Tyler Dunn
Explorer
How long should it take in game for a party of adventurers to go from level 10-20?
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D&D 5E How long to go from level 10-20 (In game time)?
- Thread starter Tyler Dunn
- Start date
Depends on the type of campaign you want to run. I had a party go from level 10 to level 18 in about three months game time, because they were on an epic quest to stop Lolth from pulling the world into the Abyss. In a different type of game, it might take years or even a decade.
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
About three years for our main game.
But, yeah, it is totally dependent on the game factors, time off, etc. There really isn't a right answer other than "it takes as long as it takes."
But, yeah, it is totally dependent on the game factors, time off, etc. There really isn't a right answer other than "it takes as long as it takes."
Flamestrike
Legend
After 11th level the amount of XP you need to level decreases.
You need 21,000 xp to hit 11th level.
To hit 12th you only need 15,000. To hit 13th you only need 20,000. To hit 14th level, another 20,000.
It's only when advancing to 15th level does your XP needed hit 25,000, increasing by 5,000 per level there after in a linear fashion.
Importantly over those levels 12-14, your XP 'yield' increases (as you're fighting higher CR creatures, with an ever increasing XP budget, in addition to needing less XP to advance), so thoe levels 12-14 go past surprisingly quickly.
When you hit 15 level and your XP needed finally rises to 25,000, your average XP yield from a Hard encounter is nearly twice as much as it was at 11th level (so you advance from 14th to 15th level nearly twice as fast as you did to get from 10th to 11th level). This pattern largely continues till you hit 20th.
In practical experience (having DM'd a campaign to 20th plus, using roughly 4-6 or so 'Hard' encounters per adventuring day as a median, and with 6 hour average session lengths) it's roughly:
A longish (6 hours) session with a reasonable amount of combat at 1st level can get you all the way to level 3 in a single session.
You need 21,000 xp to hit 11th level.
To hit 12th you only need 15,000. To hit 13th you only need 20,000. To hit 14th level, another 20,000.
It's only when advancing to 15th level does your XP needed hit 25,000, increasing by 5,000 per level there after in a linear fashion.
Importantly over those levels 12-14, your XP 'yield' increases (as you're fighting higher CR creatures, with an ever increasing XP budget, in addition to needing less XP to advance), so thoe levels 12-14 go past surprisingly quickly.
When you hit 15 level and your XP needed finally rises to 25,000, your average XP yield from a Hard encounter is nearly twice as much as it was at 11th level (so you advance from 14th to 15th level nearly twice as fast as you did to get from 10th to 11th level). This pattern largely continues till you hit 20th.
In practical experience (having DM'd a campaign to 20th plus, using roughly 4-6 or so 'Hard' encounters per adventuring day as a median, and with 6 hour average session lengths) it's roughly:
- 1 session per level for levels 2-3,
- 3 sessions each per level from 4-10,
- There is a big pause to hit 11th level which takes roughly 4 sessions
- levels 12-20 take roughly 2 sessions each to hit.
A longish (6 hours) session with a reasonable amount of combat at 1st level can get you all the way to level 3 in a single session.
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MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
Depends on how you handle leveling in your game. I've run campaigns where we have one 8-hour session per month and just level up for each session. So it would take 1.75 years.
Currently I'm running an XP for GP campaign this is also a bit fun house. Leveling can go very slow with no XP earned in 16 hours of play and then the party hits the jackpot.
When I did Curse of Strahd, I used a kind of milestone leveling using resource I bought on DTRPG that gave points for defeating important antagonists, exploration, finding various macguffins, and completing quests. That worked very well for that campaign. We played for a bit under a year, monthly 8-hour sessions, starting at 5th and ending at 10th level.
Currently I'm running an XP for GP campaign this is also a bit fun house. Leveling can go very slow with no XP earned in 16 hours of play and then the party hits the jackpot.
When I did Curse of Strahd, I used a kind of milestone leveling using resource I bought on DTRPG that gave points for defeating important antagonists, exploration, finding various macguffins, and completing quests. That worked very well for that campaign. We played for a bit under a year, monthly 8-hour sessions, starting at 5th and ending at 10th level.
jasper
Rotten DM
Hmm in Adventure League 10 to 20 days. Depending on the module.
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