How fast do your PCs level up?

[Hussar]

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 know it's totally a personal taste thing, but, wow, would I not want to do this again. I've played in this kind of group and I find it very, very frustrating. In D&D, particularly, you need levels to accomplish just about anything. Spending a year of play time (which, for me would be about 130 game hours or so) just getting to 4th level is not to my taste.

Then again, I tend to see campaigns which last about 12-24 months at best, so, we shoot to tell the story over that period of time.

 

[Lancelot]

Varies based on the tier. In our games, we tend to level up after (on average) 6 combat encounters, 4 skill challenges, 1 major quest award, and 3 minor quests / traps / obstacles. XP split is about 60% combat / 40% non-combat.

In the Heroic tier, it takes us about 45 minutes on average to complete a combat encounter. So, about 8 hours to gain a level once you throw in skill challenges, roleplaying, etc. That's 1.5 sessions for us, played weekly. We'll make paragon tier in 3 months.

In the Paragon tier, it takes longer to complete a combat encounter. Not as long as 3.5e, but still pretty long. If the PCs are winning, a combat can be over in 30 minutes. If the PCs start losing, however, the combat can go 2 hours in the worst cases. Let's call it an average of 1.5 hours, because the roleplaying aspects also tend to get more complex as well. More rituals available, more NPC contacts, bigger and more complex plot themes. So, about double the Heroic tier overall: 16 hours to gain a level, or approximately 3 sessions. It usually takes us 6 months to "complete" the Paragon tier.

Don't know about Epic tier, as we've always TPKed at 19th or 20th level. I would guess some increase over Paragon tier, but probably not as much as the increase between Heroic and Paragon.

...and, frankly, that rate of progression feels just about right to me. I wouldn't want it to be any faster, and I'm not sure my players would want it to be much slower. 3 months of weekly games to hit Paragon seems good, and reaching Epic should feel... well... Epic. It should be something that demands a serious effort and a lot of luck.

 

[JamesonCourage]

There's a level up once every 30-40 hours at the lowest levels, and probably 40-50 hours at the majority of levels. At higher levels, it's probably closer to 50-60 hours per level up.

 

[Rechan]

Hmm.

Generally I prefer to not hand out XP numbers, instead doing the "You guys level up when I say to". It's fewer numbers I have to worry about, fewer numbers PCs have to track, and is more flexible.

But it generally boils down to say 12-16 hours (3-4 sessions) or when it's best suitable story-wise.

 

[wedgeski]

Honestly, I've never encountered a D&D player who would be happy being told when they level up. Every one of them enjoys tracking XP and cursing the DM for being 10XP short of next level at the end of the session.

But anyway, in answer to the question at hand: in my main campaign, the PC's reached 11th level at around session 60, so we're talking 5-6 sessions a level, or 20-25 hours. The players in that game seem very happy with that, and it suits the campaign down to the ground.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I try to create a campaign level range, where most of my players stay longer for the certain levels, normally 6th to 12th. Most NPC, villians and monsters will be within this range for the campaign, this is my design level. It promotes prestige classes and my vision of my game world.

Level 1 to 5 @ Normal EXP
Level 6 to 12 @ .5 EXP
Level 13 to 20 @ .25 EXP

 

[S'mon]

It looks to me (4e) like about 9 hours gaming per level on average, 3 3-hour sessions with ca 4-5 combat encounters, depending on encounter size - I have a lot of EL+4 or higher 'spike' encounters IMCs. My Loudwater group just hit 3rd after 5 up-levelled combat encounters in The Slaying Stone, plus various RP encounters; 3 sessions. My Southlands group just went from 5 to 6 in I think 2 big Spike encounters, though, 2 sessions.

The 4e DMG standard is 10 hours of play & 8-10 encounters per level, so in practice it seems very close to that time-wise, but with fewer encounters.

 

[steeldragons]

A PC levels up when they have enough XP to reach the next level (and has the GP to expend for their "training.") That's all.

["Not important to the thread discussion" Note: I generally do not require training periods of "in-game time" except for certain "milestone" levels....roughly-though varies by class- 4th (5th for mages), 7th, 10th. But the GP towards "leveling up" is still expended.]

There is no set or even "average" amount of hours or number of sessions. When you have the requisite XP (and gp), you go up.

Certain classes that may be inherently faster than others but for the most part, the rise of an individual character is completely dependent on how the player runs that character.

As always, have fun and happy leveling.
--Steel Dragons

 

[S'mon]

My Southlands group just went from 5 to 6 in I think 2 big Spike encounters, though, 2 sessions.

I got that wrong; they are currently half way through 5th after 6 sessions. It took them 5 sessions or about 18 hours to go up 2 levels.

 

[was]

around 11-15 for both played and dm'd