prosfilaes
Adventurer
In my current campaign, we theoretically play for 6 hours a week, and level up about every other session.
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How fast do your PCs level up?
- Thread starter Oryan77
- Start date
Smart ass answer -- One level at a time.
Serious answer -- I can't speak to how long it takes for higher levels as after 35 years of gaming I have never made it past 15th level nor have I ever DMed for anything higher than that.
However as it stands in a 4E campaign we take 3 or 4 sessions to level and that seems to work out okay for eveyone involved. These are 4 - 5 hour session and to be fair we probalby waste a few hours over the sessions with off topic stuff.
I am currently running a Zeitgeist campiagn and will be starting to run a Burning Skies Campaign after Christmas and I am looking forward to seeing what the level pacing will turn out to be.
Serious answer -- I can't speak to how long it takes for higher levels as after 35 years of gaming I have never made it past 15th level nor have I ever DMed for anything higher than that.
However as it stands in a 4E campaign we take 3 or 4 sessions to level and that seems to work out okay for eveyone involved. These are 4 - 5 hour session and to be fair we probalby waste a few hours over the sessions with off topic stuff.
I am currently running a Zeitgeist campiagn and will be starting to run a Burning Skies Campaign after Christmas and I am looking forward to seeing what the level pacing will turn out to be.
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Cerebral Paladin
First Post
Varies radically by campaign. I'm currently playing in two campaigns, more or less. One of those campaigns probably levels every 3 or so sessions-- maybe once every 12 hours. One levels ... maybe every 10th session? So once every 40 hours or so. The last game I ran covered roughly 20 sessions. The PCs who made it furthest leveled up to 4th level, so that's about 6.7 sessions per level, or maybe 20 hours per level. In the campaign that I'm setting up right now, I plan on having the PCs level roughly every 2 sessions (at least for the first 6 or 9 levels), so that would be 7 or 8 hours per level.
It depends on the campaign, and in particular on the goals of the campaign. If you're running a campaign that you want to start low and go high over the course of a couple of years, then you probably want to have a moderately fast advancement. If you're running a campaign that you want to last for 6 years and never go above level 20, then you need slow advancement. If you want to run a campaign that goes from 3-9 over the course of a decade... are you sure you want to have advancement at all if the PCs only level up once every 18 months?
I don't think there's a right answer. It's just a question of what works for a specific group and for a specific campaign.
It depends on the campaign, and in particular on the goals of the campaign. If you're running a campaign that you want to start low and go high over the course of a couple of years, then you probably want to have a moderately fast advancement. If you're running a campaign that you want to last for 6 years and never go above level 20, then you need slow advancement. If you want to run a campaign that goes from 3-9 over the course of a decade... are you sure you want to have advancement at all if the PCs only level up once every 18 months?
I don't think there's a right answer. It's just a question of what works for a specific group and for a specific campaign.
Ahnehnois
First Post
I shoot for every session, but usually end up closer to every other session. With a 4 hour standard session (some longer), I'd say 8-12 hours of play for a level.
My last campaign was 1-7 (I think) over 12 sessions in about nine months, so on the slower end of that.
I try to push the pace of character advancement for the same reason I push the pace of character development and plot movement: life is short. You never know how many sessions you have and it's important to seize the moment when you've got a good group together.
My last campaign was 1-7 (I think) over 12 sessions in about nine months, so on the slower end of that.
If you operate within the parameters of the advancement rules (which your post seems to assume), I suppose it would take a while. Many people don't do that. I'm one of those whole levels by discretion, and even before I did that I gave XP by discretion. That said, we do get a lot done; certainly enough to justify the pace of character advancement in my eyes.Oryan77 said:
I try to push the pace of character advancement for the same reason I push the pace of character development and plot movement: life is short. You never know how many sessions you have and it's important to seize the moment when you've got a good group together.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Man you guys all level up fast.
I can't put it in terms of hours played, nor for that matter in terms of much else for each individual character as they come and go. I also don't run the same party continuously - we'll play one group, put them on hold, play another party, then go back to the first, etc.
All I can look at is the overall average advance rate of the leading characters in the campaign. And over the very long term in my various campaigns it always seems to come out at - give or take - about a level a year overall.
Individual characters can and do advance somewhat faster, particularly at very low levels getting from 1st to 3rd or even 1st to 4th in a year is not unheard of. But after that things slow down; and if lots of characters die and get replaced (or just get level-drained) the average level can stagnate or even go backwards a bit; replacements always come in at the start of the party's lowest level.
That said, while it's nice to bump now and then it's not the main focus of play for us. It's more like a pleasant side effect.
Lanefan
I can't put it in terms of hours played, nor for that matter in terms of much else for each individual character as they come and go. I also don't run the same party continuously - we'll play one group, put them on hold, play another party, then go back to the first, etc.
All I can look at is the overall average advance rate of the leading characters in the campaign. And over the very long term in my various campaigns it always seems to come out at - give or take - about a level a year overall.
Individual characters can and do advance somewhat faster, particularly at very low levels getting from 1st to 3rd or even 1st to 4th in a year is not unheard of. But after that things slow down; and if lots of characters die and get replaced (or just get level-drained) the average level can stagnate or even go backwards a bit; replacements always come in at the start of the party's lowest level.
That said, while it's nice to bump now and then it's not the main focus of play for us. It's more like a pleasant side effect.
Lanefan
Pentius
First Post
One thing I've noticed as a big difference in leveling speed is quest experience and the way you handle encounter experience. The slower group I mentioned, we only got experience for enemies killed. If they fled, or were reasoned with, or anything that involved encountering them and them leaving alive, we got nothing. There was no quest experience, either. The group I'm running, were we just hit level 2 in 11 hours of play, they get full encounter experience if they overcome the obstacle, regardless of how they do it and whether enemies flee or are spared. They also get fairly liberal quest experience.
One group I was in the DM took the even harsher stance that experience only went out when an enemy died, to those who had damaged it. Our pacifist cleric didn't learn this until after making his character.
One group I was in the DM took the even harsher stance that experience only went out when an enemy died, to those who had damaged it. Our pacifist cleric didn't learn this until after making his character.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
It's complicated, but on a practical level I shoot for around 50 to 70 hours per level for an average intelligent adult player. The game only goes for about 10-12 levels at most, so about 100+ five hour sessions is what I usually shoot for. Of course, I can trim or add at the start for a particular group.
How fast does it take for any one player to advance a class level? Really it depends on each player because the means to gain class XP is all around them, but it is up to them to collect it. So like a lot of videogame RPGs, players can drag out the length or really surprise me with how quick and capable they are.
How fast does it take for any one player to advance a class level? Really it depends on each player because the means to gain class XP is all around them, but it is up to them to collect it. So like a lot of videogame RPGs, players can drag out the length or really surprise me with how quick and capable they are.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
double post
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