I have played with new group for about a year and the campaign is great roleplaying experience at least 2x a month but it is coming up to my first year with these guys and I have only went up 1 level. My character is a 7level wizard who became 8th level. The regulars are all around 10th or 11th level and none of them are close to their next level. As the only spellcaster in group, I can dish out damage with the big boys only so long. I hate to sound wimpy but how often do most groups out there level up players?
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That sounds like a long time, actually, to only increase a single level. When my group uses a published adventure, we typically level up just as the adventure advertises. When we play my homebrew, it could be a long, long time before we level up; like months between levels. That's because we play the adventures in Dungeon the most, but I'd say it takes at least six sessions of my homebrew game, which equates to four-five months, to move up a single level--we role-play everything and spend lots of time investigating and developing the story (exposition), which is extremely boring to powergamers. So, now that I write all that out, I guess I'd expect you guys to be 3rd level by now at the very least, but I don't know what a single session typically goes like, so I'm guessing.
We are in a Homebrew world in which we game 5-6 hours per session. Lots of time spent in city game with emphasis on noblilty and the court intrigue sessions and expanding the duchy. No dungeons yet, mostly dealing with trade route pirates and assasin's guilds and the completion of quest from the rest of the groups earlier paths. I jumped in as a fulltime player with almost 20 years of gaming in different groups. I am not a powergamer however I do like playing the "specialist" in chosen field able to puzzle solve, roleplay and crush enemies with the best of them.
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My group plays about once a week if I can help it, and they usually level up about once a month on average. I realize that this is a little too often, but I tend to lean in the direction of too much experiance over too little when unsure of encounter level. i feel ideally it should be every 6-8 "adventures" with an average of 4 encounters of appropriate level each...but that's just in my opinion. I also feel that DM's should judge just what their players want. Mine really enjoy the levelling up part, so I accellerate that a bit. If it's not impotant to them then role-play more. whatever fits your group.
We figure how many months that we want to play toward a 20th level campaign and level up each session accordingly. Really it doesn't matter, but it gives all the players the illusion that levelling up is important. It isn't.
As ever,
ACE
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We are in a Homebrew world in which we game 5-6 hours per session. Lots of time spent in city game with emphasis on noblilty and the court intrigue sessions and expanding the duchy. No dungeons yet, mostly dealing with trade route pirates and assasin's guilds and the completion of quest from the rest of the groups earlier paths. I jumped in as a fulltime player with almost 20 years of gaming in different groups. I am not a powergamer however I do like playing the "specialist" in chosen field able to puzzle solve, roleplay and crush enemies with the best of them.
I should have written that I'd expect maybe three levels a year, not third level. At any rate, your game seems in the vein of mine, so you're probably not far off. My group runs several characters, and we play several adventures, jumping between them, so I've got guys with 0-level characters (just got to episode 3 of N4 this afternoon, but we spent two hours getting shipwrecked), 19th level characters (STAP) waiting to start CH 11, semi-retired epic level characters (AP retirees--APs are the only way we really advance quickly), 6-8th level characters adventuring in Eberron...so, except for the APs, my guys are long used to slow promotions. Like the other posters have mentioned, I guess it's all in the style of play and the players involved. My group is mostly old fogeys who wax nostalgic of the years it took them to becomes lords of the realm...
My group tends to level up at least once a month if we play consistently every week. I think something is up with the XP system that you're using.
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My group tends to level up at least once a month if we play consistently every week. I think something is up with the XP system that you're using.
We would too if we played the same adventure/campaign straight through, and we played consistently each week. That's why the APs level us up quickly, and published adventures tend to have the same effect. The homebrew game is played way less often and is very, very slow; some sessions can move with nothing but loss and no XP gains.
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On average, about once per three sessions or so. Also, if you are using the standard D&D experience system, you should be gaining experience significantly faster than any of the other players in the group (and levels faster still).
BTW, if the campaign isn't using standard XP guidelines, I think your GM should have mentioned that. (Not an argument for any particular set of XP guidelines, just an argument for transparency when house ruling.)
