Too fast! Too fast!

[Quasqueton]

A method we use in my campaign keeps the PCs leveling no faster than every 4 game sessions.

I award no more than 1/4th what they need for the next level at the end of a session. The remainder go in a "bank" for awarding when a game session is light on the challenges.

For instance:

At 5th level, the PCs need 5,000 xp to reach 6th level. So if they have lots of challenges in a game session, gaining say, 2,000 xp, I award them only 1,250 xp (1/4th of 5,000). The remaining 750 xp go in the bank. If they have a "slow" game next session, earning only 200 xp, they get the 200 plus the 750 in the bank, for a total of 950 xp that session.

It keeps the rate of leveling nice and smooth. And when they have xp in the bank, they don't feel like every game session has to be a big series of battles. They can have the slower sessions and still get xp. And they know they still have to actually earn the xp.

Quasqueton

 

[kreynolds]

My own personal experience has shown that dungeon crawling, especially in a big dungeon, can level up a party fast. But as others have pointed out, the higher level games I run have a lot more roleplay than combat, a ratio as of late of about 85/15, if not 90/10, respectively. The higher level my games get, the less combat you get into, but the combat becomes really frickin' deadly. At this point in my CotSQ campaign, which has taken on a life of its own and blown itself way beyond the proportions that I had planned for, combat is no longer a 50/50 shot, but more like 30/70, with the odds stacked in the favor of the bad guys if the players don't put some thought into what they're doing. Nowadays, my players level on average about every three to four decently long sessions.

 

[0-hr]

My experience has been that the low levels (1-5) go really fast - a level a session being not unheard of. Then it slows for the mid range, and even more so at the high end - five to six sessions per level for level 15+ being the norm.

I can't really say why, but that's the way the few campaigns I've been through have gone.

Since I tend to dislike the game beyond 10th level, I have to make rather short story arcs

 

[Shazman]

In my experience, leveling slows down around 6th level. My group just finished up a two year 3E campaing, and the highest level character was only 13th level. Of course we had a large party and only played about twice a month, so this greatly added to the leveling slow down. We also took a total of a couple months off of the campaign. It would literally take 3 to 4 months of real time to get one level. It was a lot of fun, but the slow leveling and lack of necessary magic items was frustrating at times.

 

[tennyson]

So your players are having 11 or so encounters a session? No wonder they're going so fast.

You might want to try having more non-combat encounters and a bit more roleplaying. That'll slow things down nicely.

Actually, we do a lot of role-playing, and last 7-hour session there were only three battles. Although I do give out just as much XP for roleplaying....maybe it's the sheer length of time we play that equates to the large XP. ::shrugs:: It's good to hear about the leveling slowing down. Even if it gets to 2 sessions per level, that will be enough time for me to develop a lengthy story.

 

[jgsugden]

Some other helpful ideas:

1.) Trim the campaign a bit so that the main storyline gets played out faster. I had to do this in my first 3.0 campaign.

2.) Try throwing some weaker foes at the PCs. Some battles should be a breeze. It helps them lower their guard. If a single kobold walks up to them in a swamp and they've faced nothing but tough encounters for the past 8 sessions, they'll expect a trap. If that same kobold walks up to them when they've run into a number of weak encounters mixed amongst the strong ones, they'll be less likely to suspect that he is actually a powerful sorcerer. This is an excellent way to keep experience down.

3.) Give them ways to use their experience other than for leveling. Having them all work together (and donate experience together) while making a magic item needed for a quest. I wouldn't overuse this idea, but used once or twice in a campaign, the idea can be a handy way to keep the PCs at a certain level for an extra adventure.

4.) Throw longer battles at your PCs. Mix in some foes with less offense and more defense. A single foe with a lot of hit points, a lot of armor, good DR, good resistances, good SR and good saves can drain a lot of party resources, even if it lacks a strong attack. I have giant worms in my game that are really hard to take down, but deal little actual damage unless the ingest you. The players have not figured out that I use them primarily to reduce their resources before an interesting battle in which they are vastly more powerful than their foes.

5.) Just give out less experience without telling the players. They'll never know the difference between 100% experience and 75% experience. If they do manage to call you on it, just tell them: "Appearances can be deceiving. Some of the encounters that you faced were not what they appeared." Not only will it cover your subterfuge, it will also make them paranoid that every encounter is actually an illusionist screwing with their heads.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Actually, we do a lot of role-playing, and last 7-hour session there were only three battles. Although I do give out just as much XP for roleplaying....maybe it's the sheer length of time we play that equates to the large XP. ::shrugs:: It's good to hear about the leveling slowing down. Even if it gets to 2 sessions per level, that will be enough time for me to develop a lengthy story.

Are ALL of your sessions 7 hours long?

Still - you're running at 1 equal CR encounter every 40 minutes, which to me seems fairly rapid.

 

[kreynolds]

I remember the good-ol'-days when all of our sessions (back when I was just a playa') were between 11 and 16 hours. Don't have the time for that anymore, and now that I'm DMing (almost exclusively), I don't have the energy for it either.

 

[KarinsDad]

Actually, we do a lot of role-playing, and last 7-hour session there were only three battles. Although I do give out just as much XP for roleplaying....maybe it's the sheer length of time we play that equates to the large XP.

I do not think the length of time is the issue.

We play 7 to 8 hours every Sunday.

In 8 sessions (~60 hours), our PCs went from level 2 to level 5 (just got to level 5 the middle of last Sunday). In that timeframe, we have had over 20 combats (but more than half of those were smaller quick ones).

The 8 or so major combats have all been with either single creatures with a lot more hit dice/levels, or with larger groups of creatures where the PCs have higher levels than most of the creatures, but there has almost always been a few NPCs of higher level than the PCs (typically, these encounters have the NPCs outnumbering the PCs as well as having a few NPCs of higher level).

5 of the NPCs have escaped from the various combats and came back for seconds (2 of those escaped a second time and decided to not come back for thirds).

Actually, I was surprised when I just totaled it up. I was thinking that we averaged about 2 combats per 7-8 hour session (one major, one minor), but it is closer to 3 (one major and two minor).

The major combats average about 2+ hours of gaming, the minor ones average maybe 15 to 30 minutes. So, I guess that puts us at about 40% combat, 60% everything else (mostly roleplaying, problem solving, and exploring).

 

[Nine Hands]

Heck, I bailed the whole experience system practically. I just hand out a set amount of experience for showing up and then each action die I hand out gives them 25 x thier level in XP. Leveling has slowed down pretty fast. The good thing is if I feel that they are working well as a group, I hand out 1 action die per player, which gives me the same amount and I proceed to keep beating on them

Hi Everyone,

My group and I have been playing 3E since its release, and now 3.5. On average, we play once every two weeks for about 7 hours.

We've started a new campaign and are coming up on the 8th session next week. The problem is (and it's something that I know has been discussed here before) is the rate of leveling. I'm using the formulas from the DMG for experience, and my players are already lvl 6 (not to mention, two of them are PCs with level adjustment +1).

It's not that I want to "keep them down", but they are advancing far faster than the storyline. At this rate, they will be epic characters by the time the main plot is half finished.

Does the leveling slow down after a certain point? How have you handled these situations? Sorry for rehashing an old subject, but I couldn't seem to find any related topics from the past.

Thanks!