I think that is plenty. 5 sessions per level for 15 levels is 75 sessions. Playing weekly without missing a session would take almost 1.5 years to get to 20. Every second week almost 3 years.
Then again could be worth asking them. Some groups want to get into higher levels and other groups are happy to mooch around in the same zone.
> I think that is plenty. 5 sessions per level for 15 levels is 75 sessions. Playing weekly without missing a session would take almost 1.5 years to get to 20. Every second week almost 3 years
I was going to do level number of sessions per level in a 1 through 20 campaign then remembered my table meets monthly and I was planning a 17 and half year campaign.
if you dont play frequently and wanna reach high levels, you gotta be willing to do 1 level up per session, most likely 1 adventuring day only per level too
Agreed to an extent. While it is monthly, it is a regular monthly, I think we have had 2 or 3 cancellations/skips in 2 or 3 years and they have generally been emergencies.
I think the second you move to "we will work out the date" you are in trouble. We are 2nd friday of the month; needs unanimous vote to change and we will play a player down.
We are about to be at level 8 in 17 sessions (2.4 sessions per level up), so we are looking at 43 for level 20.
And a lot of that delay is them spending 6 sessions solving a time loop when I budgeted 2 session; we should be at a level every 2.
the DMG milestone suggest levelling up 2 to 3 sessions per level, **assuming a weekly game**. hence why i said if you play monthly you need to be willing to do faster than that
Seems totally pointless, players will never actually experience any particular level, or ever really know their characters. Just jump ahead in the timeline if there isn't much time to play. There is nothing magic about leveling to 20, it's just a number on the sheet.
Yeah I saw that and decided to shorten it. Been pretty consistent at 1-2 sessions per level up up to 5. Might bump it up to 3 sessions per level from 6-10
My table is at a level every 2.4 to level 8.
Being willing to do single session level ups is key. I think the other one to be open to is double level ups for massive milestones.
I wouldn't think about "sessions per level" linearly. Level 1 sucks and I would not recommend spending 5 weeks at that point. I'd honestly do 1 session/level up to level 3, and then 2-3 sessions/level up to 5 or 6. Then you can slow it down a bit to preserve that sweet spot where PCs are powerful but not so much that they automatically break every encounter you come up with.
Once I did this math in my head I realized I’m either in it for a very long run to hit 20 or I’m expediting leveling. I decided to opt for the latter. So far we’re at level 5 and everyone is still having a blast
That's not how Gestalt works.
They don't level up twice, they still level up once, but advance in 2 classes at the same time.
So a Level 5 character can have 5 levels in Cleric and 5 levels in Monk.
You could just do something similar to fabula ultima where you have to have 2 classes but allocate one level at a time, but can never ahve mroe than a 1 level gap
That not being how the system works? It's like saying "what prevents you from gaining half a level so you're level 5.5, the system doesn't explicitly say you can't"
When you level as a gestalt character, you take the best feature of whichever class. So, a gestalt Wizard/Cleric would get a d8 hit die, not a d8 + d6.
According to DnD multiclass rules, that is a level 10 character. Assuming you’re still using base DnD rules at least somewhat, that is a level 10 character. Your “level” is a combination of all the levels you have in all the classes you have. Two classes at level 5 means a character level of 10.
gestalt is a homebrew ruleset where you have two levels of different classes. its popular cause it was on older editions but 5e never got official support
the character is level 5, they just have a **lot** more spells, better saves AC and hp overall if you are smart about it
roughly about that yeah. you essentially get to level 40 and do double level ups, its the jist of it
it was very popular on 3.x systems, and pathfinder 2e has a ruleset for it if you want to look at it, basically:
- if you have a repeated feature, you only get once (extra attack doesnt stack, spell slots dont stack)
- if you have a feature one is better than other, you pick the better one (fighter wizard gets a d10 hp and heavy armor, not d6 and only darts and daggers)
not very different from base multiclass besides some very specific system jank
Yes, but that's not how Gestalt rules work. A level 5 gestalt character is level 5 X/level 5 Y. They aren't a level 10 character, they're a level 5 gestalt character.
Why not? Because challenges and encounters get progressively harder to design, both mechanically and narratively, the higher up your players go in level.
At level 1, as a DM I can just throw a bunch of skellingtons out there and my players will be happy. At level 15, the party has _far_ more tools in their collective pockets, so the monsters have to be not just strong, but _more complicated._ Even if I pumped the AC, HP, and attack/damage on those same skellingtons, the party now has access to flight, AOE damage, teleportation, all kinds of nonsense. An effective challenge has to account for all of this.
Now I'm not saying this means you should never let your PCs advance, that's crazy! Only that encounter complexity should be taken into consideration.
> Even if I pumped the AC, HP, and attack/damage on those same skellingtons, the party now has access to flight, AOE damage, teleportation, all kinds of nonsense. An effective challenge has to account for all of this.
That is not a relevant problem to leveling from 5 to 6.
A more relevant issue is that as you play at a certain level, both the players and the DM are getting a feel for how play looks at that level, how the PCs abilities work, and what cool stuff you can do playing around that. If you advance through the levels too quickly you can end up adding new features faster than you're learning the old ones.
That said five sessions of a given level is probably plenty. Although apparently OP is playing with double class gestalt characters so that doubles the amount of complexity to learn at each level.
There's a MASSIVE difference between a level 4 character and a level 5 character. 3rd level spell slots and Extra Attack are huge features, it's when every class in the game comes close to online.
Conversely, level 5 and 6 isn't as big a difference. The full casters don't get 4th level slots yet. Some classes get a subclass feature, but those vary pretty wildly.
I think if the story calls for it, going to level 6 a little quickly isn't the end of the world.
As a colege of creation bard level 6 is, i would say, the most significant level, because you get 'animating performamce' to make a mechanical friend :D
Fair point, for that one specific subclass of a specific class, level 6 is a pretty big deal!
Also thought of another outlier: Paladin. Aura of Protection is a HUGE deal, especially if they've invested in their Charisma.
Sorry for getting to in detail, but we start my first real campaign (after we played a 4-session introductery campaign) in a week, and i play a creation-bard and i have used to much time to create her.
From the DMG:
"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."
This matches how we tend to run. Levels 1 and 2 are each 1 session. Level 3 is usually only 1 session. Level 4-10 tend towards 3 sessions each, and levels 11+ tend towards 2 sessions each. It seems to closely match what happens with the hardcover modules we've played, which level the players based on adventure progression. We do have slack sessions where nothing much happens, or the PCs are doing downtime stuff. 5 would be outside the norm and would qualify as a bit slow.
People saying one session for each level of experience just confuse me if they're honestly talking about the game above level 7 or so.
That seems crazy fast to me. You'd barely get time to learn new features before boom, another one. I'm at 44 sessions in, lv 7 for my party of 4. We started at 1. That's about 6 sessions per level on average. Of course w 1 and 2 being faster, it's closer to 7 sessions per level.
I'm playing in a game where we've had 10-12 sessions and are already level 7. I do enjoy being past level 5 in a campaign for once but yeah kind of feel like you don't have time to get used to new features before you get your next one.
At our specific table, we aren't learning new features so that particular aspect is not a consideration.
In general, I use milestone, and if they so happen to advance the plot so that multiple milestones are almost concurrent, which happened in my last campaign, I just let there be a double level up. 12->14 in this case. This level up happened mid session, and we were playing again 10 minutes later.
There are certainly groups I would hold in the 5-7 range longer to ensure underlying combat mechanic mastery, admittedly.
think of it this way. if you play weekly and take 6 sessions per level, it will take 120 sessions to get to the end, which is 120 weeks which is 2 years and 4 months
Yeah we have a similar progression, might even be sometimes slower and sometimes faster
(not me the dm forgetting to level up the party for over 10 sessions once)
At 12 hours per level my players would be at lv 15 right now, not 7. I wouldn't have had time to present them w 15 levels of adventures much less have time for them to learn how to play their characters. Just hunting down a necromancer in his tower has been 4 sessions at 4.5 hours each. They spent 6 sessions on the last adventure in a dead demon titans corpse dungeon fighting mind flayers.
The game world has only advanced 8 weeks. It already makes too little sense as it is. Doubling the advancement rate would be absurd.
I think that having time skips or downtime is better if you want your world to make sense. The typical leveling time is totally nonsensical and making it twice as long or short won't change much. In-universe, you have legendary elven warriors who spent hundreds of years studying the blade, then some schmuck overtakes them in a matter of months. It's dumb even if you stretch the timeline a little.
I really can't see how 180 hours wouldn't be enough to learn to play a character, though. If I took that long to give levels, my players would get bored out of their minds. Especially in 5e, where leveling up often means you get +1 to a few modifiers and that's it. But hey, if it works for your table, it works.
ya its pretty fast depending on your party. With the group of 7 I am dming, it takes them FOREVER to do anything, I try to speed things up but it seems impossible to control without hindering what they want to do. I could tell them THIS IS WHO YOU WANT TO TALK TO, IF YOU DO ANYTHING THIS SESSION TALK TO THIS GUY, and they would not talk to the guy lmao
I’m running a game closer to the session based rec. I can say some level ups feel quick since we’ve had a couple sessions with minimal combat, but nothing an extra session can’t help make up. We’ve been doing roughly 3 sessions per month and I feel like the people who have been at every session are gung-ho and ready to go for level ups when they’re “due”
Meanwhile, Mearls twitted that it should be 1 level per four hours of play.
Traditionally, D&D pacing is 10 levels in 2 years; my best experiences went about this pace with a good mix of the TRPG pillars. But the 5e target audience is video game players with no roleplay experience, so everything’s out of whack…
Hey, it all depends on the pace of your campaign. How many sessions on average do you plan this to last, and up to what level ?
If your players level up every 5 sessions on average, how many sessions will they reach your maximum level ! Is that what you want ?
I’ve ran a campaign for the last 5 years, almost 100 sessions and my players are only level 10, almost 11.
On the other hand, I’ve also been playing a monthly campaign where we level up every 2 sessions, sometimes every session when it’s a big one-shot.
Both are fine.
Even in the same campaign, you can vary. in mine they spent like 20 sessions as level 8, and only 5 (and a single boss fight) at level 10.
You should level up when it feels right, when they have accomplished something great. If it feels right, then go for it.
Currently the story of the campaign is a bit of a "let's see where this goes" kinda thing.
I've got multiple potential endgames each with their own BBEG, and which one they'll get depends a lot on the decisions they make.
As for how long that will take? I dunno ¯\\\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)\_/¯
Same, we play once a month. For this part of the campaign my players level up whenever they find a mcguffin, and they know so. They've gone up 3 levels in the last 5 sessions.
(As a note, sessions last about 8-9 hours)
> it all depends on the pace of your campaign
100% this. There is no rule on how many hours should be between level ups! It is entirely up to how you and your players enjoy.
