[3.5] On Average, How Long Does It Take In-Game to Level Up?

[HaikenEdge]

I'm kind of curious as to how long (Days, weeks months) in-game it takes to level up in general, according to both the DMG and players' experiences. I remember reading a DMG-based number on this forum, but I couldn't find it with my Google Fu, so I'm kind of curious to have something of a concrete answer for that, though I'm also interested in what players themselves have experienced.

[Mcdt2]

In theory, one should be fighting 4 level-appropriate fights per day, and 13.33 fights of equal level is enough to level up. So, according to the DMG it should take about 3-4 days to gain a level. In practice, this varies. Low level groups can have issues doing more than 1 fight per day, and high level groups can sometimes manage fights vastly above their level, getting enough exp to level up in as few as 2-3 fights, in the span of mere minutes.

[Diarmuid]

Edit - Wow, that was completely the wrong thread. Oops.

[Darkz0r]

My sessions are usually 6-8 hour long. Players usually level in 2 or 3 sessions. At low levels sometimes in 1 sessions.

[Rijan_Sai]

QUICK MATH TO FAST LEVELING

(For this exercise, we are going to round the number of battles needed to level from 13.33 to an even 14...I don't feel like dealing with funky maths right now...)

Now then, as it was stated, according the the DMG, each level requires ~14 CR appropriate battles, and you can fight ~4 battles per day. That comes out to ~4.5 days per level.

Taking this out a bit, we can see that it would take:
4.5 * 20 = ~90 days to go from level 1 to level 20.

[Slipperychicken]

With extra XP from roleplaying and making the GM chuckle, it can go a lot faster than that. My games usually go 1-4 sessions per level.

[HaikenEdge]

So, what I'm getting out of this is, most NPCs characters just aren't taking on level appropriate encounters; given the speed at which a characters can level (about three months) when facing level-appropriate encounters, that seems like the only logical reason why the DMG says most NPCs never get past level 3.

[HammeredWharf]

Depends on the universe. In something like FR, getting level-appropriate challenges is relatively easy for a group of adventurers. Ravenloft, on the other hand... One day of adventure, a year of wandering in the Mists, five minutes of fighting, two months in a mental institution, scars for life.

On a more serious note, are you asking about PCs or NPCs? How may years of experience you must have under your belt to get a level of expert is, as far as I know, not answered anywhere with any precision.


So, what I'm getting out of this is, most NPCs characters just aren't taking on level appropriate encounters;

NPCs don't even get XP. They get plot levels.

[HaikenEdge]

While that is true (regarding Expert), I'm asking about it because I'm helping a guy I know construct a living world, and we're trying to set up the pace of progression for both PCs and NPCs alike.

[Brookshw]

My games its usually every 2-3 sessions.

[HaikenEdge]

All you people answering me in X sessions isn't helping; as much as I appreciate the answers, I asked about in-game time, not real-world time.

[HammeredWharf]

While that is true (regarding Expert), I'm asking about it because I'm helping a guy I know construct a living world, and we're trying to set up the pace of progression for both PCs and NPCs alike.

In that case, I'd consider the world's structure and themes. Is it full of forgotten ruins? Are there pockets of monsters anyone can go in and level up? Are monsters common D&D pushovers or are they really tough and dangerous? I was partially serious when I was talking about Ravenloft, because in it taking on a monster isn't always a simple task. You may have to prepare, hit the books, hire some exorcists, track it without reliable divination spells and finally kill it in an encounter that could be quite deadly. This is especially true if your ECL is high-ish and the monsters you're killing aren't common zombies, which the world is full of.

So, you could have a world where leveling from 1-20 takes a few months. You could also have a world where leveling from 1-10 takes a few weeks at most, but then you can't level more because nothing is challenging. And, of course, you could have a world like the one I just described.

As for NPCs, I'd say getting a level via crafting, etc. should take a year or two and has diminishing returns.

[Mnemnosyne]

In-character? I typically try to make sure the characters level up once every few months, or at least once a year at the lower levels, but it's okay for that to slow down once it gets past 10th level so they're gaining maybe a level every 2-3 years or so.