Never, ever, ever fast enough.
I have played with new group for about a year and the campaign is great roleplaying experience at least 2x a month but it is coming up to my first year with these guys and I have only went up 1 level.
If I were you, I'd most likely end up quitting. Not out of anger at anyone or any sense of the 'wrong/right' way to do things, but I would just feel stagnant and unable to put my heart into the game.
I like to at least level up every four sessions or so. Levelling is exciting for me and not at all a headache as some gamers seem to find it. The newest game that I'm in started at 3rd level. The DM told us that we would level up once per session until 6th, at which point the process would slow down. We're 5th right now, and I can't wait for next session to earn 6th...
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If your game is really heavy on role-playing, though, it's very hard to level up that quickly; it is certainly conceivable that you could run a session--or several--with out earning any significant XP. If the adventure is very heavy storytelling, then XP could be awarded for role-playing, and the DM could even establish a system of assigning CR to events (negotiations, problem/puzzel solving, etc.). Even so, if you're playing a couple times a month, and if you aren't finding 12,000 XP bracers of three wishes, and chests full of rubies, and killing CR12 monsters at every other turn in the labyrinth, it might be months between levels...
I suppose you just have to decide what you want and see if it's compatible with what the others want. Maybe all the other players are sitting around wondering when the hell they're gonna level up, too.
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My guys level quite quickly, but (a) I am more of a power-gamer and (b) I tend to chuck stuff at them that has a high CR, so they get lots of xp per encounter (I don't want to run through 14 encounters to get them the xp to go up a level, just one or two big, dangerous and memorable actions scenes).
On my PbP here, I've handed out quite a lot of roleplaying, or more specifically non-combat encounter, xp rewards. These are a bit ad hoc, but it seems unreasonable to just hand out xp in a campaign that has a lot of investigation and chat with NPCs - I don't want it so that they have to kill something to get xp, especially if the plot is advanced through negotiation and roleplaying.
well, that is extremely slow; I probably would have been dissatisfied and had several discussions with the gm and left the game by that time.
the characters in my game gain a level about ever month to two months i suppose; really depends on them and how much they sit around doing nothing but talk to each other or argue and how much time they pursue adventures.
Still, with a year of adventuring; I would have shown the gm all kinds of graphs and stuff about how he is cheating the group and if no change; would have left, but that is me; if you enjoy the play then it is no big deal.
Everybody’s timing is going to be different. It’s one of those things that depends on the mix of people and play styles. Pre-fab module games will advance at a different rate than homebrew. Powergamers will advance at a different rate than non-powergamers, etc. It’s up to the mix. If you group is comfortable with what’s going on, then it’s “normal”. Don’t sweat it. If the group wants to experiment with faster and/or slower progression pacing, by all means do that. Eventually yall will find a point of equilibrium that’s best for everyone.
yeah, but still; one level a year is muy extremo slow
We play 1/week for 3 hrs.
We tend to level up every 9 to 13 encounters, which could be as quick as a month, or as long as 4 months.
Really, the book figures between 12 and 13 encounters IIRC, and that seems to ring pretty true.
I'm running SCAP. The other active DM is running the WotC 3.0 modules with some subsitutions (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft for Standing Stone, then something swapped in for Deep Horizons, probably a Nic Logue adventure from Dungeon).
In the Ravenloft game, my character hit 8th in Barovia, and should hit 9th if our pace keeps up in the castle within five sessions (we've had four encounters in the last two sessions).
-c
With D&D 3.x, leveling up every 3 to 4 sessions is to be expected if the RAW are used. In my own campaign, my PCs are now 3rd level after about 6 sessions. In AD&D 1 or 2, I would think that leveling once or twice per year at the levels the OP mentioned would be ok, if a bit slow. I would have expected that the DM told a new player about the slow leveling beforehand, as this can be very frustrating.
