[PF] A Question of Advancement Speed

[CockroachTeaParty]

I'm starting to get the itch to create a new campaign for my friends, and I'm going to use Pathfinder rules. However, I'm debating what speed advancement track I want to use.

I sort of understand the reasoning behind the different XP speeds; the slow track would be used for someone who wants a lower-powered or longer-running game, while the fast speed is the inverse.

I personally enjoy leveling up, and watching the party's skills and abilities grow and evolve, so I'm leaning towards making them take the fast experience track. Is there any good reason not to? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the different advancement speeds, so if anyone has any experience with them, or how the different speeds effect gameplay, I'm all ears (or eyes, as it were, this being a text-based medium).

[Andvare]

If you remember to adjust the treasures for the faster or slower progress, you should be fine.

[Mayito]

I actually would really like to know others thoughts on this as well. My gaming group typically levels up very fast but what are some reasons for or against it?

[Novawurmson]

Most of the arguments are two sides to the same coin.

The players gain access to cool stuff faster, but that cool stuff often makes the DM's job harder. The first time your players gain access to things like Black Tentacles and shut down your lovingly crafted encounter in a round, you'll fleetingly wish they were still level 3 again. Alternatively, that DC 25 Disable Device check was killer a few levels ago; now, the Rogue can just take 10 and breeze past it.

You can make more powerful and interesting encounters to challenge your players with, but you also have to make more powerful and difficult encounters to keep the game any kind of a challenge for the players. Sure, at level 2 you could just throw some level 1 Goblin Warriors at them, but try throwing a few level 10 Goblin Warriors at the party at level 11; they'll most likely get absolutely stomped while your players yawn and browse Facebook on their phones if that's all there is to the encounter.

There are far more ways to "negate" a build or tactic. Freedom of Movement shuts down almost all grapple builds (Tetori (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo---monk-archetypes/tetori) Monk is an exception, not the rule). Fortification potentially shuts down the Rogue's sneak attack. Everybody should be flying; anything still plodding around on the ground is just asking to die 75% of the time. You thought the party was going to have a hard time finding a silver weapon to fight your werewolf army, but it turns out they can just crank out enough Silversheen (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/silversheen) for the whole town guard. Your BBEG planned on giving a speech and then teleporting to safety... and then the party Wizard tags him with Dimensional Anchor (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/dimensional-anchor). Sirocco (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sirocco) and other abilities that fatigue even on a successful save are brutal to Barbarians who haven't found a way to become immune to fatigue/exhaustion yet, and they only get more common the higher level you are. You need to be more and more conscious both of ways that will shut down your players and ways that your encounters can be shut down.

Overall, I find that low-level play is far superior for low-level DMs who don't yet know how quickly their players will advance in power (and more importantly, the sweet-spot between TPK and too easy); once you've gotten some low-level play under your belt, try higher levels.

[Andvare]

I would personally prefer a mixture of all three tracks. Fast from level one to five, medium from level six to twelve, and slow afterwards.
Of course, I find that the levels five to twelve to be the most fun, as before you are a bit weak, and without a lot of the tools to create interesting solutions, and after you can too easily break the game.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Oh, I'm certainly not a low-level DM/GM. I've been running the Savage Tide campaign this past year, and my players are rocking level 18 characters; good times all around.

So using the slow advancement track might be a good idea for inexperienced GMs and/or players? I could see that. But the slow advancement risks players getting bored of their own abilities, I would wager. Some characters, like prepared casters, can play around with whole spell lists of spells, but spontaneous casters limited to a smaller selection of spells risk getting bored with them.

Would slow progression games make spell choices like Sleep, Hypnotism, and Color Spray even better than normal? Those spells start strong, but become less useful after a few levels, so a slow-advancement game would see more milage out of them.

[Kol Korran]

It really is just a matter of party preferences... How much time is enough for a level for the party? I'd suggest you start at the regular, and feel your way with the party, and perhaps speed up or slow down as the mood dictates. Nothing is set in stone.

[Novawurmson]

So using the slow advancement track might be a good idea for inexperienced GMs and/or players? I could see that. But the slow advancement risks players getting bored of their own abilities, I would wager. Some characters, like prepared casters, can play around with whole spell lists of spells, but spontaneous casters limited to a smaller selection of spells risk getting bored with them.

Would slow progression games make spell choices like Sleep, Hypnotism, and Color Spray even better than normal? Those spells start strong, but become less useful after a few levels, so a slow-advancement game would see more milage out of them.

It also depends on your players and tastes; I agree with the base assumptions of E6 (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/206323-e6-game-inside-d-d.html), that PF/3.5 has distinct break points between styles of game play, and you and your players should work together to find that sweet spot. For some (like the E6 crowd), it's level 6. For my players, it's more like level 9.

Setting and gaming style also play into it a lot. If you want to create a high-magic, high-fantasy, half the NPCs are actually dragons/devils/aboleths in disguise, planar travel is common, etc. game, then quick advancement is the way to go. If you want to play in a game world like Golarion where magic frequently witnessed and mostly understood, then medium advancement is the way to go. If you want to play in a game world like Eberron where magic is somewhat understood but still somewhat murky and terrifying and the players need to use their wits and guile instead of their character sheets, then slow advancement is perhaps better.

[Mayito]

I am trying to set up my first session and I was wondering how many sessions people usually take to level up. My previous dm typically leveled us up after every session but even on the fast track I am dishing out alot of rp exp in order to level them up. I am already nervous about a tpk with the battles as it is so what should I do? Slow things down, give more opportunity to gain rp exp, or make them try their hardest not to get wiped out

[SimonMoon6]

As a player, I'd like to zip past those boring low levels. But then once I get to a higher level, I'd like to pause and enjoy my abilities before zipping off to unplayable epic levels.

So, personally, I'd love a campaign that started at tenth (or so) level and then had very slow advancement... or something that started with incredibly rapid advancement and then switched to very slow advancement.

[Roguenewb]

When I DM 3.5, I'm trying to level my players about once a session, or once every 8-10 hours of gameplay. That means that they are improving steadily, as opposed to plateu then spike then plateau then spike...

To do this, I usually have to enhance exp output a bit.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Has anyone worked out a system on how to switch advancement speeds? Merely switching speeds won't work without some finagling, as you reach different levels at different amounts of experience.

For instance, if you're on the fast track and reach level 6, you'll have 15,000 XP. If you then switched to slow advancement, you don't even have enough XP to be level 6 anymore (you'd still be somewhere in 4th level). Would you just start slogging it out, waiting to hit 53,000 to reach 7? Or perhaps the change should be more gradual, switching to Medium for a level or two before going slow?

[Mayito]

I would think that instead of trying to reach the number listed you just see how much is need from the previous level. For example on the fast track you need an additional 3300 xp to go from lvl 3 to 4 while the medium requires an additional 4k. A little more math for you but it shouldn't be to hard.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Is the fast experience track the closest equivalent to the 3.5 advancement track?