D&D 5E Help! My Players Are Leveling Too Quickly

[pontinyc]

New DM looking for some help. I'm running Rise of the Runelords adapted for 5e and so far all of the action has been fueled by a fair amount of urgency (solve the goblin problem before the next invasion occurs, etc.) Because of this, the PC's have reached level three in one week's time and in one or two more days (game time) will reach level four. My fear is at this rate, they'll ding level 20 in a couple months of game time.

This seems absurd to me as, for example, the dragonborn paladin with the soldier background who's been actively fighting in a war for the past three years (his backstory) all of the sudden has an unbelievable surge in his power by simply fighting a band of goblins and a few other monsters. I've hinted via their dreams and visions that it's possible that there is divine intervention at play on their behalf as I'm not sure how else to explain to them that all of the sudden they have a new understanding of their fighting, magical, and exploration abilities.

As a note, I'm using the milestone leveling recommended in the adventure as I don't have time to properly adapt all of the xp from Pathfinder to 5e. That said, I'm not sure what to do to contribute to the feeling that rising to heights of great power should be a slow and arduous journey.

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[ccs]

You could simply slow it down by doubling the # of sections (those parts where it says players should be/reach x lv at this point) needed to advance.

You could space the events in the module out time wise.

 

[pkt77242]

You can have breaks between chapter 1 and chapter 2 and again between chapter 2 and chapter 3 (well off the top of my head those breaks could happen).

The problem with slowing down progression is that the PC's won't be of adequate level to survive the adventure, unless more is added to the adventure.

I would also add that some rises to power are slow and arduous and some are swift.

There is a significant amount of encounters in Rise of the Runelords and their overcoming the challenges (mostly be killing other things) is what explains their rise in power. The best practice is hands on learning.


*Also as to the Dragonborn Soldier, most of my friends that served in the military say that you spend a lot more time waiting for the fight, or moving/traveling as part of an army than you do actually fighting (yes even during a war). So it is likely that the Dragonborn has had significantly more real fights in the short period of time of the adventure than during the 3 years of war.

 

[WaywardWaffle]

Here is an incredibly well written post by Keith Baker (author of the Eberron campaign setting) explaining leveling with PCs, or at least how he sees it.

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?505457-Eberron-What-s-Erandis-Vol-Been-Doing-For-3-000-Years

Hopefully this will shed some light on what to do there.

Edit: My bad, that's a good post that dips into it but here is the one I meant to link:
https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.ph...Doing-For-3-000-Years&p=11874207#post11874207

 

[The_Gneech]

New DM looking for some help. I'm running Rise of the Runelords adapted for 5e and so far all of the action has been fueled by a fair amount of urgency (solve the goblin problem before the next invasion occurs, etc.) Because of this, the PC's have reached level three in one week's time and in one or two more days (game time) will reach level four. My fear is at this rate, they'll ding level 20 in a couple months of game time.

(snip)

That said, I'm not sure what to do to contribute to the feeling that rising to heights of great power should be a slow and arduous journey.

Well that's the thing, if you're using the milestones, it by definition can't be a slow and arduous journey, but a breakneck ride from one end of the campaign to the next. The APs are designed to work that way.

Your only real option, as I see it, is to include some "filler" adventures between the AP stories to pad it out a bit.

Or learn to love fast levelling.

-The Gneech

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That said, I'm not sure what to do to contribute to the feeling that rising to heights of great power should be a slow and arduous journey.

That's the bigger issue, here. Some adventure paths simply don't lend themselves to this sort of endeavor.

In the game I ran, I added in mandatory training time between levels: no matter how much experience you had, it required a week of training to gain a level up to level 10, and two weeks of training for each level after that. It might sound restrictive, but that didn't stop them from reaching level 20 in just a year of in-game time.

I'm not sure how to adapt that to an adventure path, though. There's a reason why I don't run those things.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Here is an incredibly well written post by Keith Baker (author of the Eberron campaign setting) explaining leveling with PCs, or at least how he sees it.

Of course, it's also worth mentioning that he's talking about how things work in Eberron.

Eberron is designed to feel like a pulp setting. It's not actually intended to hold up to any sort of scrutiny.

 

[Flamestrike]

New DM looking for some help. I'm running Rise of the Runelords adapted for 5e and so far all of the action has been fueled by a fair amount of urgency (solve the goblin problem before the next invasion occurs, etc.) Because of this, the PC's have reached level three in one week's time and in one or two more days (game time) will reach level four.

The first 3 levels go very quickly. They're supposed to. You basically gain a level a session for the first 3 levels, and then it starts to slow down.

Check the xp chart.

 

[ad_hoc]

Levels in 5e are not all equal. This is by design.

For example, it takes 21,000xp to go from level 10 to 11 but only 15,000xp to go from 11 to 12.

The main part of the game are levels 5-10. Before level 5 characters are essentially apprentices. They are just starting to learn their abilities. After level 5 they can adequately represent their archetypes, have agency, and be heroes. After level 11 they start to become demi-gods and such. That is why level 10 is designed to take a long time.

In my experience:

levels 1 and 2 - 1 session each
levels 3 and 4 - 2 sessions each
levels 5-10 - 3-5 sessions each

This will vary on how long your sessions are and how much the characters get done, but the ratios should serve as an indication of how things go.

 

[S'mon]

My default recommendation is a 6 month gap between each Book of the Adventure Path. You can make it 3 or 4 months, or 12 months, but that is the sort of spacing that will work to give a reasonable feeling of time passing.
Another way to do it is to look at how long it took you in real time to play through a Book, then have that amount of downtime pass before the next Book. Eg if it took 4 months (about typical for me), have that amount of time pass. Occasionally AP books absolutely require that you go straight from one to the next, but this is actually rarer than you might think.

So for Runelords, after the end of Burnt Offerings have 4-6 months pass before the Skinsaw
Murders. Then have 4-6 months pass before the Hook Mountain massacre.