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woodwwad
Learned Scribe
USA
267 Posts |
 Posted - 07 Feb 2010 : 23:01:57
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How many years do you think should go by between 1st and 10th level in game time for pcs? In general I'm interested to see what the folk here think is a reasonible amount of time for pcs to have to spend to level & figured I'd give a solid #, so we could all look at that range thus keeping some uniformity to the topic.
I guess this is fair game for any edition but I'm interested in 3/3.5 ideas.
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Ashe Ravenheart
Great Reader
USA
3240 Posts |
Posted - 07 Feb 2010 : 23:10:01
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Depends on the story. If you're in a game that's out to save the world, Final Fantasy-style, then the time between 1st and 10th could be a matter of weeks or months. If you're playing a more laid back game, it could go 10 years between the levels.
The problem with the question is that there is no uniformity in the game since it all takes place in our imagination. |
I actually DO know everything. I just have a very poor index of my knowledge.
Ashe's Character Sheet
Alphabetized Index of Realms NPCs |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4685 Posts |
Posted - 07 Feb 2010 : 23:31:21
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Oh this is a fun topic, level 5 within a year clearly is possible. The system is designed on what you kill and survive, most modules run something under one week in order to gain a level.
In 3.X 13 1/3 encounters are all that are required to move up a level, 3 to 4 encounters per day are acceptable per day (The spell caster might be out of spells before last encounter, however still can use weapons at level 1-3). The general reason that a level is not gained every month is because of required down time and/or travel time.
In 1st Edition there actually was required training time and fee payment in order to train up to a level that did slow level advancement.
Moving above level five might take as much as 1 to 5 years per year, again in part of travel time and a contest the PCs would seek to pursue. A very dedicated group certainly could gain a level a month, using magic to find and travel to the foes quickly to protect the Realm. In short there really is no reasonable guideline anybody can give you. |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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woodwwad
Learned Scribe
USA
267 Posts |
Posted - 08 Feb 2010 : 02:01:15
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| What do you think about a pc hitting level nine in a little over 3 years? That is the highest level pc in my current game, other than one I transfered from a Ravenloft game I ran years ago bu that pc has about 10 years of adventuring. To me, a little over 3 years seems to be too quick to hit 9th level, of course he started at first level. Wanted to see what you guys thought? I've run just about every friday (& long games) since the end of July, so just over 6 months. I really try to advance the dr but all I've been able to do so far with only one stint of downtime, I gave the pcs a small but badly delapodated fortress in daggerdale to make them have some downtime while spending about 3,000 gp to fix it up. Also, I use a lot of time advancement during travel. |
Check out my reviews on youtube of Forgotten Realms and other rpg products. http://www.youtube.com/user/woodwwad?feature=mhum |
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Ashe Ravenheart
Great Reader
USA
3240 Posts |
Posted - 08 Feb 2010 : 03:15:53
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| Well, considering that the Cormyr/Shadowdale/Anauroch trilogy take place in under a year and the characters go from 4-7 to 15+, I'd say that it's not out of line. |
I actually DO know everything. I just have a very poor index of my knowledge.
Ashe's Character Sheet
Alphabetized Index of Realms NPCs |
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Darkmeer
Senior Scribe
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 08 Feb 2010 : 07:07:58
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Depending on how you run your time will vary how the levels go.
I can run a year-long to two-year long (game time) campaign and go from level 4 to level 15 ish (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil). That's 11 levels.
Honestly, the idea that time must advance is part of what makes us human. I think that a reasonable amount of time is about a year and a half game time per 4-6 levels (my preference is 4 levels). I run games, however, that advance far faster than that, and I'm okay with that too. Remember, as the DM you control that pacing. You control the flow of XP, and what feels right for the campaign is what you get to do.
