D&D 5E What Level is the Party after 56 Sessions?

After 56 3-hour sessions of D&D 5E, what level do you think the party would be?

  • 3rd level or less

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • 4th or 5th

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 6th to 8th

    Votes: 14 11.8%
  • 9th or 10th

    Votes: 26 21.8%
  • 11th to 13th

    Votes: 38 31.9%
  • 14th to 16th

    Votes: 24 20.2%
  • 17th+

    Votes: 15 12.6%

Castle Dracula (combat heavy, each level with XP = to levelup for a 5 man party): 3 to 13 in 23 sessions.
Against the Idol of the Sun (hexcrawl) 13 to 20 + 1 or 2 epic boons in about 40 sessions.
Baldur's Gate 2 (story/milestone progression with a lot of side trips, not tracking XP at all): 1 to 11 in about 50 sessions.
 

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I have an ongoing campaign that started at level 1, and just did session 20, and just got to 7th level. I do sort of fiat-leveling: The PCs go up in level when I think they've done a thing (or enough small things) to deserve it. I have another ongoing campaign that just did session 132 and the PCs are level 20 and in the process of coming to a confrontation with their nemesis (after which the campaign will end).

EDIT: The games I run are every-other-week, but the sessions last about as long as yours (OP's).
 
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My closest analogue is my Friday game. 5 players, 3-3.5 hr sessions. We hit level 12 starting from level 1 at the end of session 31. I don't think we'll make it to 56, but we've been on a pretty steady 3 session to level clip since the beginning. If that held up, we'd be hitting 20 right around session 55-56.
 

I voted 17+. 6 sessions to level 4 and probably 3-4 sessions a level after that.

I consider that a fast rate.

4 sessions a level would still get you around 12 and 8 left over for level 1-4.

I might slow leveling down around level 12 though.

1-3 2 or 3 sessions.

3-4 2 or 3 sessions.

4-9 3 or 4 sessions

10-12 4 or 5 sessions

13+ 5+ sessions.

Something like that.
 
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I usually average around 5 sessions per level or so when each session is one evening's entertainment. So 56 sessions would be around level 11 give or take.
 

I generally try to get the PCs to 2nd level at the end of the first session, and to 3rd level by the end of the fourth session. After that, things slow down some and advancement become more tied to the narrative.
 

I figured:
to 2nd level: 1 sessions
to 3rd: 2 sessions
4th: 3
5th: 4
6th: 6
7th: 7
8th: 7
9th: 7
10th: 7
11th: 8

So 11th level. That's about right from my experience. It's after level 11 that things rapidly accelerate thanks to the 5e's crazy XP curve at tiers 3+4.
It worked about the same for my milestone leveling games, though I ended up going back to XP after trying milestone leveling for a while.
 

56 3-hours sessions = 168 hours of play time or 42 4-hour sessions (the "standard").

Level 1 -> 2: after 1st session (4-hour session)
Level 2 -> 3: after 3rd session
Level 3 -> 4: after 6th session
Each level thereafter 4-5 sessions per level would be another 7-9 levels

For a total of 11-13 levels.

Now, that is calculated with 4-hour sessions, but the same overall playing time of 168 hours.

So, I voted 11-13 (like most others).

EDIT: in my current game we only get about 2.5-hour sessions in, and just hit session #31, for about 85 hours of play time, and are 8th level. So, in the next 85 hours (getting us around your 168-hour mark), I could see the PCs being about 12-13th level most likely. We should get there sometime in early Summer, so I can let you know then as I am keeping very precise notes.
 

I voted (6-8) because it took us 28x 6-hr sessions to get from 8th to 14th. The lower levels should happen faster but 3 hour sessions are brief. Getting people into game-mode takes some time and with shorter sessions that is a larger percentage of the table-time lost to "what happened last session".
 

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