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

[ezo]

For session-based advancement:

56 x 3 hours = 168 hours or 42 x 4-hour sessions

Session 1: make 2nd level
Session 2: make 3rd level
Session3-4: make 4th level
Every 2.5 sessions per level thereafter = + 9.5 levels
for a total of 13.5 levels.

If you do the "adventuring day" thing... one calculation method shows only a few levels where you can get the XP (on average using adjusted values) to level in a single adventuring day. Levels 2, 3, and 14. The rest will take between 2 adventuring days per level (over 8 encounters).

IME, most groups get through about one encounter per 1.33 hours on average. Some take more time, some less, etc. We routinely average about 2 per session given our shorter sessions now.

 

[Maxperson]

What if 56 sessions likely means I'm into a new campaign (maybe even a third one?)

Add up all the levels!! The pacing is probably going to be similar across them all.

 

[Maxperson]

Good gravy. I don't know who the vote is that keeps the party under 3rd level after 56 sessions, but I'd have left out of frustration long before that.

For my games leveling is every 3-5 sessions. So 4 is average. That means 14th level in 56 sessions.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Hmm... Let's say-

1st level, 2 sessions
2nd - 5th, 5 sessions each
6th+, 5-8 sessions each

So, about 10th level, biweekly sessions, ~4.5 hrs each, 2.5 years of play.

 

[BookTenTiger]

For session-based advancement:
View attachment 391022

56 x 3 hours = 168 hours or 42 x 4-hour sessions

Session 1: make 2nd level
Session 2: make 3rd level
Session3-4: make 4th level
Every 2.5 sessions per level thereafter = + 9.5 levels
for a total of 13.5 levels.

If you do the "adventuring day" thing... one calculation method shows only a few levels where you can get the XP (on average using adjusted values) to level in a single adventuring day. Levels 2, 3, and 14. The rest will take between 2 adventuring days per level (over 8 encounters).

View attachment 391027

IME, most groups get through about one encounter per 1.33 hours on average. Some take more time, some less, etc. We routinely average about 2 per session given our shorter sessions now.

Man, that just feels too fast for me. Since realistically each session might just have 1 combat, I don't like the idea of characters leveling up until they've had a chance to play around with the new features they've gained.

 

[ezo]

Man, that just feels too fast for me. Since realistically each session might just have 1 combat, I don't like the idea of characters leveling up until they've had a chance to play around with the new features they've gained.

Oh, I agree completely! Especially at lower levels where most of the features are front-loaded.

I wouldn't use the suggestion session-based leveling system, myself, and altered the experience point table for the first few levels to slow down advancement. I've also sped up advancement through tier 2 slightly to remove the slog most groups experience. So far it as worked very well with my current group.

Frankly, my personal ideal is:
tier 1: 3-4 sessions per level
tier 2: 4-5 sessions per level
tier 3: 6-7 sessions per level
tier 4: 8-10 sessions per level

3.5 x 3 = 10.5 sessions for 4th level
4.5 x 6 = 27 more sessions until 10th level
6.5 x 6 = 39 more sessions until 16th level
9 x 4 = 36 more sessions until 20th level
for a total of 112.5 sessions (at 4 hours each) or 450 game-play hours.

If you play a single 4-hour session each week, this is just over two years of playing time. This was roughly the pace for our 1-20 game about six years ago. It took us two years IRL to reach level 20 (more or less).

Given the OP's 56 sessions x 3 hours = 168 hours, that translates (given the above) to hitting 10th level after 50 3-hour sessions and nearing 11th by session 56.

FWIW, I average about 3 "encounters" per session. Sometimes just 1, sometimes 5 or more, but 3 is pretty average.

 

[TwoSix]

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.

And the amount of time it takes to process encounters is highly variable; we had a thread a few months back where people were comparing their time to complete a combat round. And there were multiple examples of tables that differed by factors of 7-8 fold in their time taken per character.

 

[el-remmen]

And the amount of time it takes to process encounters is highly variable; we had a thread a few months back where people were comparing their time to complete a combat round. And there were multiple examples of tables that differed by factors of 7-8 fold in their time taken per character.

I think that was a thread I started!

 

[Shiroiken]

This is a bit shorter than my preferred sessions. My general assumption is level 1 & 2 will take a session each, levels 3 & 4 will take about 2-3 sessions each, and each level after that taking about 4 sessions each. This leads us to about level 16, but I'd probably round down to level 14 due to the shorter sessions.

 

[Horwath]

One campaign, 34 sessions, level 14.