XP is way too high in 4th Edition!

[TerraDave]

Not upset. I actually let them level a little faster.

If you are going straight from 2E to 4E, a couple things to note.

1) No XP for treasure, which in 1E and 2E was were the bulk of the XP could come from.

2) Things been spread out over more levels. E.g. orcs are considered a challenge for 5th level charecters. Certain things like long distance flight or sustained invisibility come at higher levels. And the "power curve" is just different, i.e. spell damage does not amp up in the same way it did in 2E. So a level 15 4E charecter might be roughly equivelent to a 10th (or even 9th or 8th) level one in past editions.

3) The previous point is especially relevant for converting over adventures, which can end up a good number of levels higher based on the 4E levels of the monsters.

4) If you do slow down advancement, be sure to slow down treasure rewards, or that will get really out of wack.

 

[jbear]

I have been a d&d player since the 70's. I cannot believe the outragous XP that 4th edition gives to PC,s! Leveling up after only 8-10 encounters! Are you kidding me? I don't want Players leveling up after 50 encounters! I have alot of 1- 3rd level dungeons for my characters to explore. I cannot have them leveling up so fast. I am seriosly thinking of using 2nd edition xp for monsters. Is anyone else as upset as I am about this?

No, not upset at the least. My players are on the verge of level 8, two years since we began the campaign. I'm impatiently waiting for them to reach level 11!!!!

Like others have said, if you want to slow advancement do so, but I'd make sure your players are on board with this. Just use xp to build encounters of the 'correct' difficulty level you are aiming for. As for having modules of level 1-3, not really an issue once you get the hang of things.

At level 7 my players are dealing with a part of the adventure which is 75% based off the very first Scales of War Rescue mission. There were far too many encounters, so I built a skill challenge into the adventure which had them wipe out nearly all the main encounters on the first level of the dungeon. The encounters I was interested in keeping, I just added some monsters to achieve the correctlevel challenge. I've kept a lot of the lower level monsters in there though, and just added +3 to their attack so they can have a good shot at hitting the PCs, but their damage is slightly lower (although with the errated damage values, still decent) and their defenses are fantastically low and their hit points are low enough to be killed in two decent hits. I wanted the 'lair' feel inhabited by a horde, but i wanted them to move through it swiftly. Plus the NPCs they have now straggling behind them add a nice element.

The more important encounters on the second level I have redesigned majorly to make themmore interesting and challenging. I use pre-made adventures to build my own ideas from. To me, they are a slab of uncooked meat that needs to be properly prepared to achieve the kind of meal you want to invite your players to. The level the adventure has been designed for is only a minor hurdle that can be very easily overcome.

So there is no need for those adventures to be wasted if the players level up. Just adjust them to keep the level of challenge relative. Meanwhile, your players will enjoy their budding character and their growing variety of options.

4e level 1 is cool, the first time... but personally I'd prefer just to jump to level 3, where characters begin to get interesting. 50 encounters at level 1* shakes head* Id find that pretty frustrating personally, but you know your players I guess.

 

[DNH]

I think you'd be surprised to learn just how many people pay very little attention to XP rewards, using either the story or time/sessions elapsed as the metric by which to level up. I am one such DM.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Not upset. I actually let them level a little faster.

If you are going straight from 2E to 4E, a couple things to note.

1) No XP for treasure, which in 1E and 2E was were the bulk of the XP could come from.

Hmm, I thought XP for treasure went out with 1E? I don't remember using XP for treasure in 2E.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I have been a d&d player since the 70's. I cannot believe the outragous XP that 4th edition gives to PC,s! Leveling up after only 8-10 encounters! Are you kidding me? I don't want Players leveling up after 50 encounters! I have alot of 1- 3rd level dungeons for my characters to explore. I cannot have them leveling up so fast. I am seriosly thinking of using 2nd edition xp for monsters. Is anyone else as upset as I am about this?

Interesting - I feel just the opposite.

In 1E/2E, a campaign normally went from level 1 to maybe level 9 or 10 at the end. In 3E, campaigns normally went from level 1 to level 18-20 at the end. In 4E, the campaign should take one from level 1 to close to level 30. So, players should be leveling about three times faster in 4E and they did in 1E/2E.

I would like for the players in my group to level every other session. However, it has worked out to about once every three sessions now, but I'm hoping to find more ways to award XP in game through Quest rewards and skill challenges to hopefully speed up the leveling. With just combat, it seems to be dragging out slower than I would like.