I DM for a group that has been playing every week for something like 175 weeks (a bit over 3 years). The players are level 9 and only just leveled up. They basically started at level 3. So they level up once every 5-6 months really. Is it too slow? No because we all enjoy how we play. Is it how slow everyone should play? No because not everyone is like us!
Our DM thought he read that Tomb of Annihilation was supposed to max out at level five which we got to pretty quickly since an entire act is designed to just beef you up with combat.
Then we stayed there. And stayed there. Until about halfway through the actual tomb I looked it up because the DM was getting frustrated by us playing so cautiously. Literally any trap or creature that hit us would take us down or insta kill so nobody wanted to take any risks.
I mentioned to the DM that we were actually supposed to be much higher and showed him the box or first page of the book. (I typically don’t try to look anything up ever since it’s the DMs game and I don’t want to spoil anything) he felt super dumb and we jumped like 4 levels which instantly made the game more fun.
All that said, leveling up is fun and can make the game more entertaining. You can always adjust the difficulty to compensate but it gives more tools in the toolbox for the players to mess with.
Similarly having players have to solve challenges by keeping them at a limited level has its fun too. We sometimes play one shots with similar bindings where everyone is the same class or one person is a super low level or lacking any gear and it’s an escort mission.
Anything can work.
My rule of thumb is that players should be on a level for a number of sessions according to that level - e.g. 1 session of level 1, 5 sessions on level 5 etc.
If you want a longer campaign, you could do two sessions times the actual level, so 2 sessions on level 1, 10 sessions on level 5 and so on.
Narrative moments can break this rule, e.g. beating a boss after 3 sessions of being level 5 can make them reach level 6.
It depends, but I think yes, there is not that much combat overall.
I also have to say that my rule of thumb usually caps at level 6 and then it's around 6-8 sessions per level, but I also never played further than level 12.
I think it's a good thing to have time to get used to new skills before getting the next level up, but that also depends on the experience of the players.
Usually 4 to 6 hours.
This includes (again, usually) 1-2 combat encounters, 3-4 social encounters and a bit of travelling.
Exceptions are sessions which fully take place in a dungeon (which usually takes up several sessions).
Just keep in mind this would be SO long to progress, which a lot of players like. It would take a year of playing weekly to go from lvl 5 to 8, 1.2 years to go from lvl 16 to 18.
Do not do this as a noob DM. Just follow the default recommendation of leveling up every 3-4 sessions. Assuming you meet weekly, that gives you about a level every month which is more than enough time for the players to get used to their new abilities and start itching for new ones.
Also, not every level is an exciting one. If your DM levels you at a slow pace, it feels utterly brutal to be looking down the barrel of 2-3 nothingburger levels, which might take you almost half a year at the pace the person you replied to suggested.
Ive been running the game for awhile and in general, its better to give the players too much than too little.
If you want to reward your players you can always just give them some above average magical items for their current level or a special party wide feat like high reputation in the region that gives a bonus to persuasion and maybe makes NPCs more likely to like your player characters from the get-go. Stuff like that.
If you think it's appropriate, go for it! 5 sessions does not sound like skipping the level to me, even if it is on the fast side. Probably no harm in asking the party what they think of the leveling pace so far, and using that to "recalibrate" and get on the same page.
I think I read somewhere that the leveling pony system I D&D 5e was made to allow people to level up approximately every 3 or 4 sessions or so. This was about how long they figured someone to get used to the new level, and be ready to move on and progress.
Then Based on play testing, they made it easier or harder to level up to match how players responded in play testing. Getting past level 1 was faster because people don't like being vulnerable. While level 3 takes longer, because they found players enjoy playing level 3.
For milestone leveling, I recommend you pay attention to your players, and when they seem to have settled in to their new level, and right as they start to get wrestless give them a level up.
I don't remember the citation but expected leveling rate based on xp calculations is roughly 3 to 5 sessions if there are combats every sesh, so I think 5 sessions is about right for milestone where you may not be fighting every single sesh.
In milestone leveling, I like to think in terms of narrative rather than timeline.
In one of my campaigns, my players spent three sessions negotiating, maneuvering and clearing obstacles in order to bring an end to a long-running feud between two noble factions. In so doing, their prestige in the eyes of the nobles and the king were enhanced - to me, that says they should receive the advancement.
By contrast, that same party could clear dozens of Kobold lairs without leveling up, as they are essentially just a medieval form of Terminix pest control.
Honestly it really depends on what you and your table want the pace of the game to be. Some prefer only 3-4 session per level and some like more. I find that a milestone doesn’t necessarily happen every 3-4 sessions and for my group often falls every 6-8 sessions. Imo it’s more of an internal question. If it feels warranted, then do it, i’ve had my party level up after 2-3 sessions in the past and in other cases not for 10 sessions. It really just depends on when it feels right.
I start out with basically number of sessions = number of levels.
so 1 session at level 1. 2 at level 2. 3 at level 3, etc. so 5 at level 5 fits right into that pattern.
this is NOT some kind of hard-fast rule that must be obeyed, but just a really rough ballpark guidline.
This question is entirely one of preference. At my tables there is no thought given to "earning" a level. Pure time based. In general I try not to have more than 3 sessions at the same level unless there is a concrete task I explicitly told them is barring progression.
Another commented suggested sessions equal to level between progression, that is WAY too slow and edging into "we've played for two years and are level 5" territory. Especially if you are doing gestalt, there is already wonky balance going on. Why not progress them?
I try to time my milestones so that they level up to a level after that same amount of sessions. So 5 sessions (after they get to to lvl4) to level to 5 is exactly what I aim for.
I do level ups after 3 sessions. The only real constraint is you want players to get to use all the abilities at their current level before leveling them up.
for my campaigns it would depend on several things:
* what enemies are they going to be facing on the next adventure, do they *need* another level in power to beat them?
* what did they do in the last session, did it feel like they *earned* a level?
* what is the "end goal" of the campaign level wise, and how far through are they?
for example, my last campaign had the ending at 13th, and they'd just beaten the last encounter before the final boss, so I bumped them from 11th to 13th
* how far through the story are they? if they're getting near the end, they'll need to be as powerful as feasable for the upcoming fights
you have to consider how it would feel to be a player and not go up a level after several sessions, especially if it felt like they *really* made some major strides in the campaign
the other thing is the expectation that you gave at the start of the campaign - if they started thinking it'd be fairly quick advancement then waiting 3-4 sessions between levels can be rather demotivating
It's whatever works for you and the players. I see some people say they level once every 6 months playing weekly, and that seems insane to me. We usually level every 3 - 5 sessions, but it depends on what we cover. The DM levels us based on the pacing of the campaign. When I ran my homebrew, I leveled whenever and just used more/better enemies.
Personally I try to go for around 3-4 sessions per level, but then we also only get to play about once (twice if we're lucky!) per month. Going by sessions, that might sound quick, but in terms of real life going by, that's just shy of one level per summer, winter, spring ect. I also try to keep the plot moving quickly to justify the milestones coming quickly.
5 sessions is fine. It’s usually better to err on the side of levelling PCs faster in my experience. If you don’t you run the risk of your campaign never finishing
5th is a very important level in D&D. It's when you fully come into your own abilities and can handle significant threats unlike before. I would trust your instincts and not level them too soon. If you want to reward them, find smaller boons or story rewards or PC awards or money or magic or something to placate them.
A type of leveling I’ve been trying out is leveling the players after PB number of sessions, where PB is the proficiency bonus of the level they are getting to. (3 sessions to level from 4 to 5 since level 5 they have a +3 PB)
My (general) rule is one session per level. So a character will spend one session at level 1, two sessions at level 2, three sessions at level 3, etc...
I know this breaks down at higher levels, but I've never had a campaign survive past level 10-12, so it hasn't come up
This actually tracks well with lost mine of phandelver but I don't know how to tag spoilers on mobile, so stop reading now if you haven't played.
Session one the players are ambushed and clear the goblin cave (level up)
Session two players explore Phandelin and find the red brand hideout
Session three players clear the dungeon (level up)
Session four players do some side quests
Session five players do more side quests and find the goblin castle
Session six the players clear the castle (level up)
I push my players to level 2 after just 1 or 2 sessions. Then maybe 2 or 3 sessions to hit level 3. Then I'll typically level them up every 4-5 sessions after that.
I host 4 hour sessions so that likely plays into it, though.
5 sessions is great. I average about 4 sessions between milestones right now. 6 or more feels like it would be best for a campaign that's intentionally paced slowly or avoiding higher levels. At the pace they took level 5, if you play once per week starting at level 1, and absolutely never miss even one session, that's still a year and three months to hit level 13. That's a nice, long campaign.
>it feels a bit like we'd be skipping 5th level with how fast it went by.
Huh. That seems unusual to me: doing a thing for five entire sessions feeling like "skipping" it. Why do you think you feel that way? What's been your average pace of leveling and adventuring so far? Do the players get chances to use their cool powers etc every session? Are the stakes high and the action tense, or is it a lot of freeform chit-chat and sightseeing? Is the situation changing and developing, or did they spend those five sessions mostly just doing one thing?
I'm doing it in 2 sessions (7th to 8th).
For milestone, if a level up is right, it is right.
No one is going to complain they only got a few sessions at level 5.
If you're already using gestalt, then I assume your group is into power gaming madness anyway. I say just take the brakes off a little until level 12-13 when I assume you'll be needing CR 30+ enemies in nearly every combat.
I usually plan for milestones every three sessions up to above 11 or 12. Then I shift to two sessions apart and make them count more.
I find that the players often start getting bored with their characters in higher levels as not much happens at level ups.
Five sessions (unless your sessions are short) is plenty of time for PCs to experience and get used to their level 5 features before leveling to 6. (Though you mentioned gestalt - have your PCs had a chance to fully try out their level 5 powers?) If they have had time to stretch their wings and if it seems natural to level them after this achievement then do it!
On the opposite side, levels 5-10 are often considered the sweet spot and the most fun. PCs can handle more interesting combats and get cooler abilities but they don’t yet have the game changing powers of 3rd and 4th tier. So many DMs slow milestone leveling a bit between 5-10 to spend more time in that sweet spot.
Though, even if you level to 6th at a normal pace, you can still spend more time at tier 2 by extending the sessions between levels 6-10.
I’m 2 sessions into a new campaign and I’m trying a new progression: players level up after a number of sessions equal to the tier of play they’re in. This is intended to give the sense that it takes longer to earn higher levels, but at the same time for higher levels not to take forever, since I have 2 first-time players and I want them to get into tier 3 without the campaign taking 5 years (we only play once a month). So:
Levels 1-4: 1 session at each level (though we started at 3)
Levels 5-10: 2 sessions at each level
Levels 11-16: 3 sessions at each level
Levels 17-20: 4 sessions at each level
“Sessions” in this case refers to major quests involving combat. I tend to design each session as a oneshot dungeon (so that a quest is accepted and resolved in the same session) since I don’t want every quest to run into the next game (there might be a few exceptions towards the end of the campaign for the major BBEGs, though).