[Slipperychicken]

All you people answering me in X sessions isn't helping; as much as I appreciate the answers, I asked about in-game time, not real-world time.

My games usually have roughly a month between adventures for downtime, roleplaying, preparation, and trying not being murderhobos. So it typically takes 2-4 weeks in-game to get from one level to another.

[Know(Nothing)]

In-character time can make it vary hugely. I've had parties take months of downtime to clean up/stabilize regions after a huge event or campaign. Sneaky parties might lay low for weeks at least after a botched(or even very successful) job.

In contrast, right now I'm in a party that doesn't quite get the hint when it's outmatched and should run, yet barely squeaks by and defeats really hard challenges, so we've been at nearly a level per day in-game.

[Amphetryon]

I generally hack the math so that 13 encounters will mean the party levels, regardless of whether those encounters were at 1st level against Ancient Red Wyrms, or at 18th level against one-armed breathing-impaired Kobolds. On average this means they level up after every 4th session.

EDIT: Most of the time, I try to ensure the party gets what qualifies as an 'encounter' every other day in-game, more in 'dungeons' and less on treks across the wilderness.

[Palanan]

In my long wilderness campaign, the party leveled roughly once every couple of weeks, although it tended to vary with downtime and their generally cautious approach to things. There was a long stretch of delving in an underground complex, during which the rate picked up a little owing to concentrated encounters--partly the locale, partly the plot.

In another long campaign, we tended to level up a good deal more slowly, because we ate up a lot of downtime--so the leveling rate was more like once per month.

In my most recent campaign, maybe once every week or two, although that's a very rough estimate. I'd been planning to stretch things out a ways (long sea voyage, and I didn't want the kraken-a-day approach) so if the campaign had continued, they would've been leveling once every 6-8 weeks for a while.

[Endarire]

When I ran my campaign from level 1-21, we leveled about every 3-5 sessions (and played typically once a week).

[Banaticus]

Monty Cook (I think?) had a long post on a blog once about how long it takes a commoner to level up. Given what a "level appropriate encounter" might be for a farmer, how often a drought occurs, how often a huge rainstorm happens when you're trying to harvest your alfalfa, things like that, how long it would take a farmer to level up. As I remember it, it was roughly a decade of life to go up a level -- quicker when you were younger, slower when you're older.

[ericgrau]

The time it takes to travel between 3 sites, including time spent figuring out the destination. The time spent at these sites is relatively negligible.

So I'll say 3 weeks per level, so a year to level 20 not including down time. Maybe a year and a half with down time unless it's extended down time, then it's as long as the plot dictates with no practical upper limit.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Depends entirely on what the character is doing and where they're doing it. If your N/PC is conveniently set up against enemies who are scaling in strength at the same rate as him on a constant basis all by themselves or with just a small few allies so XP isn't split much, a level a week is realistic.

An average adventurer in a Core-style world who is unrelated to the plot will level... Well, mechanically they should level every two to four months until level 5 or so, but I don't think that really holds from a storytelling standpoint. Realistically, your average mercenary who sticks to killing goblins and gnolls and the like ought to advance a level at most every year or two. And that's mercenaries. The DMG implies that those hardened veterans of several years of combat are generally, like, level 3.

In more high-magic, high-danger worlds, I could see a full-fledged adventuring party leveling up once a month without much fuss.

Peasants level up at, as mentioned above, a rate of a level every ten years or so.

[Cirrylius]

I'd say something like an average of one level every six months to a year, unless you're running a fast-paced campaign. That gives the characters time to accomplish long term non-adventure goals like starting families, businesses, and organizations, and watch the world progress in line with their successes/failures. Also, you'll still be epic before you're 40, instead of inexplicably bum-rushing Very Old dragons in your late teens; in my mind that hurts verisimilitude.

[ThePhantom]

Depends on the class, some spellcasters, such as wizards, really need about a month of downtime to level, while others like the sorcerer might need a day. The rest might need a week or two to level. As I said, it depends on the class.

[Slipperychicken]

Depends on the class, some spellcasters, such as wizards, really need about a month of downtime to level

Why would you say that is?

