It's a question I've been meaning to ask here for some time now:
How quickly does your group level up? Please include how often you play in terms of sessions per week or month, and hours per session. And it would help if you broke t down into levels per total sessions or hours.
For myself, we play twice a month, and each session is about 5-6 hours. With that, we're still in book 2 of Iron Gods, and we started last November. So that's about 5 levels in 18-20 sessions, or approximately 90-100 hours of gameplay.
I'm estimating the "twice a month" thing because we actually plan to play once a week, but about half our sessions get cancelled due to life getting in the way.
I decided to finally ask this question, because just today I saw someone claim that it should only take a month or two to go up 5 levels "if you game regularly." And even my past sessions of 2E D&D from when I was younger took a long time to level up. That fastest I've experienced was level 1-10 in three years, with the slowest being level 1-4 in three years, both with the same group, both playing weekly. The former was played from 7pm-midnight, the latter was played from 6pm-3am.
That puts the former campaign at 10 levels in ~150 sessions or 750 hours of gameplay; and the latter campaign at 4 levels in ~150 sessions or 1300 hours of gameplay.
My group plays once a week for 3.5 to 4 hours a session, and this campaign (Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, began March-ish, just finished book 1 this week) we've leveled probably about once a month or just under. It can be kinda swingy depending on the encounters in a given week, but that's about the average. Our last campaign was faster - we got to level 16 in about eight months - but we also upped encounter difficulties heavily.
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My group goes more at Duilker's speed as well. Play once a week (0.75 per week maybe) for about four hours. Level up time varies. Every other session for low level then takes three or more sessions per level after that. Go level 2 to 20 in about 18 months.
That said I deliberately use the "fast" xp progression and give out lots of bonus xp.
With most of my groups we usually spend 2 session to get to level 2. After that, on average i'd say once per 4-5 session of 4 hours, so close to 18 hour on average per level. Not too many nor very long description, but i tend to do a lot of plot expositions and in character talk.
With my "munchkin-style" group we grind 1 level per session on average, two on bossfight, with close to 5 hour per session. On average i'd say 1 level per 4 hours of play.
My group marathons weekly from 10am to 3-ish am. We finished books 4 and 5 of kingmaker in the span of 2 months, so about 5 levels. That's the fastest we've ever gone, and we're hoping to finish book 6 before one of our guys leaves for college.
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We game twice a month for about 4-6 hours per session. The early levels go pretty quickly at a rate of a level up every 1-2 sessions until about level 6. After level 6 it usually goes about 2-4 sessions per level.
We also run APs and use the advancement track instead of XP. Our attendance is pretty solid with the exception of holidays. We have 5 players plus a GM so if one person can not make a session, we will still play. Two cant make it calls off the game. We end our AP/campaign around level 14-15 and it takes us about two years to get there.
My group plays approximately once per week for 4 to 6 hours each session.
It takes us about two years to finish an AP at level 12-14. They seemed to take forever between levels.
Currently, we're playing a GM written campaign. On average, we've made 1500 xp per session and leveled 0.333 levels per session (1 level per 3 sessions). The last two levels were rather quick due to entering a chapter ending dungeon only a few xp from level.
Shortest time to level was two sessions, longest was six.
We play once a week, 3-5 hours give or take.
We level up every 4 sessions, using the staggered advancement rule; end of every session, go up a step, so every 4 makes a level. We don't bother with XP.
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My group plays once a week for 3.5 to 4 hours a session, and this campaign (Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, began March-ish, just finished book 1 this week) we've leveled probably about once a month or just under. It can be kinda swingy depending on the encounters in a given week, but that's about the average. Our last campaign was faster - we got to level 16 in about eight months - but we also upped encounter difficulties heavily.
That last campaign was also 3rd party and not Paizo.
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My group plays once a week for 3.5 to 4 hours a session, and this campaign (Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, began March-ish, just finished book 1 this week) we've leveled probably about once a month or just under. It can be kinda swingy depending on the encounters in a given week, but that's about the average. Our last campaign was faster - we got to level 16 in about eight months - but we also upped encounter difficulties heavily.
That last campaign was also 3rd party and not Paizo. We also go on a modified exp track set between fast and medium our dm came up with.
My four-player group play once a week for 4-5 hours, and level a little bit less than once per session. We don't track XP but follow the advancement track for APs. We play through roughly one AP book each month, though that slows a bit as the game hits the mid-high levels. We're currently level 7 and on session 8 of Mummy's Mask, and we're about to start the third book. I'm guessing we'll finish the AP in about seven months total.
Current campaign: Homemade CS, 5 players (started with 7), but only playing monthly for 3-4 hour sessions. With fast progression and generous bonus XP, 9 sessions to go from 1-4.
Aiming for a level every two or three sessions feels right for a progression from level 1 game, but it does mean that players pick up entirely new tricks rather than extensions to existing powers pretty often.
Well, it's good to know that I'm not the only one who plays a bit of a slower game.
We've been playing our current game for three years, and have just now hit level 12. This may change, as our next hurdle involves having to defeat evil clones of four of our group, a silver dragon that's now a Deadite on top of being said dragon, and... well, a half-living totally crazy former god that's sucking power out of a conduit of it like cocaine through an '80's model.
That's the good news.
We use a rapid advancement...leveling every game for the first 6 sessions.So the party reaches 7th quickly. Then the PC's tend to level every 2-4 sessions after that.
I'm wondering how being limited to gaming online factors into this.
My group tries to get together once a week for 3 hours. We're barely knocking on the door of level 3, after having started in mid-September 2014. We do have missed sessions for varying reasons -- if our GM is in Sweden, it's awkward for him to meet up with us even online. (We're also going through what he said was a more level 1 module for now, despite being a party of 2s.)
My group has been playing CoT for about 2.5 years now. We are prolly 2-3 sessions away from finishing the entire AP at what will most likely be level 11. We might hit 12 but it's unlikely since we're still 40k away.
We play weekly for 5 hours but the DM used the slow advancement path for most of the time so that he could add in side adventures without causing us to outlevel the main AP content. It takes a long time between levels but it's very dense gameplay with tons of things to do at all times. We switched to regular advancement when we hit level 8. The DM had less side stuff to add in at that point I guess.
I'm wondering how being limited to gaming online factors into this.
I have been GMing an online campaign via google hangout, same group, that has been running for what will be 4 years next month. We play every other week, and while I did take a 3 month hiatus we've been pretty consistent. The party is just about to reach 12th level.
Edit: I should mention that we typically play 3-4 hours per session.
