XP and time passages

[klofft]

First, I apologize in advance: I don't visit the House Rules forum often. Forgive me if this has been discussed already...

There is a letter in the current Dragon that bemoans the speed of the 3/3.5 rate of level advancement, not in terms of # of encounters, but in actual game world time. There was a post on the general forum that noted that characters could not unreasonably progress from 1st to 20th level in exactly 60 days of vigorous adventuring.

I understand that spacing levels out is a matter of campaign style. I was wondering what people's own house rules might be in place to limit the speed of advancement, aside from something explicitly mechanical such as 1/2 normal XP. I'm looking for house rules along the lines of, "No more than one level per month of game time," or something like that. I'd also like to know the players' impressions of such rules.

Thanks!
C

 

[Crothian]

There was a post on the general forum that noted that characters could not unreasonably progress from 1st to 20th level in exactly 60 days of vigorous adventuring.

That was rediculusly unreasoniable. I don't think a DM worth his books would set up a situation like that.

I understand that spacing levels out is a matter of campaign style. I was wondering what people's own house rules might be in place to limit the speed of advancement, aside from something explicitly mechanical such as 1/2 normal XP. I'm looking for house rules along the lines of, "No more than one level per month of game time," or something like that. I'd also like to know the players' impressions of such rules.

I've never needed a rule such as that. It is campaign style. If you want to slow down advancement place in travel time, or training time. Have the PCs do things other then adventure, give them outside interests.

 

[klofft]

I concede that it was not "reasonable" in any narrative sense. Plus it makes a lot of presumptions about, well, a lot of things. However, from a pure "design" point of view, it made sense, and therein lies the potential problem.

I also do not use any more formal house rule than you cannot level up while at the "adventure site" (defined by me). Even so, the fact that my current group (my 1st full 3.5 campaign - haven't played regularly since the mid-90s) is a quarter the way to 20th level in about 3 months (including rest, travel, etc.) is a little disconcerting. Add in random travel encounters, and advancement can progress even faster.

Of course, this is only a problem to me - my players are all just fine with it.

C

 

[Archade]

In my current campaign, I don't reduce XP, but they have gone to 14th level over a period of a year and a half of campaign time.

The solution I used is requiring 'down time' between levels. When my players' characters get enough xp to go up a level, I give them a 'positive level', which is the reverse of a negative level (+1 to skills, attacks, saves, +5hp, etc).

The characters are required to spend down time of at least a few weeks before levels. I tend to offer a few weeks to a few months. Incidentally, it also offers time for magic item creation, craft skills and the like. And it allow time to flow at a more reasonable rate.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I agree its alot about campaign pacing.

For my campaign I am a stickler to travel time and rarely have 'random' encounters that are higher than CR 4 .. meaning once you get to be the mid level just travelling around won't cause you to level up. T'is silly to have CR 9 'random' encouters on the road.. all the normal folk in the world would be killed!

I also have required down time for leveling in which the character seeks out and practices the new abilities. Currently this is set for 1 month per level.

I ramp the XP awards down starting at 3rd level {once they are out of the 'fall of your horse and die' stage} to 60% of RAW.

My final method for slowing down advancement is to have seasons. Winter is generally a slow time for everything with most people and things huddled up in thier houses trying to stay warm. The farther north you get, or higher into the mountains, the likelier this is. It also means the flood of barbaric raiders tends to show up right around spring when its easier to travel and there are lots of nice new fresh cattle/meat/etc.. to pick up.
Its easy to forget in this modern world that we live in how much an impact winter had on everything.

I have been in games were it was always summer {unless the module called for a sudden blizzard} and there was always an evil plot to twart right in the town the group walked into. Personally I think it makes more sense to have an evil plot spring up where it makes most sense and have the adventurers either seek it out or be begged to come help by some poor innocent.

Caveat: I run low to mid {1 to 14} level games and recently have stuck to Eberron as my setting of choice....

YMMV, of course.

 

[ValhallaGH]

There is a letter in the current Dragon that bemoans the speed of the 3/3.5 rate of level advancement, not in terms of # of encounters, but in actual game world time. There was a post on the general forum that noted that characters could not unreasonably progress from 1st to 20th level in exactly 60 days of vigorous adventuring.

13 level-appropriate encounters per level, four encounters per day, progressing across 19 levels.
19 * 13 / 4 = 61.75 days to go from level 1 to level 20.