[Jon_Dahl]

The PCs in my games level every 3rd or 4th session. I guess usually every 4th.
Sessions last about 5 hours.

In-game that would be 1-4 weeks. My PCs travel quite a bit.

[darkelf]

"come on man, it's time."
"but i'm in the middle of something."
"what're you doing?"
"shadowrun returns. the dragonfall dlc is super-awesome."
"too bad, save game. it's time to level."
"but..."
"nope, level. now. we're on a strict schedule."
"damnit."

[Andezzar]

While that is true (regarding Expert), I'm asking about it because I'm helping a guy I know construct a living world, and we're trying to set up the pace of progression for both PCs and NPCs alike.NPCs generally don't progress except by DM fiat. If you used the PC mechanics for encounters and level up on NPCs you would get a very different game world. Take the level 1 commoner who wants to borrow something from his neighbor, that is at least a very difficult encounter. and now imagine he takes his produce to the market...
You won't have many 1st level commoners very quickly. Additionally what's stopping the commoner from multiclassing into another class?

[Mnemnosyne]

My time estimates, by the way, are assuming the characters are actively looking for adventure. Generally speaking, one level appropriate adventure will probably level them, and they find maybe one such adventure every several months at low level, with decreasing regularity the higher level they get, since level appropriate challenges become more rare at that point.

If they do anything other than actively look for adventure opportunities, like start a business, a family, etc, then it would typically double or triple the time periods involved, to the point where they're adventuring maybe once a year even at low levels, and heading out twice a decade at high levels.

Ideally, if they want to reach epic levels, they should have to pay attention to their own mortality. Death by natural causes should be a looming concern by the time they're in the high teens, unless they take steps to maintain their youth. That's partly why I slow things down a lot once they get past ten, and also because level appropriate challenges at that point tend to be major threats to entire regions, or worlds, at the higher end of that. Those just don't come along all that often.

Sometimes I might break with this - in extraordinary times, a party might get caught up in a series of challenges that does let them level up shockingly fast, but those tend to be the exceptions rather than the rule.

[prufock]

Yeah, if you're just meatgrinding, leveling can go very quickly. That doesn't take into account roleplaying, story, downtime, travel, etc though. My PCs generally level up every 3-4 sessions, but that can vary from a couple of days to weeks or even a month in-game, when you take the above into account.

I tend to do fewer encounters at higher challenge ratings, as well. I find "appropriate challenge" encounters are generally steamrolled over, and my group isn't even particularly optimized (blaster eldritch theurge, rogue, knight with a healer cohort, and cleric). There is no tension or drama to those, and I find the lack of those things a bit boring, so most of my encounters are at least a level above the party, and sometimes several. Boss battles tend to be tough, and I've run into a couple of PC deaths (despite using a homebrew "death save" rule).

[Saintsqc]

I think the leveling rate among NPCs depend of their class/occupation. A fighter in a mercenary company will level up at a faster pace than a fighter in an army during peaceful time. I also believe NPCs social status is dependant on their level. The chief of a mercenary company must be really experienced so his men trust him. A challenge is not only a battle against monsters. A noble could gain experience just by gaining influence in the court. Simply put, lleveling up should take years. PCs level up at a much faster rate because they face extraordinary challenges and learn a lot from that. I believe most NPCs levels should be around lvl 1 to 3. Among authoriry figures, it coule vary from 5 to 10. Some very powerful lords could be level 10-15. Legends are made from lvl 20 NPCs.

NPCs going through adventure like the PCs should lvl up at the same rate IMO

[Bonzai]

My players are fairly high OP, so I usually throw encounters about 3 CR above their CR and it works out fairly well. Because of that, they tend to level at an accelerated rate. This usually works out to 6 or so encounters. We tend to have two encounters a night at higher levels, and so about every three games or so. What this comes to in game time varies depending on the adventure.

[Shining Wrath]

Travel is the great unknown. If you never have to leave the dungeon, never need to go to town, never have to switch dungeons, you can go up a level a day with luck.

One three-week sail across the Sea of Amorous Mermaids throws that way off.

[Frozen_Feet]

"On average" is a poor question. Looking at it from the viewpoint of a GM, you craft a milieu, assign traps and creatures to locations, and then, when you have actual information on your setting, you can ask and answer the question "how long does it take to level".