Stefan
Keep in mind that if you level at a much slower rate than the DMG recommends (every 13-14 encounters), your DM should adjust the amount of treasure he gives out as well. Otherwise you will find that over time, while you are still a low-level character, you will have wealth several times what you should have for a character of your level.
Olaf the Stout
I prefer a slower rate of levelling than is the norm in 3.x. When playing a game w/ a buddy, I have typically made him adventure through 3-4 full adventures (e.g., non-Side Trek adventures from Dungeon) before he gains a level. Having said that, we've just started an Arcana Evolved campaign, and I had his characters level up at the end of "Plague of Dreams", which took us 2 full sessions. Partly b/c he's not overly fond of starting at 1st level, and partly b/c we don't get to play that often. I'm thinking I'll slow the rate down the higher he gets.
Now, and this will no doubt be a weird confession to some, when playing by myself (i.e., I'm both the DM and running a band of adventurers--yes, I can hear the incredulous cries right now...), the rate of progression is deliberately quite slow. That's b/c these types of adventures are really just a vehicle for me to write up adventure logs. The longer it takes to gain a level, the longer these characters remain vividly entrenched in my fevered little imagination. So, to use the full-Dungeon magazine example again, it takes about 5-6 full adventures to gain a level. (I always chuckle when reading characters will advance a level at adventure's end.)
I try my hardest to be objective--and characters do die--but, again, it's really an excuse to play through some of these wonderful adventures that have been published in my precious spare time, and feel like I'm writing a B-novel at the same time. Feel free to ridicule me anyway :)
We play 1/week for 3 hrs.
We tend to level up every 9 to 13 encounters, which could be as quick as a month, or as long as 4 months.
Really, the book figures between 12 and 13 encounters IIRC, and that seems to ring pretty true.I'm running SCAP. The other active DM is running the WotC 3.0 modules with some subsitutions (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft for Standing Stone, then something swapped in for Deep Horizons, probably a Nic Logue adventure from Dungeon).
In the Ravenloft game, my character hit 8th in Barovia, and should hit 9th if our pace keeps up in the castle within five sessions (we've had four encounters in the last two sessions).
-c
The 13-14 encounters thing should not hold true in SCAP or any AP for that matter. Its essentially accurate if you hit 13-14 encounters of the same CR as your level but the APs tend to have significantly higher CRs so you tend to level up much faster.
With D&D 3.x, leveling up every 3 to 4 sessions is to be expected if the RAW are used. In my own campaign, my PCs are now 3rd level after about 6 sessions. In AD&D 1 or 2, I would think that leveling once or twice per year at the levels the OP mentioned would be ok, if a bit slow. I would have expected that the DM told a new player about the slow leveling beforehand, as this can be very frustrating.
Stefan
My memory is that 2nd edition increase the rate of leveling significantly over 1st. Also it was not linear. You'd go from 1st to 2nd in a couple of sessions. Maybe 2-3 but getting from 13th to 14th could take a long time.
I actually like the aspect of the game where it takes longer later in the campaign to level when compared to earlier. I don't mind the pace being picked up a bit but I would rather there be some difference in how long it takes to go between 1st to 2nd as compared to 19th to 20th.
Playing 4 hours every other week and not playing probably 3 times in 2 and a half years my players PCs have advanced 7-8 levels each. All are at 10th or 11th level currently. Some are close to 12th.
In the Ptolus campaign I am currently playing in we have gotten 4 players in a 6 player group to level 2 in 6 weeks. We play every week for 5 hours (and have been for nearly 8 years now with the same 7 guys) and in this campiagn we are very RP heavy. Other campaigns we have done have been must more combat intensive and we have levelled faster, but our DM does a good job of rewarding us for our RP encounters. They just take longer (in real time) than combat, so we get less XP. absolutely loving the campiagn though, with my gunslinging human cleric of lothian :D (not that i actually have any guns yet, but i have "EWP - firearms" and "Rapid reload - firearms". but when he gets them, then its gun slinging time :D
I finally hit 9th level guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I hope to see 10th level by April 2008!!
