Level Progression

[Bendris Noulg]

I'm still working on this. I'm running a no-combat (so far), solo Modern campaign, so all my XP awards are ad-hoc. I'm a fairly inexperienced DM, and I'm never sure what to award for a session that's heavy on the roleplaying and skill checks but light on the actual CRable "encounters".

I don't necessarily want my PC to level up at the speed of light, but at the same time, I don't want him to suddenly be 6th level without really having done anything. So how do people adjudicate how much good RPing, critical skill checks, dealing with people on a diplomatic basis, etc, are "worth"?

Well, the way I used to do it was to award Exp for 1 equal CR encounter if a night didn't offer any other rewardable experience. YMMV.

 

[randomling]

Well, the way I used to do it was to award Exp for 1 equal CR encounter if a night didn't offer any other rewardable experience. YMMV.

Essentially what I was trying to do - until I looked at the Modern charts that give 450 xp for a CR1 encounter. That's cool if you're playing with a party of 4 or 5, but when you only have 1 PC that's going to end up with some fairly fast levelling!

I've been experimenting.

 

[hunter1828]

Hmmm...I never thought about it before really.

Let's see here, the table top game is four years old.
4 years x 12 months per year = 48 months
48 months x 4 weeks per month = 192 weeks.

Now, we don't play every week, but I would say we probably did game about 150 of those 192 weeks. The average party level right now is 11th, so that works out to leveling up about once every 13 sessions.

hunter1828

 

[dreaded_beast]

I think it really depends on what your group wants.

For myself, I would really hate playing in a game that takes a year in real life to raise 1 level. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that, just my personal preference.

I have always been in the group "raise a level as fast as you can". The only catch would be that I want to feel that I earned that level.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

My husband and I had a brief discussion on how fast leveling up should happen. He says it should take 13 encounters at the CR level of a four character group.

I think that's a little too long to wait to level up. I always thought you should level up between 5-6 good sessions with an even mix up combat and RPing. Of course I've been accused of being too generous with my RPing XPs rewards but I figure if someone actively participates in the game, they should be rewarded for their efforts.

How soon should a group level up? I'm curious how other DMs do it.

Well, I'm not in a DM but in our group it varies depending on what goes on in the game. It could take 13 encounters if they are all relatively small, but sometimes, we take on things that are a little harder, and we level up faster.


I don't think you are being "too" generous if you feel that the IPs were earned.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Hockey mom?!?

Leveling every 10-12 SESSIONS?!?

Insanity.

 

[Nightfall]

What you want Illithids now on skates Tom?

 

[S'mon]

I like average party level to go up after 1 session per existing party level - eg 10 sessions for average party level to go up 10-11. Deaths are pretty common IMC so for individual PCs that might mean 4-5 sessions to level.

 

[Emperor Valerian]

Levlling every 10-12 sessions? Heh

I remember when the party I DMed levelled up twice after one session. Of course, as 5th level characters they had to face down a literal horde of beasties (um 60+ bad guys, not counting their giant vermin mounts) to do so...

 

[S'mon]

Levlling every 10-12 sessions? Heh

I remember when the party I DMed levelled up twice after one session. Of course, as 5th level characters they had to face down a literal horde of beasties (um 60+ bad guys, not counting their giant vermin mounts) to do so...

I've seen that in 1e - 4th level PC kills 10,000-XP monster - but not in 3e. Generally in 3e I won't award more than 1,000 x Character's Level XP for a single encounter, no matter how tough it is.

Re Randomling's query, for a 'small' roleplayed achievement I'll typically give around 300 XP to a single player, or to every player if it was a group achievement. For a 'big' achievement I'll give 1000 XP, either to one player or to them all. In a night's play I would aim to give at least 100 x party level XP to each player, unless they really screwed up, and average maybe twice that so a PC levels in 5-6 sessions. That's maybe 2/3 the standard progression rate, but I give at least full XP for regular battles; the group is bigger and has less than the four equal-CR battles/session, so less combat XP is earned than the DMG standard of 300xlevel per 4-hour session.