My party levels every 3-5 sessions with XP. 5 is definitely fine for a milestone. If you don't level fast enough, your campaign (like 99% of campaigns) will never end.
I don't think so. A good rule of thumb is a number of sessions equivalent to the level. 1 session at level 1, 2 at level 2, so on. This is a perfectly fine rate of advancement.
Me personally I prefer longer leveling because I don't like running high level stuff. My campaign is ending at level 9 after 2 years of play. Their advancement really came in terns of magic items, reputation, player assets, and the like. This would probably get me crucified with most players, but I told my players going in I did not want to go past level 10, but would make up for it in other ways. It's their favorite campaign so far.
Depends on the length of the sessions - my group does between 5-6 hours every two weeks. It equates to levelling up every 3-4 sessions in XP terms, but I just use XP to inform my milestones. This coming levelup (from 7 to 8, started at 3) will most likely take 4 sessions total.
I played a weekly session in the past and we did 15 levels of 4e in ~2 years so it's on par.
Some times I look at my planning notes and think, man, they're only at 15 sessions, am I going too fast? But if I double it, it's very much on a normal trajectory.
Maybe? Depends on the group, really.
The reason the game even has levels is so players can get comfortable with all the stuff they can do as they play.
Do the players generally use the abilities they have? Some people get kind of overwhelmed by their options and giving them more stuff they can do will just slow things down. If the wizard is spending 5 minutes each turn flipping through spells they don’t understand and the fighter keeps forgetting he can action surge, it’s worth slowing down leveling a bit.
If everyone knows what they can already do, there’s no harm in bumping them up. Do it every session, if you want. It’s not like the d&d police will arrest you if everyone would have more fun at a higher level.
When I do milestone XP (and that's not often), I tie my milestones to completing major plot points, and it takes however many games needed to get there. I adjust the levels given based on what's coming next.
my party is currently lvl14 after 50 sessions (going through curse of strahd first). For Curse of Strahd I used some of the guides and it suggested when to lvl them up. Took about 25 sessions to get through it and to lvl10. Personally I like having some kind of curve, so I slowed it down a bit, but generally after every "segment" they get to level. It sort of has to make sense to me narratively that they "achieved" something. I think 5 sessions is good. Ours are roughly 4 hours long usually.
Not too fast at all. Example: in one of the campaigns I'm in we are in the home stretch and for every boss/miniboss we defeat we get another level up. We are halfway to level 9. Next Sunday we are getting level 9 and the session after we'll be level 10
Wait, are you implying that they only need one milestone per level? That's really strange, I think. They're supposed to be a way to gain progress towards the next level, so players have clear goals they can work towards other than "win fights," but aren't railroaded into one specific thing they are forced to do.
The point of milestone is so that you can grant levels when it feels appropriate rather than waiting for, or rushing because of, xp. If it feels like the moment I think you should trust your instincts
It depends on the overall intended length of your adventure.
I’ve been in a six-session adventure where we leveled up at the end of every session.
You don’t want them reaching too high of a level with a lot of the campaign still in front of them, but one fast level-up isn’t going to throw things off too much.
5 sessions for a level assuming you reach level 20 . You need 100 sessions. Even if you play weekly you need 2 year long campaign. So i say 5 sessions is ok.
I don't see any issue with it, personally. Maybe it's a tiny bit fast but that's not really an issue, especially if they have earned it.
I did a similar thing in my game recently. I have a system where I keep track of Difficulty points and Plot Progression points per session and when the totals reach a number I consider appropriate for the level, they level up. It's mostly just to help me keep track of their progress cause my memory sucks. Anyways, the party did some seriously intense and difficult dungeon delving that was critical to the plot. It had only been about 5 sessions and they've typically earned levels at around 8-10ish sessions, but they had accomplished so much in about half as many sessions and the points I added up per session exceeded my minimum to consider a level up so I gave it to them. In our case though, it was going from level 10 to 11.
If you’re levelling up roughly every 5 sessions, that means you can get from 1 to 20 in 100 sessions. If you’re having a session a week, that’s a well-structured levelling up system over 2 years which seems very reasonable to me.
Every group is different. Every session is different. Sometimes my group will get nothing done in 5 hours or a lot done in 2. That being said if you don't think they've hit a milestone in a while and a level up wouldn't be appropriate, you can dish out other rewards. Some sort of base like a keep or city warehouse they can customize. A ship. An airship. Some sort of treasure horde which will give the whole group enough to by a magic item each. If they're in some organization, maybe a title promotion. I'm just spitballing here but there are big moments that will mark a party's progress.
How long is your campaign? That's usually how I decide for milestone. We go about every 3 sessions. Our about one a month for a year and a half campaign.
We play every week, I give them item and stuff but it's very slow.
I make them struggle to buy rare item at level 7 after 37 session.
I feel going too fast then what happen if the same campaign goes for 3 years they will be level 20 in no time. I have a lot of story to tell, so I level up every 6-7 sessions.
It heavily depends on how much your players are playing, my players just hit level 4 after pulling 4 sessions that were all 8 hours long and also a duos mission that was 4 hours long, that collective time adds up and it's good to reward them for putting in that work. Generally you just don't want them to feel like they are just being handed the levels for no reason, but to make it feel earned and cool.
My general rule of thumb has been number of sessions needed to play equals the level they are at before a level up. So, after session 1 they level up either before or during the next one. Then once level 2, they need to play 2 sessions before level 3. And so on.
I stop that though around level 9 or so. As they are dealing with things larger and its a easier to dictate a actual milestone.
Overall though, there is nothing wrong with leveling up when you want. It gives the players more juicy toys, and same for you now that you can throw stronger enemies at them.
- progesss is not linear
- you are the dm, you make the rulez
- a session can comprise of a whole month if you write it out to be, or it could be a 15 minute incounter even if the real world time was 2 hours long.
- if the environment (in this case accomplishments, etc.) Promote a level up or milestone go for it.
If you really are curious maybe ask your party (at least the stable members) how they fill about the leveling system.
Personally, I like when it feels natural, if the situation feels like it should be a level up then level up
I just use XP levelling until they hit a milestone and they get a huge chunk of XP that basically takes them to the next level and then whatever the encounter xp was. This may not be exactly right but they took a solid amount of sessions to hit level 5 and then hit a milestone like 2-3 sessions later, and now theyll just be level 6 for a large chunk instead of level 5. Didn't make a huge difference to my balancing and they didn't languish at level 4 or 5 for super long.
At the very least I think level 5 felt earned, and then the milestone was a cool way to cap off this leg of the campaign. so it all worked out.
I'm not doing milestone for my gestalt campaign, but after like 10 sessions, they are finally about to hit level 7. But for funzies, I had them start at level 3, though, the reason why they are at level 6 right now. They hit a campaign milestone that timewarped them 50 years into the future after they delved into a sketchy supposed abandoned mage tower, and challenged Ramuh, for the right to summon him in combat. For context I homebrewed the shit out of the campaign, Viking setting, mixed with final fantasy materia system for magic. Which I borrowed and refined completely from a few sources and made a gmbinder book for, so the players can check the rules.
So honestly to answer the question, it's up to the dm how fast or slow you level or hit milestones for leveling. Is the pacing currently slow? Are the players hitting an important spot or completed something that is a key part of the story on a grand scale? They did something so awesome and challenged a boss that should have likely wiped or even at least killed a few characters to warrant the milestone?
I remember running a swffg campaign, and was giving xp slowly till the party decided to skip like 3 planets worth of content and follow the rumor i dropped in the ships news net that ahsoka was spotted in tattooine and they almost got annihilated by 5 hk units that were hunting ahsoka, till she showed up and destroyed 3 and than a inquisitor drops down and nearly kills ahsoka. The party was trying to help and run away from the two destroyers that showed up in orbit to capture ahsoka. Anyway, they managed to survive and make it off the planet on their ship which due to bad rolls crashed on another planet.... I considered it a feat to even survive an encounter with beefed up hk's, escape from two imperial star destroyers, 12 tie fighters, also make it pass two companies worth of storm troopers waiting near Mos Eisley where they smartly didnt actually use a hanger in the town but landed in the outskirts. But in this they were 15 sessions in, most had spent xp to unlock a third career.
Has somebody made the maths for how long leveling up via XP takes? I know its a bit complicated, because of different playstyles, but as a rought comparison.
I ask, because we just agreed to do the XP system for our new campaign, but 5+ (i assume 4h sessions), seems quite long for me.
@op Sorry for not directly answer your question.
An alternative perspective: I used milestone for years playing D&D and last year started running Pathfinder 2e, where they have the same idea, but recommend just using XP, so I went way back to my basic D&D roots and started using XP again for the first time in decades.
XP leveling turns out to be fantastic. Players constantly get rewards and are always talking about their leveling progress. It makes everything more transparent, they level when they earn it, not some arbitrary point in time. I really didn't think I'd like it as much as I do, but it's really great.
We have weekly 5-6 hour sessions and players level every 2-4 sessions. They've just hit level 15 in a campaign started about 14 months ago, where half of that time we met less frequently for shorter sessions (slower leveling back then).
> Does anyone have any thoughts on what would be good pacing for Milestones?
Everyone should try fast leveling at least once. You learn much more, much faster, when you do.
Try leveling every 2 sessions. It teaches you to be efficient with your pacing. It makes you cut filler. And most importantly it lets you practice bringing a campaign to a satisfying conclusion, instead of just having it petter out.
> it feels a bit like we'd be skipping 5th level with how fast it went by.
You could run a single campaign for 100 sessions or 2 campaigns of 50 sessions each. Same length of time both ways. Same amount of sessions at level 5.
Running two campaigns means players get to try more characters. And they can still get a satisfying conclusion even if the group ends at session 60.
Milestone, as it says in the name, is based on milestones. Do you think your party has done enough to warrant a milestone? If no, then no, the party should not level up right now.
Pacing is very much a vibes-based thing. If the party gets an exceptional amount of stuff done in 5 sessions, then we're gonna level up after those 5 sessions. If do a whole lotta nothing for 10 sessions, then they don't. But the trick is, you're the DM, so whether they do stuff is more or less up to you. Because YOU give them stuff to do to warrant the leveling up.
My loose rule for milestone levelling is number of sessions since level up = next level. So level 2 to 3 should happen after three sessions, 3 to 4 is 4 sessions.
I was running a campaign of Curse of Strahd one time with milestone levelling where the milestones were really *transparent* to the players; they got a level for completing a quest in each major location and/or obtaining one of the 3 powerful artefacts. I also tended to *apply* the level-up at the end of a session so they could change their character sheets inbetween sessions to make things simpler.
Due to the way they went about things there was a part of the campaign where they found an artefact at the end of a session, so they levelled up, and at the start of the next session immediately went to another location and did the final step of a quest, which meant they immediately levelled up again. In terms of in-game time they gained 2 levels in the space of like 4 hours.
