D&D 5E XP Per Adventuring Day Per Player is Ridiculous

[The Crimson Binome]

Based on the XP per day, characters should advance to 15th level in 33 adventuring days. This is beyond ludicrous.

Does anyone else think this pace is utterly ridiculous?

Instead of thinking about it in terms of adventuring days, consider it in terms of dungeons, where a dungeon is meant to be completed in one day. Remember that a deadly encounter is only deadly in the context of a full day; any singular encounter - whether deadly or not - cannot be judged in a meaningful way under this system.

Is it ludicrous to think that a character would advance from 1-20 after 33 dungeons? How many dungeons were in the last campaign you played through?

I just finished playing through a Pathfinder module that took us from 1-17, and that number sounds about right. Even with all of the different assumptions - story awards, short days with only a handful of encounters (like travelling), and the difference in healing rates and resource recovery - it still worked out to about that same speed of levelling. And when you count in non-adventure days, travelling between locations, and whatever else, I think it worked out to about six months of in-game time.

How long should it take to reach level 20, in-game? How long in real-time? Remember that the design goal was to get there in under a year of weekly play. If you want it to take longer in real-time, then you can always mess with the XP rates. If you want it to take longer in-game, you can always introduce arbitrary training times.

 

[Celtavian]

I don't even worry about stuff like this. I make encounters according to what seems appropriate regardless of xp or difficulty. Players will get levels when they get levels.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Instead of thinking about it in terms of adventuring days, consider it in terms of dungeons, where a dungeon is meant to be completed in one day. Remember that a deadly encounter is only deadly in the context of a full day; any singular encounter - whether deadly or not - cannot be judged in a meaningful way under this system.

Sure it can, because an encounter is always part of a day. If your encounter exceeds both the Deadly threshold and the daily encounter budget, it's fair to think that the DMG would classify it as a Deadly encounter no matter what the rest of the day is like. That doesn't mean that it actually will be a difficult encounter, although it could be; but it does mean that its difficulty stands independent of your short rest metagame.

 

[YourSwordIsMine]

Waylayed by Bhut Bandits

 

[Green1]

I have always hated the convoluted system for determining XP since 2e. Depending on who runs it, it ranges from "OMG I am 10 points shy of a level. Lets find a giant rat and kill it" to some arcane accounting session that is so esoteric as to not be fun for me. Plus, story award + XP just is not simple enough for me.

Ever since then, I did away with XP all together to better reward play and have a more natural progression. I use a hash mark system.

Showing up to game = 1 hashmark.
Non Trivial Encounter = 1 hashmark.
Achieving a character or group goal= 2 hashmarks.
Particularly hard fight: 2 Hashmarks.

Henchmen never get more than 1 hashmark but will automatically gain a level after first session with you if you promote them from follower. Followers are capped at level 10 and may gain a mark every 3 sessions, if that.

You need Level x 2 +1 Hashmarks to level. So, a 10th level character needs 21 marks. I can adjust this to just level +1 if I want a fast progression campaign.

I eyeball monsters but do not go by rating because what would be a TPK for some groups would be a cake walk for others. Bounded accuracy makes this even less of a factor since a horde of level 1s would give even a 20th level Barbarian Lord pause. Not as scientific and mathy for many's taste, but it seems to work with tweaks and common sense.

 

[Scorpio616]

Every encounter in a day isn't supposed to be deadly. Many small encounters add up. Just because a wandering encounter might be trivial to the PCs, it should still happen. The only issue will be when players take so long to choose actions or move minis that a handful of dire rats take half an hour to deal with.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I eyeball monsters but do not go by rating because what would be a TPK for some groups would be a cake walk for others. Bounded accuracy makes this even less of a factor since a horde of level 1s would give even a 20th level Barbarian Lord pause. Not as scientific and mathy for many's taste, but it seems to work with tweaks and common sense.

Apologies for the tangent, but--

There's a part of me that wants to run a Gold Box style campaign where you fight neverending hordes of enemy creatures. A barbarian wouldn't do well in a such a setting, but a Fiendlock might, and so could a Necromancer. A Fighter 1/Necromancer 9/Fiendlock 10 with Heavy Armor Master could probably defeat almost-neverending hordes of low-level foes, for as long as his Fire Shield holds up. (Each kill gives him 15 temp HP + 8 real HP.) Also, a champion would rock in that scenario, because regeneration, or maybe a Champion 18/Rogue 2.

Anyway, I drew up a list of encounters for a solo 20th level PC, obeying all the DMG guidelines (even though when I DM I totally ignore them). Here's what I came up with:

10 Orcs: 3000 (Easy)
T-Rex: 5850 (Medium)
Mind Flayer Arcanist + Intellect Devourer: 8700 (Hard)
1 Hobgoblin Captain + 9 Hobgoblins: 4800 (Easy)
2 Stone Giant: 11600 (Hard)
14 Magma Mephits: 5600 (Easy)
Total: 39,500 XP (just short of the 40,000 budget limit).

Assume random terrain, 50% outdoors (1d1000' visibility) and 50% indoors (stalking each other through randomly generated maze from http://www.mazegenerator.net/ with 10' corridors, or 15' for T-Rex).

I think this looks pretty reasonable really. I mean, it doesn't look like anything by the standards of 20th level characters, but considering that it's a solo character it's probably plenty deadly and fun enough to be worth playing. Anyone else have any sample adventuring days to share?

 

[ExploderWizard]

It is adjusted XP. I'll quote the relevant DMG passage in case you're away from your books:



The passage is poorly written and I can see how you might have looked at the "expected to earn in a day" sentence and interpreted it as an earned XP table. But it is an adjusted XP table.

BTW, I tried at one point awarding earned XP = adjusted XP, but it was way too much XP and it also didn't mesh with the "life force vampire" fluff I had given my players, so I dropped it after the first big fight.

Yeah if the table is difficulty XP based then the encounters suggested by it would be FAR more reasonable. I didn't really think of it like that because the difficulty numbers to me aren't actual XP. They are just budget numbers.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Green1]

If you just think about it from a "realistic" standpoint, or even from a fantasy archetype standpoint, classes that would be physically-enabled would have a quick progression in ability, followed by a plateau, then a decline (you get real good at fighting, then your skills decline). Whereas classes that depend on casting spells would likely progress slowly, with the real magic secrets revealed later in life.

2e had different XP tables for each class. Sucked to be a low level mage. And, too many tables. Unified XP is a good thing.

But, outside of some mostly ho-hum on-the-rails Wizards Play style module or convention tournament, no one is going to haul you in to WotC HQ if you feel levels should be fewer and further apart. Or if you put level cap at 5 or 10. At least with bounded accuracy of 5e, you would be able to overwhelm and hit an ancient dragon with a flood of 5s or 10s. It would be bloody, but still.