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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9803091" data-attributes="member: 7006">I am a milestone DM and do not have a set formula or knowledge of how many sessions it will take to level up... because everything can change based upon how much the players end up roleplaying.  Especially in the early game sessions when we are setting up the campaign scenario, getting the characters all together as a group, and then the party finding their initial quest / story thread.Numbers-wise the game has been set up that if using XP and starting right in on a combat or two in your very first session... you will probably be able to dish out the 1500 XP (assuming 5 PCs needing 300 XP each) quite easily.  An Ogre, an Owlbear, a bunch of goblin types, and then the requisite "Quest XP" and you're done.  Move onto Level 2 and you're good to go.But if that first session involves the DM and each of the five players all individually roleplaying where their PCs are starting from just to arrive at the city where the party formation is taking place... 20 minutes per PC means more than an hour and a half in that first session and you only now have just created the party.  Then the party has X amount of time to speak to each other and roleplay and start finding who they all are as characters and their interactions amongst each other.  And maybe the group might meet the person who is going to be that first quest-giver and receive their initial job, but who knows if they actually start working on it that first session?  Then the second session a week later picks up where they left off... a good amount of time at the start of the session is the characters interacting with each other again to remind themselves all of who they are and what their quirks are individually and with each other.  And then they start in on their initial quest.  But when does that initial combat for that first quest appear?  And how strong are the enemies the group is going to be facing XP-wise?  Are they strong enough to make me believe they should level up right after it?  Or do I feel like they at least need to make some progress in that initial quest before I decide they've hit a milestone to warrant it?If we look at something as simple as Lost Mines of Phandelver (using the version given out for free on DDB)... the adventure starts with the party already on the road heading towards Phandalin when they come upon the dead horses in the road, explore the area, and then get attacked by four goblins worth 50 XP each (but let's make it 5 goblins because I've been using 5 PCs as my example).  After the fight there's then all the RP as the group loots the bodies, decides what to do with their wagon and the bodies of the dead horses, and then hikes into the woods heading to the Cragmaw hideout.  They make their way past two goblins traps and then arrive at Cragmaw where the module grants the party 75 XP each as quest XP and completes a story milestone.  So XP-wise they haven't actually earned enough to level to 2 (having only earned 125 XP out of 300), but milestone-wise they come out ahead of the game.  The question though is how many sessions did this take to reach this point?  How much RP was spent back at the beginning of the adventure?  Did we just start in media res already on the road like the adventure sets up, or did we actually go through all the roleplay of gathering the party members together and introducing them all in Neverwinter and then finding Gundren Rockseeker to get the quest from him, and then finally starting off on the road heading south?  All that could change just how far along we get and thus how many session it takes to finally get up to Cragmaw Hideout and in theory earn that story milestone.  Maybe one session... maybe 2... maybe 3 (depending on the amount of character development and dithering the players go through, plus how many hours each session actually runs.)  All that to just reach 125 XP gained (if we use the adventure's distribution) or a story milestone (if we use the adventure's breakpoint.)  Which means that some DMs who use XP won't even level the party up then yet because they still haven't earned 300 XP per PC... and some milestone DMs mind thinking just arriving at Cragmaw isn't enough of a story break and will wait until the Hideout is completely cleared before awarding the milestone and the level up to 2.  And who knows how many session it could take to complete the Hideout as well.Thus to my mind there are way too many variables to really determine any set pattern as to what is standard or proper leveling speed and how many sessions it might take... even when it comes to finding the breakpoints in the adventure to set my milestones.</blockquote>

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