Leveling up in game

[Gorila]

Is there any rules that says that as soon as your dm says" You reached a new level", the character in game has to advance to their new level and gain the new changes, or the dm can decide when this can happen, like for instance, after the next long rest?

[Perpdepog]

Not to my knowledge, though in most games I've been in leveling happens at the end of the session or after a long rest simply because doing otherwise disrupts game play.

[CrystalSeas]

If the GM doesn't want to sit at the table staring at the ceiling while all the players level up their characters, then I'd say it's the GM's prerogative to keep the game going until a convenient spot to take a break.

In most in-person situations, I would consider it to be a group decision: Do we want to spend the limited time we have for playing the adventure, adventuring, or do we want to spend part of that time in character-advancement activities. For most groups I've played with, leveling up has been an individual activity, with some conversations one-on-one with the GM about aligning the character advancements with upcoming adventure events.

If you're doing a play-by-post adventure, then leveling up your character immediately isn't likely to slow down game play or disrupt the GM's running of the game.

[Malk_Content]

I can generally have a good idea when people will level up. In general when it's getting close I ask people to have a levelled up character ready. Once they have levelled up, we wait until the next sleep. When the characters wake up we swap sheets. Takes only seconds.

[shroudb]

it's generally much smoother to level up in-between sessions.

if there's a chance that the players will level up while in a session and there's a good reason not to delay said level up till the next session I would forewarn my players to have a level up version of their characters on the ready from the previous session to minimize the hiccups.

[breithauptclan]

Quite often we use plot-based leveling instead of XP. One of the side benefits of that is that characters don't ever level up during a session. Which helps the GM to plan the entire block of adventuring with known PC character abilities in mind.

Having characters suddenly gain new abilities that weren't accounted for may be disruptive to the planned content. So I would absolutely support the GM discretion of delaying leveling up until after the end of the current session at the very least.

[TwilightKnight]

Per the rules on page 31 of the CRB, "Each time your character reaches 1000 experience points, their level increases by 1." So, if the GM awards XP in the middle of a session then by rule you would stop and level up. Course that is just a strict reading of the rules and as indicated from the responses so far, most would prefer to do leveling between sessions so avoid using up limited valuable game time. Course, like anything else it is completely up to the GM as to what happens in the game and when.

In my own campaigns I have long stopped the accounting burden of tracking XP and just announce leveling at opportune times like the completion of a book or section in an adventure path, or a major accomplishment like the defeat of a BBEG, etc. Just makes things easier (IMO) and allows us to focus on the story rather than administrative overhead. I don't need to use random encounters to award XP to keep them aligned with the story and I don't have to worry about giving out too much XP and them leveling before I am ready for it. Sometimes this means they will level quickly after only a session or two, while other times we might go half a dozen session before leveling. It all depends on the needs of the story.

[Sagiam]

Well, obviously you level up after a break in the action. What else is the training montage for?