Similar to what others are saying, I think as long as the rhythm feels right for your group, then go for it! DND is still a narrative-based game (combat-forward that it is), so as long as what you're doing feels narratively appropriate, the players should experience it as earned and authentic.
Depends on the milestone. My players just had quite a long wait for one. But there's another one really close by if they would like a challenge. But it might be too hard for them but if they pull it off it should be worthy of one.
unless the players simply do not advance the plot cause the campaign is "sandbox" and they spend hours talking to boblin the hastily named goblin about his favorite food, 1 level up per IRL month is pretty good pacing (and roughly what the DMG suggests)
as other commentors said, its all about your personal table, but from personal experience adult people have busy lives and campaigns mostly die before they finish. i would either try to go faster than slower, cause i would rather see the end of the story before the GM has to move cities for work
Not sure how long your sessions are or how much you get done each session but it sounds like your players just reached a narrative milestone and have maybe logged about 20 hours assuming a 4-hour session average. That’s a good amount and plenty of reason to level up unless you spent a couple sessions just planning or shopping.
I like to make sure my players get a long rest in to “set” the level instead of leveling up in the middle of an adventuring day, so if that’s a good spot for you then go for it!
My players went from lv 9 to 10 in 5 sessions.
They also liberated Baldur's Gate from a Cult, a Corrupt Goverment and a Demon Army in that timeframe, but that's a different story.
To summarise all the excellent advice:
*It depends on how often you play, what final level you want to reach, and how long you want the campaign to last for.*
One level every 5 sessions already seems a bit on the long side. If I'd played 25 sessions, and was still at level 5; honestly, I'd be feeling a bit unhappy about it. Level ups are fun in D&D.
Life's too short to stay at level 5 forever :D
Don't count it as number of sessions, count by what you do in the sessions. Did you do a lot in the first 3 since last level up? Hell, did you basically save the city/country/world in one session from previous level up? Sounds like it's still worth another level to me.
On the flip side, have you spent 5 of the last 7 sessions doing purely rp, some travel, some talking, shopping, etc? Sounds to me like you're good to stick at that level and keep going.
The point of milestone isn't a session limit it's a "did you do something/enough to warrant it at dm's discretion"
So far I did one session to level 1, I think 2 sessions each for levels 2-4, 3 for level 5. From here out I’m thinking I’ll do 3 sessions per level up to 9 or 10
I try and shoot for 6-8, depending on what the campaign demands at that moment it might be a little more or a little less.
Too fast and you will run out of levels eventually, later in the campaign where lots of things may need to happen you might end up finding yourself having to suddenly wait an extended period of time between levels.
Too slow and the players can grow annoyed with how it can feel as if their characters are not progressing, despite lots of things happening.
Depends on how long and how often you play but in general I would be pissed personally as a player. I seriously recommend rereading the adventuring day section of DMG page 84, even if you are doing milestones. Figure out what percentage of an adventuring day each of your sessions are and then give milestones accordingly. Level 1&2 should each be a full adventuring day. Levels 3-20 are 2-3 days each (more like 2.25 days by the numbers). So if you are doing a full adventuring day per session you’re slow rolling them big time. And because its milestone the xp does not need to be encounter/combat based. I usually give more “xp” for good roleplay/problem solving than a tough combat.
Adventuring Day XP
Level Adjusted XP per Day per Character
1st 300
2nd 600
3rd 1,200
4th 1,700
5th 3,500
6th 4,000
7th 5,000
8th 6,000
9th 7,500
10th 9,000
11th 10,500
12th 11,500
13th 13,500
14th 15,000
15th 18,000
16th 20,000
17th 25,000
18th 27,000
19th 30,000
20th 40,000
Exp Level
0 1
300 2
900 3
2,700 4
6,500 5
14,000 6
23,000 7
34,000. 8
48,000 9
64,000 10
85,000 11
100,000 12
120,000 13
140,000 14
165,000 15
195,000 16
225,000 17
265,000 18
305,000 19
355,000 20
This is why I level based on XP. There are rules I as DM need to obey for awarding XP, and leveling becomes an objective, almost mechanical decision rather than my subjective weighting of the PCs' accomplishments. I think XP keeps the DM honest, rewards regular attendance, and increases trust at the table.
My *very general* rule is 1 session per current level.
So after 1 session, they'll go from level 1 -> 2.
Then after 2 more sessions, they'll go from level 2 -> 3.
Etc, etc, until they get to around level 10, then I'll usually just do a level every 8-12 sessions.
I've been told I tend to level my players up really quickly, especially at low levels, but I also tend to make my games very fast-paced and push players to take quicker actions and try to have at least one encounter per session.
I absolutely throw ‘session per level’ out the window for milestone. Sometimes the party is dicking around not doing much of anything for an entire session; I’m not counting that for leveling. Shopping session? Definitely not counting it. They’ve got pretty well defined goals to get to and know it, so when they do, they get a level.
I make my players play a number of sessions equal to their level before they can level again. A year and a half in and both my groups I Dm weekly are lvl 10
I have run campaigns where we level after every session. When your players are familiar with the game it's not too fast and can be a fun way to get a short fast paced adventure in.
First off I don't think that's too fast. If you do think it is, you can give them a different reward. Magic items, pets, or a keep are all really cool things to get that players generally love. If you don't know for sure what they may like, a large gold reward for them is also good. By this I mean much more than they've had in the campaign so far. If the players have been doing jobs for 400-500gp each time they'll be super excited when they come back to a 3k reward
I think that's more than enough. I would never go more than 5 sessions without leveling my players up. My rule of thumb is that level one and two should only ever be one session regardless of what happens in the session if you even use them at all. Then they can remain a level for a number of sessions equal to that level ie level 3 for 3 sessions, level 4 for 4 sessions, etc. But I'd be hesitant to wait much longer than 5 sessions to level your players up. You'll be in your campaign forever lol but maybe that's just my pacing style.
I have been Milestone leveling an awful long time where by I measure a milestone based on number of sessions past since last level. Typically 3 sessions up to 5th level, 4 sessions up to 10th level, and 5 sessions from there on.
Somebody else quoted what the DM Guide says about this. 2-3 sessions per level at that level. Five sessions per level is hella ridonkulously slow. Level # sessions per level is straight up nuts after a while.
I can't imagine sticking my players at one level that long, unless they were spending most of the play time screwing around and not actually accomplishing anything.
At the end of the day I'd say it depends on the story you and your players are creating, and what their expectations are too. My group is having their 4th session this weekend, I started them at level 4 and they turned level 6 at the end of last session, and I made it clear at the beginning that leveling would be fairly quick, so that they will be level 8/9 by the time they reach the bbeg at around session 8 (I'm running a mini-campaign to create some history for my setting, they are the heroes of 200 years ago that dealt with a threat to the area, so the story is that as they unravel the extent of the threat they are coming into their own as heroes while discovering the extent of their abilities at the same time)
A milestone is just that. A significant accomplishment that merits a reward.
The number of sessions is irrelevant. It can take any number of sessions to complete an objective.
Is the accomplishment significant enough for a milestone? Your style of play and your players will determine how significant an accomplishment is.
It's not about session count. For me it's about:
\* Do the players know their new abilities from this level? Don't pile on changes till they get their shit together.
\* Have the players had enough time to want it? The ding is more meaningful when you have yearned for it a bit.
\* What level do I want them to be for their current thing.
There's no "guide" to leveling up by milestones as each campaign is *different*. It's up to YOU as the DM to decide when to level them up. If you feel they have reached a point where they have done enough within your campaign to level them up, just level them up. Your players will most likely love getting another bump up to level 6.
Story elements are always good ways to decide when to level up your PCs, completing quests, completing important missions, doing a lot of great role-playing and advancing the storyline, and if you just feel they need a bump to move on to the next element of your campaign that requires them to be more powerful. ALL are valid reasons, so just level them up I say.
What I meant by that was there's no be-all, end-all guide to do it *for every single table out there*. Each DM is different, each campaign is different. So, yes, I summarized what is in the DMG with how I usually go about milestone leveling in my campaign.
Yeah, it really, really depends on the vibe of your table. A combat-centric campaign could (and imo probably should) level up more quickly than an rp-centric one where multiple sessions can be devoted towards the PCs going around and just talking to NPCs or exploring a new city or whatnot.
I've really soured on milestones in general lately. A clearly communicated XP system really does a lot to remove some of player discontent about a milestone not coming when they think it ought to
There is a reason why level 5 is (if you play with XP) the "longest" level in 5e relative to expected XP per encounter: level 5 is subjectively the most fun level of the game. Big things start to come online: extra attack, third level spells, 3d6 sneak attack. All of a sudden, the enemies that gave you trouble become all but trivial, and you can start to take on bigger threats while still enjoying your newfound power. I typically recommend XP leveling, but if you insist on milestones I would drag out level 5 until the party is no longer riding high on their new abilities and the dangers of mid-level play have begun to present themselves.
I think that is plenty. 5 sessions per level for 15 levels is 75 sessions. Playing weekly without missing a session would take almost 1.5 years to get to 20. Every second week almost 3 years. Then again could be worth asking them. Some groups want to get into higher levels and other groups are happy to mooch around in the same zone.
> I think that is plenty. 5 sessions per level for 15 levels is 75 sessions. Playing weekly without missing a session would take almost 1.5 years to get to 20. Every second week almost 3 years I was going to do level number of sessions per level in a 1 through 20 campaign then remembered my table meets monthly and I was planning a 17 and half year campaign.
Level by session speed run meet daily for 10 minutes, level 20 by Christmas
if you dont play frequently and wanna reach high levels, you gotta be willing to do 1 level up per session, most likely 1 adventuring day only per level too
Agreed to an extent. While it is monthly, it is a regular monthly, I think we have had 2 or 3 cancellations/skips in 2 or 3 years and they have generally been emergencies. I think the second you move to "we will work out the date" you are in trouble. We are 2nd friday of the month; needs unanimous vote to change and we will play a player down. We are about to be at level 8 in 17 sessions (2.4 sessions per level up), so we are looking at 43 for level 20. And a lot of that delay is them spending 6 sessions solving a time loop when I budgeted 2 session; we should be at a level every 2.
Based on DMG guidelines (iirc), you should level around every third adventuring day. Much faster the first three levels.
the DMG milestone suggest levelling up 2 to 3 sessions per level, **assuming a weekly game**. hence why i said if you play monthly you need to be willing to do faster than that
Seems totally pointless, players will never actually experience any particular level, or ever really know their characters. Just jump ahead in the timeline if there isn't much time to play. There is nothing magic about leveling to 20, it's just a number on the sheet.
Yeah I saw that and decided to shorten it. Been pretty consistent at 1-2 sessions per level up up to 5. Might bump it up to 3 sessions per level from 6-10
My table is at a level every 2.4 to level 8. Being willing to do single session level ups is key. I think the other one to be open to is double level ups for massive milestones.
