How fast do your characters advance in level?

[xnosipjpqmhd]

Check this out and ask me questions if you need to. Note that the first three columns are guestimates of what the PC's will encounter in a session. If you change these numbers then the estimated total XP for the session and how many sessions it will take for them to level will change too.

Ah, I see. The gradually increasing # of sessions/level looks nice.

So a distilled formula you could (potentially) do in your head might be:
Minor scenes = 40 + (average party level x 20)
Average scenes = 90 + (average party level x 30)
Major scenes = 140 + (average party level x 40)

A tad more complicated than I was hoping, but still doable, I guess.

ironregime

 

[The_Gneech]

Well, in my current game, I have three basic priorities:

1. Finally, after 20+ years of gaming, to run a campaign from 1st level to high-level play.
2. Include as many of the "iconic" D&D creatures as I can (e.g., beholders, mind flayers, ropers, landsharks).
3. Get through the darn thing so I can get to the next campaign! (Not that I dislike my game ... but there are other things I want to do, and I'm impatient to get to them!)

To that end, I've been pretty generous with the XP; the characters have been levelling up roughly every 2 - 3 sessions. Since we only play a couple of times a month on average, and have other games in the mix, that ends up being a new level every 40 days or so. Not a bad rate.

Future games, I'll probably adopt more of a a "story challenges met" model than a "monsters slain" model.

-The Gneech

 

[loki44]

In the OD&D game I play in it took me slightly more than a year (about 25, 6 hour sessions) to make it to 4th level. It'll take about that long to reach 5th.

 

[Rel]

Ah, I see. The gradually increasing # of sessions/level looks nice.

So a distilled formula you could (potentially) do in your head might be:
Minor scenes = 40 + (average party level x 20)
Average scenes = 90 + (average party level x 30)
Major scenes = 140 + (average party level x 40)

A tad more complicated than I was hoping, but still doable, I guess.

ironregime

You've got the math correct but my goal is never to have to do more than simple addition. I just print out the XP chart (a single page) and put it in my gaming notebook. At the end of the night I add about 3-7 numbers, all of which end in "0". It takes me about 30 seconds to a minute to figure out XP.

 

[Odhanan]

I use the XP awards based on CR plus boni here and there according to this or that player's attendance, cleverness, role-playing and whatnot. The players usually level up every 3 to 5 sessions, depending on CRs. I think it's great, because it allows the players to see their character grow regularly. I started my current tabletop campaign with 3rd level characters and they reached level 9 at the end of the year. We continue this year from there, some with new characters, others with the old ones, with expanded story arcs.

 

[Arnwyn]

For us, characters advance in level about once every 6 sessions or so (wild estimate), with each session lasting about 7 hours (played once every 2 weeks). We award 50% XP for combat, no XP for roleplaying, and small ad hoc XP rewards for meeting objectives or story goals.

(Based on how we reward XP, I'd think we'd be a lot more of a hacky-slashy group than we are...)

 

[Tolen Mar]

I come from both sides of the screen.

In the game I have a PC in, we level roughly every 2 or 3 sessions, occasionally, only one session. The Dm gives us tougher than we should face encounters, is pretty free with XP, and we have leveled up rather quickly. Up until this summer, we played Arcana Evolved. I joined at level 8, and we ended at around 16. Advancement was slower in that campaign. Then our DM started us in Iron Heroes ([Pimp]Tales from the Ghostsea[/Pimp]), and we use marks as an alternate XP system. Basically, you get marks based on the creatures you kill, 1 is an equal Cr battle, you get fractional or no marks for easy battles, up to multiple marks for tough ones. You level when you hit ten. We are now 4th level, and we've only played for a handful of weeks.

In my game as DM (also Iron Heroes), I started out by telling everyone that I was going to be running things differently. I started out with deciding that I would level everyone up every 5 sessions. But then they said they enjoyed getting a little extra from tough fights, so I adapted the marks system. They average 2 marks a session (still leveling after 5 most times), plus or minus for easy or tough encounters. Been working well, though they still try to wheedle extra points out of me each week.

 

[genshou]

In my first-ever game, I advanced from 1st-to-13th-level in 2 years. My head hurts right now, so I'm not inclined to figure out the average number of sessions per advancement. In game time, at the lower levels our characters leveled up about every 2 months, and at the higher levels it went as high as a year between levels a few times.

One failing I see in the XP system is that it requires 13.33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 (and so on) encounters. I don't like numbers that I can't actually write out because they go on to infinity. I don't even like fractional values at all. So, in my games, I increase the cost of each level increase by 12.5%. Instead of taking the aforemented amount of time, a character who participates in 15 balanced encounters earns exactly the right amount of XP to advance.

 

[Hussar]

It's kinda funny, but, my rate of advancement has never really changed in any edition.

Currently I play 3 hours a week over OpenRPG. In three campaigns that I've run, advancement is about 1 level every 5 weeks. In my current World's Largest Dungeon Campaign, we just had session 15 and the highest level character is 3rd level, but a fair ways to 4th.

This has never really changed. In earlier editions though, I was known to bump in the odd xp whore creature like minor demons to give the players huge xp bumps.

It's a pace that I'm very comfortable with. The players get about a month at each level to figure out all the intracacies of their character and explore some alternative tactics and ideas. Makes the learning curve very gentle for some of my newbie players and the experienced players get lots of time to explore the personalities of their characters. Obviously, YMMV.

I did notice a variant xp system called the Sweet 20 System. You can find it here. Not a bad variant system for those who want to give more control over xp to their players. I might even institute this in my WLD game.

 

[Kid Socrates]

They used to level up every third session (we game weekly, about four hour session each time), but they've really slowed down lately as they get more handles on their abilities. One party leveled up from 10th to 11th right after session 14... we're on 27 now. (Since then I redid about five things in the system, so they have gotten a power boost.)

The other party has far fewer combats, and they last level about four sessions ago. They're due one after this next session, I believe.

I like to stretch the later levels out, so they have a chance to get used to what they can do.