent that after fighting a tribe of goblins, most of the XP will likely come from a lucky find of those things (if they are present). One nice peice of jewelry will level up a 1st level party, for example. If the DM is using truly random placement, a single peice of jewelry is worth on average 3544.5 g.p. Thus, that mere 0.2% chance of a peice of jewelry translates to ~7 XP by itself - nearly doubling the expected XP for fighting a goblin. Working out the exact value of an average gem is a fairly complex problem I'd probably write a program for, but from experience I can say that its about 300 g.p. So the 0.4% chance of a gem works out to about 1 additional expected XP. Together with the vanishingly small chance of a magic item, we're looking at about 18-20 XP per goblin slain - about half in treasure and half in XP. For a party of six PC's needing say 7200 XP to get the thief to level 2, we're looking at slaying an entire tribe of 600 or so goblins just to get the first member of the party to level 2. Obviously, goblins aren't going to cut it as a leveling device.

A bugbear, for example, is worth about 120 XP (or 145 XP with a bow). The expected treasure from killing a bugbear is 120 cp, 52 sp, 37 ep, 29 gp, 6% chance of 1 gem, 2.4% chance of 1 jewelry, 0.5% chance of 1 magic armor or weapon. Not counting any mundane equipment like weapons that could be salvaged and brought back to town, that's about 149 XP for the treasure. So, while a 1st level party could hardly expect to face a large number of bugbears at a time, it would only take about 26 Bugbears to get enough XP to level up the 1st level thief.

The thing to note here is that in typical 1e play, Bugbears might be a foe you'd face as a boss monster type fight at 1st level, and still expect to be encountering (ordinary) bugbears as foes at 10th level when your game had gone 'epic'. You wouldn't necessarily be facing a diet of solely wealthy monsters like dragons, so typically your leveling would go by fits and starts as you found particularly rich troves of treasure. In fact, my numbers here are really obscuring just how fitful leveling truly was, because the random treasure generation tables typically resulted in feast or famine situations where one monster had nothing, and another monster has by itself enough XP via treasure to level up a low level party.

Just a few more examples:

Ghoul, worth about 83 XP for killing it; typical treasure: 173 cp, 67 sp, 48 ep, 38 gp, 10% chance of 1 gem, 4% chance of 1 jewelry, 0.7% chance of 1 magic weapon, 9.6% chance of 1 scroll.

Ettin, worth about 2720 XP for killing it; typical treasure: 1145 cp, 820 sp, 100 ep, 1960 gp, 35% chance of 1 gem, 16% chance of 1 jewelry, 8% chance of 1 magic item

Cloud Giant, worth about 5194 XP for killing it; typical treasure: 78 cp, 464 sp, 250 ep, 3821 gp, 143 pp, ~1 gem, 7.5% chance of 1 jewelry, 21% chance of 1 magic item, 7% chance of 1 scroll

Orcus, 63900 XP; typical treasure: 1050 sp, 375 ep, 2 potions, 40 gems, 14 pieces of jewelry, 2 potions, ~1 scroll, 70% chance of 1 magic item (not potions or scrolls) and possibly the Wand of Orcus.

 

[an_idol_mind]

My recollection is that going from, say 1st to 10th level, took a very long time. For most XP progressions, the required amount of XP doubled.

However, at a certain point, the XP progression leveled off and required a flat amount of XP to advance to the next level. But while the amount of XP needed for the next level remained the same, the XP gained from monsters and treasure continued to increase as the group fought tougher perils. So if you could get past the middle levels, you suddenly had an opportunity to level up quite quickly.

At least in 2nd edition, there were some oddities in progression, too...such as a point where wizards leveled up faster than fighters. That, balance-wise, made no sense at all.

 

[Celebrim]

My recollection is that going from, say 1st to 10th level, took a very long time. For most XP progressions, the required amount of XP doubled.

However, at a certain point, the XP progression leveled off and required a flat amount of XP to advance to the next level.

This is all true. However, it should be noted that 'leveled off' means needing ~250,000 XP to advance a level. Ranger required 325,000. M-U required 375,000. And certain classes - like druid - don't level off. It requires 750,000 XP to go from 13th to 14th level as a druid.

But while the amount of XP needed for the next level remained the same, the XP gained from monsters and treasure continued to increase as the group fought tougher perils.

Here's where the influence of the DM once again asserts itself. In AD&D at least, there were no official monsters balanced against taking the party past 12th level or so. Monsters where rated in difficulty from I to X (roman numerals), corresponding roughly to the depth of the dungeon you'd expect to encounter them on and the level of the party expected to be able to face them. There were vanishingly few monsters in the official books that could challenge a 10th level party, and even fewer that were a challenge for a 12th level party. Indeed, in a straight up fight, by 15th level or so most of the deities in the Deities and Demigods weren't impossible to defeat, and by 20th level almost all of them were disadvantaged if they stood toe to toe with the PCs. So, in order for the challenges to continue to rise up in power, the DM would have to invent challenges for the players approaching or exceeding what would be challenging to a deity. There were very few suggestions on how to do this in a way that was creative and interesting, and published scenarios are of little help in that regard.

Additionally, per page 85 of the DMG, the XP award gained by treasure taken from the monster diminishes relative to the challenge represented by the gaurdian. So while taking treasure from goblins, kobolds and the like might give you the full 1 g.p = 1 XP award at 1st level, it gives only 1 XP/20 g.p. taken if you are 10th level. So while its concievably possible for a party to advance from 10th to 11th (or 13th to 14th, or whenever this became possible) level by fighting Orcus (or equivalent) 15-20 times in a row, after that point the value of the treasure taken from 'mere' Orcus level challenges diminishes. Exactly when this tipping point were all the official monsters would be easy depended in part on how generous the DMs were with magical treasure, but by 12th or 13th level even parties with minimal equipment can overcome most challenges provided they have some spellcasters.

Companion and Master level play in BECMI is little better. While the challenges are theoretically supposed to scale up to that level, in my experience with play in modules of that type, they seldom really did so especially if your parties power wasn't dragged down by demihumans that didn't really scale up in power.

So if you could get past the middle levels, you suddenly had an opportunity to level up quite quickly.

The groups I was in considered 4th-8th the 'middle levels'. Name level and above was 'high level'. I never advanced a character past 12th 'for real', even reaching that point required more than 500 hours of play on that one character the time I did. Any character I ever played higher than 12th level was created at that level.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

Just like in 5E, old school players should WANT to seek out powerful enemies with potent abilities to prove their worth. Fighting bandits too often means you get chump change XP for your tabletime.

 

[Libramarian]

I am currently running the TOEE with 1e. My experience with Gygaxian modules has been that levelling does slow as the campaign goes on, but not as much as you might think. Early levels are slower in practice than on paper because of high character attrition and later levels are faster because the adventures are quite rich in treasure. It's pretty variable because PCs continue to get killed/drained right into mid-high levels. Most PCs IMC are 6-7th level. When one dies, I allow their replacement character to partake of the XP from the last adventure. A character has died the last 2 sessions, and my rule has allowed the replacement PC to come in at 4th level both times. So the top PCs are on a 3-5 session/level clip right now.

We're getting to the point where the PCs consider even gold coins to be not worth the trouble to pick up and pack. They get most of their XP from jewelry.