I'm almost five sessions into a campaign and my PC's are still level 1, out of curiosity, how many sessions do other DM's tend to have between level ups?
It honestly depends on the level they're currently at, as well as the pace of the campaign. I tend to run milestone leveling, so they usually level up at set points- the only question is how long it takes them to get there. Generally, it takes them between 4-7 sessions to level up, but I wanted them to level quickly early on, so it only took them a total of around ten sessions to get from levels one to five.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
As Thauraeln mentioned, a lot depends on the style of campaign: gritty, heroic, epic fantasy.
In general, I normally level characters up at the end of "arcs" (i use milestones), but the first few levels go quickly, with level 1 perhaps only lasting a session. I use those levels to let the players begin understanding their characters and seeing how they work as a gaming group. That being said, I generally run high level, heroic fantasy games, so my goal is to get characters to the 8+ range while investing them in the world.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
At low levels I tend to do a session or two between leveling will about level 4. Then typically it is about the next level - 1 ish episodes till they level. Somewhere about 8 or so the number tends to stabilize about 7 ish per level. This also adjust by how much 'messing' around happens. Sometimes you have those sessions where they just kind of make no forward progress towards anything.
Generally my low level games go like this because low levels suck. Level 1 to 5 is about 8 sessions worth, assuming weekly. If we're playing every two weeks, then the timeframes shorten up a bit.
I am pretty close to Spidey's course. Very low levels + a d20 system means too much randomness for me. I like to get them to a fun place before I slow it down.
After level 5 it's 3-4 sessions a level.
If being level 1 for 5 sessions is fun for you and your players, then more luck to ya, but in an even remotely fighty game that'd feel pretty painful to me. There are very few options for most classes...
I tend to stick with the DMG suggestion for leveling without XP. Of course if the players decide to spend sessions in downtime researching, selling, crafting sessions between levels vary.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I mean, I don't fix a number. If they shop for three sessions I ain't giving a level. If they kill dragons for two then they get it. Downtime, for me, is the definition of not getting xp - you're getting money or contacts or whatever. But I can see how it'd work for some groups, totally.
I like the more freeform "milestone" because it lets the whole thing *feel* right.
On the other hand, my current (excellent) DM is a DM I really enjoy in part because he does everything different to me. He's ruthless, and he sticks the to real xp. He will let folk lag a level behind if they don't get active. And it's worked.
I find it curious that you chose to reply directly to my post.
I didn't suggest that you do set a fixed number of anything. I was simply replying to OP on my methods. Consequently, Spidey's method is very similar to the same suggestion in the DMG. And why the quotations around Milestone? It is an actual method of character advancement used in most if not all of the published adventures.
Click for "milestones"
Milestones
You can also award XP when characters complete significant milestones. When preparing your adventure, designate certain events or challenges as milestones, as with the following examples:
Accomplishing one in a series of goals necessary to complete the adventure.
Discovering a hidden location or piece of information relevant to the adventure.
Reaching an important destination.
When awarding XP, treat a major milestone as a hard encounter and a minor milestone as an easy encounter.
If you want to reward your players for their progress through an adventure with something more than XP and treasure, give them additional small rewards at milestone points. Here are some examples:
The adventurers gain the benefit of a short rest.
Characters can recover a Hit Die or a low-level spell slot.
Characters can regain the use of magic items that have had their limited uses expended.
Click for "level advancement without XP"
Level Advancement without XP
You can do away with experience points entirely and control the rate of character advancement. Advance characters based on how many sessions they play, or when they accomplish significant story goals in the campaign. In either case, you tell the players when their characters gain a level.
This method of level advancement can be particularly helpful if your campaign doesn’t include much combat, or includes so much combat that tracking XP becomes tiresome.
Session-Based Advancement
A good rate of session-based advancement is to have characters reach 2nd level after the first session of play, 3rd level after another session, and 4th level after two more sessions. Then spend two or three sessions for each subsequent level. This rate mirrors the standard rate of advancement, assuming sessions are about four hours long.