/d |
"These people are my family, not just friends, and if you want to get to them you gotta go through ME." |
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Artemel
Learned Scribe
USA
110 Posts |
Posted - 08 Feb 2010 : 13:52:50
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| My longest running campaign had the player characters go from 1st level to 20th in the course of about 5 years in game time. It is actually a bit faster than I expected to go, but still contains quite a bit of down time in game, generally weeks if not months between adventures. The problem being, a typical adventure (more like campaign arc, several sessions at least) would run somewhere between enough experience for one to two levels or more. Even though I would ad hoc the experience down to no more than a level, the PCs still advanced remarkably swiftly. I would have liked to take more time in game, but while playing it didn't seem unreasonable. (If I hadn't cut the experience down to somewhere between 30-50% of what they actually earned... eep!) |
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wintermute27
Learned Scribe
USA
179 Posts |
Posted - 08 Feb 2010 : 16:13:04
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My GM when I was living in Illinois used a super slow leveling system to control how fast the party advanced (using 3.5 rules). Each time you would gain a level, your XP would reset to zero, but your XP goal for the next level remained the same. So in order to get from level one to five you needed to earn a total of 20,000 XP instead of the normal 10,000. One nice thing about this system is that you spent so much time at each level that you really got to know your character and abilities. There was one player in the group though that hated the system because it took so long to advance, but he tended to play twinked out characters and didn't have as much interest in the actual story as the rest of us (there's one in every group  ) |
My Current Campaign: The Adventures of the Stonelanders |
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woodwwad
Learned Scribe
USA
267 Posts |
Posted - 09 Feb 2010 : 01:29:14
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One of the reasons I was thinking about this is I've run 4 D&D campaigns (not including smaller games or games I ran when I was a kid).
the first was a Ravenloft game that lasted 4 years in real time and the highest charcter in the game was 12th level, this was with the 2nd edition system so you did have a totally different xp system but the 12th level character was a druid, the class that hit 12th level the quickest and the next highets character was either 9th or 10th level. But this game was a little over 4 years long in real time and the highest level it produced was 12th.
the 2nd & 3rd games I ran were in a world I created and one was a year and a half and one was 2 years this is real time, not game time. I didnt use xp just advanced the characters levels when I wanted to. Of the 2 games 3 pcs got up to 9th level.
In the game I'm currently running about 6 & a half months of real time have gone by, I'm using the 3.5 xp amount with my own system of xp rewards, I don't get much for killing monsters. I give more for rping & adding to the game, figuring things out as that's what I want the focus to be, not hack & slash. But in 6.5 months I have a player already at 9th level. That's the reason I was asking as it took so much longer in all the other games I've run to get that high. I figure at least one pc in this game will get up to over 12th level, thus becoming the highest level pc in any game I've run.
It just seems really fast to me.
The next game that I'm going to run, I play to allow to the pcs to get all the way from 1st to 20th level, at least give a lot of xp and see where they can end up. That'll be the last D&D game I run for a while, I'll switch back to world of darkness (old) or run a call of cthulhu game. |
Check out my reviews on youtube of Forgotten Realms and other rpg products. http://www.youtube.com/user/woodwwad?feature=mhum |
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Sian
Senior Scribe
Denmark
596 Posts |
Posted - 09 Feb 2010 : 06:43:04
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how much are you peneltising hack'n'slash? ... how much are you promoting RP? because getting to 9th level after 6.5 RL months (guessing starting from level 1) does sound very fast ... actually ... how often do you play should proberly be a question as well ...
my two best shots at why you have a that fast leveler is either
A: You're not peneltising combat enough (but that would mean that the other players are ticking in close after him)
B: you're overrewarding RP
In a group that i'm playing in (going from 2-4 level as of yet) we started on roughly the same xp (+/-100) just at the beginning of second level, and now even though the DM rarely gives more than +50 or +100 for Roleplaying, i'm sitting ~600 in front of the secondbest and ~1500 in front of the wrost (granted ... he've died once (tried taking a Ghast alone at level 3 ... bad idea) and lost ~300xp from creating a new character but still) |
what happened to the queen? she's much more hysterical than usual
She's a women, it happens once a month |
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Sian
Senior Scribe
Denmark
596 Posts |
Posted - 09 Feb 2010 : 06:43:45
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how much are you peneltising hack'n'slash? ... how much are you promoting RP? because getting to 9th level after 6.5 RL months (guessing starting from level 1) does sound very fast ... actually ... how often do you play should proberly be a question as well ...
