Is advancement in 3.X D&D too SLOW?

[Geoffrey]

More than a few people complain that characters gain levels too quickly in 3.X edition D&D. I always understood that the designers of 3.0 decided to make the game so that characters would typically gain a level every four sessions because their research indicated that most D&D campaigns ended after about 80 sessions. That way, players in an average campaign could experience all 20 levels.

But today I came across this: http://www.theescapist.com/WotCsummary1.htm

It's the Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary provided by Ryan Dancey back in early 2000, based on a market study conducted in the summer of 1999. Amongst the findings were the following:

The average number of D&D game sessions played before a "character restart" (i. e., the players rolling-up new characters) was a mere 15.4! Breaking it down by how long the players had been playing D&D looks like this:

Players who had played D&D less than a year averaged 8.8 sessions before restarting.

Players who had played D&D from 1 to 5 years averaged 12.9 sessions before restarting.

Players who had played D&D more than 5 years averaged 19.6 sessions before restarting.

Wow.

Even rounding up, the longest an average D&D player played any given character was a mere 20 sessions!

Given that, why didn't the designers of 3.0 D&D make it so that a character gains a level every session? That way an average D&D player (i. e., someone who abandons his character after 20 sessions) could experience the full range of 20-level play with a single character.

 

[vulcan_idic]

Based on some of the things I've read on this forum, I have a hunch the decreased number of sessions before restart may be exactly tied to the swifter leveling. I have noticed several users in several threads comment that they prefer lower level games and the avoid higher level games. It is thus possible that now they hit their restart point sooner due to swifter levelling. If this were the case further tinkering with that scale would change little but to abbreviate the restart point further.

 

[Coredump]

Players who had played D&D more than 5 years averaged 19.6 sessions before restarting.

Even rounding up, the longest an average D&D player played any given character was a mere 20 sessions!

[anal-retentive]
Even by rounding down, the longest average is 20. Rounding, up or down, of 19.6 is 20. The only time it makes a difference is for 19.5, then rounding up it becomes 20, rounding down it becomes 19.
[anal-retentive]

 

[A'koss]

Based on some of the things I've read on this forum, I have a hunch the decreased number of sessions before restart may be exactly tied to the swifter leveling.

Heh... I feel compelled to point out that you misread that completely.

The market research was done pre-3e, and the faster advancement came about because of this market research.

A'koss.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Given that, why didn't the designers of 3.0 D&D make it so that a character gains a level every session? That way an average D&D player (i. e., someone who abandons his character after 20 sessions) could experience the full range of 20-level play with a single character.

You cannot explore say a 10th level character's power over 1 session, I think a minimum 4*4hr sessions would suffice for a total newb. Too fast an advancement leads to accumulated character mismanagement where options are overlooked & underdeveloped, which can lead to a ridiculous situation where a 10th level party can't overcome an invisible foe.

You do need time to revel in the new power, even at 2nd level!

 

[Zogmo]

Easy come, easy go.

I've been DMing since 1978. Just like anything else gained too quickly or easily, a character that takes years to build is the character most deeply loved and wanted.
I believe there are more casual gamers now than ever before and their gaming habits are probably based much more on quick gratification than long term building of characters or even creating family lines within a campaign.
My experience is that a really good DM can properly set up a world and tell stories well enough so that by the time a character reaches 15th level or so, the player really feels he has worked, struggled, and suffered to gain everything that character has and becomes much more possesive of said character knowing that he actually earned every gold piece and experience point.
In the "Old Days" when there was mostly hardcore gamers playing we only had a couple books to use for rules and as a DM had to rely heavily on what I could make up and what novels I had read to create the world around the players. Perhaps there are too many supplements and books today and people aren't being challenged to be a great DM so the games they oversee are perhaps lacking in quality and creativity because they rely too heavily on the written words and fail when it comes to substance.

It takes even longer to get to high levels in my campaigns because I give only half of the experience points the books recommend while giving monsters the max in hit points. It's tough but I run a fair campaign and nobody's too worried about what level they are. We just game. And to this day I seem to have people I don't even know, who have only heard about some of the adventures, asking me to DM for thier group because the players back then and now feel real pride and attachment to their characters, they still brag about their accomplishments and not at all about what level they were or are..

If anyone is really too worried about their characters level and not the gameplay itself then go ahead and start them at tenth level or higher. It all comes back to how engaged the players are and them not wanting the session to ever stop. That's my experience.

Zogmo

 

[Li Shenron]

More than a few people complain that characters gain levels too quickly in 3.X edition D&D. I always understood that the designers of 3.0 decided to make the game so that characters would typically gain a level every four sessions because their research indicated that most D&D campaigns ended after about 80 sessions. That way, players in an average campaign could experience all 20 levels.

