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

[Charlaquin]

I remember them saying level 20 should take a year. 2.5 sessions on average at that rate.

That just sounds like they built about one missed session per month into that one year assumption.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Make them level 57, you cowards! Let's get crazy in this joint!

 

[prabe]

Right, which is why I prefaced my answer with “it depends entirely on how many encounters per session and how hard those encounters are.” But, I can’t make an estimate of level after a given number of sessions without making some assumptions about average exp per session, so I went with the assumption the designers originally used. It’s probably not consistent with the reality of most groups’ play, but no assumption would be, since as you observe, play is too variable.

Yeah, tables will be different. I was able to look at past campaigns I've run past 120 sessions and look where the were after Session 56, and that's been pretty consistent. I think there's a big difference between how quickly the rules progress PC RAW and how quickly tables want PCs to progress. (It also seems likely there's a difference between how quickly players want their characters to progress and how quickly GMs do, but that's a different question and not really relevant here.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Well, it doesn’t specify exp per session, but you can work out an approximate exp-per-session rate based on the encounters per adventuring day guidelines. That is of course assuming one adventuring day per session though. I suppose three hour sessions is a little shorter than the 4 hours I tend to see, so maybe this hypothetical group only gets through 3/4 of an adventuring day per session on average? That would give us approximately level 20 after 56 sessions with no additional epic boons.

There is no way you can go trough the suggested number of encounters in three or four hours, unless you want your game to be a non-stop combat and probably not even then. My five hour sessions have probably two combats on average.

 

[Charlaquin]

There is no way you can go trough the suggested number of encounters in three or four hours, unless you want your game to be a non-stop combat and probably not even then. My five hour sessions have probably two combats on average.

If I recall correctly, you tune your encounters to Deadly or above though, don’t you? Medium encounters should take about three rounds to resolve, which if you and your players are reasonably quick at executing your turns doesn’t seem at all difficult to get through six of (that’s about 18 rounds of combat) in one four-hour session. A three hour session would probably be difficult to fit that much combat into though, I agree. I think more like 4 encounters (12 rounds) is a more reasonable expectation there.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

our sessions are typically 4 hours so I had to a bit of math. Adjust for hours of play and not sessions we were 6th level at 168 hrs of game time.

 

[sevenbastard]

Looking at my notes from my last 5e campaign character were between 6th and 8th level depending on how many sessions they attended and if they had a character die (new PC start at half the dead pcs XP).

 

[James Gasik]

In my current game, I've had 8ish sessions, roughly 4.5 hours long (some shorter, some longer). The core party members, who make almost every session, are currently level 7, and the stragglers are level 6. I would expect after 56 sessions, if the game continues at it's current pace, a year from now, to find the characters at least 14th-16th levels if not higher.

 

[ECMO3]

53 sessions is more than enough for two entire 1-20 campaigns for most games that are not on XP. If you play with XP leveling it takes longer. I don't think I have ever played one campaign to 53 sessions.

In the four long-term campaigns I am in right now:

Playing MCDM Where Evil Lives and are level 13 after 13 4-hour sessions. This is a little fast but pretty close to the normal pace I think.

Playing a homebrew Greyhawk campaign based on a reworked 1980s Temple of Elemental Evil we are level 9 after 14 4-hour sessions. This is an XP game though and is slower than normal.

Playing City of Brass and we are level 7 after around 20 2.5-hour sessions. This one is with a slow group and is an outlier though I think.

As a DM I am running a campaign that started with LMOP, then went to Lost Laboratory of Kwalish and is now playing the hell part of Decent into Avernus modified for higher level characters. That group that is level 13 after about 20 3 hour sessions.

 

[humble minion]

My party is currently at session 23 and has just hit level 4. However, we use milestone levelling rather than XP, and also, I've deliberately paced the start of the campaign slowly, with lots of RP and non-combat sessions, and advancement has been slower as a result. So I'd expect to probably be level 9ish by session 56.