my two best shots at why you have a that fast leveler is either
A: You're not peneltising combat enough (but that would mean that the other players are ticking in close after him)
B: you're overrewarding RP
In a group that i'm playing in (going from 2-4 level as of yet) we started on roughly the same xp (+/-100) just at the beginning of second level, and now even though the DM rarely gives more than +50 or +100 for Roleplaying, i'm sitting ~600 in front of the secondbest and ~1500 in front of the wrost (granted ... he've died once (tried taking a Ghast alone at level 3 ... bad idea) and lost ~300xp from creating a new character but still) |
what happened to the queen? she's much more hysterical than usual
She's a women, it happens once a month |
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Darkmeer
Senior Scribe
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 09 Feb 2010 : 07:25:12
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Okay, options for advancement here woodward:
One: You have access to the 2e PHB? Use the Wizard progression. That will slow things down a bit
Two: If you have access to the Pathfinder RPG, they have 3 different XP charts. All quite handy, based on your needs.
Three: Fantasycraft goes from level 1 to level 20, and you need 1 million XP to make level 20.
The Hack & Slash mentality will be wherever you go, but don't penalize it too heavily. Generally combat is at least half of the game, so penalizing that by, say, 25% goes a long way overall. Now, for the RP experience, I'd go the same route. Depending on the CR of the challenge, you would only award 50-75% of the actual value (unless it's a "high value" encounter, worth the full 100%).
Extrapolating, here's an idea if you don't want to completely hamstring everything, but want to slow the progression down:
Combat: Mooks & Red Herrings: Worth 50% of their full value.
Combat: "middle management," Lieutenants, important encounters: 75% of their full value.
Combat: The boss. Worth 100% of full value, and also given some sort of edge over the PC's to make it worth the extra XP. (A summoner with a full compliment of summons already out would do quite nicely, especially if they were all extended at no additional cost, and yes, I'm evil sometimes).
RP: Gather Information: Unless it's story critical: 0% of value (story critical gets 25%).
RP: Lower class/acquaintance type interaction: 35% of value
RP: Middle class/obtaining friendship or similar: 45% of value
RP: Upper class/obtaining a dangerous favor: 60% of value.
RP: Diplomacy between warring nations: 75% of value.
RP: Diplomacy with the "boss" which causes a change of heart: 100% of value.
Mind you, there are many levels of RP, so I hope you aren't awarding based on just any RP level. Award better for the people who are doing the best at what they do, perhaps even 5% per category. So, they don't get along too much more powerfully, but they do excel in their specialization. This helps the combat-oriented players feel better about your system, and encourages them to RP things out. |
"These people are my family, not just friends, and if you want to get to them you gotta go through ME." |
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woodwwad
Learned Scribe
USA
267 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2010 : 01:47:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Sian
how much are you peneltising hack'n'slash? ... how much are you promoting RP? because getting to 9th level after 6.5 RL months (guessing starting from level 1) does sound very fast ... actually ... how often do you play should proberly be a question as well ...
my two best shots at why you have a that fast leveler is either
A: You're not peneltising combat enough (but that would mean that the other players are ticking in close after him)
B: you're overrewarding RP
In a group that i'm playing in (going from 2-4 level as of yet) we started on roughly the same xp (+/-100) just at the beginning of second level, and now even though the DM rarely gives more than +50 or +100 for Roleplaying, i'm sitting ~600 in front of the secondbest and ~1500 in front of the wrost (granted ... he've died once (tried taking a Ghast alone at level 3 ... bad idea) and lost ~300xp from creating a new character but still)
We play every friday between 8 and 13 hours a game, so there is a lot of time there.
I give somewhere around one tenth the of xp for killing monsters the DMG says to give. |
Check out my reviews on youtube of Forgotten Realms and other rpg products. http://www.youtube.com/user/woodwwad?feature=mhum |
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woodwwad
Learned Scribe
USA
267 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2010 : 02:23:00
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quote:
Originally posted by Darkmeer
Okay, options for advancement here woodward:
One: You have access to the 2e PHB? Use the Wizard progression. That will slow things down a bit
Two: If you have access to the Pathfinder RPG, they have 3 different XP charts. All quite handy, based on your needs.
Three: Fantasycraft goes from level 1 to level 20, and you need 1 million XP to make level 20.
