XP progression: too fast, too slow, or just right?

[Hairfoot]

This is an old bone of contention: is level progression in D&D too fast?

It seems that PCs are pitched in quite young. Humans in thier teens, and demi-humans at an equivalent age. Their youth seems appropriate because the PC is moving into a career of hero-dom.

Once they start adventuring, however, they shoot up the experience chart in a matter of weeks. It seems a bit incongruous that a monk or paladin spends his/her entire adolescence in training, then becomes a grand master in less than a year of adventuring.

Is this something for the DM to manage, or should the ruleset promote longer adventure/rest periods?

 

[Michael Morris]

Which is more fun?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'm not convinced that's an XP progression issue, and not a campaign style issue - I'm giving strong consideration to figuring out ways I can run a campaign with multi-year breaks in it, so that PC's might go from 1-5 fairly quickly, then break for a couple years, and then go 6-10, etc.

Not sure how to do it, but that's the idea.

 

[Crysmalon]

I've taken to using the XP chart from the Wilderlands Players Guide. Essentially, slowing advancement by 1/2. Seems to work nicely.

 

[Faraer]

If you want to go through 20 levels in a 6-month campaign of weekly sessions, which is what the 3E advancement rate was devised for, it's the right speed. If your campaign will be longer, or you don't want to get to level 20, it's probably too fast.

Yes, characters getting to high level in a year is, in most cases, silly and unreasonable. But nothing about the default play model indicates that adventures happen consecutively, with no breaks.

 

[delericho]

It depends on the level range you like to play in, and how long you want the average campaign to last. Personally, I want to play 1-20, and to run a campaign for about a year. That being the case, the rate of advancement is about right.

As for the 1 - 20 in an (in-game) year, that's about DM control over downtime. There are a bunch of things PCs should be doing off-camera, such as training, building strongholds and magic items, seeking out information on PrCs, joining organisations and going through initiation, and so on. If the rate of advancement is too fast for you, increase the amount of time that passes between adventures, and increase the amount of time that these various tasks take. To be honest, this has minimal impact on the XP progression.

 

[el-remmen]

For me, going up 2 to 3 levels every year of real time, playing every two weeks is just perfect.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

It's dependant on the situation.

In one campaign I played in, we had a large, overpowered group, so we fought things with high CRs. With normal XP progression, we'd be leveling far too often, and everything would have gotten out of hand long before the two year campaign was over. The DM slowed the XP progression by half, and though that was almost TOO slow, it was better than going straight by the book.

In my most recent campaign, the PCs were also leveling a tad fast for my taste, but that was because they were only dividing the XP three ways. I was considering dropping the XP to three quarters, but now that there's a fourth player, it should be fine.

And in the game I'm currently playing in, it's a meatgrinder, and since we die early and often, it's good to level early and often as well.

For the most part, I think the normal XP chart is fine, and the DM just needs to tweak it to the specific game if necessary.

 

[EricNoah]

For me it depends on the campaign and how often we play. If we're only playing once a month, gaining a level every 3 sessions or so feels about right. If I were playing every week, I would think once about every 10-12 sessons would be right.

But as DM I want to have total control over that, to the point that I don't use XP any more, I just pick the right time to level up based on my needs as DM.

 

[drothgery]

If you want to go through 20 levels in a 6-month campaign of weekly sessions, which is what the 3E advancement rate was devised for, it's the right speed.

Hmm... it looks more like 20 levels in a two-year campaign of weekly sessions to me (based on never reaching even 15th level in several campaigns, played about 4hrs/wk, that lasted over the year and were pretty by-the-book about XP).

Yes, characters getting to high level in a year is, in most cases, silly and unreasonable. But nothing about the default play model indicates that adventures happen consecutively, with no breaks.

Yeah, the unreasonable thing is lack of extended down-time between adventures.