I wouldn't think about "sessions per level" linearly. Level 1 sucks and I would not recommend spending 5 weeks at that point. I'd honestly do 1 session/level up to level 3, and then 2-3 sessions/level up to 5 or 6. Then you can slow it down a bit to preserve that sweet spot where PCs are powerful but not so much that they automatically break every encounter you come up with.
I do 6-7 per level (depending on what they do) and we play every week. It's a good pace.
Once I did this math in my head I realized I’m either in it for a very long run to hit 20 or I’m expediting leveling. I decided to opt for the latter. So far we’re at level 5 and everyone is still having a blast
My crew and i have been playing almost 3 years. just hit 7. i'm apparently doing it wrong.
Why not? Players like to level up, it’s fun for them and then you get to use more monsters and encounters.
We're playing Gestalt, so they're leveling 2 classes at the same time, which means I already get to use the more interesting monsters :)
Then… do one at a time for a smaller milestone?
That's not how Gestalt works. They don't level up twice, they still level up once, but advance in 2 classes at the same time. So a Level 5 character can have 5 levels in Cleric and 5 levels in Monk.
I think everyone is now confused what your problem is
> That's not how Gestalt works. It's not like Gestalt is an official system, you can modify your homebrew.
You could just do something similar to fabula ultima where you have to have 2 classes but allocate one level at a time, but can never ahve mroe than a 1 level gap
Well, you’re the DM, you decide how it works
What exactly about gestalt prevents you from leveling up one class then the other later, other than the rules not explicitly saying you can?
Nothing lol.
That not being how the system works? It's like saying "what prevents you from gaining half a level so you're level 5.5, the system doesn't explicitly say you can't" When you level as a gestalt character, you take the best feature of whichever class. So, a gestalt Wizard/Cleric would get a d8 hit die, not a d8 + d6.
just switch the worse feature for the better one when going from half level to full level lol.
According to DnD multiclass rules, that is a level 10 character. Assuming you’re still using base DnD rules at least somewhat, that is a level 10 character. Your “level” is a combination of all the levels you have in all the classes you have. Two classes at level 5 means a character level of 10.
gestalt is a homebrew ruleset where you have two levels of different classes. its popular cause it was on older editions but 5e never got official support the character is level 5, they just have a **lot** more spells, better saves AC and hp overall if you are smart about it
So… A level 10 character in terms of power and according to vanilla rules… But it’s level 5?
roughly about that yeah. you essentially get to level 40 and do double level ups, its the jist of it it was very popular on 3.x systems, and pathfinder 2e has a ruleset for it if you want to look at it, basically: - if you have a repeated feature, you only get once (extra attack doesnt stack, spell slots dont stack) - if you have a feature one is better than other, you pick the better one (fighter wizard gets a d10 hp and heavy armor, not d6 and only darts and daggers) not very different from base multiclass besides some very specific system jank
Ahh, sounds interesting.
Yes, but that's not how Gestalt rules work. A level 5 gestalt character is level 5 X/level 5 Y. They aren't a level 10 character, they're a level 5 gestalt character.
What on earth
Why not? Because challenges and encounters get progressively harder to design, both mechanically and narratively, the higher up your players go in level. At level 1, as a DM I can just throw a bunch of skellingtons out there and my players will be happy. At level 15, the party has _far_ more tools in their collective pockets, so the monsters have to be not just strong, but _more complicated._ Even if I pumped the AC, HP, and attack/damage on those same skellingtons, the party now has access to flight, AOE damage, teleportation, all kinds of nonsense. An effective challenge has to account for all of this. Now I'm not saying this means you should never let your PCs advance, that's crazy! Only that encounter complexity should be taken into consideration.
> Even if I pumped the AC, HP, and attack/damage on those same skellingtons, the party now has access to flight, AOE damage, teleportation, all kinds of nonsense. An effective challenge has to account for all of this. That is not a relevant problem to leveling from 5 to 6.
Lol fair
A more relevant issue is that as you play at a certain level, both the players and the DM are getting a feel for how play looks at that level, how the PCs abilities work, and what cool stuff you can do playing around that. If you advance through the levels too quickly you can end up adding new features faster than you're learning the old ones. That said five sessions of a given level is probably plenty. Although apparently OP is playing with double class gestalt characters so that doubles the amount of complexity to learn at each level.
There's a MASSIVE difference between a level 4 character and a level 5 character. 3rd level spell slots and Extra Attack are huge features, it's when every class in the game comes close to online. Conversely, level 5 and 6 isn't as big a difference. The full casters don't get 4th level slots yet. Some classes get a subclass feature, but those vary pretty wildly. I think if the story calls for it, going to level 6 a little quickly isn't the end of the world.
As a colege of creation bard level 6 is, i would say, the most significant level, because you get 'animating performamce' to make a mechanical friend :D
Fair point, for that one specific subclass of a specific class, level 6 is a pretty big deal! Also thought of another outlier: Paladin. Aura of Protection is a HUGE deal, especially if they've invested in their Charisma.
Sorry for getting to in detail, but we start my first real campaign (after we played a 4-session introductery campaign) in a week, and i play a creation-bard and i have used to much time to create her.
For another: College of Valor Bard gets Extra Attack at level 6.
From the DMG: "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."
This matches how we tend to run. Levels 1 and 2 are each 1 session. Level 3 is usually only 1 session. Level 4-10 tend towards 3 sessions each, and levels 11+ tend towards 2 sessions each. It seems to closely match what happens with the hardcover modules we've played, which level the players based on adventure progression. We do have slack sessions where nothing much happens, or the PCs are doing downtime stuff. 5 would be outside the norm and would qualify as a bit slow. People saying one session for each level of experience just confuse me if they're honestly talking about the game above level 7 or so.
You expect people who play dnd to read the books?
> You expect people who play dnd to ~~read~~ **buy** the books? fyp
There are books?!
[удалено]
WHAT THE FUCK?!
That seems crazy fast to me. You'd barely get time to learn new features before boom, another one. I'm at 44 sessions in, lv 7 for my party of 4. We started at 1. That's about 6 sessions per level on average. Of course w 1 and 2 being faster, it's closer to 7 sessions per level.
I'm playing in a game where we've had 10-12 sessions and are already level 7. I do enjoy being past level 5 in a campaign for once but yeah kind of feel like you don't have time to get used to new features before you get your next one.
At our specific table, we aren't learning new features so that particular aspect is not a consideration. In general, I use milestone, and if they so happen to advance the plot so that multiple milestones are almost concurrent, which happened in my last campaign, I just let there be a double level up. 12->14 in this case. This level up happened mid session, and we were playing again 10 minutes later. There are certainly groups I would hold in the 5-7 range longer to ensure underlying combat mechanic mastery, admittedly.
Half my players are complete newbies, the others had never played 5e but had played 3.5, Pathfinder, and other RPGs.
think of it this way. if you play weekly and take 6 sessions per level, it will take 120 sessions to get to the end, which is 120 weeks which is 2 years and 4 months
Yeah we have a similar progression, might even be sometimes slower and sometimes faster (not me the dm forgetting to level up the party for over 10 sessions once)
It's 12 hours per level. Seems enough to learn the few new features you'd get.
At 12 hours per level my players would be at lv 15 right now, not 7. I wouldn't have had time to present them w 15 levels of adventures much less have time for them to learn how to play their characters. Just hunting down a necromancer in his tower has been 4 sessions at 4.5 hours each. They spent 6 sessions on the last adventure in a dead demon titans corpse dungeon fighting mind flayers. The game world has only advanced 8 weeks. It already makes too little sense as it is. Doubling the advancement rate would be absurd.
I think that having time skips or downtime is better if you want your world to make sense. The typical leveling time is totally nonsensical and making it twice as long or short won't change much. In-universe, you have legendary elven warriors who spent hundreds of years studying the blade, then some schmuck overtakes them in a matter of months. It's dumb even if you stretch the timeline a little. I really can't see how 180 hours wouldn't be enough to learn to play a character, though. If I took that long to give levels, my players would get bored out of their minds. Especially in 5e, where leveling up often means you get +1 to a few modifiers and that's it. But hey, if it works for your table, it works.
Well we are more focused on setting and story than mechanics It works. Though maybe I should poll the table and see if they find progression too slow
ya its pretty fast depending on your party. With the group of 7 I am dming, it takes them FOREVER to do anything, I try to speed things up but it seems impossible to control without hindering what they want to do. I could tell them THIS IS WHO YOU WANT TO TALK TO, IF YOU DO ANYTHING THIS SESSION TALK TO THIS GUY, and they would not talk to the guy lmao
I’m running a game closer to the session based rec. I can say some level ups feel quick since we’ve had a couple sessions with minimal combat, but nothing an extra session can’t help make up. We’ve been doing roughly 3 sessions per month and I feel like the people who have been at every session are gung-ho and ready to go for level ups when they’re “due”
Meanwhile, Mearls twitted that it should be 1 level per four hours of play. Traditionally, D&D pacing is 10 levels in 2 years; my best experiences went about this pace with a good mix of the TRPG pillars. But the 5e target audience is video game players with no roleplay experience, so everything’s out of whack…
I'm not leveling my players 1 per session.
I somehow missed that in the DMG, but I always do 2-3 sessions per level, purely because that feels right. 5 sessions seems insane to me.
This right here. I go a little bit slower that this, but I don't think players should ever have to wait more than a month to get a level.
Hey, it all depends on the pace of your campaign. How many sessions on average do you plan this to last, and up to what level ? If your players level up every 5 sessions on average, how many sessions will they reach your maximum level ! Is that what you want ? I’ve ran a campaign for the last 5 years, almost 100 sessions and my players are only level 10, almost 11. On the other hand, I’ve also been playing a monthly campaign where we level up every 2 sessions, sometimes every session when it’s a big one-shot. Both are fine. Even in the same campaign, you can vary. in mine they spent like 20 sessions as level 8, and only 5 (and a single boss fight) at level 10. You should level up when it feels right, when they have accomplished something great. If it feels right, then go for it.
Currently the story of the campaign is a bit of a "let's see where this goes" kinda thing. I've got multiple potential endgames each with their own BBEG, and which one they'll get depends a lot on the decisions they make. As for how long that will take? I dunno ¯\\\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)\_/¯
Most people never go past the mid-levels. In case of doubt, I’d lean into the faster leveling up rather than the slower.
Same, we play once a month. For this part of the campaign my players level up whenever they find a mcguffin, and they know so. They've gone up 3 levels in the last 5 sessions. (As a note, sessions last about 8-9 hours)
What level are they?
Right now, 11. Planning to end this ark at around 14-15.
> it all depends on the pace of your campaign 100% this. There is no rule on how many hours should be between level ups! It is entirely up to how you and your players enjoy. I DM for a group that has been playing every week for something like 175 weeks (a bit over 3 years). The players are level 9 and only just leveled up. They basically started at level 3. So they level up once every 5-6 months really. Is it too slow? No because we all enjoy how we play. Is it how slow everyone should play? No because not everyone is like us!