After having played several campaigns in 3.0, I can tell that IMXP characters usually level up every 2-3 sessions, assuming each session has about 2-4 encounters. That's due to the fact that the vast majority of the encounters are of higher EL (or combined CR) than the party. The DMG says that you'll level up every 4 sessions if you run 3-4 encounters with a monster of CR equal to the party level; but such an encounter does not happen often at all in our case, because it's too easy and we always want a challenging encounter.

I don't know if the same happens to others, but at least in happened so in all my gaming groups, and it seems to me that published adventures also follow the same idea.

The average number of D&D game sessions played before a "character restart" (i. e., the players rolling-up new characters) was a mere 15.4! Breaking it down by how long the players had been playing D&D looks like this:

Players who had played D&D less than a year averaged 8.8 sessions before restarting.

Players who had played D&D from 1 to 5 years averaged 12.9 sessions before restarting.

Players who had played D&D more than 5 years averaged 19.6 sessions before restarting.

I'm in the second group, closing up to the third, but I cannot say what's my average really. Sometimes we just stopped because more than one player dropped and we decided to remix the gaming group adding new players, and therefore starting a new campaign altoghether.

But definitely almost all of our campaigns have lasted more than 20 session, if you don'r count a couple of off-shot adventures which were supposed to be stand-alone since the start (and in fact never were a "campaign" really).

Given that, why didn't the designers of 3.0 D&D make it so that a character gains a level every session? That way an average D&D player (i. e., someone who abandons his character after 20 sessions) could experience the full range of 20-level play with a single character.

I find it that it depends not only on the player's style, but also on which kind of character they are playing.

If you play an iconic character, such as making a melee Fighter for the 4th time, or a character with a few choices (i.e. a Paladin), or whose all choices all concentrated at first level (i.e. a Cleric), or who has overall just a few tricks up his sleeve (i.e. a Barbarian), then you are probably very favorable about levelling up as fast as you can. Your Barbarian is always doing the same thing, therefore you need to get to the new feat asap to keep your game interesting.

If you instead play an arcane caster, it is very different. Of course even a Wizard wants new spells soon, but a fast levelling is not good if you want to play it with satisfaction. You may need to learn when and how to use your spells, how to get the best out of them, how to make them useful in unexpected ways, how to combine them into an effective strategy.

I am fond of arcane casters more than any other character, and in fact I always wish that our games were slower in levelling up. I may spend a few hours (between session ) of careful observation of the PHB spells just to pick up my 2 new spells per level. I do NOT want to level up again before I have actually USED them and verified if my choice was good or not, so that next level I choose new spells which also make up for my mistakes.

I have played about half a dozen arcane casters so far (both Wiz and Sor), so I already learned a lot about PHB spells. But since I try to make every character different, I still need a slow advancement to have fun with it. If I always played the same battle sorcerer, I suppose I'd instead want a faster advancement or it may be boring.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

That way an average D&D player (i. e., someone who abandons his character after 20 sessions) could experience the full range of 20-level play with a single character.

The problem here doesn't lie with the players, but with the DM - namely that it is b****y hard to write and prepare adventures for high-level PCs. Sooner or later the DM is likely frustrated with all the hard work it takes to write up all those high-level NPC stats, and that's when the campaign stops.

So in my opinion, if you want the campaign to last longer, slow the rate of advancement instead of accelerating it.

 

[S'mon]

There are several different issues.

Arguably, the time between level gains is too long if PCs aren't getting a boost every session.
However, that doesn't mean you have to go from peasant to demigod in 20 sessions. If the power gradient were shallower, PCs could gain something every session without totally changing the campaign.

Personally, I like frequent increases in power, but I dislike having campaigns always spend most of their time at high level, 9+. The levels around 4-8 are the most fun to play, IMO. D&D was originally never really designed for play at levels 12+, the AD&D level 6+ spell lists seem mostly for NPC opponents. The design decision I dislike in 3e was to keep the steep power gradient - actually make it even steeper - but change the typical campaign from 1-10 to 1-20, which means that for the majority of the campaign it's being run at what would previously be considered extremely high-powered, high level. Edit: Plus high-level 3e is actually far _more_ complex & harder to run than high-level 1e/2e! *sigh* :\

I would be quite happy with a game where you levelled up faster 1-20, but the difference between 1 & 20 was significantly reduced, so the GM can run the same consistent campaign setting and not resort to arbitrarily powered up dungeon crawls. Ideally IMO PCs should start at something roughly equivalent to current Level 3; and after (say) 20 levels, each with a boost, have power roughly equivalent to current Level 9.

 

[Bront]

[anal-retentive]
Even by rounding down, the longest average is 20. Rounding, up or down, of 19.6 is 20. The only time it makes a difference is for 19.5, then rounding up it becomes 20, rounding down it becomes 19.
[anal-retentive]

Actualy, Round up means to round up to the nearist integer, round down means to round down to the nearest integer, and round normaly means to round normaly (Down if below .5, up if .5 or more.)