Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Iramus_the_Odd 02-26-07, 10:13 PM	Hey fellow players, DMs, and hangers on. I am wondering what various gaming groups average campaign level progression is (i.e where do you start and end a campaign in terms of character level). I play/DM with 5-6 fairly casual gamers (~30+ years old) every sunday with alternating DMs on a 2 week rotation. It has been my experience that we have the most fun, greatest suspension of disbelief, and opportunity for believable roleplay in campaigns starting at level < 5 and ending at ~10-12. I have noticed also that WoTC seems to produce very few if any adventures (in 3.x ed) for levels higher than 12. City of the spider queen (10-18) and a few encounters in the fantastic locations are the only ones I can think of. Do many other DM/players feel this way? For those who play the epic stuff do you generally start there or xp up to it? Well I guess that's alot of questions but I was thinking about this and wondered what the distribution of campaigns was.
HomebrewedMonster 02-26-07, 10:26 PM	Dungeon will always have a 12-20 adventure in it.
Archangel_James 02-26-07, 10:39 PM	My game went from 1st level to 12th level. We took a break from it, and when we came back, I wanted it to be set a little bit in the future, so I gave them a couple of levels. I think the story arc will probably end at around 16 or 17, but we can go to 20 if the players want.
Ace_of_Diamonds 02-26-07, 10:54 PM	If you want my preference, I'd play from 1-10 or so. The players I DM for prefer slightly more power, so we usually end up playing from around 5-15.
swallowyersoul 02-27-07, 01:13 AM	1st edition d&d became hopelessly brokenated by 12th level. 2nd ed carried that out to 15th level or so. i've only played 2 high level campaigns in 3rd ed, but things did get less fun as we sprouted up into 17 or so. right now, we're conducting an experiment and running a campaign starting at level 6. the question for us is: is 3rd ed too wonky starting at 15th level, or does our group just have a 15 level attention span before it's time to start a new campaign?
KendallDM 02-27-07, 03:05 AM	Been running my game since around 2000, have a few players at 12th level, but the average comes in at around 8-9. My players are required to start at 1st level though.
High Octane 02-27-07, 03:22 AM	According to the DMG If you face encounters whose CR is equal to your level and you have a group of 4, you will level every 13.333 encounters. Ive been in a campaign for a little over a year from level 1 and my character is presently level 13.
Fencerboy 02-27-07, 10:37 AM	I've been DMing my campaign since November and the party is at 3rd level, playing once every two weeks or so, four characters in the party... Slow level progression sucks.
The_Levitator 02-27-07, 01:23 PM	Our group is mostly comprised of "geezers" so we always start out at 1st level. Although the 1 twist that I do as a DM is that I run the 1st lvl. for the players as solo campaigns before we start our group campaign. We use 1st level to "flesh out" character backgrounds. What I do is basically create the backstories, and then we play 1st level in a sort of "flashback" style, where the encounters have a little bit of set up and then right into the encounter. Once everyone has made 2nd lvl., we start our group campaign, at 2nd level. One really great side effect of starting out this way is that the opening session is very suspenseful. It's the group's first time getting together, and they don't know a single thing about each other. Nobody knows anyone else's, class, stats, background, gear, anything. And of course, I put plenty of skeletons in the characters closets that the players can choose to share with the group of keep to themselves. It sets up a really great dynamic with loads of room for fun roleplay. We just started our new campaign last Sunday, and it very quickly almost turned into a 4 way melee. The characters were from all different parts of the world and since there is no Common language, they couldn't communicate with each other. Add to that the added stress of all waking up in a glade in a forest with no idea how they got there, wherever there was. The barbarian drew his weapon in a gesture to show people his skills, and everyone panicked and drew weapons. It was hilarious. Sorry, back to the point. I try really hard to stick to the "13 encounters per level" guideline. We game every other Sunday, for an average of 5-6 hours. We usually average an encounter an hour (combat usually taking up about 1/3 of that hour), so they level each month on average. We normally only play until around 12th level (where our last 2 campaigns ended). We play a grittier type of campaign and the