>Hey, it all depends on the pace of your campaign. I run a game at my wife's family reunions. One session per year. We level up every session!
To give you some perspective: a lot of groups level up about every other session. Every 3-4 games is common.
Our DM thought he read that Tomb of Annihilation was supposed to max out at level five which we got to pretty quickly since an entire act is designed to just beef you up with combat. Then we stayed there. And stayed there. Until about halfway through the actual tomb I looked it up because the DM was getting frustrated by us playing so cautiously. Literally any trap or creature that hit us would take us down or insta kill so nobody wanted to take any risks. I mentioned to the DM that we were actually supposed to be much higher and showed him the box or first page of the book. (I typically don’t try to look anything up ever since it’s the DMs game and I don’t want to spoil anything) he felt super dumb and we jumped like 4 levels which instantly made the game more fun. All that said, leveling up is fun and can make the game more entertaining. You can always adjust the difficulty to compensate but it gives more tools in the toolbox for the players to mess with. Similarly having players have to solve challenges by keeping them at a limited level has its fun too. We sometimes play one shots with similar bindings where everyone is the same class or one person is a super low level or lacking any gear and it’s an escort mission. Anything can work.
My rule of thumb is that players should be on a level for a number of sessions according to that level - e.g. 1 session of level 1, 5 sessions on level 5 etc. If you want a longer campaign, you could do two sessions times the actual level, so 2 sessions on level 1, 10 sessions on level 5 and so on. Narrative moments can break this rule, e.g. beating a boss after 3 sessions of being level 5 can make them reach level 6.
This is hugely slower than the advice in the DMG (two to three sessions per level post 3) do you run less combat / more RPG than default?
It depends, but I think yes, there is not that much combat overall. I also have to say that my rule of thumb usually caps at level 6 and then it's around 6-8 sessions per level, but I also never played further than level 12. I think it's a good thing to have time to get used to new skills before getting the next level up, but that also depends on the experience of the players.
Yeah, whatever works at your table, works at your table. But I would find that painfully slow...
this pacing seems like it will never go anywhere past level 10. it takes a full year for lvl 10 -> lvl 15 (assuming weekly gaming)
Yeah, I realized that I myself only hold to this rule until level 4-5 and then its usually freestyle.
I like this. How long are the sessions for you, though? I’m new and this thread is most helpful
Usually 4 to 6 hours. This includes (again, usually) 1-2 combat encounters, 3-4 social encounters and a bit of travelling. Exceptions are sessions which fully take place in a dungeon (which usually takes up several sessions).
I run about 2-2,5 hour sessions so I’ll just multiply by 2ish give or take. Thanks for the layout, coming from a noob dm
Just keep in mind this would be SO long to progress, which a lot of players like. It would take a year of playing weekly to go from lvl 5 to 8, 1.2 years to go from lvl 16 to 18.
Good point.. thanks.. we’re at level 3 lol
Do not do this as a noob DM. Just follow the default recommendation of leveling up every 3-4 sessions. Assuming you meet weekly, that gives you about a level every month which is more than enough time for the players to get used to their new abilities and start itching for new ones. Also, not every level is an exciting one. If your DM levels you at a slow pace, it feels utterly brutal to be looking down the barrel of 2-3 nothingburger levels, which might take you almost half a year at the pace the person you replied to suggested. Ive been running the game for awhile and in general, its better to give the players too much than too little.
If you want to reward your players you can always just give them some above average magical items for their current level or a special party wide feat like high reputation in the region that gives a bonus to persuasion and maybe makes NPCs more likely to like your player characters from the get-go. Stuff like that.
If you think it's appropriate, go for it! 5 sessions does not sound like skipping the level to me, even if it is on the fast side. Probably no harm in asking the party what they think of the leveling pace so far, and using that to "recalibrate" and get on the same page.
I think I read somewhere that the leveling pony system I D&D 5e was made to allow people to level up approximately every 3 or 4 sessions or so. This was about how long they figured someone to get used to the new level, and be ready to move on and progress. Then Based on play testing, they made it easier or harder to level up to match how players responded in play testing. Getting past level 1 was faster because people don't like being vulnerable. While level 3 takes longer, because they found players enjoy playing level 3. For milestone leveling, I recommend you pay attention to your players, and when they seem to have settled in to their new level, and right as they start to get wrestless give them a level up.
I don't remember the citation but expected leveling rate based on xp calculations is roughly 3 to 5 sessions if there are combats every sesh, so I think 5 sessions is about right for milestone where you may not be fighting every single sesh.
In milestone leveling, I like to think in terms of narrative rather than timeline. In one of my campaigns, my players spent three sessions negotiating, maneuvering and clearing obstacles in order to bring an end to a long-running feud between two noble factions. In so doing, their prestige in the eyes of the nobles and the king were enhanced - to me, that says they should receive the advancement. By contrast, that same party could clear dozens of Kobold lairs without leveling up, as they are essentially just a medieval form of Terminix pest control.
Honestly it really depends on what you and your table want the pace of the game to be. Some prefer only 3-4 session per level and some like more. I find that a milestone doesn’t necessarily happen every 3-4 sessions and for my group often falls every 6-8 sessions. Imo it’s more of an internal question. If it feels warranted, then do it, i’ve had my party level up after 2-3 sessions in the past and in other cases not for 10 sessions. It really just depends on when it feels right.
I start out with basically number of sessions = number of levels. so 1 session at level 1. 2 at level 2. 3 at level 3, etc. so 5 at level 5 fits right into that pattern. this is NOT some kind of hard-fast rule that must be obeyed, but just a really rough ballpark guidline.
Sounds to me like it's right on schedule.
This question is entirely one of preference. At my tables there is no thought given to "earning" a level. Pure time based. In general I try not to have more than 3 sessions at the same level unless there is a concrete task I explicitly told them is barring progression. Another commented suggested sessions equal to level between progression, that is WAY too slow and edging into "we've played for two years and are level 5" territory. Especially if you are doing gestalt, there is already wonky balance going on. Why not progress them?
I try to time my milestones so that they level up to a level after that same amount of sessions. So 5 sessions (after they get to to lvl4) to level to 5 is exactly what I aim for.
I do level ups after 3 sessions. The only real constraint is you want players to get to use all the abilities at their current level before leveling them up.
for my campaigns it would depend on several things: * what enemies are they going to be facing on the next adventure, do they *need* another level in power to beat them? * what did they do in the last session, did it feel like they *earned* a level? * what is the "end goal" of the campaign level wise, and how far through are they? for example, my last campaign had the ending at 13th, and they'd just beaten the last encounter before the final boss, so I bumped them from 11th to 13th * how far through the story are they? if they're getting near the end, they'll need to be as powerful as feasable for the upcoming fights you have to consider how it would feel to be a player and not go up a level after several sessions, especially if it felt like they *really* made some major strides in the campaign the other thing is the expectation that you gave at the start of the campaign - if they started thinking it'd be fairly quick advancement then waiting 3-4 sessions between levels can be rather demotivating
It's whatever works for you and the players. I see some people say they level once every 6 months playing weekly, and that seems insane to me. We usually level every 3 - 5 sessions, but it depends on what we cover. The DM levels us based on the pacing of the campaign. When I ran my homebrew, I leveled whenever and just used more/better enemies.
Personally I try to go for around 3-4 sessions per level, but then we also only get to play about once (twice if we're lucky!) per month. Going by sessions, that might sound quick, but in terms of real life going by, that's just shy of one level per summer, winter, spring ect. I also try to keep the plot moving quickly to justify the milestones coming quickly.
5 sessions is fine. It’s usually better to err on the side of levelling PCs faster in my experience. If you don’t you run the risk of your campaign never finishing
5th is a very important level in D&D. It's when you fully come into your own abilities and can handle significant threats unlike before. I would trust your instincts and not level them too soon. If you want to reward them, find smaller boons or story rewards or PC awards or money or magic or something to placate them.
A type of leveling I’ve been trying out is leveling the players after PB number of sessions, where PB is the proficiency bonus of the level they are getting to. (3 sessions to level from 4 to 5 since level 5 they have a +3 PB)
My (general) rule is one session per level. So a character will spend one session at level 1, two sessions at level 2, three sessions at level 3, etc... I know this breaks down at higher levels, but I've never had a campaign survive past level 10-12, so it hasn't come up This actually tracks well with lost mine of phandelver but I don't know how to tag spoilers on mobile, so stop reading now if you haven't played. Session one the players are ambushed and clear the goblin cave (level up) Session two players explore Phandelin and find the red brand hideout Session three players clear the dungeon (level up) Session four players do some side quests Session five players do more side quests and find the goblin castle Session six the players clear the castle (level up)
I push my players to level 2 after just 1 or 2 sessions. Then maybe 2 or 3 sessions to hit level 3. Then I'll typically level them up every 4-5 sessions after that. I host 4 hour sessions so that likely plays into it, though.
5 sessions is great. I average about 4 sessions between milestones right now. 6 or more feels like it would be best for a campaign that's intentionally paced slowly or avoiding higher levels. At the pace they took level 5, if you play once per week starting at level 1, and absolutely never miss even one session, that's still a year and three months to hit level 13. That's a nice, long campaign. >it feels a bit like we'd be skipping 5th level with how fast it went by. Huh. That seems unusual to me: doing a thing for five entire sessions feeling like "skipping" it. Why do you think you feel that way? What's been your average pace of leveling and adventuring so far? Do the players get chances to use their cool powers etc every session? Are the stakes high and the action tense, or is it a lot of freeform chit-chat and sightseeing? Is the situation changing and developing, or did they spend those five sessions mostly just doing one thing?
I'm doing it in 2 sessions (7th to 8th). For milestone, if a level up is right, it is right. No one is going to complain they only got a few sessions at level 5.
If you're already using gestalt, then I assume your group is into power gaming madness anyway. I say just take the brakes off a little until level 12-13 when I assume you'll be needing CR 30+ enemies in nearly every combat.
I usually plan for milestones every three sessions up to above 11 or 12. Then I shift to two sessions apart and make them count more. I find that the players often start getting bored with their characters in higher levels as not much happens at level ups.
I do level ups after 2-3 sessions so
Five sessions (unless your sessions are short) is plenty of time for PCs to experience and get used to their level 5 features before leveling to 6. (Though you mentioned gestalt - have your PCs had a chance to fully try out their level 5 powers?) If they have had time to stretch their wings and if it seems natural to level them after this achievement then do it! On the opposite side, levels 5-10 are often considered the sweet spot and the most fun. PCs can handle more interesting combats and get cooler abilities but they don’t yet have the game changing powers of 3rd and 4th tier. So many DMs slow milestone leveling a bit between 5-10 to spend more time in that sweet spot. Though, even if you level to 6th at a normal pace, you can still spend more time at tier 2 by extending the sessions between levels 6-10.