In absence of a defined setting, we can't define any concrete average - only the minimum time it can take, and then arbitrary other times for arbitrarily different conditions.

For example, in "Magical child-rearing" thread, we concluded that a CR 2 Burning Hands trap is the optimal way for an Adept-class character to gain experience for themselves and their child. As a result, they both achieve ECL 10 in about three months, and then cease to gain experience from the trap. After that, they can of course create more challenging traps to reach max ECL of 18, but I didn't do the math for how long that'd take.

[broodax]

For the sake of pete, don't forget this.

The rate of leveling might be once per 14 encounters. What's the rate of dying though?

I think somewhere on the board a best guess arrived at about 50/50 per level. This does 2 things: 1) cuts down on the number of high level people because few make it past level 3-4 without dying. 2) discourages almost all NPCs from taking part in level appropriate encounters for fear of dying.

[Frozen_Feet]

The actual chance of death depends on specifics of the encountering parties. However, the recommendation for "equal level encounter" is about 80% survival rate.

Based on that, only 4.4% of adventurers make it from one level to the next.

Of course, adventuring is a piss-poor way of gaining experience. Fighting anything without stacking the odds in your favour is unoptimal. By letter of the rules, the optimal way to gain experience is to craft a trap that you can dismantle or go through with minimal risk to yourself. The Burning Hands trap mentioned before can be made by an NPC character at ECL 3 earliest, and can take them to ECL 10 with 0 risk of permanent injury or death.

[arkangel111]

@OP I remember reading somewhere in the DMG that it takes x weeks to "level" based on downtime training. I am afb right now but will see if i can find it when i get home. No one ever actually follows that rule though, at least not in any groups I have played in. It would be both a good and bad thing if they did though. The downtime would allow for crafting and the pure RP stuff, but it would also mean that any time sensitive stuff has to be put on hold while you train otherwise you'll do an entire dungeon to rescue the princess and still be level 1. If by some chance you manage to beat the dungeon you could literally level from 1-10 over night. Unless of course there is a cap to the amount of xp you can hold at any given time, which I think there might be a rule for that somewhere.

All I can say is be very careful with what you end up doing. If memory serves me its 1 month/level. so if you have 3 days to descend the dungeon your characters will be forced to not level up at all.

[Story]

Of course, adventuring is a piss-poor way of gaining experience. Fighting anything without stacking the odds in your favour is unoptimal.

You mean your adventurers don't stack the odds in their favor?

[ChaoticDitz]

You mean your adventurers don't stack the odds in their favor?

There's only so much you can stack the odds in your favor if it really counts as adventuring, considering that you don't always know what you're going to come up against well enough to do so.

[broodax]

The actual chance of death depends on specifics of the encountering parties. However, the recommendation for "equal level encounter" is about 80% survival rate.

Based on that, only 4.4% of adventurers make it from one level to the next.

Of course, adventuring is a piss-poor way of gaining experience. Fighting anything without stacking the odds in your favour is unoptimal. By letter of the rules, the optimal way to gain experience is to craft a trap that you can dismantle or go through with minimal risk to yourself. The Burning Hands trap mentioned before can be made by an NPC character at ECL 3 earliest, and can take them to ECL 10 with 0 risk of permanent injury or death.

This may be the case if you ignore page 39 of the DMG. Maybe you can make an argument that even this doesn't constitute a RAW reason why self made traps or chain-killing peasants or whatever your method of factory XP is doesn't work. Even if that's the case, there is no table, outside of the one where my 12 year old self stumbled upon Beholders (which, if I recall, had an extra 0 in their XP reward in 2nd edition) that were conveniently asleep in order to quickly level, where this sort of thing actually works.

Especially if the OP is designing a setting themself, I'd hope they don't allow this sort of thing. XP gain implies danger, and that is the limiting factor in how many NPC's choose to seek out XP gains, and how many of those that do survive to higher levels.

[Story]

There's only so much you can stack the odds in your favor if it really counts as adventuring, considering that you don't always know what you're going to come up against well enough to do so.

I suppose it depends on the table.

