Leveling up with Milestones--how do you handle it?

[Lackofname]

The system I'm using (4e) assumes a level happens every 8-10 encounters. "In practice that ends up being 6-8 encounters, 1 major quest, 1 minor quest".

Now IME, a session generally only lasts 2 encounters (and by encounters really I mean Fights, because RP ranges wildly). If all the players are system veterans, I imagine could go 3. But with a benchmark of 2 per session, that's 3-4 sessions per level.

That said I still want to give a feeling of reward rather than "you show up and you roll your dice and you get the level handed to you in x time".

So I'm thinking maybe reducing Xp down to 1 point and 1/2 points, and then building that so the math comes out to 3-4 sessions.

Easy Encounter = 0
Normal Encounter = 1
Hard Encounter = 2
Session = 1
Major objective = 1
Minor objective = 1/2
(Important note here. I forsee more of these than normally ascribed, the equivalent of "you are tasked with cleaning out the rats from the basement, killing the rats is the encounter but the objective was to clear the rats" kinda deal, and so it's usually a 1-3 encounter task)

So in 3 sessions would be...
-6 Normal Encounters
-3 Session points
-1 Major objectives
-- x minor objectives
-- y for harder encounters
Equals 10 points + x + y

4 Sessions would be
-8 Normal encounters
-4 Session points
-1 Major objective
--x minor objectiv
--y harder encounters
Equals 13 points + x + y

The buggaboo is now figuring out what the target number for a level is, and determining for x and y. x and y are important as a budget.

Edit: I also realize I could just do this, but instead of actually tracking it, just level them up after 3-4 sessions period. The point is the players are seeing Xp coming in.

 

[Lackofname]

In one campaign, I awarded a level after a number of sessions equal to the next level (so 2 sessions for level 2, 3 sessions for level 3), capping it at 9 sessions for levels 9, 10, etc. That pace seemed to work really well for that campaign.

That's neat. It certainly gives a feeling of higher levels take longer, rather than it being a constant unchanging rate.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Whenever the players say "Hey! Shouldn't we level up?"

 

[Nobby-W]

You can vary the pace a bit if you want. IMO the sweet spot of 5e (for example) sits around level 5-10. You could level up 1-3 or so fairly quickly and then spread things about a bit.

 

[prabe]

I'm chiming in a little late, but I do level-up after the first session--because first-level characters are so flipping fragile; after that it's after some sort of major story-beat, so long as there's been at least one combat--because however much we might want it to be about other things, D&D is at its core about fighting things (and most of what people get for leveling up is about combat, and I want people to get a chance to play with the new shiny).

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I use slow milestone leveling, with each level taking a little more effort than the last. On average, I would guess that a year's worth of once a week play usually puts the characters at level 7 or 8, but that can vary.

Since I do sandbox campaigns with no inherent balance, there are no preset goals for the characters to pursue. I take into account the goals they have set for themselves, what progress they have made towards them, what clever things they have done, what things they have discovered, and other such factors. They can level without ever getting into combat, if that is the way things turn out.

 

[MarkB]

I use milestone levelling, but I also note and track the XP budget of encounters, and am mindful of how many XP would be needed to hit the next level. So I have an idea of roughly when the party "should" be hitting their next level if I were using XP, and simply let them level up once they come to a suitable dramatic point after having gone through roughly the requisite amount of encounters.

 

[aco175]

I mostly make things up with when to level. Right no, I'm following a module with some side quests that I created. A level of the campaign book recommends a PC level and I try to keep to that. I'm at the end of the campaign with the PCs level 12 right now. I will most likely level them to 13 just because I can scale the ending and giving them level 13 allows them to use the cool powers of 13th level before the campaign ends.

 

[cmad1977]

I just go by feel. I’ll also ask my players.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I would some day love to do a Milestone Level campaign with milestones set by players. It would be neat to have player-driven goals set up that reward them with a level.

I'm not sure how it would work concretely, though.