I'm running my first campaign and I'm afraid of over leveling my players. When our experience DMs run games we normally level up every couple sessions. We are two sessions into my campaign and I'm already being asked when we are going to level up.
From a players perspective I totally understand the love of leveling up as quickly as possible, on the other hand, I'm still getting the hang of balancing combats as is.
Any ideas for Magical items, or other mechanics I can implement that will keep my players happy while also keeping them at a manageable level?
First, I would suggest using milestone leveling as I have found it reduces the pull to look for the next XP nugget rather than focus on the story.
Second, look into giving them consumables as rewards; scrolls, potions, wands, etc. tend to be really useful items to give the players and gives them a new shiny to play with.
One other thing I do for my players is allow them to find ways to make the things they want. If they want a spell to work in a specific way, they can research it. If they want to learn how to use a shield, they can practice with someone who's skilled with a shield. If they want to make a weapon they can find a blacksmith or smith their own. if they want enchantments on their gear, they can go through the process of enchanting on their own or hire someone to do it. All so that leveling up becomes secondary to playing their character.
I have a close to 3 year old campaign I'm DMing currently and my players are only level 7. I've given them many one use items to play with, I've given them a couple common magic items as rewards, and for the more harrowing feats I've tossed an uncommon magic item at them. They do, at times, ask when they'll level up and I've looked into their requests and compared it to what they've accomplished, and when they last leveled to help me figure out if they're due for a bump. At one point in time they spent close to 6 months, real time, in the same location but only accomplished vanquishing a Shadow demon, a Wererat, and a couple dozen rat swarms. I couldn't level them up due to the combat alone, but they did manage to figure out the plans of the BBEG, saved a boy and his mother from a demon, put the town they were in back on the path to recovery, and started a trade route between their home town and this one. Those are some pretty big achievements, so it felt that leveling up was warranted at that time.
What level are your players now, and how frequently have they been leveling up? In general, you should be more wary of power spikes than leveling in general. Also, have you been giving XP, or are you using milestone leveling? Personally, I prefer to reward XP the moment the PCs earn it (no matter if it's from combat, exploration, roleplaying, or something else). This gives players a stronger sense of when they might level and why. I find milestone leveling to be opaque and a little frustrating as a player.
Luckily, there are also various ways characters can advance in D&D without leveling up. Some examples are listed below. Use the ones that seem the most enticing to your players.
Acquiring, creating, and upgrading items (mundane and magical)
Acquiring land and property
Building or upgrading a base or stronghold
Improving social status and reputation
Training to gain new spells, abilities, feats, proficiencies, etc.
We are a very story driven group, which is why we normally do session based levels. That way we aren’t “punished” for long RP sessions.
I love the idea of consumables! I’ll for sure be adding some into our next session.
I’ve also given them specific background feats for completing quests. For example they saved a small village from a cult. So they now have rustic hospitality in that city.
My party does XP levelling, and I also give out additional CP based on RP, tactics, planning etc. I give this away from the table by private message. Toss in the fact that not all of my players can get to every session, and we have a great dynamic where not everyone levels up at the same time. My players enjoy it. I worked out the amount of XP based on the average XP per session. So if we had a totally RP session (unusual, but it's happened) then I would give out roughly the same amount of XP as every other session, tweaked a bit based on who really excelled. I find the lower levels can be a bit tedious for experienced players because they know what's in store. Low levels are great for beginners because they're trying to get their head around all the feats and abilities etc, and if you just chuck them in at level 5 they can miss a lot of the nuances of their base abilities.
I agree with the above about consumables. Otherwise you could risk OPing them permanently.
On the topic of shiney things to keep their attention. I ran a low level game where I rewarded them with low/no power but visually impressive magic items, and let the party develop a reputation. Gave the fighter armor that would never get dirty and the townsfolk started calling him the untarnished was my favorite;). Also had intro monsters run from them after 2 or 3levels(couple goblins jump out to ambush, see their gear, say "oh crud it's them" and immediately run away. Made them feel real powerful without a huge boost.