[atemu1234]

I've DMed a few missions, and I actually try to get the PCs to level up, so I often find them leveling somewhere between one and three times per mission. The longer the mission, the more they should level up, ideally. One time, when they were at sixth level, they went to tenth level in a single mission. Granted, the mission was more than four hours long, and we'd been planning it for a month, but in the end it worked out. An easy rule of thumb is that if they're fighting something on their level, they should level up fairly often. Another good rule of thumb, however, is that when they get higher in level, they should face fewer monsters on their level. Remember: high-level characters should be a rarity, so high-level adversaries should also be rare. It makes little sense for there to be six rooms in a row, each containing a set of thirteen warriors apiece, each one one level higher than the last. Rather, you should have the PCs actively search out threats. Don't mind to let the players level up quickly, however. As DM, you should try to have fun pitting them against more powerful enemies as much as they enjoy facing them.

[Telok]

I recently finished a long campaign in a setting where flight and teleportation were changed to be unsuitable for long distance travel, and exploration was one of the themes of the setting.

The party went from level five to level thirteen in about fourteen months of game time. So that is almost two months per level. However we were not using xp, instead they leveled after every four dungeons or quests.

[Grim Reader]

While that is true (regarding Expert), I'm asking about it because I'm helping a guy I know construct a living world, and we're trying to set up the pace of progression for both PCs and NPCs alike.

I believe you first need to decide what level someone who has lived a reasonably active life ends up at in your world. Then set a progression with more leveling at the start and the final level in or towards the end of middle age.

I decided for world-building reasons to disregard the article that stated the the most accomplished people in our world could be statted out as 5th-level characters. Einstein was an example, I seem to remember. I would either end up with a world where the PCs rapidly outstripped every other person, or a world with numerous people more accomplished than Einstein in their areas. Neither appealed.

So I decided that most people start life as level 0, and get a level when they enter martutity. A bright lad who joined the army at age 18, gets his first level as Fighter. (I don't use warrior, I find it redundant). He pays attention to his elders, puts in his time in the practice yard, and learns new tricks. He gets his second level after a few years of work, in his early twenties.

His country gets embroiled in a war, there is a lot of hurry up and wait, with a few battledays of sheer terror. In his thirties, he is 3rd level, a veteran and a sergeant. He keep training and asking for tips from people who seem to have interesting things to teach, and will retire as 4th level. 5th if his country grinds the army through a few more wars and he survives.

So I figure in my homebrew setting, people who drift through life will gain 1-2 levels over a lifetime, and those who apply themselves to master their profession will end up at 4-5 without adventuring. Mostly Commoner and Commoner-Expert multiclass but towards the frontier, Fighter and Ranger will be common.

So for me 1-2 in a couple of years, 2-3 in a decade and 1 to two more levels over the rest of their life works for NPCs.

[Frozen_Feet]

Maybe you can make an argument that even this doesn't constitute a RAW reason why self made traps or chain-killing peasants or whatever your method of factory XP is doesn't work.

The problem is that if self-made traps don't yield experience, then traps made by others shouldn't either. Because somehow, when you search for a Burning Hands trap and dismantle it in a dungeon, it's a CR 2 encounter, but when you do the same thing at home, it doesn't count.

Chance of survival shouldn't factor into it, because it's already factored into the CR of the trap. That is the reason why encounters below certain CR cease to give experience.

Trying to factor in character abilities just deepends the paradox. CR 2 Burning Hands trap may be lethal to ECL 1 Commoner, but almost certainly isn't to ECL 1 Fighter, let alone any ECL 2 character worth its salt. If "no risk" traps shouldn't yield XP, then the Burning Hands trap can't be CR 2. But it is listed as one nonetheless.

Of course, you can throw away the CR system, it's borked anyway. But when you do so, you leave RAW end up in the realm of GM fiat. No challenge can grant XP, unless the GM abritrates it was challenging enough.


You mean your adventurers don't stack the odds in their favor?

The best you can say of many of them is that they're trying.

One problem is that both players and GMs often go about this whole thing backwards.

From an in-setting viewpoint, how things should go is that the PCs investigate potential opposition, and then plan around that.

