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Kaiser Omnik
2008-12-06, 11:14 PM
I'm about to DM my first game of D&D 4e. Players are all new to this edition, but not to D&D. I only have two players for now (maybe more in the future). In light of this, I had a few questions for all of you who have some experience of the fourth edition.

1) In your experience, how much time does it take for a regular party to get from level 1 to level 5-6?
2) I want to start play in the heroic tier. Should I start the game at level 1 or higher?
3) Seeing as I have only two players and I'll have to adjust the difficulty accordingly, would it be better for them to start a few levels above 1 so I have more levels of monsters at my disposal?

Thanks!

Crow
2008-12-06, 11:17 PM
I'm about to DM my first game of D&D 4e. Players are all new to this edition, but not to D&D. I only have two players for now (maybe more in the future). In light of this, I had a few questions for all of you who have some experience of the fourth edition.

1) In your experience, how much time does it take for a regular party to get from level 1 to level 5-6?
2) I want to start play in the heroic tier. Should I start the game at level 1 or higher?
3) Seeing as I have only two players and I'll have to adjust the difficulty accordingly, would it be better for them to start a few levels above 1 so I have more levels of monsters at my disposal?

Thanks!

Starting at level 1 is fine. I would start there to ease them into the new edition and figure things out, as they will gain levels pretty quickly but gradually. If you only have two players, just cut the XP budget in half (half of the 4-man party amount) for designing encounters and they should be fine.

Our group took about 6 sessions to get from level 1 to 7 before we hung up the edition and went back to 3.5e.

Kaiser Omnik
2008-12-06, 11:25 PM
Starting at level 1 is fine. I would start there to ease them into the new edition and figure things out, as they will gain levels pretty quickly but gradually. If you only have two players, just cut the XP budget in half (half of the 4-man party amount) for designing encounters and they should be fine.

Our group took about 6 sessions to get from level 1 to 7 before we hung up the edition and went back to 3.5e.

6 sessions? Wow, I agree, that's fast.

Starsinger
2008-12-06, 11:27 PM
It's not necessarily the norm either. It took a group I was in recently four sessions to reach level 2 and three more sessions to reach level 3.

Tengu_temp
2008-12-06, 11:27 PM
I'd start the game at level 3 at least. 1 daily power and 1 encounter power = boring.

Crow
2008-12-06, 11:28 PM
I was running a 4 man party against 5-man xp budget encounters...but that shouldn't make that much difference. Plus our party was 3 strikers and a cleric.

I think about a level every two sessions is about the norm at lower levels.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-06, 11:29 PM
Increasing or reducing the XP budget of encounters according to the number of PCs is easy once you're looking at the table. Note, however, that if the party has no healer, they'll need extra access to some kind of healing - potions, for instance. While lacking combat roles will change the dynamic of combat, they should be able to handle the reduced numbers of enemies; after all, with only two enemies of their level in a medium-difficulty encounter, they won't really be that bad off if they have no tank, just, say, a striker and a warlord.

Ideally, the party would have a paladin as a tank-leader, and probably a striker, but it shouldn't really be necessary to let the PC numbers dictate the party composition.

Level 1 will work fine, too; after all, it's incredibly easy to modify enemies' levels up or down (so long as you don't cross tiers), so you're never really limited to monsters of level X or Y.


6 sessions? Wow, I agree, that's fast.

We ran an entire 3.5 campaign to level 10 or so on the principle of "one session, one adventure, one level." That's about when two illithids killed half the party in one encounter...

Kaiser Omnik
2008-12-06, 11:37 PM
Increasing or reducing the XP budget of encounters according to the number of PCs is easy once you're looking at the table. Note, however, that if the party has no healer, they'll need extra access to some kind of healing - potions, for instance. While lacking combat roles will change the dynamic of combat, they should be able to handle the reduced numbers of enemies; after all, with only two enemies of their level in a medium-difficulty encounter, they won't really be that bad off if they have no tank, just, say, a striker and a warlord.

Ideally, the party would have a paladin as a tank-leader, and probably a striker, but it shouldn't really be necessary to let the PC numbers dictate the party composition.

Level 1 will work fine, too; after all, it's incredibly easy to modify enemies' levels up or down (so long as you don't cross tiers), so you're never really limited to monsters of level X or Y.



We ran an entire 3.5 campaign to level 10 or so on the principle of "one session, one adventure, one level." That's about when two illithids killed half the party in one encounter...

Thanks for everyone's comments.

There is one cleric and one paladin, which isn't bad. I don't know if they plan to multiclass. We have a capable healer, but not much damage in this group. I thought of adding a npc striker (rogue) in their group (note: Not a DMPC). Do you think a group can survive with a leader and a defender, no striker?

LiteYear
2008-12-06, 11:51 PM
I believe they'll be fine, at least early on. A heal (and a way to force healing surges) would be a very important thing, and those two should have it covered.

Mando Knight
2008-12-07, 12:17 AM
There is one cleric and one paladin, which isn't bad. I don't know if they plan to multiclass. We have a capable healer, but not much damage in this group. I thought of adding a npc striker (rogue) in their group (note: Not a DMPC). Do you think a group can survive with a leader and a defender, no striker?

Definitely. Leader and Defender is the preferred two-man group, followed by Defender and Striker with many many healing potions. Without a striker or controller, monsters will survive longer, but a Cleric/Paladin team can take it. If either one is a Strength-based Dragonborn, they have a bit of close-range Controller capability with the Dragon Breath.

Unfortunately, for all their improved badassery (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TookALevelInBadass), the Paladin is still the MADest core class (Strength is good, Charisma is good, Wisdom is good, Dexterity and Constitution are helpful)... however, their built-in extra healing and automatic Plate Proficiency allows them to skimp a little on Con, and they only need about 14 points of Dex in Heroic...

