Magic, Power and XP, how fast is your campaign?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

About 2/3 average.

I award 50% of base XP for excounters, but have party story awards and roleplaying awards that increase that number.

We average about 700 XP per character for a six-hour session, with the highest session this far being about 1000.

Gold and magic are limited (though access to low-level potions is not). The party is 4th level average, about to make 5th, and has one +1 weapon and one other (unidentified) permanent magic item, plus some scrolls, potions, and a wand. Individual character cash assets vary; most of the mages are broke while the barbarian has about 400 gp.

Some of their funds (a rather significant amount) have been spent creating magical vanity items with no game effect -- go figure.

 

[jmucchiello]

I'd have chosen other if it were there. Right now we're experimenting. We have 3 DMs running short mission-based adventures in round-robin fashion. We decided that level ups happen after each second DM session. So two DMs get level 1, the third and first DM get level 2, then DMs 2 and 3 get level 3, etc. Based on the timing we cut reward output in half and that seems like half the DMG XP and GP rates. Since we meet weekly we expect to still go through 4-5 levels a year. Not a bad progression.

 

[diaglo]

...most of the mages are broke while the barbarian has about 400 gp.

Some of their funds (a rather significant amount) have been spent creating magical vanity items with no game effect -- go figure.

i'd have even more gps if the mages and druid didn't keep begging and spending from me.

 

[Gothmog]

I go the low magic/slow advancement route. I don't use the DMG XP per CR table though. Instead, I give story awards for certain actions instead of just killing monsters. Cuts down a lot on the slaughter-it-all twinkery. On average, the PCs advance about once per 4-6 adventures, with us completing one adventure per month or so.

And I have to agree with you Bendris, I won't run and usually won't play high magic games. Not because they are inherently poor, but because most of the time DMs just slap human stereotypes and mindsets on every monster and race, and it loses credibility quickly in the game.