Number of Encounters per Level?

[John Kusters]

So, I was playing with numbers in the core rulebook around character advancement and encounter design, in preparation for starting a new campaign. I noticed something that seems off to me, and I'm wondering if I simply misunderstand how this all works, or if this is the intentional progression.

(If this has already been discussed to the point of a dead horse, please let me know. Pointers to previous discussions would be appreciated.)

To get to second level, a first-level character needs to accumulate at least 1300 XP. Looking at the tables in chapter 11, an average encounter should be against a CR the same level as the Average Party Level of the party which, for a party of first-level characters, is CR 1. A CR 1 encounter should award a total of 400 XP.

Now, for a party of 4 first-level characters, you'd need a total of 5200 XP for them all to get to level 2. Divided by 400, the amount of experience awarded by a CR 1 encounter, you wind up with 13 average encounters. If it's party of 5, the number of average encounters to get to level 2 is 16.

That seems reasonable. If you plan for four to five encounter per story, that means around 3 to 4 stories to get from level 1 to level 2. At my table, we can get through a story generally in two sessions, two sessions per month, so about three or four months to get to level 2. Not bad.

But things start to get much slower with higher levels.

To get from level 10 to 11, a party of 4 needs a total of 420,000 XP. For an average encounter of CR level 10, a total of 9600 XP is awarded. This means the leveling from 10 to 11 requires 44 encounters. (A party of 5 would require 55 encounters.)

Again, if you plan for four to five encounters per story, now you require nearly 10 stories. 12 for the larger party. That's nearly a full year of play time for my table to increase to level 11.

Things start leveling out at that point. By 19th level it takes 47 (or 59) encounters to raise to 20th.

Is that the expectation all of you have? Am I doing the math right?

What I find more, well, interesting, is that if you graph out the curves across the levels, the curve has some interesting sawtooth action along the parabolic line.

[The Goat Lord]

Not only do I provide experience points for overcoming encounters, I also award story experience. When the PCs complete quests, I usually give them bonus experience equal to their CR +1 or CR +2, depending on the significance of the story. We've been playing weekly and sometimes more since release day, and the PCs are currently at level 15 using this method. We skipped Dead Suns and opted to play a homebrew campaign in the Pact Worlds setting, and I expect it to wrap up shortly after my players' PCs hit level 20. By then it will be time to begin a published adventure, Against the Aeon Throne. You'll notice in published adventures that they award bonus experience points as well. If your table adopts such a model, perhaps you'll level a little quicker.

[John Kusters]

The Goat Lord wrote:

Not only do I provide experience points for overcoming encounters, I also award story experience.

I likewise count many non-combat situations as encounters. Traps, puzzles, high-stakes social scenes, etc. So, yes, if my players had a tense scene where they talked their way out of a bad situation, that's an encounter in my book.

Quote:

When the PCs complete quests, I usually give them bonus experience equal to their CR +1 or CR +2, depending on the significance of the story.

Good call. I do that with my other games.

Still, though, am I doing my math wrong? Assuming you're giving out XP consistently throughout your campaign, does it take significantly longer to get from 14th to 15th than it did from 1st to 2nd?

[SirShua]

When I looked at it, I got between 12.4 to 13.6 Average xp encounters every level.

Are you setting the party's XP back to 0 everytime they level? I think they keep their earned XP and only need to earn the difference between their current level and the next one.

[The Goat Lord]

I estimate that on average it takes my table about three sessions per level, but, if I remember correctly, my players hit level three by session five or six. The first few levels flew by before settling. Each session runs about four or five hours, with some going six and seven. Regarding the frequency of leveling such factors should be considered, but I would say that with how much time we've put into it, it feels appropriate to be where we are right now. I'm confident that they'll hit level twenty by September, close to the birthday of this game and my homebrew campaign.

[PawnJJ]

John Kusters wrote:

To get from level 10 to 11, a party of 4 needs a total of 420,000 XP. For an average encounter of CR level 10, a total of 9600 XP is awarded. This means the leveling from 10 to 11 requires 44 encounters. (A party of 5 would require 55 encounters.)

SirShua wrote:

Are you setting the party's XP back to 0 everytime they level? I think they keep their earned XP and only need to earn the difference between their current level and the next one.

Shua nailed it on the head. To get to level eleven a character has to go from 71,000 xp to 105,000 xp so 34,000 to level up for a total of 136k for the party of 4.

At 9.6k per encounter that would be 14-15 encounters to level up

[Metaphysician]

Bear in mind that "average" is deceptive in this context. CR +0 encounters may be "average" difficulty, in that they are neither especially easy nor especially hard. However, they probably won't mathematically be the middle of the encounter difficulty distribution. For that to be the case, there would need to be roughly as many CR -1, -2, and -3 encounters, as there are CR +1, +2, and +3.

This is essentially never going to happen, because anything less than -1 isn't even worth rolling out, nor is it actually worth much or any reward. In practice, if the logic of the scenario would have a whole lot of really low CR encounters, I imagine most GMs would either drop them as unimportant, or combine them together into fewer, more challenging ( and less cumbersome ) encounters. Instead of four separate fights with a single CR 1 pirate, have one fight with all four, for a CR 5 encounter. Or turn the whole thing into challenge scenario where the low level opponents are more an environmental complication than an enemy.

Long story short? In the "average" campaign, the encounters-til-level will probably be a lot lower than the "average", because there are going to be a lot more CR +3 fights pulling the XP total up, than CR -3 fights pulling it down.

[John Kusters]

D’oh! Yes I forgot to calculate the delta. Stupid spreadsheet should be better at mind reading. Thanks!