D&D 5E XP Tables Across the Editions

[FormerlyHemlock]

Looking at how much XP you got for "encounters" or "monsters" across the editions, I thought it interesting to translate those XP advancement tables to 5th edition. Here's the guidelines I've used:

• AD&D (1e and 2e): roughly assumed each PC fought 3.33 "at level" monsters per level until around level 7 and 8 at which time it assumed you fought 6.66 "at-level" monsters per level.

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  That's not right at all. IIRC an orc in 2nd edition would grant you 7 XP. A thief needed to either kill 178 orcs, or steal a lot of treasure (thieves got XP for stealing treasure, off the individual class XP award table) in order to hit 1250 XP and second level. A fighter needed to kill 19 orcs (he got 107 XP per orc, 7 XP for the orc + 100 XP off the fighter individual XP award). A wizard mostly needed to cast a bunch of spells, but if he were killing orcs with a crossbow or something he needed to kill 357 orcs in order to hit second level.
  
  If your input assumptions are wrong, your analysis cannot be correct. I controvert your assumptions for AD&D2--so your conclusions are probably invalid for AD&D (2nd edition).
  
  By my math above, since orcs are 100 XP in 5E instead of 7, an AD&D2-ized 5E thief needs somewhere between 0 and 17,800 XP to hit second level; a wizard needs between 0 and 35,700 XP; and a fighter needs 1900 XP.

 

[Zardnaar]

AD&D had nop assumptions about on level monsters and you had to kill around 200 Kobolds to level up (vs 12 in 5E).

Without optional rules 2E was about the slowest levelling version of D&D ever. With optional rules thieves could level very very quickly (200xp per use of a thief skill IIRC).

BECMI/1E you levelled a little bit slower than 3.5 if you played the adventures which had copious amounts of treasure in them. Homebrew and stingy DMs you would level around the same speed as 2E. Playing 1.5 hours a week in BECMI in the school year in 1994 (30 sessions total probably) we hit level 4 as the DM was not giving xp for treasure.

The fastest we leveled in 2E was a Spelljammer game over summer holidays 95/96. 2-3 months with 10 hour + sessions almost daily games and a bit monty haul but the PCs were also clearing out entire ships of beholders/illithids and the like which also got a lot of treasure including random treasure where you could roll a book or whatever that gave you a level. One PC made it to level 19 another got to level 14/14 or so as a Fighter/Cleric. When the DM (me) is the eldest at age 17 and the other players are 15-17 years old it was a bit monty haul.

 

[ccs]

That's not right at all. IIRC an orc in 2nd edition would grant you 7 XP. A thief needed to either kill 178 orcs, or steal a lot of treasure (thieves got XP for stealing treasure, off the individual class XP award table) in order to hit 1250 XP and second level. A fighter needed to kill 19 orcs (he got 107 XP per orc, 7 XP for the orc + 100 XP off the fighter individual XP award). A wizard mostly needed to cast a bunch of spells, but if he were killing orcs with a crossbow or something he needed to kill 357 orcs in order to hit second level.

And an orc (HD=1d8) in 1e granted 10xp+1xp per HP. For a max of 18xp.
If our thief were trying to hit lv.2 solely by orc slaying in 1e he'd need to kill 15.79545455 of them (assuming he qualified for the +10%xp bonus for having high stats) (2nd lv = 1251xp for 1e thieves)
He'd need slightly more without the stat bonus. And if he were multi-classed he'd need double or triple - so 32-64 orcs
And it goes up each lv.
No matter what, that's a lot more than 3.333/6.666 creatures per lv.
And that's the # of orcs needed for ONE character, with the fastest advancement chart, to reach lv.2

But that ignores that the bulk of xp gained in 1e came not from killing monsters, but from treasure. 1GP value = 1xp.

 

[mellored]

If you doubled everyone's hit points, hit dice, spell slots, ki, action surges, second wind, rages, ect... you could face triple the number of monsters. Which is more or less what 4e did.

It was designed closer to diablo, where you could crush monster after monster.

 

[TwoSix]

If you doubled everyone's hit points, hit dice, spell slots, ki, action surges, second wind, rages, ect... you could face triple the number of monsters. Which is more or less what 4e did.

It was designed closer to diablo, where you could crush monster after monster.

I agree that you can kill many more monsters in 4e without resting than any other edition. But just the other day I watched my son kill about 200 demons with a giant red laser in Diablo III in the time it would take me to finish my turn in 4e; it's multiple orders of magnitude different than any version of D&D. Saying 4e is more like Diablo is like saying compared to your charcoal grill, your electric grill is a lot more like the sun.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I don't get your conclusion "4th ed is the slowest progression of all". Don't you burn through much more monsters in that edition?

Okay, so the collective experience of 4E was that the advancement tables made for a noticeably slower levelling? (I wasn't aware; we've moved over to "you level when the DM says so" a long time ago*)

I mean, based on actual play experience - my only objection is that you can't conclude anything about "levels per hour played" based on xp ratings alone).

