Reasonable Level Advancement

[DonElektro]

This is not a question, I just want your opinion as I am not an experienced DM.
I decided to run a long campaign about 25-30 sessions and the first adventures will finish after 3 to 5 days each (in game days).
I want characters to reach level 20 in sessions 20-25.
What's your opinion from your experience? Should I give them + 1 level in every adventure they complete or just award them the more encounters/deadliest monsters they fight the more exp.
In my last campaign heroes advanced to 4 level in only the second adventure and I added more powerful monsters because they was to strong. They disappointed with that. I don't want to happen this in this new campaign. So what to do about level advancement?

[Ninja_Prawn]

Gaining 1 level per session using standard monster XP values is not going to be easy. Especially at levels 5 and up, you have to crawl through lots of high-difficulty encounters to advance that way. It might be possible with 3-4 hour sessions, tactically-astute players and a classic 'all monsters, all the time' dungeon, but is that what your players want?

It would be much easier to just forget XP and give them 1 level every session, though that might end up divorcing level from 'worldly experience', especially if you spend half a session chatting with NPCs.

Why do you want to go up 20 levels in 20 sessions? Is there any particular reason for it?

[Tenmujiin]

Personally I prefer milestone leveling as a player and DM, essentially when I DM I just tell the players that they gain a level when it feels appropriate based on events and plot, never more than once per session and rarely more than 3 sessions at the same level.

Edit: note I intentionally level the PCs quickly since my group's last DM never held a campaign for more than 5ish sessions so we've played low levels plenty

[hymer]

Leveling every session may sound attractive to many players. I find it's annoying, though. I want to try out my character's new abilities, and it keeps changing and getting new ones before I'm done with the old. It's also sad to leave the best levels (about 5 to 10 in a recent survey) behind so quickly. And it pushes the game towards a conclusion swiftly, which takes a lot of the fun out.

Anyway, you can level using the 'milestones' optional rule. Whenever the PCs have finsihed with a point, they advance in level. They may not always get everything done in one session, though.

[Rallicus]

Milestones are the way to go, I think.

I've been on track for a level every 3 sessions (on average) and the campaign has gone on for like a year and a half, and the highest PC is level 15. If I could go back I'd probably do milestones.

[Arkhios]

This is not a question, I just want your opinion as I am not an experienced DM.
I decided to run a long campaign about 25-30 sessions and the first adventures will finish after 3 to 5 days each (in game days).
I want characters to reach level 20 in sessions 20-25.
What's your opinion from your experience? Should I give them + 1 level in every adventure they complete or just award them the more encounters/deadliest monsters they fight the more exp.
In my last campaign heroes advanced to 4 level in only the second adventure and I added more powerful monsters because they was to strong. They disappointed with that. I don't want to happen this in this new campaign. So what to do about level advancement?

If you didn't feel like calculating monsters' EXP given to each character indvidually, you can always just decide whether they gained a level at certain points. It might be somewhat a median. Start with frequent levels, and lower the frequency toward later levels, up to until they are on the verge of reaching the last levels, at which point the story usually begins to fold in rather quickly.

Maybe divide the campaign into X "chapters" if you will, like with a play in a theater (for, what is roleplaying, if not improvised acting). Complete with a prologue, campaign defining scenes, the story climax, and an epilogue, something along the lines:

Prologue: when the characters become who they were destined to be, from levels 1 to 3; these levels were intentionally designed to be acquired easily, as it is at those first levels of adventuring when heroes fully recognize their potential, and become more than mere commoners with wanderlust (and superior capabilities). (2 sessions, 1 session per level, because the experience requirements are not that huge; you have now played 2 sessions).

Story-defining Events: This is when the story unfolds, intriguing revelations laid out to be investigated. I'd say this reaches from 4th to 13th levels. (Maybe 14 sessions, total, with first 6 levels taking 1 session per level, and then the next 4 levels a 2 sessions per level; you have now played 16 sessions)

The story climax: The true masterplan behind all things begins to reveal itself to the characters around this point of adventuring, more or less, and the story might accelerate a bit in gaining levels again. Somewhere around 14 to 19th levels, ending with the climax just after the characters reach 20th level. Obviously reaching 20th level should require some serious effort, not be given on a silver platter. (6 sessions for 14 to 19th levels, then 2 sessions for level 20; you have now played 24 sessions)

Epilogue: All stories end some day, and the characters become actual legends, both in the game world, but also in our memories. (Now that you are at 20th level, you still have 6 sessions to play at the maximum of 20th level, which I believe will be quite satisfying.)

[DonElektro]

Ok you were very helpful! I'll advance them to 3-5 levels quickly and then I'll reduce the rate. Thanks again! The template you give me helped me also a lot and I'm going to use it!

[Arkhios]

Ok you were very helpful! I'll advance them to 3-5 levels quickly and then I'll reduce the rate. Thanks again! The template you give me helped me also a lot and I'm going to use it!

You're welcome. One more suggestion though: Feel free to adjust any "chapters" as you see fit, because as being noted, the so called sweet-spot is at 5th to 10th level, so it might be best if your players could enjoy them as much as possible. Likewise, some might say that at later levels your level advancement should gradually slow to somewhat 3 sessions for 1 level, but as it is, for the most classes those later levels give so little in terms of new abilities, so they might become boring if they took longer than at most 2 sessions for each level. Especially if you have a timetable to follow. (I assume a semester in an university or something?)

[DonElektro]

Thanks for the advice. I'll keep notice on it!

[darkrose50]

The first three levels should come quickly, then slow down from there, and speed up again after tenth level.

[Cybren]

You definitely want to use milestone XP, but even then 20 levels in 25 sessions seems like it would be too fast for my taste. If your players aren't completely new to 5e, I'd suggest starting at level 3, since that's when everyone's subclass has actually kicked in, then at least you're not doing as many rapid fire level up every session scrambling to hit 20

[Balain]

There was a saying somewhere, I think in 3rd edition dmg. Party should level roughly every 13 hard encounters.

Low level it is much quicker, and high level should be slower.

Encounters don't have to be just combat either. In fact at the really high levels the encounters should be less, let us kill these 10 orcs, and more let us save this town from the erupting volcano, save the mayor from a hired assassin, and figure out why all the cattle have died. Oh yeah you have 20 minutes to do all Three things.