Becoming lvl 20 (3.5)

[Adamaro]

Lvl 20 batmans are the terror of 3.5, but I was wondering how long would it take for a wizard to hit lvl 20? In game - time (years?) and in terms of time, players need to accumulate all that XP.

A single lvl 14 character only gets 33.600 XP for killing a CR 20 monster (also, IMHO this only happens if monster is poorly constructed or poorly led by DM), so all in all it takes A LOT of time for a wizard to get anywhere close to lvl 20.

How long would this take according to your experience?

[Psyx]

Never played that high from start-out, as we tend to loose interest in D&D when the maths and magic becomes a chore, and every encounter is full of SoDs (ie level 15, max).

But... 12 encounters per level up? 20 levels... 240 encounters... 2-3 per session... at least 80 sessions. A couple of years of play at a session a week.

[Myth]

I give XP for roleplaying and quests. In real life you don't get smarter or stronger by just killing rats.

[prufock]

But... 12 encounters per level up? 20 levels... 240 encounters... 2-3 per session... at least 80 sessions. A couple of years of play at a session a week.

I thought the average in the DMG was 13 per level? Also remember that starting level is 1, not 0, so it's only 19 levels difference.
13*19=247 encounters
Say 2.5 encounters per session
247/2.5=98.8

So yeah, about a hundred sessions. If you're playing once a week, just about 2 years to go from 1 to 20. That said, I've run games that have gone from 1 to 20 in just over a year. I give bonus xp for things, and often had encounters above party ECL, and maybe more than 2.5 encounters on average (often had marathon 8-12 hour sessions).

[Saph]

Sounds about right. I've been in a campaign which actually went from levels 1 to 20 (well, 3 to 19 for my part, but pretty close) using by-the-book XP. Took about two and a half years, but that includes spells where the GM was away or taking a break.

[Duke of URL]

Note that at the recommended 4 encounters per adventuring day and 13 encounters per level, it takes 62 adventuring days to go from level 1 to level 20.

Yup. Two months.

[Saph]

Note that at the recommended 4 encounters per adventuring day and 13 encounters per level, it takes 62 adventuring days to go from level 1 to level 20.

That doesn't mean 62 days in a row. It means 62 days worth of combat encounters in total.

[thubby]

That doesn't mean 62 days in a row. It means 62 days worth of combat encounters in total.

with the right party construction and circumstances, you could pull it off. once planeshift becomes an option it's child's play, really.

[Saph]

with the right party construction and circumstances, you could pull it off.

About the only way you'd do it would be in a Diablo-style setting with everything segregated into level-appropriate encounters whose only purpose is to wait for you to kill them. It's probably faster just to ask the DM to skip the combat and give you the experience.

[WinWin]

Part of the sucess of a wizard is being able to ensure they are optimized for every fight. That may mean less than a standard 4 encounters per day. Of course, a lot of the time they can take on +x CR encounters with spells, which rakes in more XP.

In my experience, Druids have very fast progression. Wizards don't start picking up momentum until around lvl 6. In terms of endurance, a Wizard can overtake the Druid around level 10. By that I mean, they can still have a lot of meaningful options available for encounters, either via spell or item.

This may have something to do with item creation. the Wizard players I have DM'd for favoured scrolls and wands. These observations are unlikely to hold true for every game though.

[Duke of URL]

That doesn't mean 62 days in a row. It means 62 days worth of combat encounters in total.

Oh, I know, I was just being snarky.

[Saph]

Oh, I know, I was just being snarky.

Heh. I've read some guys who actually take it literally. I remember one writer going into a long rant about how ridiculous it was that characters were supposed to go from level 1 to 20 every two months, and he spent a page describing all the impossible consequences of this before declaring that obviously D&D level advancement didn't work. It never occurred to the guy that "62 adventuring days" could mean something different from "62 calendar days".

[bokodasu]

It's still a good number to know, just like knowing that 250 is a good estimate for the workdays in a year.

My group is going from 1-20 in 20 weeks of playtime, which is short, but 40 months of game time, which seems longish if you know the 62 day figure, so I guess it evens out.

[Saph]

It's still a good number to know, just like knowing that 250 is a good estimate for the workdays in a year.

It's an interesting question, though - I think a better comparison would be how much combat a soldier sees in a war. An infantryman might get deployed into a war zone for six months or a year, but how much of that is actual combat and how much is patrols, cleaning their weapons, or walking from one place to another?

[WinWin]

It's an interesting question, though - I think a better comparison would be how much combat a soldier sees in a war. An infantryman might get deployed into a war zone for six months or a year, but how much of that is actual combat and how much is patrols, cleaning their weapons, or walking from one place to another?