Use the DMG's XP budget, halving the suggested XP to compensate for the lack of players.

Starsinger
2008-12-07, 12:18 AM
Leader Striker isn't bad either.

TheOOB
2008-12-07, 12:30 AM
If you follow the encounter and experience guidelines in the book, it takes 10 encounters to level up(give or a take a couple), which means if you average 3-4 encounters a session (which is fairly standard for my group), it will take you three sessions to level up, which assuming 1 session a week would take you 12 weeks to get to level 5, which is a bit less then 3 months. All of this math is worked out in the DMG, and it even makes suggestions on how to adjust experience to make a campaign longer or shorter.

The real trick is that the players level when the DM tells them to, really you can award whatever xp you deem worthy.

Myatar_Panwar
2008-12-07, 12:43 AM
Starting at level 1 is fine. I would start there to ease them into the new edition and figure things out, as they will gain levels pretty quickly but gradually. If you only have two players, just cut the XP budget in half (half of the 4-man party amount) for designing encounters and they should be fine.

Our group took about 6 sessions to get from level 1 to 7 before we hung up the edition and went back to 3.5e.

Wow. that is fast. I've probably had around 15 sessions and my players have barely reached level 7 (and only because of a little DM nudge in the 'extra XP' direction).

Alyss
2008-12-07, 01:08 AM
My group has 3 strikers, ranger, rogue and barbarian. We do fine.

Asbestos
2008-12-07, 01:27 AM
My group has 3 strikers, ranger, rogue and barbarian. We do fine.

Team speed murder?
I feel like things could be really swingy with a 3 striker team.

Crow
2008-12-07, 01:31 AM
Team speed murder?
I feel like things could be really swingy with a 3 striker team.

It is. Rogue, Rogue, Ranger, Cleric here.

OneFamiliarFace
2008-12-07, 03:01 AM
I think this is all solid stuff.

If you find the lower levels boring and want to speed stuff up, you could always double experience awards at lower levels as well. That could give you the best of both worlds. Just make sure players know when things have slowed down.

Totally Guy
2008-12-07, 05:21 AM
I have been running a 4th edition campaign for 9 sessions now and in our last session the party hit level 6.

They all lamented that by 6th level the feats sucked and weren't worth having.
Then I showed to warlock defensive mobility, which was ideal for someone that provokes as many opportunity attacks as he does.
Then I showed the Warlord and party face Linguist which he took with glee.
And the paladin multiclassed to fighter because it was awesome.

Then I pointed out that as an even numbered level all their skills and defenses go up too.

It took a little nudging but they all agreed the level up was good.

The Mormegil
2008-12-07, 06:01 AM
... Wow... just wow... This is... really fast...

I mean, one level a session? Two sessions at best?
I introduced an extra XP rule based on roleplay to speed it up a bit and STILL they levelled up after 5 sessions, three of which were almost all fight (well, they were hunting beasts in the wilderness, I didn't really expect much roleplay right there).


There is one cleric and one paladin, which isn't bad. I don't know if they plan to multiclass. We have a capable healer, but not much damage in this group. I thought of adding a npc striker (rogue) in their group (note: Not a DMPC). Do you think a group can survive with a leader and a defender, no striker?

Well, yes. If you use DMG guidelines (which are not, in fact, halving XP budget, but using 2/5 of XP budget, since the standard 4E party is 5 persons) you have from one to five monsters (avoid placing all minions, it never works) of their level. That's ok, no striker means that combat will last longer. One thing: avoid placing brutes, they are prime Striker material. Oha and always, always avoid placing Soldiers, unless you have a rogue AND a wizard in the party. High defenses and high to-hit means dead PCs in my experience.


If you follow the encounter and experience guidelines in the book, it takes 10 encounters to level up(give or a take a couple), which means if you average 3-4 encounters a session (which is fairly standard for my group), it will take you three sessions to level up, which assuming 1 session a week would take you 12 weeks to get to level 5, which is a bit less then 3 months. All of this math is worked out in the DMG, and it even makes suggestions on how to adjust experience to make a campaign longer or shorter.

The real trick is that the players level when the DM tells them to, really you can award whatever xp you deem worthy.

3-4 encounters a session? How can you do that?
Oh, right, skill challenges. Well, I almost never use them, so I suppose it takes longer to level up for us...
Anyway, 10 encounters is only if you never vary the difficulty of the fight. I found out that 6-7 encounters are the norm in my group, due to numerous "difficult" fights.


I'd start the game at level 3 at least. 1 daily power and 1 encounter power = boring.

We always start from mid-high levels, and often directly in epic. We agree.
But for starters, I think that's the best. Not always, but most of the times.


3) Seeing as I have only two players and I'll have to adjust the difficulty accordingly, would it be better for them to start a few levels above 1 so I have more levels of monsters at my disposal?


I didn't see an answer to this, so here's my 2cp.
There's a chapter in the DMG (DM's Toolbox) that is in my opinion, WONDERFUL. It allows you to both level down, level up, change, adapt and otherwise modify any monster with some simple rules that work wonders (I never had a problem with them up until now, and I ALWAYS use them). So, no, level 1 is fine in that.

Hzurr
2008-12-07, 12:42 PM
My group has been running through a (modified) version of Keep on the Shadowfell, and now they're in the Thunderspire Labyrinth module (The only significant differences between the printed modules and my versions are that the difficulty is up a little bit in my game because an increased number of PCs, and I add/delete NPCs according to how much I like them).

We started in September/late August at level 1, playing once a week for about 4 hours a pop (although we aren't always a focused group), and we've canceled 2 weeks; and the characters are just barely past level 5. So... that's 12-ish sessions, and they've gone up 4 levels.

It's felt like pretty good pacing to me.