I've never run or played in a campaign that hasn't fallen apart long before 20.
I have at least one player in my group that is really curious about high-level play and seeing a character reach it's apex.
For those of you that have campaigned all the way from 1-20, how long did it take? How often did you play? How long was each session?
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I never have gotten a character to 20, but I did get to 18. This took about 18months of gaming almost every weekend sessions lasting 4-8hours depending on other circumstances. That group was a bit heavier into the role-playing aspect of things than others, which is why I stuck around, so that might had some influence on the time spent. I recall one session without any combat, not that experience wasn't had, but probably not as much as other sessions.
When god says so. Well, the gm.
I never have gotten a character to 20, but I did get to 18. This took about 18months of gaming almost every weekend sessions lasting 4-8hours depending on other circumstances. That group was a bit heavier into the role-playing aspect of things than others, which is why I stuck around, so that might had some influence on the time spent. I recall one session without any combat, not that experience wasn't had, but probably not as much as other sessions.
Thanks that's helpful. I think I will give out hefty ad-hoc xp for roleplaying.
I've had one go from 1 to 19 or so in a 3.5 game. It took roughly twenty months. Starting above 1, or simply giving out more experience will speed things up considerably.
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Two days, more or less.
(That's about how long it takes to make a 20th-level character.)
Yeah I was gonna dispute but hitting 12th has taken me 25 sessions over a 7 month block.
I've played in a few campaigns that went to level 20. I really don't know how long it took, but my guess is somewhere between 1 and 2 years.
It takes long because although we play weekly there usually is a couple parallel campaigns going on in my group.
Two days, more or less.
(That's about how long it takes to make a 20th-level character.)
Come on dood. Even the topic says "campaign", not "character". Not to mention this:
For those of you that have campaigned all the way from 1-20, how long did it take?
I've never had a character above level 15...wait that's a lie, had a level 18 crossblood arena sorcerer that f~$&ed everyones day up....I miss her, I feel dead inside.
But yeah, experience awarding is key. The arena we leveled when the dm thinks we should level.
Our 1-20 campaign took about a year and a half, off and on.
I have played a character to 20th in about 2 months but I was unemployed playing 3-4 times a week lol. Did that a couple times, both dnd 3.5 one started at level 3 the other at level 4.
My PC's have gone from 2-16 in about 9 months grinding through Rapan Athuk. We do 1-2 sessions a week. There's not much role-playing, so most of the time is actually spent on encounters. It all depends on how long your GM plans to run it for, and how committed the PCs are.
Rather than a span of time, I will throw out a general ballpark I've heard about session: you probably level about once every 4 times you meet.
This is rather vague estimate, but I will assume that you are doing nice meaty sessions, with XP rationed out well. It works out math-wise for the once a week set up a lot of people are mentioning since a lot of people are saying 18-20 months.
I'd say our game will take about five years of weekly sessions to hit 20. In the year that I was in the last campaign I went from min experience for level ten to a couple hundred shy of level twelve (not with the same character though - died two or three times in between). Since our new Pathfinder campaign is going to be on the slow track and our first session netted only 233 xp (about 1/13 of a level), I'm figuring it'll take about three months per level. Hopefully I really like my Rage Prophet.
It's been a while since I was in a campaign that lasted long enough for that, but I did GM an Age of Worms campaign from level 1 to around level 22 once. I believe it took around a year and a half from start to finish, with play every weekend (or every fortnight; I can't remember exactly) for about 6-7 hours each time.
Thanks for all the responses guys.
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Hiya.
Caveat: I'm a crusty old grognard...so...
We got to Fighter 22 (Friend), Magic-User 20 (Me), and Fighter 21 (Friend)...dropped to 15 after a REALLY bad fight with a vampire. This was all in 1st Edition AD&D. We played roughly 16 - 20 hours a week during school (weekends), and probably about 20 to 40 hours a week during summer vacation. This was all in junior high and high school up here in Canada. We would test new games every now and then (Star Frontiers was big for one summer, but Gamma World, Basic D&D and even Dawn Patrol at one point), these never lasted more than a few weeks to a month, tops.
So, time to get to roughly 20th level in 1e AD&D, playing an *obscenely large* amount of time...6 years. If I had to guestimate the 'straight through' playing time...I'd call it 4 to 5 years of 'straight' 1e AD&D.
[Grognard Voice] Young whippersnappers nowadays, all expecting to get to level 20 in a year or two? Poppycock! Why, back in my day, you were lucky if your 1st level character survived the first battle! If you played well and used yer smarts, you could maybe survive to level 2! Getting to level 3 wasn't much better, but if'n ya did...well, that's something to be proud of! After you hit 4th or 5th, miracles of miracles, the skies the limit! Well, assuming you don't do anything too foolish and go off half-cocked believing yerself invincible or some other such malarkey! Kids nowadays....level 20 in a year! Balderdash I say! [/Grognard Voice]
** ;) **
^_^
Paul L. Ming
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Remember, if you want to run a 1-20 campaign, you're free to abandon the experience system and have the PCs level whenever it feels right. They could level up from training rather than adventuring.
On a semi related note, playing 6-8 hours per week how long should an adventure path take? Gross over or underestimates I will likely identify if any but reasonable guesses or experience welcomed.
I did it in a year, but I tended to run 6 to 8 hour sessions and we played every weekend unless life got in the way.
Depends on the exp progression and the level you start in.
I had several campaigns that got up to 18th level (Sorcerer gets 9th level spells) and that took 20 months or so. Had one campaign that made it to 21st level, and that took right at 2 years.
