Level Advancement Rate in 3e

[cbatt]

In the recent <a href="http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/ps/ps20020906a">Wizards Personality Spotlight with James Wyatt and Rich Baker</a> there is this following passage:
<blockquote>
<b>Wizards: Based on the timeline you offer in the introduction, you seem to anticipate the adventure might take as much as two months’ game time to play out. What challenges does an adventure covering that much time present?</b>

<b>James:</b> The biggest one is the problems involved in allowing characters a chance to spend their ill-gotten gains. Beyond that, you need to allow for events to progress beyond the immediate surroundings of the PCs, which is what that timeline is there for. It’s possible that if characters take too much time getting to the conclusion of the adventure, things could go very badly for the world at large. And it’s important for the players to realize that -- so they know that what they’re doing is important.
</blockquote>
The adventure being discussed is "City of the Spider Queen" and from what I know, it takes PCs from 10th to 18th level. Judging by the above quote, that's 8 levels in 2 months of <i>game</i> time. Extrapolating from that statement, it takes 5 game-months of solid adventuring to go from 1st through 20th level. Take into account significant downtime, and it seems reasonable to expect the average PC to advance to 20th level in under 2 game-years (even with the possibility of a few level draining encounters).

No, this <b>is not</b> a rant on "munchkins" or "power gaming" or whatever. I'm just really surprised by how quick that seems. I've been out of the 3e loop for many months now, so I'm wondering if this has become the standard rate of advancement in most campaigns?

Do you think that the Epic Levels handbook has played any part in this viewpoint?

Has it affected your game's advancement rate, if so how much?

 

[Crothian]

The first game in 3rd edition, we weent from 1st to 25th in about a year. However, that was averaging about 20 hours of gaming a week.

The only other game I've been in that was 3rd edition and went to level 20 took about 8 months. But that was designed to have fast advancement.

 

[sigfried]

1 to 20 in under 10 seconds

3E advances way faster than 2E or original recipie.

I've played in a few games now and I'd say average is a level per two sessions early on and one per three sessions after level 3. And those are 4 hour sessions.

In my primary campaign the characters just made 13th after about two years of real time, but in-game its only been 6 months! I havn't realy had any "down time" in the campaign and I dole out the xp in a very conservative way, but it realy seems strange that they go from average folk to uber powerfull in that time. In game it feels about right, they have a slowish progression, getting a bit better after every couple of violent encounters, but when you look at it on the calandar it seems kind of crazy.

The thing is the characters have had nothing but adventure for 6 months straight. That dosn't happen much in real life, or even most books.

The advancement feels about right in terms of the "game" as it keeps things changing and gives people frequrent rewards, but it seems wrong story wise.

 

[Alchemist]

The party in my campaign has played out about 6 months of in-game time over 6 months of real time, playing once a week for about 5-6 hours. They are a session or two away from 10th level now, and seem to be averaging a level every 2-3 sessions, very similar to sigfried's group. Mine has taken a couple of (in-game) months of downtime, including a month of churning out scrolls and magic items and a month long (uneventful, to their absolute astonishment) ship voyage. The rest of their time has been jam packed, no screwing around adventure. I think I might be a bit on the liberal side when handing out xp, but it dosen't bother anybody at our table. Next game is going to be harder and more expensive to advance in. That'll slow them down just enough to appreciate that next level.

 

[ForceUser]

If the advancement rate seems wrong to you, there are suggestions in the DMG to alter it. You can give less XP per encounter, or you can require downtime before advancing a level. Standard D&D assumes the player characters advance very rapidly, because WOTC market research discovered that a campaign, on average, lasts two years.

It really depends on the pace you set in your campaign. In mine, the characters must train before advancing, and if they want to multiclass, they have to seek out a tutor of the new class they want. I'm shooting for an epic story arc with occasional lengthy downtime periods coupled with madatory downtime for leveling. I want the campaign to develop over the course of many in-game years, so I don't want the characters to make level 20 overnight. Right now, at low levels, the PCs are earning full XP, but at an indeterminate point in the future I will probably scale that back to 75% XP, maybe even half.

 

[Katerek]

In the campaign I run the PCs (nine of them on average) are just now getting to 19th level. The campaign began in late 2000. We play about three times a month. That's in real time.

In game time it has been over 20 years. The characters were children when the game began. Now a few have children of their own that are almost nine years old.

 

[the Jester]

I feel that advancement in 3e is too fast, so I use a slightly slower system. Even so it's faster by far than old school dnd was.

The key, I think, is to have significant downtime.

Though that seems rare, in my experience. Most campaigns catapult pcs from one adventure to the next with no time for rest or whatnot in the middle.

 

[BluWolf]

I think one of the most important story tools overlooked by DMs is downtime. I know I have been guitly of it. If you don't build it in your players will very naturally run from mission to threat to mission until they are dead of the campaign falls apart.

I don't remember the research verbatum but I think advancement was based off the understanding that the average campaign only lasts around 6-8 months befoer it falls apart or restarts.

Keep in mind this is average. I would venture that our community would probably skew to the "aboce" average scale.

Then again, advancement is all about comfort zone and playability. Some of my friends hate anything under 6th lvl. Me, I'm just a lousy DM for anything over 12th.

 

[(contact)]

I think cbatt is asking about advancement relating to game-time, not real-time.

To answer your question, in my experience, PCs at higher levels will voluntarily take themselves out of direct action at the campaign level for months at a time to craft magic items, train followers, etc.

See my Liberation of Tenh Story Hour for an example. The primary PCs have abducated the spotlight to their followers and lower-level adventuring buddies while they take care of business. The campaign's timeline has not stopped, but the main characters are no longer interacting with it.

Make sure you use your own common sense when adjucating the time required to accomplish PC goals.

But yes, if you have your adventurers going from dungeon to dungeon, adventure to adventure, they might advance to high levels in a very short period of game-time. You can either A) run your campaign so this doesn't happen, and thereby protect your sensibilities, or B) change your sensebilities by changing your idea of what "high level" really means.

In other words, if a really lucky, brave, unusually competent and highly motivated individual can go from levels 1 to 20 in about 2 game years, what does that logically mean for your campaign world?

 

[Corinth]

I'll second this notion.

If you want time to pass in a believable fashion, then you've got to keep track of it outside of combat. Travel times, item creation times, healing times, etc. are there for a reason folks: use them, keep track of them and record them. The payoff in verisimlitude is well worth the effort invested, especially if you do it in small bits--bits that are easy to account for--as you go.