Story-Based Advancement
When you let the story of the campaign drive advancement, you award levels when adventurers accomplish significant goals in the campaign.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
In some ways this depends as much on player and DM expectations as it does on the adventure. AL players often expect to level every 1-2 sessions while those who started with AD&D are more along the lines of every 4-8 sessions. However, I think leveling too slowly with 5e does the game a disservice since I find tier 3 and tier 4 much more playable than earlier editions. One of the reasons AD&D leveled so slowly was because some folks just didn't enjoy playing the game at level 10+ due to balance and power issues.
If you run published WoTC content then the average (depending on the adventure) appears to be every 2-4 sessions (e.g. TftYP - Sunless Citadel, Forge of Fury). DoIP is similar since the character can gain a level after completing two objectives, some of which only require 1 or 2 sessions. If you play Adventurers League then answer is leveling up every session - however, this rate of advancement doesn't really work with most of the published hardcover adventures.
In my own campaign, it has probably been something like every 4-6 sessions though occasionally less (for example, I'd never level the characters in level 1 for too long because it is too risky - I roll dice in front of everyone and a crit from something like a hobgoblin can instakill some characters). I've been running alternating content from GoS and TftYP combined to make a campaign, as a result I've been leveling at about 1/2 the published rate.
How does it take you 5 sessions and still level 1, if they fight 3 bugbears in 4 player group (an encounter like that, and a smaller one about half the size, is how most people run early levels 1-3) and bam their a quarter of the way there.
I reward story exp, and my data pool is influenced by the fact my party is stupidly creative, and that I once led a rotating dm campaign (where story xp were granted more regularly, thanks to smaller adventure scales).
The primary reason we're still on level 1 after 5 sessions is because we've been getting quite into the roleplay. Having each of the characters interact with one another and getting to know their personalities. I'll have them level up once they reach at certain point in the story, they're just not quite there yet!
There's no set number of sessions. Depending entirely on what level the characters currently are and what they've been up to. At 1st level it shouldn't take that long to level up though, unless they are just sitting in a tavern chatting the whole time
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I'm almost five sessions into a campaign and my PC's are still level 1, out of curiosity, how many sessions do other DM's tend to have between level ups?
It honestly depends on the level they're currently at, as well as the pace of the campaign. I tend to run milestone leveling, so they usually level up at set points- the only question is how long it takes them to get there. Generally, it takes them between 4-7 sessions to level up, but I wanted them to level quickly early on, so it only took them a total of around ten sessions to get from levels one to five.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
As Thauraeln mentioned, a lot depends on the style of campaign: gritty, heroic, epic fantasy.
In general, I normally level characters up at the end of "arcs" (i use milestones), but the first few levels go quickly, with level 1 perhaps only lasting a session. I use those levels to let the players begin understanding their characters and seeing how they work as a gaming group. That being said, I generally run high level, heroic fantasy games, so my goal is to get characters to the 8+ range while investing them in the world.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
At low levels I tend to do a session or two between leveling will about level 4. Then typically it is about the next level - 1 ish episodes till they level. Somewhere about 8 or so the number tends to stabilize about 7 ish per level. This also adjust by how much 'messing' around happens. Sometimes you have those sessions where they just kind of make no forward progress towards anything.
Generally my low level games go like this because low levels suck. Level 1 to 5 is about 8 sessions worth, assuming weekly. If we're playing every two weeks, then the timeframes shorten up a bit.
Level 1 to 2 - One session/dungeon/task
Level 2 to 3 - Two sessions/tasks/dungeons
Level 3 to 4 - Two sessions/tasks/dungeons
Level 4 to 5 - Three sessions/tasks/dungeons
I am pretty close to Spidey's course. Very low levels + a d20 system means too much randomness for me. I like to get them to a fun place before I slow it down.
After level 5 it's 3-4 sessions a level.
If being level 1 for 5 sessions is fun for you and your players, then more luck to ya, but in an even remotely fighty game that'd feel pretty painful to me. There are very few options for most classes...
