Leveling: Too fast, too slow, or just right?

[Kerrick]

I'm thinking about including level advancement tables for Project Phoenix, my 3.5 revision, and I wanted to get people's opinions on the levelling speed. In our current campaign, after 4 sessions, we're halfway to L3 already. I've heard many comments over the years that PCs kind of zip through the levels, not giving the players time to get used to their abilities and such before they get new ones and have to learn those too, so I was thinking of reducing the level rate by 50%. Basically, you would need 50% more XP to level up:

L2: 1500
L3: 3000
L4: 6000
L5: 15000

etc.

Comments?

 

[the Jester]

It's too fast for my taste- but then, so is every edition after 1e. (Even 2e had the individual award stuff, and we dropped xp for gp early on.)

 

[Crothian]

It was always too fast. I like more of a the speed of a level per month (4-5 sessions).

 

[Grazzt]

It's too fast for my taste- but then, so is every edition after 1e. (Even 2e had the individual award stuff, and we dropped xp for gp early on.)

This.

 

[Hereticus]

I'm thinking about including level advancement tables for Project Phoenix, my 3.5 revision, and I wanted to get people's opinions on the levelling speed. In our current campaign, after 4 sessions, we're halfway to L3 already.

In my opinion, the quantity of experience needed to increase level is not as important as how generous the DM is who awards them. In our game, we follow these guidelines...

At the end of each game session your character will be awarded experience points based on its accomplishments, such as good role-playing, kill points, clever conquests, and successful avoidances (rather than just hack and slash). If experience points are only awarded for kills, then characters see each creature encountered as an experience point value rather than a role-playing opportunity. Many of each player’s best D&D memories comes from witty role-playing rather than from reading off a list of creatures killed.

As a guideline, lower level characters (1st to 5th) should play about two game sessions per level. Middle level characters (6th to 10th) should play about three game sessions per level. Higher level characters (11th to 15th) about four game sessions per level. Upper level characters (16th to 20th) about five game sessions per level. Epic level characters (21st plus) five or more game sessions per level.

 

[Piratecat]

It's too fast for my taste, but I'm at the end of the distribution curve for leveling. My last campaign levelled every 12-15 sessions; my current ones level after every five (we play twice a month, so I'm shooting for 5 levels a year and a six year campaign.)

 

[Piratecat]

At the end of each game session your character will be awarded experience points based on its accomplishments, such as good role-playing, kill points, clever conquests, and successful avoidances (rather than just hack and slash). If experience points are only awarded for kills, then characters see each creature encountered as an experience point value rather than a role-playing opportunity. Many of each player’s best D&D memories comes from witty role-playing rather than from reading off a list of creatures killed.

I love this. Nicely phrased; sounds like the sort of campaign I like myself.

 

[Truename]

I said "just right," but our weekly sessions are on the shorter side (three hours), so it comes out to a level about once every 4-6 weeks. That seems in line with what other people are saying they want. Maybe the sweet spot for level advancement isn't based so much on XP but time?

As a side note, I've stopped calculating XP in our Scales of War game and just hand out the right amount of XP at significant plot points. It's made my life easier, and the players know they won't be penalized for coming up with clever monster-avoidance solutions.

 

[Oryan77]

I total the XP and divide it by half before giving it to the players. It seems just right when I do that. The normal XP system seems to level PCs way too fast.

The only problem I'm having lately is that the players spend literally hours talking about out-of-game stuff and the only time they refocus is when I throw an encounter at them. A lot of roleplaying opportunities have gone down the drain lately.

They started mentioning how long it's taking them to level up and I keep pointing out that they won't level if they keep talking about WoW.

So I guess if you want to make leveling take longer, you can always get your group talking about WoW instead of playing D&D. Then the normal leveling system will seem just right

 

[Treebore]

I'm thinking about including level advancement tables for Project Phoenix, my 3.5 revision, and I wanted to get people's opinions on the levelling speed. In our current campaign, after 4 sessions, we're halfway to L3 already. I've heard many comments over the years that PCs kind of zip through the levels, not giving the players time to get used to their abilities and such before they get new ones and have to learn those too, so I was thinking of reducing the level rate by 50%. Basically, you would need 50% more XP to level up:

L2: 1500
L3: 3000
L4: 6000
L5: 15000

etc.

Comments?

Too fast for me, then Necromancer Games suggested slowing things down by cutting XP awards in half, or just doubling the values in the XP table, and that is what I did, and I was much happier with how many modules I could do during each level of the PC's.