So what's the speed of character growth, real time

[Von Ether]

In my longest 3.0 game, we went from 1st to 16th, with weekly game sessions, in about two years.

Has anyone played the game long enough to get the gist of how fast level advancement is with 4.0?

 

[Nifft]

I doubt anyone's been playing 4e for one year, let alone two.

Also, factor in different session lengths, different crunch to fluff ratios, different coefficients of social friction, different DM styles, and possibly even different degrees of player skill.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Verdande]

In my longest 3.0 game, we went from 1st to 16th, with weekly game sessions, in about two years.

Has anyone played the game long enough to get the gist of how fast level advancement is with 4.0?

About as fast as you want it to be?


I do recall seeing somewhere that the classes are designed so that you get a level every one or two sessions, but that obviously depends on the factors Nifft outlined above. Obviously, if you are a hardcore dungeon crawler, you'll level fast, but if you're knee-deep in talking to innkeepers and court intrigue, it'll take much longer.

 

[Otterscrubber]

In 4 weeks of play we are almost 3rd level. Not a large sample size for sure, but if that gives you any idea at all....

We seems to level faster as we get the combat system down. Our first session took us a long time to get 3 done. Our last session we were able to get in 5, and some of them were more complicated/larger than previous ones.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

In 4 weeks of play we are almost 3rd level. Not a large sample size for sure, but if that gives you any idea at all....

We seems to level faster as we get the combat system down. Our first session took us a long time to get 3 done. Our last session we were able to get in 5, and some of them were more complicated/larger than previous ones.

Well according to the DMG it takes about a half hour to start up and a half hour to end. So assuming that an encounter takes about 1 hour, a 6 hour session should get you through about 5 encounters. If you have one of those 6 hour sessions a week it will take you 60 weeks to go from 1st to 30th (with 10 encounters at 30th). In other words about a year and two months of real time.

 

[Engilbrand]

And that STILL feels like a long time to me. Then again, I've never really been in a long running campaign for more than a few months, even if it was really good. And once a week!? Not since college. I'm hoping to start an every other week this Friday. Following the formula just put down, that's going to be 2 years and 4 months to finish.
Damn...

 

[eleran]

In 4 weeks of play we are almost 3rd level. Not a large sample size for sure, but if that gives you any idea at all....

We seems to level faster as we get the combat system down. Our first session took us a long time to get 3 done. Our last session we were able to get in 5, and some of them were more complicated/larger than previous ones.

What are the length of your sessions each week?

 

[ForbidenMaster]

And that STILL feels like a long time to me. Then again, I've never really been in a long running campaign for more than a few months, even if it was really good. And once a week!? Not since college. I'm hoping to start an every other week this Friday. Following the formula just put down, that's going to be 2 years and 4 months to finish.
Damn...

I only play every summer and only then only on the weekends. It looks like this year we might only get to play two or three sessions. I really hope the D&DI game table works well, cause if it does it will definitely solve a lot of problems my group has.

 

[entrerix]

About as fast as you want it to be?


I do recall seeing somewhere that the classes are designed so that you get a level every one or two sessions, but that obviously depends on the factors Nifft outlined above. Obviously, if you are a hardcore dungeon crawler, you'll level fast, but if you're knee-deep in talking to innkeepers and court intrigue, it'll take much longer.

you don't give xp for talking to innkeepers and engaging in court intrigue? Thats where 70% of our xp comes from...

we only have one fight roughly every 3 hours of gaming

 

[loki1986]

It also states some were... i think the DMG, that the GM paces the game however he wants to. It tells you if you want the party to lvl faster because you do not play as often, or as i see it, only play in the summer or what not, you can double the XP given per encounter.

This is how i have always done it. If my players are really into playing there characters at higher levels, i will scale xp Dependant on how quickly i want it to advance.

So you can stick to the game as written, it can take as long as 2 years, or you can make it go quicker.