The Hack & Slash mentality will be wherever you go, but don't penalize it too heavily. Generally combat is at least half of the game, so penalizing that by, say, 25% goes a long way overall. Now, for the RP experience, I'd go the same route. Depending on the CR of the challenge, you would only award 50-75% of the actual value (unless it's a "high value" encounter, worth the full 100%).
Extrapolating, here's an idea if you don't want to completely hamstring everything, but want to slow the progression down:
Combat: Mooks & Red Herrings: Worth 50% of their full value.
Combat: "middle management," Lieutenants, important encounters: 75% of their full value.
Combat: The boss. Worth 100% of full value, and also given some sort of edge over the PC's to make it worth the extra XP. (A summoner with a full compliment of summons already out would do quite nicely, especially if they were all extended at no additional cost, and yes, I'm evil sometimes).
RP: Gather Information: Unless it's story critical: 0% of value (story critical gets 25%).
RP: Lower class/acquaintance type interaction: 35% of value
RP: Middle class/obtaining friendship or similar: 45% of value
RP: Upper class/obtaining a dangerous favor: 60% of value.
RP: Diplomacy between warring nations: 75% of value.
RP: Diplomacy with the "boss" which causes a change of heart: 100% of value.
Mind you, there are many levels of RP, so I hope you aren't awarding based on just any RP level. Award better for the people who are doing the best at what they do, perhaps even 5% per category. So, they don't get along too much more powerfully, but they do excel in their specialization. This helps the combat-oriented players feel better about your system, and encourages them to RP things out.
No, we don't have hack 'n' slash style players. All my players are top quality rpers. So I wouldn't care about rewarding a combat-oriented player. So if you look hard & choose your players carefully you can infact avoid the hack 'n' slash mentalty. Not that we don't have combat but sometime several games will go by with no combat and these are at least 8 hour games so a lot of time will pass. I also like to put ways in for pcs to get out of encounters with other methods besides fighting. I think the problem is how little xp it takes to get from level to level which changed a lot between 2nd & 3rd. Here are my xp catigories.
1 bringing note book---every player is required to have a note book for the game, keep plot ideas, npcs names, the gods they know about, monsters they know about, and anything else they know
2 using notes
3 heroic acts
4 cinimatic acting
5 role-playing 0-300xp per game
6 votes---- each player in the game votes in secret for the person they thought did the best job in the game that night that person gets 75xp per vote
7 new experience----enountering an important npc, going to a swamp for the first time, first time in a new town, first time seeing a new monster, learning about a new god or so many other things---most xp awards are pretty small
8 killing monsters about a tenth of what the book gives
9 avoiding unneeded danger---I make combat pretty dangerous & like when pcs play realistically, so if they can run away from danger, talk their way out of it or otherwise avoid it, that's worth xp.
10 disarming traps---only for the person who does it or helps
11 giving me energy---playing in a way that makes the game for for me. This is between 0-200, usually about 80-100 for good play
12 creative skill use
13 creative spell use
14 casting a spell for the first time----10 x level, also making magic items (yes, I give xp for that, I don't take it away---although I make it a lot harder). |
Check out my reviews on youtube of Forgotten Realms and other rpg products. http://www.youtube.com/user/woodwwad?feature=mhum |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 13 Feb 2010 : 11:27:17
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| OK, so I am still stuck in the 2ed., but with the amount of gaming your group does I would say between a year and a half and two years if it was my game. But the most logical answer is of course at the rate that your group is comfortable with. |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4429 Posts |
Posted - 20 Feb 2010 : 04:04:41
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I think it greatly depends on how you deal out your experience. I know in my campaigns, which run combat heavy, it's not unexpected to gain 10 levels anywhere between 8 months to a year of gaming time. The Avatar campaign I run we've only gained 8-9 levels in a year or so, but then I allowed alot of downtime because the campaign was "episodic". Each week we gamed, a few days to weeks might have passed between our sessions. This gave our characters the feel of a real life outside adventuring. We had jobs and responsibilities that didn't involve killing the bad guy and saving the day.
On the flip side, we ran the Cormyr: Tearing of the Weave campaign (starting at level 4) and we made it to level 9 in just a few short weeks. But we also adventured hard, and fought some pretty strong beasts. |
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level question
