According to the book, you have the following recommended levels: 1) 1-6 for Lands of Chult; 2) 5-9 for the Forbidden City; 3) from 9 on, for the tomb.
Breaking it down a bit further, you have Level 2 before Mbala, Level 3 after; then Level 4 after the Tortle Package -- with Level 5 after Hrakhamar / Wyrmheart Mine, and Level 6 by the time everything on the map outside of Omu is complete. Inside Omu everything is more-clear cut -- the Levels can advance almost daily (in-game). This is why I recommend doing weekly 3-4 hour sessions until Omu and then jumping to bi-weekly. With a more-carefully planned rollup, the party can advance on their adversaries during the first session of the week and perform hardening / leveling / disbursement of treasure during the second session.
My group (I'm the DM) did got to Level 2 in Port Nyanzaru, after exploring and meeting guides. They were told by Jobal that a pair of tabaxi were selling guide services without him receiving his share and let them know not to trust them. The group did not have the money to pay for the advance fees for Jobal's Guides so they devised a plan to try and meet the pair of tabaxi. They then circled them and fought them in the alleys which devolved rapidly into a rooftop chase. They finally bagged them and sent them over to Jobal, which rewarded them by waiving the initial guide fee. They went for Eku.
I got them to level 3 by going to Fort Beluarian to get their Charter of Exploration and added some homebrew Ghoul Nest clearing mission with a small troop of the Fist. Then they got their charter handed to them as reward and the good favor of the Flaming Fists, although the officer kinda shorted them with their ghoul heads reward. From there they journeyed 2 days to Nyanzaru and began their journey.
They're little over halfway to level 5 now, and they went through River Tiryki, Firefinger, Mezro (where they found Yuan-Ti and Salida spying on them, fought them and stole Ras Nsi's Sending stone but they don't know it's his yet.) and now theyve made their way along the river Olung and there Nearing Kir sabal & Needle's Bones, where Eku guided them to receive the help of the birdfolk there to quicken their travel. I had also suggested to go to Orolungo but one of my player did half the campaign and that's the way they went so it's fun to go for somethng else.
I kinda expect the group to reach Omu at level 6. We're doing XP too so it's fun to see I don'T have to ad-hoc too much to control their leveling. Theyre loving ToA but with their party composition the exploration bit of it is made far easier (Ranger with Natural explorer : Jungle, Druid which can purify food and drink, Outlander Rogue etc) but that's fine i think my group would have found the vanilla exploration too tedious and not fun. I'm amazed at the replayability of ToA, having done some of it with that other player in my group. The group just went in a different direction although with the same guide and have seen entirely different places in the Jungle. The situation at Kir Sabal will be really cool to play through.
Happy annihilating guys!
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What are the party's recommended levels for each respective chapter in Tomb of Annihilation
According to the book, you have the following recommended levels: 1) 1-6 for Lands of Chult; 2) 5-9 for the Forbidden City; 3) from 9 on, for the tomb.
Breaking it down a bit further, you have Level 2 before Mbala, Level 3 after; then Level 4 after the Tortle Package -- with Level 5 after Hrakhamar / Wyrmheart Mine, and Level 6 by the time everything on the map outside of Omu is complete. Inside Omu everything is more-clear cut -- the Levels can advance almost daily (in-game). This is why I recommend doing weekly 3-4 hour sessions until Omu and then jumping to bi-weekly. With a more-carefully planned rollup, the party can advance on their adversaries during the first session of the week and perform hardening / leveling / disbursement of treasure during the second session.
My group (I'm the DM) did got to Level 2 in Port Nyanzaru, after exploring and meeting guides. They were told by Jobal that a pair of tabaxi were selling guide services without him receiving his share and let them know not to trust them. The group did not have the money to pay for the advance fees for Jobal's Guides so they devised a plan to try and meet the pair of tabaxi. They then circled them and fought them in the alleys which devolved rapidly into a rooftop chase. They finally bagged them and sent them over to Jobal, which rewarded them by waiving the initial guide fee. They went for Eku.
I got them to level 3 by going to Fort Beluarian to get their Charter of Exploration and added some homebrew Ghoul Nest clearing mission with a small troop of the Fist. Then they got their charter handed to them as reward and the good favor of the Flaming Fists, although the officer kinda shorted them with their ghoul heads reward. From there they journeyed 2 days to Nyanzaru and began their journey.
They're little over halfway to level 5 now, and they went through River Tiryki, Firefinger, Mezro (where they found Yuan-Ti and Salida spying on them, fought them and stole Ras Nsi's Sending stone but they don't know it's his yet.) and now theyve made their way along the river Olung and there Nearing Kir sabal & Needle's Bones, where Eku guided them to receive the help of the birdfolk there to quicken their travel. I had also suggested to go to Orolungo but one of my player did half the campaign and that's the way they went so it's fun to go for somethng else.
I kinda expect the group to reach Omu at level 6. We're doing XP too so it's fun to see I don'T have to ad-hoc too much to control their leveling. Theyre loving ToA but with their party composition the exploration bit of it is made far easier (Ranger with Natural explorer : Jungle, Druid which can purify food and drink, Outlander Rogue etc) but that's fine i think my group would have found the vanilla exploration too tedious and not fun. I'm amazed at the replayability of ToA, having done some of it with that other player in my group. The group just went in a different direction although with the same guide and have seen entirely different places in the Jungle. The situation at Kir Sabal will be really cool to play through.
Happy annihilating guys!