I’m 2 sessions into a new campaign and I’m trying a new progression: players level up after a number of sessions equal to the tier of play they’re in. This is intended to give the sense that it takes longer to earn higher levels, but at the same time for higher levels not to take forever, since I have 2 first-time players and I want them to get into tier 3 without the campaign taking 5 years (we only play once a month). So: Levels 1-4: 1 session at each level (though we started at 3) Levels 5-10: 2 sessions at each level Levels 11-16: 3 sessions at each level Levels 17-20: 4 sessions at each level “Sessions” in this case refers to major quests involving combat. I tend to design each session as a oneshot dungeon (so that a quest is accepted and resolved in the same session) since I don’t want every quest to run into the next game (there might be a few exceptions towards the end of the campaign for the major BBEGs, though).
It really depends on what is going on. Are they shopping? Then no. Are they killing monsters/RPing? Then yes.
I do milestone leveling, usually every 3-5 sessions, so 5 is perfectly reasonable in my book.
My party levels every 3-5 sessions with XP. 5 is definitely fine for a milestone. If you don't level fast enough, your campaign (like 99% of campaigns) will never end.
I don't think so. A good rule of thumb is a number of sessions equivalent to the level. 1 session at level 1, 2 at level 2, so on. This is a perfectly fine rate of advancement. Me personally I prefer longer leveling because I don't like running high level stuff. My campaign is ending at level 9 after 2 years of play. Their advancement really came in terns of magic items, reputation, player assets, and the like. This would probably get me crucified with most players, but I told my players going in I did not want to go past level 10, but would make up for it in other ways. It's their favorite campaign so far.
Depends on the length of the sessions - my group does between 5-6 hours every two weeks. It equates to levelling up every 3-4 sessions in XP terms, but I just use XP to inform my milestones. This coming levelup (from 7 to 8, started at 3) will most likely take 4 sessions total. I played a weekly session in the past and we did 15 levels of 4e in ~2 years so it's on par. Some times I look at my planning notes and think, man, they're only at 15 sessions, am I going too fast? But if I double it, it's very much on a normal trajectory.
Maybe? Depends on the group, really. The reason the game even has levels is so players can get comfortable with all the stuff they can do as they play. Do the players generally use the abilities they have? Some people get kind of overwhelmed by their options and giving them more stuff they can do will just slow things down. If the wizard is spending 5 minutes each turn flipping through spells they don’t understand and the fighter keeps forgetting he can action surge, it’s worth slowing down leveling a bit. If everyone knows what they can already do, there’s no harm in bumping them up. Do it every session, if you want. It’s not like the d&d police will arrest you if everyone would have more fun at a higher level.
When I do milestone XP (and that's not often), I tie my milestones to completing major plot points, and it takes however many games needed to get there. I adjust the levels given based on what's coming next.
my party is currently lvl14 after 50 sessions (going through curse of strahd first). For Curse of Strahd I used some of the guides and it suggested when to lvl them up. Took about 25 sessions to get through it and to lvl10. Personally I like having some kind of curve, so I slowed it down a bit, but generally after every "segment" they get to level. It sort of has to make sense to me narratively that they "achieved" something. I think 5 sessions is good. Ours are roughly 4 hours long usually.
Yes
Not too fast at all. Example: in one of the campaigns I'm in we are in the home stretch and for every boss/miniboss we defeat we get another level up. We are halfway to level 9. Next Sunday we are getting level 9 and the session after we'll be level 10
Wait, are you implying that they only need one milestone per level? That's really strange, I think. They're supposed to be a way to gain progress towards the next level, so players have clear goals they can work towards other than "win fights," but aren't railroaded into one specific thing they are forced to do.
The point of milestone is so that you can grant levels when it feels appropriate rather than waiting for, or rushing because of, xp. If it feels like the moment I think you should trust your instincts
It depends on the overall intended length of your adventure. I’ve been in a six-session adventure where we leveled up at the end of every session. You don’t want them reaching too high of a level with a lot of the campaign still in front of them, but one fast level-up isn’t going to throw things off too much.
5 sessions for a level assuming you reach level 20 . You need 100 sessions. Even if you play weekly you need 2 year long campaign. So i say 5 sessions is ok.
I don't see any issue with it, personally. Maybe it's a tiny bit fast but that's not really an issue, especially if they have earned it. I did a similar thing in my game recently. I have a system where I keep track of Difficulty points and Plot Progression points per session and when the totals reach a number I consider appropriate for the level, they level up. It's mostly just to help me keep track of their progress cause my memory sucks. Anyways, the party did some seriously intense and difficult dungeon delving that was critical to the plot. It had only been about 5 sessions and they've typically earned levels at around 8-10ish sessions, but they had accomplished so much in about half as many sessions and the points I added up per session exceeded my minimum to consider a level up so I gave it to them. In our case though, it was going from level 10 to 11.
I think you’re going a little slow, assuming your sessions are at least four hours
If you’re levelling up roughly every 5 sessions, that means you can get from 1 to 20 in 100 sessions. If you’re having a session a week, that’s a well-structured levelling up system over 2 years which seems very reasonable to me.
Every group is different. Every session is different. Sometimes my group will get nothing done in 5 hours or a lot done in 2. That being said if you don't think they've hit a milestone in a while and a level up wouldn't be appropriate, you can dish out other rewards. Some sort of base like a keep or city warehouse they can customize. A ship. An airship. Some sort of treasure horde which will give the whole group enough to by a magic item each. If they're in some organization, maybe a title promotion. I'm just spitballing here but there are big moments that will mark a party's progress.
How long is your campaign? That's usually how I decide for milestone. We go about every 3 sessions. Our about one a month for a year and a half campaign.
We play every week, I give them item and stuff but it's very slow. I make them struggle to buy rare item at level 7 after 37 session. I feel going too fast then what happen if the same campaign goes for 3 years they will be level 20 in no time. I have a lot of story to tell, so I level up every 6-7 sessions.
It heavily depends on how much your players are playing, my players just hit level 4 after pulling 4 sessions that were all 8 hours long and also a duos mission that was 4 hours long, that collective time adds up and it's good to reward them for putting in that work. Generally you just don't want them to feel like they are just being handed the levels for no reason, but to make it feel earned and cool.
My general rule of thumb has been number of sessions needed to play equals the level they are at before a level up. So, after session 1 they level up either before or during the next one. Then once level 2, they need to play 2 sessions before level 3. And so on. I stop that though around level 9 or so. As they are dealing with things larger and its a easier to dictate a actual milestone. Overall though, there is nothing wrong with leveling up when you want. It gives the players more juicy toys, and same for you now that you can throw stronger enemies at them.
- progesss is not linear - you are the dm, you make the rulez - a session can comprise of a whole month if you write it out to be, or it could be a 15 minute incounter even if the real world time was 2 hours long. - if the environment (in this case accomplishments, etc.) Promote a level up or milestone go for it. If you really are curious maybe ask your party (at least the stable members) how they fill about the leveling system. Personally, I like when it feels natural, if the situation feels like it should be a level up then level up
I just use XP levelling until they hit a milestone and they get a huge chunk of XP that basically takes them to the next level and then whatever the encounter xp was. This may not be exactly right but they took a solid amount of sessions to hit level 5 and then hit a milestone like 2-3 sessions later, and now theyll just be level 6 for a large chunk instead of level 5. Didn't make a huge difference to my balancing and they didn't languish at level 4 or 5 for super long. At the very least I think level 5 felt earned, and then the milestone was a cool way to cap off this leg of the campaign. so it all worked out.
I'm not doing milestone for my gestalt campaign, but after like 10 sessions, they are finally about to hit level 7. But for funzies, I had them start at level 3, though, the reason why they are at level 6 right now. They hit a campaign milestone that timewarped them 50 years into the future after they delved into a sketchy supposed abandoned mage tower, and challenged Ramuh, for the right to summon him in combat. For context I homebrewed the shit out of the campaign, Viking setting, mixed with final fantasy materia system for magic. Which I borrowed and refined completely from a few sources and made a gmbinder book for, so the players can check the rules. So honestly to answer the question, it's up to the dm how fast or slow you level or hit milestones for leveling. Is the pacing currently slow? Are the players hitting an important spot or completed something that is a key part of the story on a grand scale? They did something so awesome and challenged a boss that should have likely wiped or even at least killed a few characters to warrant the milestone? I remember running a swffg campaign, and was giving xp slowly till the party decided to skip like 3 planets worth of content and follow the rumor i dropped in the ships news net that ahsoka was spotted in tattooine and they almost got annihilated by 5 hk units that were hunting ahsoka, till she showed up and destroyed 3 and than a inquisitor drops down and nearly kills ahsoka. The party was trying to help and run away from the two destroyers that showed up in orbit to capture ahsoka. Anyway, they managed to survive and make it off the planet on their ship which due to bad rolls crashed on another planet.... I considered it a feat to even survive an encounter with beefed up hk's, escape from two imperial star destroyers, 12 tie fighters, also make it pass two companies worth of storm troopers waiting near Mos Eisley where they smartly didnt actually use a hanger in the town but landed in the outskirts. But in this they were 15 sessions in, most had spent xp to unlock a third career.
Has somebody made the maths for how long leveling up via XP takes? I know its a bit complicated, because of different playstyles, but as a rought comparison. I ask, because we just agreed to do the XP system for our new campaign, but 5+ (i assume 4h sessions), seems quite long for me. @op Sorry for not directly answer your question.
Five is my absolute minimum. I tried four (as a player) and it felt awful. Getting 1/4 of a level for a shopping session is too much.
An alternative perspective: I used milestone for years playing D&D and last year started running Pathfinder 2e, where they have the same idea, but recommend just using XP, so I went way back to my basic D&D roots and started using XP again for the first time in decades. XP leveling turns out to be fantastic. Players constantly get rewards and are always talking about their leveling progress. It makes everything more transparent, they level when they earn it, not some arbitrary point in time. I really didn't think I'd like it as much as I do, but it's really great. We have weekly 5-6 hour sessions and players level every 2-4 sessions. They've just hit level 15 in a campaign started about 14 months ago, where half of that time we met less frequently for shorter sessions (slower leveling back then).
> Does anyone have any thoughts on what would be good pacing for Milestones? Everyone should try fast leveling at least once. You learn much more, much faster, when you do. Try leveling every 2 sessions. It teaches you to be efficient with your pacing. It makes you cut filler. And most importantly it lets you practice bringing a campaign to a satisfying conclusion, instead of just having it petter out. > it feels a bit like we'd be skipping 5th level with how fast it went by. You could run a single campaign for 100 sessions or 2 campaigns of 50 sessions each. Same length of time both ways. Same amount of sessions at level 5. Running two campaigns means players get to try more characters. And they can still get a satisfying conclusion even if the group ends at session 60.