But instead, the GM investigates the PCs character sheets, and then plans the opposition to be "challenging enough" for the group, for whatever definition of "challenging".

OOTS has hung a lampshade on these kind of conventions many times. Somehow, you only ever have one random encounter in a trip regardless of time or distance travelled. Somehow, the type of power doesn't matter, because it's all weirdly balanced in the end. So on and so forth.

Real planning and decision-making is nigh impossible in such an environment. You can't minimize risks, because the risks adjust back to challenging because some out-of-the-world force such as "plot" dictates so. So instead of playing the game and using in-game tools to tackle obstacles, you end up playing a complex metagame of "what the other players and my GM will let me get away with without me making them upset".

Second problem is that not all players, and definitely not all characters, are smart enough for proper logistics, strategy, and tactics. I've seen a bunch of green players march their characters into a cavern naked and without a light source. I've also seen experienced players tying themselves into logical knots and do something incredibly stupid because they tried to play "I know that you know that I know"-game and got one step too far. (To get this, see the example of Vizzini in Princess Bride.)

[OldTrees1]

The following is the DMG number version (for comparision)

Encounter Distribution:

10% Easy [EL lower than party]
20% Easy if handled properly [Challenging or Very Difficulty if not handled properly]
50% Challenging [EL equal to party]
15% Very Difficult [EL 1-4 higher than party]
5% Overpowering [EL 5+ higher than party]

I assume:

Players flee from Overpowering encounters
Easy encounters are EL 1 lower than the party
Very Difficult encounters are equally distributed between ELs 1-4 higher than the party
Easy if handled properly encounters are handled properly


We have these victories
31% El 1 lower than party
53% El equal to the party
4% El 1 higher than the party
4% El 2 higher than the party
4% El 3 higher than the party
4% El 4 higher than the party

I assume:

Each encounter was composed of a single monster or the total xp rewards would equal the xp rewards of a similar encounter with a single monster.
The party has 4 PCs of equal level


We get
200 xp per ECL per each of the 31% El 1 lower than party encounters
300 xp per ECL per each of the 53% El equal to the party encounters
450 xp per ECL per each of the 4% El 1 higher than party encounters
600 xp per ECL per each of the 4% El 2 higher than party encounters
900 xp per ECL per each of the 4% El 3 higher than party encounters
1200 xp per ECL per each of the 4% El 4 higher than party encounters

So the average defeated encounter rewards 347xp per ECL. Since it takes 1000xp per ECL per level and the xp is split 4 ways, it takes 11.5 encounters per level.

Since the average encounter is El 0.09 higher than the party, the party can handle an average of 4 per day (the same as El equal to the party).

So 11.5 encounters per level / 4 encounters per day = 3 adventuring days per level.

Now, the DMG does not provide guidelines for the ratio of downtime to adventure time so I cannot give you days/level. So I hope adventuring days/level is sufficient.

[Mnemnosyne]

I think trap CRs are set in the context of a greater threat; the trap is part of a dungeon or other generally dangerous area, and so the trap has a CR because it contributes to the danger. Alone it would not be worthy of a CR, but if you insert a trap into an encounter, then it needs a CR so that it counts for making that encounter more challenging. Perhaps trap CRs should be considered to be applicable only when used in an encounter. That may make them using CR slightly more reasonable.

[theIrkin]

The problem with attempting to create a timeframe for NPC's to level is that they are usually not adventurers. Even adventurers are not PC's. For the purposes of my argument, I'll define all 3 archetypes as something unique.

NPC - average joe. NOT commoners to a man, but instead someone who finds something they're good at, and does that for long stretches of time, allowing them to make a living and hopefully thrive.

Adventurer - someone who gallivants about, attempting to to explore, or find fights (mercenaries fall under this category).

PC's - individuals who, whether in a conventional setting (equivalent to an NPC) or a more atypical setting (adventurer) constantly attempt to challenge themselves and hopefully improve their abilities.

