Level Progression

[Piratecat]

Levlling every 10-12 sessions? Heh

Yes. Sagiro does this in his campaign, too. It has changed the focus from "what new stuff can my character do?" to "what's going on in the world, and what can we do about it?" Those aren't mutually exclusive, of course, but people learn their abilities so well that they develop excellent teamwork. When levelling comes, it's just a nice bonus and not an end goal in and of itself.

Like I said, it's not for everyone, but it's provided us with an excellent long-term campaign.

 

[milotha]

Yes. Sagiro does this in his campaign, too. It has changed the focus from "what new stuff can my character do?" to "what's going on in the world, and what can we do about it?" Those aren't mutually exclusive, of course, but people learn their abilities so well that they develop excellent teamwork. When levelling comes, it's just a nice bonus and not an end goal in and of itself.

Like I said, it's not for everyone, but it's provided us with an excellent long-term campaign.

It's also been my experience that slow level allows players to become more familiar with their characters at every level and allows for effective party tactics and role playing. Many of the long term campaigns I've been in were slow leveling ones.

 

[Dave Turner]

Here's something from left field: why level at all?

Why not just pick a level that everyone's comfortable with and never hand out xp? Everyone's 12th level (for example) and the DM just runs adventures? For those who think that the journey is what matters, then this won't fly, obviously.

 

[Kastil]

The current party level in my game is 1-3, mainly because I had some people join on after the campaign has officially started. Most of the encounters I throw at them are going to be at least a CR2. Since I don't throw combat out every session (one of the reasons some of the players joined my game), I like the combat they do have to be a) challenging and b)something to make them work as a team. I have seven players currently but some tend not to show up every session (no xps for you!).

I like heavy RP. I like when players get into their characters. I reward them as I see fit. I know I'm not the only one out there that's mental on that fact. I play in a game that's heavy RP that started out at 3rd level. After 3 sessions (two with combat), my character went up.

If your group doesn't mind not leveling up for a year in real life, good for you. I would personally feel like a hamster on a wheel. All that work and I'm still in the same place.

And Tom....I live, breathe, and eat hockey. My son plays it, I play it with him. There's nothing like the feel of the ice when you first step onto it. :-D

 

[DragonLancer]

I think that it should take roughly 4 adventures (not sessions) to gain each new level give or take. Levelling in 3rd / 3.5 D&D is far too quick even at high levels.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My party levels up once per session. But I like it a bit fast-paced....and I don't have the 13 encounters/level formula, or use XP, either. We start a LOT of new campaigns.

Basically, I make sure to 'threaten death' once per session, and scatter in one or two 'mook battles' to boot. Then, at the end, the boss fight might kill a character or three. But those who survive find themselves remarkably more potent for it...

 

[Creamsteak]

Because combat in my games tends to be 20+ round affairs, and almost all encounters I run have an EL > APL, we tend to level up once every two-three sessions. We run lengthier than usual sessions though, 8+ hours. That's not going to be the case in what we've decided our summer campaign will be, though. Our summer game will be 1 session per week, usual lengthy times, but using Gestalt rules and gaining 1/2 xp.

 

[Nighthawk]

Personally, I think character leveling is too fast, but since 3E has been released, I have been in more playing groups than the 7 years previous to that. So, group continuity and longevoty are important, IMO.

That makes my view as one that the playing group should decide, or at least have some sort of input.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I like character leveling at every 2-3 sessions. After playing in a campaign for over a year and getting to level 12, that seems good. Slowing down leveling beyond that seems unnecessary, since you'd need to play for 2 years to break 20 anyway.

Though of course very stable groups that can play together for years and years may feel differently.

 

[Majere]

The group I play in does two fridays a month (7-8 hours sessions) and one sunday a month (12-15 hour sessions). We leel a about three times every 5 sessions. I think the largets award for one session was 7000xp per character to a 9th level party.
But then again all our encounters run well above APL, and sessions can be very combat based (that particualr session was 7hours of solid, non-stop battle, in which only 20 minutes of game time elasped). The DM also rewards "achieving" even if we dont fight one round of combat. The session before hte mamoth "rescue" attempt we spent the entire 7hours session scouting out the castle and formulating a plan.
The DM is pretty XP heavy because he likes to move the game forward and we dont play every week, but everyone is happy and we certainly earn the XP. In a high magic campeign, witht he right wand selection and tactics you can draw out combat and as such earn unusually high combat XP awards even going by the book.

Majere