3-4 hours per week (Monday, now Sunday evenings), and we missed perhaps 6-10 meetings a year due to holidays, vacations, etc.
-- david
We just ran a 1-20 campaign that took us three and a half years. We would run adventures that lasted between 4 and 8 weeks, playing once a week for about 5 hours a session. We leveled up after each adventure (we have done away with XP) and took a week off to level up as a group and play something else for a single session before starting another adventure.
We also rotated GMs each adventure, so my character wasn't present for levels 5, 10, 11, 16 and 20.
More than a year to hit 20 seems excessive to my personal tastes.
Well, at least taking over a year to complete an adventure path. See, I take turns gaming so when this campaign ends its my turn and I'm stocked to run it. Yet, not ready to retire from the current campaign so...
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I used to manage 1-20 in a semester of weekly 12hr sessions.
The larger the party, the slower the gain though. Also it comes down to the diet you feed the party.
I started a weekly pathfinder game online about a year or two ago, and the party is now getting to level 12 or so. Levels start to slow down once you pass the name-level hump though because the exponential increase gets larger and larger and if you're not throwing CR equivalent monsters at them all the time (like every encounter), well, they take it slow.
Also level 11 is when they stop getting fed for base humanoids, meaning they take out entire villages of orcs/goblins/gnolls and don't get anything for ripping through 'the horde,' except the feeling of being utter badasses .
Hahaha yep! 10 rounds,80 gnolls 1 solo fighter with whirlwind attack. That character is a famous unforgettable pc I .gm'd for years ago. Took that well into the twenties in about four months.
While I've never played a 1-20 game, I have had dms that used accellerated leveling, basically we had very optimized characters and very difficult encounters resulting in ALOT of xp. In a game that reached 18th level, a little less then once a session gaining something like 5 levels every 6 sessions. In that way we reached 18th level In about 6 months playing once a week.
But correlating to your statement it is hard to accumulate 60-70k experience on .cr 1/3 monsters. Or are you saying the rules ACTUALLY shut off xp for encounters lower than APL-x?
Our group plays every other week and we generally manage to play for 5-6 hours, although we goof off quite a bit. When I run I plan for 4 encounters per night but often only squeeze in 2-3 encounters.
My homebrew campaign started off using the medium experience progression path, but I switched to the fast path maybe 12 months into the campaign? I ran for a year and a half and the PCs reached level 9 before we put it on hiatus.
We are now playing Carrion Crown and we should make level 10 next session. We've been playing the AP for a year and half now. I think we just had session #36? Pretty close to that anyway.
I once ran a 1-18+ campaign that took about 5 years, but that was back in 2.0/3.0 days. I don't think the characters made level 20 by the end of it, but I could be mistaken. It's been a while. *grin*
> rubs palms together eagerly < yayes, I to anxiously anticipate the release of mythic...should be dastardly fun!
No, but it seems to hint at making it possible for level 20 parties to play like epics used to thereby achieving a similar outcome.
I had a group of 12 players who took about a year and a half (closer to two) to get to 20.
In a game I was playing I got pretty high (I think I was like 17?) it was about the same level.
Should be noted that both games started at about 4th level.
There are lots of variables in how long it takes folks to get to 20th.
The big ones are:
Fast/Medium/Slow XP.
Frequency of Sessions (ie how often you play, 1x/week, 1x/month, etc).
How many PCs are at an average session.
How long you play on average (ie do you play for 4 hours, 8 hours, etc).
How much time you spend on activities that don't generate XP while at your sessions.
Throwing some VERY rough #'s on a spreadsheet and assuming that you play about once a week for about 4 hours with an average of 4 PCs, I came up with about 87 sessions (includes 3 sessions for "getting to know you / shopping / other no xp gaining ; 2 sessions each of "character activity spotlights" that might not get XP for the group and 4 sessions of "not enough accomplished").
You're probably safe figuring at just shy of two years if you play once a week on a medium track assuming your GM doesn't do odd things with XP or advancement. Optimized characters / vet players can probably shave it down to just over a year.
-TimD
My current 4th Ed. group just hit level 22 the session before last. We play every other week for about 4 hours or so and it took us a little over 3.5 years to hit 22. That of course includes a number of missed sessions due to work, illness, vacations, holidays, etc.
Our group is also not the most efficient group as we tend to engage in a lot of chit chat during the session, etc. As others have said, it really depends on the group and the DM. As DM you are always free to accelerate or decelerate the XP progression as you feel is right. For me, 3 - 4 sessions per level feels about right. It gives you an opportunity to try out the new goodies each level while still keeping the next carrot within reach.
This current campaign though is the only one I've ever been involved in that even really got close to 20. I think the previous record was about 13th (maybe 12th). Unfortunately, things usually fall apart (in my experience) long before 20 either because people move, get busy, tpk, want to roll new characters, try new games, etc.
That being said, its been really cool getting into epic tier and I almost always look to go close to 20th when I start up a campaign (as DM). As a player, I usually hope we'll get there, but know that we likely won't which is why I design my characters for current levels rather than 20th (i.e. avoiding the "well, the first 9 levels will suck, but man, by the time this guy gets to 20, he'll be a beast!")
I am GMing a game that has run for a year, a session every two weeks. The PCs are nearly level 6. If the game ran every week at 4-6 hours, I would guess you could get to 20 in a little under two years.
It took our last long campain around 6 years( with playing once a week at best) With lots of talk and kinda slow pace after level 6.
Edit: We played monday from 19 to around 23 and it was never very effective game time wise.
Edit2:And we started with the beta version of the game yes.
When I run games, we usually play about once per month. The PCs also gain a level about every four sessions.
So about 6 to 7 years.