How fast do you level up?

[AlexTheGreat]

How fast (in-game time) do your characters level up? What's the fastest you ever leveled up in a game?

[Drinzor]

How fast (in-game time) do your characters level up? What's the fastest you ever leveled up in a game?

Ingame time around 2 hours :)

but World largest Dougen might not count

[ericgrau]

I had one DM who did a level per session, so... a few days of getting our mission and lounging in an air ship plus 42 seconds of combat.

[HunterOfJello]

A few months per level unless there's a long trip somewhere and lots of travel time. It seems strange for PCs to gain so much power so quickly, but the game is designed around the 13 encounter/level system so that's what you get.

[bigstipidfighte]

One game I was in we leveled twice during a session. Not at the beginning or end, but in the middle of play. We had also been leveling once or twice betwen every session of the game. I'd never played a wizard to that high a level before (IIRC the level-up was from 13 to 15) Needless to say it took me a while.

[Mordrigar]

Once, when I was level 12, I killed level 19 guy (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Deren_Eriach) in a 1-1 Combat. Then become a "Chosen." Also The Deity that selected me as a chosen gave me his own weapon. -It was Tyr (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Tyr)and the weapon was +5 Vorpal Longsword-

Luckily, I killed a Great Wyrım Green Dragon (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Sirvinhandra) on a single hit -natural 20-

I don't remember well but with role play reward I gained 7~8 level in that session.

But note that, our DM let us level earn all experience points for every monster. IIRC, Normally you can't earn an xp high enough to upgrade your character 2 levels from just one event. The limit of the experience points that you earn from a single event is your next level up limit minus one.

[Volthawk]

Pretty slowly, since we don't get into much combat, and our DM doesn't really do roleplaying xp. It's been a year and two months or so, and we've gone up two levels, from level 2 to level 4 (the characters from beginning to end, anyway. I think we've still got a level 3).

[big teej]

in game?
well, my groups do xp gain at the end of session.

so for my summer group, I believe for a stretch they leveled 3 times over the course of a week.

my school group has gone from level 1 to level 5 over the course of about 3 months...

[Curmudgeon]

At a Con game once, about once per hour.

Generally, though, it's about the suggested standard of once every 13.33 encounters.

[Ozreth]

Does the DMG talk about the 13 encounters/level thing?

And did AD&D have any similar sort of estimate?

[Yora]

On average, I say once about every four sessions.

[Alleran]

The long-running campaign I'm DMing has the PCs leveling quite slowly. They started at third level and after a year and a bit, they're pushing 8th-9th level.

In shorter campaigns or one-shots, they can level up possibly more than once per session, depending on what's thrown at them.

[LaughingRogue]

On average about once every 1 1/2 session with my group but this is a long 12 hour session.

[AlexTheGreat]

Guys, I'm asking about leveling in-game, in-character, not RL-time. :|

[Tyger]

Guys, I'm asking about leveling in-game, in-character, not RL-time. :|

Then that is going to depend on the same factors as above.

If you have four generous XP fights back to back to back in a nasty dungeon, that could level your character in about 2.5 minutes, assuming an average of 6 rounds per fight.

If your character spends a month traveling rather uneventfully from one city to another, earning only mediocre XP for RP or some other DM fiat amount, then it could take months or years of IG time to earn a single level.

[Tyndmyr]

Depends wildly. Rarely slower than once a month. Quite frequently a level up within a single day.

[LaughingRogue]

Guys, I'm asking about leveling in-game, in-character, not RL-time. :|

Depends on the what kind of campaign, how many encounters per day and other factors --- it's too hard to give an average or even an estimate.

[AlexTheGreat]

Then tell me what you prefer and why.

[McSmack]

Yeah it depends on how much the particular character is being challenged (be it through RP encounters, puzzles or combat, etc). If they're constantly fighting for their lives then they'll rack up the XP's pretty quick. If traveling, crafting or resting, not so much.

In a typical game I run, the party has a single adventure spanning anywhere from a few days to a week and then two weeks to a month of downtime, on average, depending on the particulars of the setting/campaign. I don't use XP in my games since I don't particularly care for bookeeping. Instead I have the party level up after a couple of adventures or possibly after one long adventure or dungeon. So the party is gaining a level about once every 6-10 weeks or about once every two months.

I typically make my adventures consist of about 6 to 8 encounters some roleplay some combat/puzzle/traps, so two adventures puts me right in the
13 encounters/level range.

[LaughingRogue]

Then tell me what you prefer and why.

The preference being a good mix of Roleplaying and Combats --- but combats that actually have something backed by a good story:

For example not this: You meet a woman she gives you a quest to get her a sword , you fight 6 things to get the sword and you level --- you come back and give the sword to the woman.

You then meet a man who wants a ring... (this is very bad and i'd rather not be playing at that point).

[Siosilvar]

Does the DMG talk about the 13 encounters/level thing?

And did AD&D have any similar sort of estimate?

It does talk about the 13.33 encounters of your CR per level (in a sidebar, p41). It also mentions that you should be able to go through 4 of these in a day without a real risk of dying, which leads some people to believe that you should only ever go through 4 CR-equal challenges per day, with none above and none below your level, despite the guidelines for encounter difficulty on the same page (p49).

AD&D... I don't remember ever reading such an estimate, but the majority of your XP came from gold and magic items anyway, with the justification that if you got the treasure, you had to get around the monsters somehow, so you deserve some XP for that. You did get an extra XP bonus for actually killing the monsters, but the risk/reward on that isn't great unless the monster is guarding a pile of treasure.