I tend to stick with the DMG suggestion for leveling without XP. Of course if the players decide to spend sessions in downtime researching, selling, crafting sessions between levels vary.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I mean, I don't fix a number. If they shop for three sessions I ain't giving a level. If they kill dragons for two then they get it. Downtime, for me, is the definition of not getting xp - you're getting money or contacts or whatever. But I can see how it'd work for some groups, totally.
I like the more freeform "milestone" because it lets the whole thing *feel* right.
On the other hand, my current (excellent) DM is a DM I really enjoy in part because he does everything different to me. He's ruthless, and he sticks the to real xp. He will let folk lag a level behind if they don't get active. And it's worked.
It's still really fun.
/doithowyoulikeit
I find it curious that you chose to reply directly to my post.
I didn't suggest that you do set a fixed number of anything. I was simply replying to OP on my methods. Consequently, Spidey's method is very similar to the same suggestion in the DMG. And why the quotations around Milestone? It is an actual method of character advancement used in most if not all of the published adventures.
Click for "milestones"
Milestones
You can also award XP when characters complete significant milestones. When preparing your adventure, designate certain events or challenges as milestones, as with the following examples:
When awarding XP, treat a major milestone as a hard encounter and a minor milestone as an easy encounter.
If you want to reward your players for their progress through an adventure with something more than XP and treasure, give them additional small rewards at milestone points. Here are some examples:
Click for "level advancement without XP"
Level Advancement without XP
You can do away with experience points entirely and control the rate of character advancement. Advance characters based on how many sessions they play, or when they accomplish significant story goals in the campaign. In either case, you tell the players when their characters gain a level.
This method of level advancement can be particularly helpful if your campaign doesn’t include much combat, or includes so much combat that tracking XP becomes tiresome.
Session-Based Advancement
A good rate of session-based advancement is to have characters reach 2nd level after the first session of play, 3rd level after another session, and 4th level after two more sessions. Then spend two or three sessions for each subsequent level. This rate mirrors the standard rate of advancement, assuming sessions are about four hours long.
Story-Based Advancement
When you let the story of the campaign drive advancement, you award levels when adventurers accomplish significant goals in the campaign.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
In some ways this depends as much on player and DM expectations as it does on the adventure. AL players often expect to level every 1-2 sessions while those who started with AD&D are more along the lines of every 4-8 sessions. However, I think leveling too slowly with 5e does the game a disservice since I find tier 3 and tier 4 much more playable than earlier editions. One of the reasons AD&D leveled so slowly was because some folks just didn't enjoy playing the game at level 10+ due to balance and power issues.
If you run published WoTC content then the average (depending on the adventure) appears to be every 2-4 sessions (e.g. TftYP - Sunless Citadel, Forge of Fury). DoIP is similar since the character can gain a level after completing two objectives, some of which only require 1 or 2 sessions. If you play Adventurers League then answer is leveling up every session - however, this rate of advancement doesn't really work with most of the published hardcover adventures.
In my own campaign, it has probably been something like every 4-6 sessions though occasionally less (for example, I'd never level the characters in level 1 for too long because it is too risky - I roll dice in front of everyone and a crit from something like a hobgoblin can instakill some characters). I've been running alternating content from GoS and TftYP combined to make a campaign, as a result I've been leveling at about 1/2 the published rate.
3-4 sessions, with the following caveats
How does it take you 5 sessions and still level 1, if they fight 3 bugbears in 4 player group (an encounter like that, and a smaller one about half the size, is how most people run early levels 1-3) and bam their a quarter of the way there.
I reward story exp, and my data pool is influenced by the fact my party is stupidly creative, and that I once led a rotating dm campaign (where story xp were granted more regularly, thanks to smaller adventure scales).
My homebrew content: Monsters, subclasses, Magic items, Feats, spells, races, backgrounds
The primary reason we're still on level 1 after 5 sessions is because we've been getting quite into the roleplay. Having each of the characters interact with one another and getting to know their personalities. I'll have them level up once they reach at certain point in the story, they're just not quite there yet!
There's no set number of sessions. Depending entirely on what level the characters currently are and what they've been up to. At 1st level it shouldn't take that long to level up though, unless they are just sitting in a tavern chatting the whole time
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I was agreeing with you and expanding the point.