Anecdotal: 4e has the slowest progression of any game I've played. (No, not "edition of D&D" or "tabletop RPG," but "game.")

In 5e, for example, encounters often go like this:

DM: "You see 20 goblins approaching."
Player: "I cast Fireball!"

That's it. Flawless victory. 1000 XP.

In 4e, each battle (1 monster per player) takes an hour or more. The game is designed so that each level lasts 10 encounters. Therefore, each level takes at least 10 hours of gameplay, assuming you're doing nothing but back-to-back combat. And with my group, each fight started taking 3+ hours by the time we were level 10. That's when I quit that group. Since then, I've run two full 5e campaigns (1-15) in a row, and got halfway through a third one, in about the same time.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One thing I like about 5e is that, even as it captures the feel of the classic game, it neatly inverts the speed at which you leveled.

In AD&D, the 'sweet spot' started at 3rd level and ended by double-digits. Between the kinds of monsters you could expect to fight and treasures they'd likely have at the various levels, and the weighting of the exp charts, 1st level could be an interminable grind, especially if you had to replace dead PCs, and the next couple of levels not a lot better. Then, just as the game started getting playable, you'd start blowing through levels as you could take on more, juicier-exp monsters and get bigger treasures, up until 'name level,' when you'd slow to a crawl again as the chart ballooned into 6-figure exp targets... just as the game started to fall apart.

5e neatly evokes the classic sweet spot, the perilous nature of 1st level, the heroic/capable but still easily challenged mid levels, and the over the top, potentially boring high levels. But, it intentionally has you zip through 1st level in as little as one adventuring 'day' (which you just might be able to get through in a longish session), through the rest of apprentice tier almost as quickly, putting you in the Sweet Spot ASAP, then slowing down to let you savour the good bits, before speeding up again and racing to PC retirement before you can get too crushingly bored with your high-level uber-PCs.

As to the OP's chart, I can't imagine what kind of statistical contortions it required to compare such disparate exp systems, but they certainly don't match up to 'reality' IMX.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Like everyone else, this is only my anecdotal experience, but AD&D was my preferred edition from 1981 to 2012. In my experience, I look at it like this. What level ranges did I spend the majority of my game time.

In AD&D, that was level 1-5 or 6. By the time we got to level 9 or 10, it was after long campaigns and they retired.
In 3e, the level range was 5-13. We got to those low to mid levels pretty quickly, and leveling didn't really slow down.
With 5e, it's about 5-11. One of the fastest leveling versions I've played. Largely because of the level after every scenario/chapter model they have going. There is no slowdown. Contrasted to AD&D, where we retired our characters at name level (9th level), we don't do the same in 5e until we're about level 15 or so.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

And an orc (HD=1d8) in 1e granted 10xp+1xp per HP. For a max of 18xp.
If our thief were trying to hit lv.2 solely by orc slaying in 1e he'd need to kill 15.79545455 of them (assuming he qualified for the +10%xp bonus for having high stats) (2nd lv = 1251xp for 1e thieves)

When I do the math I get 64 18 XP orcs needed, not 15. 64 x 18 x 110% = 1267.2 XP, enough to hit level 2.

Anyway, as you said, clearly it's not 3 orcs per level, it's way more than that. Just interesting that everyone seems to be erring the math on this subject.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I suspect 5E CR1 = 4E Level 1 Solo (or 4 regular monsters) is a better equivalent. A level 1 monster in 4E does not translate into CR1 in other editions. A "moderately challenging" encounter in 4E is supposed to be one equal level monster per PC, and as I understand CR, a CR X creature is supposed to be a "moderately challenging" encounter for a level X party. In both cases, "moderately challenging" means that, assuming a roughly fair fight where neither side has surprise or some significant advantage, the PCs are expected to win but do so by spending some limited resources (whether it's spell slots, hit dice, healing surges, or whatever else).

This.

3rd edition only required about 3.3 monsters per PC to level, but each of those monsters was an average encounter unto itself, requiring 13.3 encounters for the assumed 4 person party.

Conversely, while 4th required each PC to slay 10 monsters per level, the average assumption was one monster per PC each encounter, resulting in only 10 encounters per level.

Of course, that doesn't take into account how long each encounter takes to play. I'd say that 5th has both editions beat in that regard, hands down. 4e encounters could easily take an hour at any level, and by high levels 3rd was much the same in my experience. In stark contrast, the players in my 5e campaign just hit 19th level last session, and even at such high levels deadly encounters probably take an average of 30 minutes to resolve.

5e definitely feels like the fastest leveling edition to me. My campaign has been running for almost a year now, every other week, for roughly 4-6 hour sessions, and they're on the cusp of 20th level. Full disclosure, I do reward extra XP for good roleplaying and clever ideas, but I've been doing that in every edition since 2nd so it arguably evens out.