While not personal experience, I have heard that soldiers get pulled off active duty if they regularly see action. To prevent combat fatigue and the like.

[KiwiQuest]

It's an interesting question, though - I think a better comparison would be how much combat a soldier sees in a war. An infantryman might get deployed into a war zone for six months or a year, but how much of that is actual combat and how much is patrols, cleaning their weapons, or walking from one place to another?

Being an (european) infantryman myself, I'll take a stab at that one. We do rotations of half a year, and the record for patrols was a guy who did 120 days in a row, with contact (meaning shots fired or roadside bombs) in all but a few. That's hardly the average however. Average would be 4-6 patrols per week (4-12 hours long), and actual combat in one half to one third of those.
Actual time IN combat, when shots are actually being fired, will vary between seconds (a bomb going off, a quick shoot-and-scoot) and up to an hour, and anything greater than 10-15 minutes means there will be periods of quiet and periods of shooting, otherwise you'd run out of ammunition.

Bear in mind that this is a specific mission within a specific timeframe (last 4 years) and a specific type of combat (asymmetrical warfare), so it'll vary a lot from place to place and conflict to conflict.

(Note: The infantryman in question didn't reach level 20, sadly :) )

[Tyndmyr]

Never played that high from start-out, as we tend to loose interest in D&D when the maths and magic becomes a chore, and every encounter is full of SoDs (ie level 15, max).

But... 12 encounters per level up? 20 levels... 240 encounters... 2-3 per session... at least 80 sessions. A couple of years of play at a session a week.

I play with my usual group at a rate of two sessions per week. The weds session is typically five hours. The sat session, double that. Most players I hang out with are pretty decent at the game, and fast players, once we get focused on it(can take a while).

Multiple levels in a single sat session has happened before. However, going 1-20 is still rough. I've never gone more than ooh, about 15-16 consecutive levels, before people get bored, and want to try a new system or something. Still, that's quite a few months of play, and a lot of game time on one campaign. This seems to be fairly typical, with relatively few people playing straight 1-20+.

In in-game days, I would estimate that it takes even less than the anticipated 62 adventuring days. Sure, 4 encounters per day may leave you low on resources at low levels, but by medium levels, I find they can usually handle at least 6 equally CRed encounters. In practice, they're often fighting significantly higher CR mobs. By about level 15, +4 CR encounters are pretty typical, with some well above that.

[Kaww]

It's an interesting question, though - I think a better comparison would be how much combat a soldier sees in a war. An infantryman might get deployed into a war zone for six months or a year, but how much of that is actual combat and how much is patrols, cleaning their weapons, or walking from one place to another?

Well, history tells us that in dark ages people used to go to war (mostly) from spring to fall. Had several skirmishes and maybe two-three big battles in one year. The rest of the time was: marching, heavy lifting, pillaging, etc.

So, not that much action if you ask people who sit at home and go to work/school every day and have weekends for DnD. If you asked a soldier back then, my guess is, that that is too much slaughter to see in nine months.

@OP This largely depends on DM's style. I currently play with a DM that gives 4 lvls per 5 sessions. I used to play with a guy that would give 1 lvl in 10 sessions (~50 encounters of +1 to +3 to recommended CR), it was fun in the beginning, but became a nightmare later (his opinion was since the group can handle this go try higher CR), then we quit on him (the whole group). As a DM I give 1 lvl per 2 sessions (current game: from 3 to 13 in nine or ten months 20-25 sessions), if players actually do smart things or have encounters (I give higher CRs than DMG suggested ones)...

[Tukka]

According to the DMG, characters should only advance once per adventure, and that they need time to train and study between adventures. It even suggests that the DM might hit them with XP loss if they can't train for an extended period of time. I don't think it suggests how much game time this training and study should consume, though.

I'd say something like maybe 1 hour per XP or so, which would mean it'd take somewhere around at least 22 years to hit level 20 (edit: this assumes that they process the XP while they're asleep; you could bump it up to 3 XP/hour and only count waking hours spent training/studying/contemplating, or I guess anything else -- I just picked that number because it felt about right to me).

[DarkEternal]

I know there is a certain charm in calculating roleplaying for everything, but honestly, I like the idea of chapters. Every chapter of your campaign basically means a level up. This only differs, if your characters multiclasses so they are behind, or if you were really not satisfied with roleplaying of people what so ever so you penalise them and they level a session later or something.

[Crow]

About the only way you'd do it would be in a Diablo-style setting with everything segregated into level-appropriate encounters whose only purpose is to wait for you to kill them. It's probably faster just to ask the DM to skip the combat and give you the experience.

Thank you for this.