As the DM, you have all the power in the world (literally, if you use a homebrew setting) to scale combat to your players. If the players end up being a bit stronger than you anticipated, you can always throw a few additional weaker enemies at them, or fluff HP of monsters, give them shields or other items of their own, etc.
If the main problem here is you struggling with balancing encounters, you can ask for help on ideas for individual encounters you have, or use online tools like Kobold Fight Club, Donjon, etc. to calculate the difficulty of encounters. These aren't perfect- but they are a good starting point.
I'm running my first campaign and I'm afraid of over leveling my players. When our experience DMs run games we normally level up every couple sessions. We are two sessions into my campaign and I'm already being asked when we are going to level up.
From a players perspective I totally understand the love of leveling up as quickly as possible, on the other hand, I'm still getting the hang of balancing combats as is.
Any ideas for Magical items, or other mechanics I can implement that will keep my players happy while also keeping them at a manageable level?
Don't get caught in the trap of level giving. I almost did that. I use milestone most of the time, using xp as a way to quickend or slow down their speed toward their next level. Never let them push you to telling when they will level up if you don't know it yet. But remember that after 5 sessions, even though you may not have killed more than 5 goblins, social encounters, role playing them can give xp. I always say to my newer players (when I remember to tell them xD) that social interaction and role play gives WAY more xp, as a way of telling them that if they can role play good, it will VASTLY increase their speed to the next level. I will decrease it as they get levels and get more comfortable with role playing but else it's up to you. If you don't know. Look at what you have played and what you have planned. In the adventurers so far and to come, are there any "mini" bosses? Any enemies that are a littler tougher and usually more special that they will encounter? If you don't do them around even encounter that is a great starting point of leveling up. But around session 3 isn't bad. You don't want to hold back either. But just remember to count the sessions after a level up. And compare it to where they are in the story and what they are facing or have faced. You can always try to see how many times... say a week? Do you play? Let's say you play once a week. So every 3 sessions you grant a level. That means that after 3 weeks, they gain a level. So 2 levels are over the course of 6 weeks. That is 1 and half a month. That is at times a little too much. But mostly when you get up towards level 6-9. You see, if you have 3 sessions between level 2 and 3, that works fine. But if they are level 12 and after 3 sessions where they killed 8 bandits and role played the rest of the time, maybe they aren't ready to become level 13 yet. As levels takes longer and longer to get.
Hope this helps! ^^
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Hey guys,
I'm running my first campaign and I'm afraid of over leveling my players. When our experience DMs run games we normally level up every couple sessions. We are two sessions into my campaign and I'm already being asked when we are going to level up.
From a players perspective I totally understand the love of leveling up as quickly as possible, on the other hand, I'm still getting the hang of balancing combats as is.
Any ideas for Magical items, or other mechanics I can implement that will keep my players happy while also keeping them at a manageable level?
First, I would suggest using milestone leveling as I have found it reduces the pull to look for the next XP nugget rather than focus on the story.
Second, look into giving them consumables as rewards; scrolls, potions, wands, etc. tend to be really useful items to give the players and gives them a new shiny to play with.
One other thing I do for my players is allow them to find ways to make the things they want. If they want a spell to work in a specific way, they can research it. If they want to learn how to use a shield, they can practice with someone who's skilled with a shield. If they want to make a weapon they can find a blacksmith or smith their own. if they want enchantments on their gear, they can go through the process of enchanting on their own or hire someone to do it. All so that leveling up becomes secondary to playing their character.
I have a close to 3 year old campaign I'm DMing currently and my players are only level 7. I've given them many one use items to play with, I've given them a couple common magic items as rewards, and for the more harrowing feats I've tossed an uncommon magic item at them. They do, at times, ask when they'll level up and I've looked into their requests and compared it to what they've accomplished, and when they last leveled to help me figure out if they're due for a bump. At one point in time they spent close to 6 months, real time, in the same location but only accomplished vanquishing a Shadow demon, a Wererat, and a couple dozen rat swarms. I couldn't level them up due to the combat alone, but they did manage to figure out the plans of the BBEG, saved a boy and his mother from a demon, put the town they were in back on the path to recovery, and started a trade route between their home town and this one. Those are some pretty big achievements, so it felt that leveling up was warranted at that time.