Using these three categories, both NPC's and Adventurers reach a plateau at a certain level. A dog soldier is content being a level 1-3 character, or unable to become more because of a lack of adventure, or a lack of being able to think beyond their station (this sounds bad to a Western reader, even to myself, but it is how the game is constructed to me). The Sergeant and Captain have found themselves able to wield more responsibility and power. The only category who should continue to level indefinitely is the PC. The mechanical expression for this ability to better themselves, to think outside the box and take on more responsibility, is the leveling mechanic.

The rate at which they level is arbitrary, and I'm a fan of DM's who decide that they will control the rate of advancement. Yes, 13.33 level appropriate encounters is the number the game suggests, and the amount of time in between those encounters, or the time which encompasses those encounters, is arbitrary. I like the idea that a level covers between 1 month and 1 year of in-game time. It makes sense to me that someone who is in their mid-30's to mid-40's is a master, a level 20 character. They're all exceptional, but someone going from the level of novice (lvl 1) to master (lvl 20) in 3 months does something to break the immersion of a setting. It does fit into a hero's journey though, so I won't throw it out. That an entire setting would follow this system is ridiculous though.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Grim Reader
I decided for world-building reasons to disregard the article that stated the the most accomplished people in our world could be statted out as 5th-level characters. Einstein was an example, I seem to remember.

What article is this? This is a concept that's often mentioned, if not taken for granted, and I'd like to see the original source.

[TuggyNE]

The Burning Hands trap mentioned before can be made by an NPC character at ECL 3 earliest, and can take them to ECL 10 with 0 risk of permanent injury or death.

You know, I was just wondering. Do the XP rules rely on differences between character level and encounter element CR, or between APL and encounter element CR? If the latter, having a half-strength party would extend the usefulness of the trap another … two levels, I think.


What article is this? This is a concept that's often mentioned, if not taken for granted, and I'd like to see the original source.

It's on the Alexandrian (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2). It's actually not so much about "the most accomplished people ever were 5th level!", but more about "consider carefully how the system models things, and how to match this with real life." I.e., intended to spark thought, not simply argue for a particular leveling progression.

Unfortunately, like most attempts to spark thought, it instead mostly sparked controversy.

[SilverLeaf167]

In our latest (technically still unfinished) game, we had a system where the characters leveled up after each "quest arc", so to speak. This worked quite well because the main plot was split into a number of magical locations they had to visit, with a fairly uniform amount of time spent on each. Taking into account the relatively lengthy travel times, that meant they leveled probably once per two weeks; while on the road the whole time, mind you, and only facing quite few random encounters.

[BWR]

Oi, can't really say. the spread between parties, types of games everything is so great an average is nigh meaningless. We have one group that's 8th level and in game have been active for some 4-5 years, sometimes with lots of action, sometimes with a 6-12 months of downtime. I run a game, Pathfinder not 3.5, where the PCs recently hit lvl 15 after 5 years in game, but they had a 2.5 year downtime bit in between. another time we've had a group that leveled from 8 to 18 in the space of a few months in game.

[Captnq]

As soon as they get enough XPs, the character goes "ding" and they level up. So it's instantly, I guess.

[Keneth]

It depends on the character in question. My players get to level their characters once every few sessions, and since I don't get anywhere close to the recommended 3-5 encounters a day (I seriously don't get how people justify this, even for adventurers), it usually amounts to about a tenday (yay, FR terminology). For NPCs, however, it depends largely on their role in the game. Active adventurers, especially GMPCs, level at the same pace as the player characters, so that the players can recruit or engage them at any given time. NPCs who only get occasional encounters (city guards, retired adventurers, etc.) level no more than once every three months. And lastly, NPCs who only get circumstantial XP (craftsmen, aristocrats, etc.) generally level only once every couple of years.

I think the reason why in any given setting the vast majority of characters won't ever level, is because the suggested rate of PC progression means that the adventure will conclude before it actually matters.

[supermonkeyjoe]

It depends entirely on the setting, the adventurers and the pacing.

They could earn enough XP in a day to level, then sit around for months in-game doing not a lot. They might fight one encounter every other day for a month. Or a party of super-optimised characters with no per-day resources could blow through 14 encounters in 14 rounds and assuming they gain xp on a per-encounter basis, get to level 20 in exactly 28 minutes (incredibly unlikely though it may be.)