At our current pace of gaming every other week and leveling every third session, it will take another two & a half years for the group to get into the mid 20s from level 5 now. If I can get to that every other session leveling, the group would be at level 30 in two years.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Hmm, I thought XP for treasure went out with 1E? I don't remember using XP for treasure in 2E.

If you were a member of the Rogue group, you got XP for any treasure that you stole.

The 2e DMG also listed an XP value for all the magic items in the treasure section, but nowhere in the book did they explain what that value was supposed to mean. I spent many a night wondering, "is it a cost? a bonus for finding one? for making one?" when I should have been doing my homework.

 

[Riastlin]

Yeah I don't have a problem with the current progression either. My group meets every other week for about 4 hours. We've been playing about a year and a half with several cancellations due to holidays, vacations, etc. and the group is still level 10 (though will hopefully hit level 11 next session). At this rate, the campaign will be 4.5 years old by the time it finally concludes at level 30, which is plenty long for me. Much longer and the "campaign" aspect completely loses meaning. Few of the players can really remember what happened in the first adventure at this point anyway, imagine what their memories will be like three years from now.

All that being said of course, every group is different, so go with what your group enjoys most. The only "right" way to do it is the way in which your group prefers. I've considered dropping XP altogether like many others have, but ultimately, my players prefer to see that measure of advancement each session, so even though I might be able to better control the pacing of the campaign by doing away with XP, I think that the group prefers the current method.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I'm one for faster experience and level progression. I want my group to taste all levels so i leveled them up from 1-5 (1 level per session). For the foreseeable future, I'm leveling them up every 2 sessions. We currently meet up every other week so basically they gain 1 level per month, but there is talk that we will meet up weekly perhaps as early as next week. At which point I may go to every 3 sessions or 1 1/2 levels per month, but I'll talk to my players and see what they want to do as well. We may even do it the same way and they get to level up 2x per month. Figuring this, they should be at level 30 in about a year from now with weekly sessions or two years with bi-weekly.

I just remember when I'm a player I personally like faster level progression and the new and cool encounters, treasures, explorations, powers, and magical items available.

My group seems pretty happy with our set up, but to each their own. As a DM it's up to you to determine (with the input of your group) how fast or slow the characters progress. I won't advocate either way because everyone has their own preferences which is what this thread is all about in my opinion.

Trav

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I would personally find spending 50 encounters at a given level to be quite boring as a player, and quite repetitive as a DM.

You may want to try playing out some 4e and then tinker with things. Maybe just don't award any XP right away and decide after say 5 encounters which way you want to go with it, then you can figure out what ratio to use.

I think what you'll find is that 5 encounters is a pretty busy play session, you're not likely to average that many every week unless your group is quite fast or you have long sessions. 4e's levels are also closer together in power progression. There are 30 of them and you're really intended to use them all, on top of which PCs don't ramp up as quickly (wizards that is) as they did in AD&D. 4e 9th level is still in the lower levels really. You don't really start to get to feeling really powerful until mid-paragon (15th or so). You don't start to get stupidly powerful until at least low epic and even in high epic things are less crazy than they were in high level AD&D where anything much past 12th level started to get ridiculous.

In other words, don't judge by the standards of previous editions. 30 levels at 10 encounters per level means 300 encounters. Realistically it will be more like around 200 since some will be tougher, you will have quest XP, etc. If you're averaging 4 encounters a week that's a full year and it could easily be more like 2 years.

Honestly I just get bored of playing or running a game for exactly the same PCs for years on end. I want stuff to HAPPEN. Your group may be different, but I'd actually be surprised if they were all wanting to spend 10 years playing the same PCs.

 

[Mapache]

I'm running a game of 4E that meets about three times a month due to schedule constraints for two to three hours per session. We generally get in one combat per session, with the rest of the time spent exploring, interacting, and otherwise role-playing. I'm not really tracking XP, just using character level as a guideline for encounter-building, and levelling the PCs up every few sessions, usually between breaks in the story. Initially, I think I was levelling the PCs up at about three times the default rate, and now that they're up to level 6, I think we're going at about twice the default rate, as my fights have gotten substantially harder, since the players can take it. (Everything built to MM3 standards, Level+0 to Level+2 fights built for six full PCs when they're actually five PCs and a companion character.)