So if you play a day-by-day campaign and if you follow the rule of thumb of having four encounters per day and if you choose to use nothing but level appropriate encounters then you'll end up with twentieth level PCs by the end of 62 in-character days.

That's a lot of ifs that a DM has to choose.

Do you play a day-by-day campaign with zero down time (including non-combat travel time)?

Do you choose to have four combat encounters every in-character day?

Do you choose to use nothing but level-appropriate encounters?


There's nothing wrong with such a play style, it's simply inappropriate for the vast majority of games, campaigns and adventurers. Which is why most characters take very much longer than two months to reach twentieth level.

I don't use any kind of houserules to limit character advancement, I simply choose when and how I challenge the PCs. That's all you need to do to cut down on rapid advancement.

 

[Aeric]

I don't have any rules that limit the rate of XP or level advancement, and I don't think there is a need for any. If the PCs are facing armies of orcs on a daily basis, then they will logically shoot up in level faster than an adventuring company that hits a dungeon once every couple of weeks. It's up to the DM to space out his adventures so that he is comfortable with their level progression.

 

[Phlebas]

When i started DM-ing my campaign, I played the first adventure (2 weeks game time, 2-3 months real time, ending up 4th level) as a prequel - bringing the teenage PC's together on a journey to their home town. I then had a break of 4 years game time before the now young adult PC's met up again and the adventure proper started - they didnt level up until after the adventure was finished either.

Since then I always try to have a few weeks to a few months of game time off after any major plot sequence (every other level) - it tends to allow a more relaxed leveling up and non-adventuring roleplaying (eg guild or temple politics). Players dont seem to complain since they have an opportunity to let me know what they want to do and i normally put out a newsletter with plot elements / flavour stuff after every break.

(The PC's hometown is a mediterranean climate, so although the winter can be a little rainy for enjoyable adventuring, high summer is just far too hot, so that also provided a natural break)

But the biggest reason for the breaks is to allow plots to develop, and so that PC's dont feel that they're running from fight to fight and dealing with an endless invastion of nasties. When that happens i want them to notice it.......

The fact these breaks may coincide with real life breaks (summer holidays, christmas, busy times at work) is just good planning on the Refs part

Bit of a ramble there - the simple answer is that although I dont have any hard and fast rules on game time, I've found that spacing adventures out with game down-time seems to help with plot and PC development, and I havent found a down side

 

[Storyteller01]

Wow!! I feel slow.

Our campaign is at 6th level (roughly) after about two to three years game time. Lot's of down time, training, diplomatic gatherings (one character is a noble, and the group is considered his 'slaves' by the kingdom), and what not. Adventures usually have several months in between them.

Players don't seem to mind the pace though.


EDIT: No, we don't house rule level gain. We just set the pace and go with it.

 

[Papewaio of The Org]

There was a post on the general forum that noted that characters could not unreasonably progress from 1st to 20th level in exactly 60 days of vigorous adventuring.

I posted that with the humour attribute.

There were a few assumptions, but based on mechanics it is feasible. Mind you some people couldn't grasp that if you have 4 encounters per day and use 25% of your resources per encounter that you would still be on 100% of hitpoints... they incorrectly extrapolated it to mean no hit points.

From the game designers there are 13 encounters to gain a level.
Each of these encounters will use up 25% of the groups resources, spells, potions, wands, arrows, hit points. So at the end of the fight the group will be on 75% of its hp, then the cleric will use his spells, potions and wands (at 25% of his capacity) to raise the groups hps back to 100% at the end of the encounter.

Rinse and repeat for a total of 4 times in one day and you have a party at the end of the day which is at 100% hps but out of arrows, potions and spells but 1/3 of the way to leveling up.

Now to level up in two months would require that they get full bed rest to replenish spells, have easy access to replenshing expendables... potions, arrows and wands etc. And a lot of other assumptions.

Possible just not probable.

As for campaigns... they should always go at the speed of plot. Too fast or too slow it can suffer. However non-played down time between adventures and levels by no means slows plots, it can infact be used to speed up things by providing space and time for characters to logically be in other situations, to say go to a far off city to commission a magic item which can then be used to form a place for hooks to other scenarios.

A 20 levels in 60 days scenario would be bizarre to say the least, but it is a useful way of seeing the structure behind the campaign. The DMs job is to stretch it out and make it plausible and suspend disbelief... also too fast leveling up with too much easy makes the players feel short changed.