ZEITGEIST Zeitgeist level pacing (spoilers)

[skotothalamos]

I'm a bit concerned about the pace of leveling in Zeitgeist (4e). While levels 1 and 2 seemed to take a while, since then my group barely gets 2 combats in before they're leveling again. No one wants to print their characters because they know they might be printing again in two weeks. While the 10 recommended encounters in the DMG is glacially slow, could we shoot for an average of 5 or 6 encounters before turboing onto the next level?


Level 1:
Skill Challenges: 3
Combat Encounters: 6
Total: 9


Level 2:
Combat Encounters: 7


Level 3:
Combat Encounters: 3


Level 4:
Skill Challenges: 1
Combat Encounters: 1-2


Level 5:
Combat Encounters: 2


Level 6:
Skill Challenges: 1
Combat Encounters: 5 (plus ziggurat traps)


Level 7:
Combat Encounters: 4


I haven't tracked past this, but this takes us through the end of adventure three. My group's already a level behing because they skipped the non-essential smuggling plot in adventure two, skipping three encounters, and cooperated with Kell to find Wolfgang (skipping one encounter). I didn't want to make them level three after only three encounters. Had I known the pace that was coming, (three levels over 6 or 7 encounters) I wouldn't have hesitated.


I'm probably going to adapt another adventure to fit in. One of my newer players is having trouble learning the game and her character because everything is changing so quickly. I guess I wasn't expecting to have to dig up side adventures to keep the pacing from feeling ridiculous. Are the future adventures any better, or is it still "level up for one day's worth of work"?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Adventure Paths that I'm familiar with tell you what level you should be for each part. I wouldn't let PCs "fall behind in levels" if they've been missing encounters, I would just forget about XP and level them up.

Of course, if you have a new player who feels like you're leveling up too quickly, it's okay to do "sidequests" anyway. But these should be for teaching purposes, not to mechanically gain XP.

 

[skotothalamos]

I'm clearly not going by xp. That's kind of the whole point of the post. The adventure path says, in some cases, "do these two encounters, then level, then do another encounter or two, then level."

I figured there'd be another point where I could take one of those 9-encounter levels and catch them up after 4 or 5 since they skipped an entire section of the adventure. Level 1 had 9 encounters, level 2 had 7. I figured since they blew through the level 2 part in 3 encounters, I could move a few off of level 3 into level 2. Oh, oops, level 3 only has 3 encounters. Okay, i'll take some from level 4. Oh, level 4 has two fights. cool. At this rate level 5 will be one fight and then we'll start with mid-fight leveling. Somewhere around level 7 they'll level at the end of each round, and then around level 11 they will gain "Minor Action: gain a level."

It's just... the pace is bizarre. Delft literally has to walk up to them before level 6 and say, "wow, good work. I know it's been all of two days since I gave you ten thousand gold pieces to work security at a fair, but here's thirteen thousand more to go on a road trip."

 

[Tukka]

I think you have a point, but it hasn't been much of an issue in my group so far. However, I have done some light adaptation. I converted a few "skill vignettes" into full skill challenges, and I did not have the party level up at the end of Act 1 of Adventure 3. Clearing the framed PC's name also became a skill challenge which was capped off with a raid of on a Kell-Guild safehouse (a combat encounter).

I'm probably also going to remove the mid-adventure level-up from Always on Time. I haven't looked too closely at Cauldron Born, but it seems like it would be easy to manufacture a few encounters with everything that's going on in that adventure if necessary.

Having the party be 1 level behind isn't a big deal, as the fights tend not to be super challenging, and it's easy to adapt skill DCs. When the party gets 2 levels behind, I expect I'll just drop a point or two from the defenses and attack bonuses of the higher level enemies.

 

[skotothalamos]

Having the party be 1 level behind isn't a big deal, as the fights tend not to be super challenging, and it's easy to adapt skill DCs. When the party gets 2 levels behind, I expect I'll just drop a point or two from the defenses and attack bonuses of the higher level enemies.

Yeah, I haven't had any power level problems with them being a level behind. Probably helps that e have a 6-person group, though.

 

[Ajar]

Isn't this line of reasoning predicated on the assumption that XP should flow solely or largely from encounters? In terms of actual playing time between levels, I've found it pretty consistent throughout, and the levels almost always occur after major plot beats (which are often capstone encounters).

Personally, I'm not concerned about how many fights and/or skill challenges occurred between levels, I care about the sum total of how much stuff the players did -- which goes far beyond those two mechanical elements. My group shoots for weekly sessions and have at times gone months without a combat encounter or formal skill challenge, typically during investigation sequences. In my mental "is it appropriate for the PCs to level up yet" calculus, that stuff absolutely counts.

If your group is moving through the largely non-mechanical stuff a lot faster, I can see how the level pacing could be off, but IMO the amount of adventure content between each level is actually paced fairly well.

 

[RangerWickett]

That's certainly something to bear in mind in later adventures, and whenever we get around to doing another adventure path. I do want to give players time to play with their new powers before pushing them to level up again, and in hindsight we could have done a better job pairing the plot and roleplaying scene progression more evenly with the pace of combat encounters.

That said, 4e usually gives you several levels before your latest toy is upstaged. You reach level 3 and get a new encounter power, and you don't get another until level 7, so even if you do level up after just 1 or 2 fights, what you're getting are feats, dailies, and stat boosts, not new encounter powers.