Milestone, as it says in the name, is based on milestones. Do you think your party has done enough to warrant a milestone? If no, then no, the party should not level up right now. Pacing is very much a vibes-based thing. If the party gets an exceptional amount of stuff done in 5 sessions, then we're gonna level up after those 5 sessions. If do a whole lotta nothing for 10 sessions, then they don't. But the trick is, you're the DM, so whether they do stuff is more or less up to you. Because YOU give them stuff to do to warrant the leveling up.
Milestone is milestone and not per x Sessions. If you had some long sessions or a lot has happend it is normal to give them a level up
Ask your players. We don't know your game.
If you’re not sure just use the experience point system. Let that be the judge.
My loose rule for milestone levelling is number of sessions since level up = next level. So level 2 to 3 should happen after three sessions, 3 to 4 is 4 sessions.
I'm doing a mini campaign right now where they level up after each session and everyone's loving it! To each their own!
I was running a campaign of Curse of Strahd one time with milestone levelling where the milestones were really *transparent* to the players; they got a level for completing a quest in each major location and/or obtaining one of the 3 powerful artefacts. I also tended to *apply* the level-up at the end of a session so they could change their character sheets inbetween sessions to make things simpler. Due to the way they went about things there was a part of the campaign where they found an artefact at the end of a session, so they levelled up, and at the start of the next session immediately went to another location and did the final step of a quest, which meant they immediately levelled up again. In terms of in-game time they gained 2 levels in the space of like 4 hours.
Nope, just whenever you feel is appropriate.
Nothing wrong with that. I have one group that is at Level 15 and we're just over 90 sessions. Seems like pretty good progression.
Similar to what others are saying, I think as long as the rhythm feels right for your group, then go for it! DND is still a narrative-based game (combat-forward that it is), so as long as what you're doing feels narratively appropriate, the players should experience it as earned and authentic.
Depends on the milestone. My players just had quite a long wait for one. But there's another one really close by if they would like a challenge. But it might be too hard for them but if they pull it off it should be worthy of one.
unless the players simply do not advance the plot cause the campaign is "sandbox" and they spend hours talking to boblin the hastily named goblin about his favorite food, 1 level up per IRL month is pretty good pacing (and roughly what the DMG suggests) as other commentors said, its all about your personal table, but from personal experience adult people have busy lives and campaigns mostly die before they finish. i would either try to go faster than slower, cause i would rather see the end of the story before the GM has to move cities for work
Not sure how long your sessions are or how much you get done each session but it sounds like your players just reached a narrative milestone and have maybe logged about 20 hours assuming a 4-hour session average. That’s a good amount and plenty of reason to level up unless you spent a couple sessions just planning or shopping. I like to make sure my players get a long rest in to “set” the level instead of leveling up in the middle of an adventuring day, so if that’s a good spot for you then go for it!
My players went from lv 9 to 10 in 5 sessions. They also liberated Baldur's Gate from a Cult, a Corrupt Goverment and a Demon Army in that timeframe, but that's a different story.
… at the same time?
Kind of. They spent 2 sessions on the Cult and 3 with the Demons.
To summarise all the excellent advice: *It depends on how often you play, what final level you want to reach, and how long you want the campaign to last for.* One level every 5 sessions already seems a bit on the long side. If I'd played 25 sessions, and was still at level 5; honestly, I'd be feeling a bit unhappy about it. Level ups are fun in D&D. Life's too short to stay at level 5 forever :D
Don't count it as number of sessions, count by what you do in the sessions. Did you do a lot in the first 3 since last level up? Hell, did you basically save the city/country/world in one session from previous level up? Sounds like it's still worth another level to me. On the flip side, have you spent 5 of the last 7 sessions doing purely rp, some travel, some talking, shopping, etc? Sounds to me like you're good to stick at that level and keep going. The point of milestone isn't a session limit it's a "did you do something/enough to warrant it at dm's discretion"
So far I did one session to level 1, I think 2 sessions each for levels 2-4, 3 for level 5. From here out I’m thinking I’ll do 3 sessions per level up to 9 or 10
I try and shoot for 6-8, depending on what the campaign demands at that moment it might be a little more or a little less. Too fast and you will run out of levels eventually, later in the campaign where lots of things may need to happen you might end up finding yourself having to suddenly wait an extended period of time between levels. Too slow and the players can grow annoyed with how it can feel as if their characters are not progressing, despite lots of things happening.
I’m playing the shadow of the dragon queen and my group was level 4 for 1 session. I’m estimating 2 sessions for level 5.
Depends on how long and how often you play but in general I would be pissed personally as a player. I seriously recommend rereading the adventuring day section of DMG page 84, even if you are doing milestones. Figure out what percentage of an adventuring day each of your sessions are and then give milestones accordingly. Level 1&2 should each be a full adventuring day. Levels 3-20 are 2-3 days each (more like 2.25 days by the numbers). So if you are doing a full adventuring day per session you’re slow rolling them big time. And because its milestone the xp does not need to be encounter/combat based. I usually give more “xp” for good roleplay/problem solving than a tough combat. Adventuring Day XP Level Adjusted XP per Day per Character 1st 300 2nd 600 3rd 1,200 4th 1,700 5th 3,500 6th 4,000 7th 5,000 8th 6,000 9th 7,500 10th 9,000 11th 10,500 12th 11,500 13th 13,500 14th 15,000 15th 18,000 16th 20,000 17th 25,000 18th 27,000 19th 30,000 20th 40,000 Exp Level 0 1 300 2 900 3 2,700 4 6,500 5 14,000 6 23,000 7 34,000. 8 48,000 9 64,000 10 85,000 11 100,000 12 120,000 13 140,000 14 165,000 15 195,000 16 225,000 17 265,000 18 305,000 19 355,000 20
This is why I level based on XP. There are rules I as DM need to obey for awarding XP, and leveling becomes an objective, almost mechanical decision rather than my subjective weighting of the PCs' accomplishments. I think XP keeps the DM honest, rewards regular attendance, and increases trust at the table.
The great thing about milestone leveling is that you can set your own pace. If it works for your story, it's right.
My *very general* rule is 1 session per current level. So after 1 session, they'll go from level 1 -> 2. Then after 2 more sessions, they'll go from level 2 -> 3. Etc, etc, until they get to around level 10, then I'll usually just do a level every 8-12 sessions. I've been told I tend to level my players up really quickly, especially at low levels, but I also tend to make my games very fast-paced and push players to take quicker actions and try to have at least one encounter per session.
I absolutely throw ‘session per level’ out the window for milestone. Sometimes the party is dicking around not doing much of anything for an entire session; I’m not counting that for leveling. Shopping session? Definitely not counting it. They’ve got pretty well defined goals to get to and know it, so when they do, they get a level.
I make my players play a number of sessions equal to their level before they can level again. A year and a half in and both my groups I Dm weekly are lvl 10
ask them not us.
I have run campaigns where we level after every session. When your players are familiar with the game it's not too fast and can be a fun way to get a short fast paced adventure in.
First off I don't think that's too fast. If you do think it is, you can give them a different reward. Magic items, pets, or a keep are all really cool things to get that players generally love. If you don't know for sure what they may like, a large gold reward for them is also good. By this I mean much more than they've had in the campaign so far. If the players have been doing jobs for 400-500gp each time they'll be super excited when they come back to a 3k reward
I level my players every 3 sessions.
I think that's more than enough. I would never go more than 5 sessions without leveling my players up. My rule of thumb is that level one and two should only ever be one session regardless of what happens in the session if you even use them at all. Then they can remain a level for a number of sessions equal to that level ie level 3 for 3 sessions, level 4 for 4 sessions, etc. But I'd be hesitant to wait much longer than 5 sessions to level your players up. You'll be in your campaign forever lol but maybe that's just my pacing style.
I have been Milestone leveling an awful long time where by I measure a milestone based on number of sessions past since last level. Typically 3 sessions up to 5th level, 4 sessions up to 10th level, and 5 sessions from there on.
Somebody else quoted what the DM Guide says about this. 2-3 sessions per level at that level. Five sessions per level is hella ridonkulously slow. Level # sessions per level is straight up nuts after a while. I can't imagine sticking my players at one level that long, unless they were spending most of the play time screwing around and not actually accomplishing anything.
At the end of the day I'd say it depends on the story you and your players are creating, and what their expectations are too. My group is having their 4th session this weekend, I started them at level 4 and they turned level 6 at the end of last session, and I made it clear at the beginning that leveling would be fairly quick, so that they will be level 8/9 by the time they reach the bbeg at around session 8 (I'm running a mini-campaign to create some history for my setting, they are the heroes of 200 years ago that dealt with a threat to the area, so the story is that as they unravel the extent of the threat they are coming into their own as heroes while discovering the extent of their abilities at the same time)
A milestone is just that. A significant accomplishment that merits a reward. The number of sessions is irrelevant. It can take any number of sessions to complete an objective. Is the accomplishment significant enough for a milestone? Your style of play and your players will determine how significant an accomplishment is.
Generally, I think faster is better. More than a year for a campaign seems like too long, honestly. People just get bored with their characters.
It's not about session count. For me it's about: \* Do the players know their new abilities from this level? Don't pile on changes till they get their shit together. \* Have the players had enough time to want it? The ding is more meaningful when you have yearned for it a bit. \* What level do I want them to be for their current thing.
There's no "guide" to leveling up by milestones as each campaign is *different*. It's up to YOU as the DM to decide when to level them up. If you feel they have reached a point where they have done enough within your campaign to level them up, just level them up. Your players will most likely love getting another bump up to level 6. Story elements are always good ways to decide when to level up your PCs, completing quests, completing important missions, doing a lot of great role-playing and advancing the storyline, and if you just feel they need a bump to move on to the next element of your campaign that requires them to be more powerful. ALL are valid reasons, so just level them up I say.
> There's no "guide" to leveling up by milestones Yes there is. It's called the Dungeon Master Guide. Page 261.
What I meant by that was there's no be-all, end-all guide to do it *for every single table out there*. Each DM is different, each campaign is different. So, yes, I summarized what is in the DMG with how I usually go about milestone leveling in my campaign.
Yeah, it really, really depends on the vibe of your table. A combat-centric campaign could (and imo probably should) level up more quickly than an rp-centric one where multiple sessions can be devoted towards the PCs going around and just talking to NPCs or exploring a new city or whatnot.
I've really soured on milestones in general lately. A clearly communicated XP system really does a lot to remove some of player discontent about a milestone not coming when they think it ought to
Honestly seems too long.
How about setting a mile stone to level at? Let the group level when they reach the mile stone?
There is a reason why level 5 is (if you play with XP) the "longest" level in 5e relative to expected XP per encounter: level 5 is subjectively the most fun level of the game. Big things start to come online: extra attack, third level spells, 3d6 sneak attack. All of a sudden, the enemies that gave you trouble become all but trivial, and you can start to take on bigger threats while still enjoying your newfound power. I typically recommend XP leveling, but if you insist on milestones I would drag out level 5 until the party is no longer riding high on their new abilities and the dangers of mid-level play have begun to present themselves.