How fast do your PCs level up?

[Virel]

IMC which is 1st ed AD&D w/2nd ed AD&D materials ie 1.5 hybrid w/UA, since the game restarted in 2004, we have played for 7 years. The highest level PC's are 17th, 2 18th and 1 19th. We played several times a week, then were down to once a month, then back to several times a month.

If a typical session is say 4 hours, we've had days where we got 12 hours of gaming in.

Last two months, 80 hours of gaming but not all of it is focused on the same set of PC's.

On average i'd say when playing two times a month...

4 sessions will level a high level thief/rogue
5 sessions will level a high level fighter
6 sessions will level a high level ranger/paladin
7 sessions will level a high level magic user
8 sessions will level a high level barbarina

is pretty close with the 1e as we played...rate based in part on Mentzer's comments in OD&D or Basic with frequency of play and leveling.

 

[Dice4Hire]

My face to face groups levels about once a month, assuming we did several sessions in that month.

 

[MINI]

I recently posted this in a private discussion with other Gms in a shared world but its fits this discussin nicely about how I think progression should go up through level 10. Hope it adds to the discussion.

**The word encounter below is used loosely to mean a trap, puzzle or combat encounter**

Level 1 (1000 XP): goal is to complete in two sessions or absolutely by a third session with some XP towards 2nd level also being earned. There would be at least 2-4 encounters in the two sessions as well as story XP that should be enough to earn about 500 XP per session.

Level 2 (2000 XP): goal is to complete in 3 sessions with a possible fourth that earns some XP towards 3rd level. Average XP after 3-4 sessions that would include 6-8 encounters plus story XP would be 600-750 XP each session.

Level 3 (2000 XP): goal is to complete in 3-4 sessions with possible XP towards 4th level. Average XP for the 3-4 sessions would be 600-750 XP each session.

This allows the characters to surpass low level in 8-11 sessions (no later than 3 months assuming weekly sessions).

Level 4 (3000 XP): goal is to complete in 4-5 sessions with possible XP towards 5th level. Average XP for the 4-5 sessions would be 600-750 XP each session.

Level 5 (4000 XP): goal is to complete in 4-5 sessions with possible XP towards 6th level. Average XP for the 4-5 sessions would be 800-1000 XP each session. These sessions would include 8-10 encounters/traps/puzzles.

Level 6 (5000 XP): goal is to complete in 5-7 sessions with possible XP towards 7th level. This would include 10-14 encounters and XP would range from 725-1000 XP per session.

Level 7 (6000 XP): goal is to complete in 6-8 sessions with possible XP for 8th level. This would include 12-16 encounters and XP would range from 750-1000 per session.

Level 8 (7000 XP): goal is to complete in 7-10 sessions with possible XP for 9th level. This would include 14-20 encounters and XP would range from 700-1000 XP per session.

Level 9 (8000 XP): goal is to complete in 8-11 sessions with possible XP towards 10th level. This would include 16-24 encounters and XP would range from 750-1000 per session.

This would make for a name level character within 38-52 session or 1 year (if playing weekly).

Giving as much XP as is required will be a lofty goal in four hours of play, particularly if encounters are not yielding enough XP. DM is to be sure encounters are difficult enough. Remember a 500 XP session reuires you give (500* #players) per session so with 6 players thats 3000 XP per session. this can be done with attendance XP, story awards, encounter awards, individual XP and perhaps even by awarding XP for gold and items earned. The idea is if pace and progression stay up the game will remain exciting, interesting and ever changing. Players enjoy building their characters and they can't do it if their progression is stagnant.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Since about half way through our 3E/Arcana Evolved run, and all of our 4E, it has been mainly me eyeballing it. However, I have a fairly decent feel for what it would have been had I tracked the XP, and attempt to get it close to that. If they are a little short after a long session and successful adventure, I tell them to go ahead and level. Likewise, if they are a bit over midway through an 8 hour session, we don't level until the end. It evens out.

If the players are getting after it, that is two all-day sessions, or about 16 hours (give a take a couple). If they are lagging or we are otherwise fooling around, it might take as many as 20-24 hours. We don't care as long as we are having fun. We cycle back and forth between the two somewhat regularly. So call it 20 hours per level.

The first three years running 3E by the book, it took about the same amount of game time to level. If you can get essentially the same result with less accounting, we aren't invested in watching the XP number on the page go up.

 

[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.

Where I design each campaign with the intent that it'll last the rest of my life, knowing it won't; and more realistically shoot for 10 years - which having gone 2-for-2 so far (see sig.) I now know I've a reasonable chance of achieving.

As for needing levels to accomplish things, I suppose it depends what you want to accomplish.

Lan-"if you can't storyboard your campaign 5 years out, keep adding stories until you can"-efan

 

[SoulsFury]

My tabletop game, 4-5 hour sessions per week for 7 months made it to just at level 11. So one level every 3 sessions. Worked pretty well. My PBP game has made it from 1-5 in 9 months and everyone seems to be happy with that progression. I think leveling depends on the group. I've read about some of the guys doing 20 year campaigns on the forums and I couldn't imagine only playing one campaign that long.

 

[Anselyn]

Given the variety of replies here...

Do any of the posters so far consider themselves to be using RAW to give their advancement rate? Or are the rule XP awards just more honuored in the breach than the observance.

 

[Hussar]

Anselyn -Again, going back to my World's Largest Dungeon campaign, mostly because that's been one of my most successful campaigns- when I first started the campaign, I was pretty scrupulously RAW in XP awards.

After about a third of the campaign - say 5 or 6 levels, I realized that each region was taking roughly the same amount of game time and the PC's were gaining roughly 3 levels per region, which is what they were supposed to do.

Since it was working out anyway, I just ditched the calculations and started giving them levels every five sessions. I continued to keep track of Xp for a little while, just to see how close it was, and it was within a few hundred xp either way for the next two or three levels.

After that, I stopped bothering.

So, yeah, I used pretty close to RAW for advancement. At least in that campaign.

 

[S'mon]

Given the variety of replies here...

Do any of the posters so far consider themselves to be using RAW to give their advancement rate? Or are the rule XP awards just more honuored in the breach than the observance.

I'm very close to RAW, with a teeny bit extra XP, which is probably why my 4e advancement rate in hours per level is typically an hour or so quicker than 4e's standard 10 hrs/level.

 

[the Jester]

I'd estimate... 24 hours per level?

Approx. 3 sessions of 8 hours each.

I might be overestimating, though- I suspect it's actually a little quicker than that, as most of our sessions come in below 8 hours by a touch.