What level are your players now, and how frequently have they been leveling up? In general, you should be more wary of power spikes than leveling in general. Also, have you been giving XP, or are you using milestone leveling? Personally, I prefer to reward XP the moment the PCs earn it (no matter if it's from combat, exploration, roleplaying, or something else). This gives players a stronger sense of when they might level and why. I find milestone leveling to be opaque and a little frustrating as a player.
Luckily, there are also various ways characters can advance in D&D without leveling up. Some examples are listed below. Use the ones that seem the most enticing to your players.
We are a very story driven group, which is why we normally do session based levels. That way we aren’t “punished” for long RP sessions.
I love the idea of consumables! I’ll for sure be adding some into our next session.
I’ve also given them specific background feats for completing quests. For example they saved a small village from a cult. So they now have rustic hospitality in that city.
My party does XP levelling, and I also give out additional CP based on RP, tactics, planning etc. I give this away from the table by private message. Toss in the fact that not all of my players can get to every session, and we have a great dynamic where not everyone levels up at the same time. My players enjoy it. I worked out the amount of XP based on the average XP per session. So if we had a totally RP session (unusual, but it's happened) then I would give out roughly the same amount of XP as every other session, tweaked a bit based on who really excelled. I find the lower levels can be a bit tedious for experienced players because they know what's in store. Low levels are great for beginners because they're trying to get their head around all the feats and abilities etc, and if you just chuck them in at level 5 they can miss a lot of the nuances of their base abilities.
I agree with the above about consumables. Otherwise you could risk OPing them permanently.
On the topic of shiney things to keep their attention. I ran a low level game where I rewarded them with low/no power but visually impressive magic items, and let the party develop a reputation. Gave the fighter armor that would never get dirty and the townsfolk started calling him the untarnished was my favorite;). Also had intro monsters run from them after 2 or 3levels(couple goblins jump out to ambush, see their gear, say "oh crud it's them" and immediately run away. Made them feel real powerful without a huge boost.
As the DM, you have all the power in the world (literally, if you use a homebrew setting) to scale combat to your players. If the players end up being a bit stronger than you anticipated, you can always throw a few additional weaker enemies at them, or fluff HP of monsters, give them shields or other items of their own, etc.
If the main problem here is you struggling with balancing encounters, you can ask for help on ideas for individual encounters you have, or use online tools like Kobold Fight Club, Donjon, etc. to calculate the difficulty of encounters. These aren't perfect- but they are a good starting point.
Don't get caught in the trap of level giving. I almost did that. I use milestone most of the time, using xp as a way to quickend or slow down their speed toward their next level.
Never let them push you to telling when they will level up if you don't know it yet. But remember that after 5 sessions, even though you may not have killed more than 5 goblins, social encounters, role playing them can give xp. I always say to my newer players (when I remember to tell them xD) that social interaction and role play gives WAY more xp, as a way of telling them that if they can role play good, it will VASTLY increase their speed to the next level. I will decrease it as they get levels and get more comfortable with role playing but else it's up to you. If you don't know. Look at what you have played and what you have planned. In the adventurers so far and to come, are there any "mini" bosses? Any enemies that are a littler tougher and usually more special that they will encounter? If you don't do them around even encounter that is a great starting point of leveling up. But around session 3 isn't bad. You don't want to hold back either. But just remember to count the sessions after a level up. And compare it to where they are in the story and what they are facing or have faced. You can always try to see how many times... say a week? Do you play? Let's say you play once a week. So every 3 sessions you grant a level. That means that after 3 weeks, they gain a level.
So 2 levels are over the course of 6 weeks. That is 1 and half a month. That is at times a little too much. But mostly when you get up towards level 6-9. You see, if you have 3 sessions between level 2 and 3, that works fine. But if they are level 12 and after 3 sessions where they killed 8 bandits and role played the rest of the time, maybe they aren't ready to become level 13 yet. As levels takes longer and longer to get.
Hope this helps! ^^