epic stuff seems to get clunky and slow after 12th level. Our average combat round is only a few minutes, so when it starts taking 10 minutes/rd. to resolve combat, we are ready to start over. We actually have the opposite opinion of Fencerboy. We think fast progression sucks. It feels too videogamish (my players' words) and the players feel like they are barely getting to know how to use their new abilities before they are getting more. It seems, from spending way too much time on gaming boards, that there's a pretty even split between those who want a fast progression and a slow progression. I think we fall into the latter category because we are older gamers who are used to slower-progression games, and we are more roleplaying driven and not combat-centric. Don't get me wrong, we love to kill stuff, we just like that part to be part of the game, not the game itself. :D What's ironic is that I love slow progression but I am ADHD. Go figure! :crazy:
Iramus_the_Odd 02-27-07, 02:06 PM	Interesting. I don't get dungeon magazine but that is a good suggestion for high level adventures. I wonder how much play testing goes into those. I think The Levitator hit on an interesting statistic of how much does adjudication time/round increase as the average party increases. This phenomenon is primarily why I don't enjoy high level games very much. Especially when the table is covered in splat books. :lightbulb I wonder if we can make up a formula to model the effect of increasing level and number of available books to rounds/hour. I can hear my friends saying "your such a geek." I wonder if the relationship is linear or perhaps sygmoidal or maybe even exponential! :plotting: Sorry I don't intend to start any arguement over core vs whatever. Still just curious about different gaming groups level progression habits.
Fencerboy 02-27-07, 05:08 PM	Don't get me wrong - my group doesn't just blow through everything, but I prefer to make levels 1-4 as speedy as possible, setting up recurring villains and friendly NPCs, but not having the characters doing anything all to epic or drawn out. The fun doesn't really start for me or my players until 5-10 level, and then past 13th or so it gets less and less fun. This isn't because of bad playing (or DMing), it's just our opinion. To contradict all that I have just said, I must confess, I like your solo 1st level idea. That sounds like it could make for some interesting play later on. (Image one of the players best friends is anothers worst nemesis...:devil: )
Squirrelloid 02-27-07, 09:44 PM	My general preference is to start around 3rd level because 1st and to a lesser degree 2nd level because the players have too few hp to do much. However, I have run one very successful campaign that started at "0th" level. (Characters as older children with d4 HD, etc...). The problem with 3.x is that it never got playtested seriously past 12th level, and the game starts to degenerate shortly before that. (Possibly as early as 9th, easily by 11th, depending on how much awesome your wizard is smoking). One of my 3.x campaigns ended by about 10th level with no problems whatsoever (early 3e). One (with no primary casters) was breaking down by 15th level (3.5), even though we'd originally planned to try to push into epic. I played in a 20th level campaign once (3e right after FRCS came out with the preview to the epic rules). Theoretically rotating DM - it went two sessions before it died because it was too hard to prepare suitable challenges for such characters. (And this was before most of my gaming group figured out all the crazy stuff you could do with spellcasters). One basic problem is that a d20 is too small as an RNG for 10th+ levels. I've had players wrap all appropriately CRed opponents off the RNG in terms of hitting them (AC 20 points higher than monsters attack bonus). The other basic problem is that high level magic does grotesque things. Fabricate alone is sufficient to drive you mad if a smart player gets ahold of it. I could go on, but I probably don't need to.
The_Levitator 02-27-07, 10:07 PM	Don't get me wrong - my group doesn't just blow through everything, but I prefer to make levels 1-4 as speedy as possible, setting up recurring villains and friendly NPCs, but not having the characters doing anything all to epic or drawn out. The fun doesn't really start for me or my players until 5-10 level, and then past 13th or so it gets less and less fun. This isn't because of bad playing (or DMing), it's just our opinion. To contradict all that I have just said, I must confess, I like your solo 1st level idea. That sounds like it could make for some interesting play later on. (Image one of the players best friends is anothers worst nemesis...:devil: ) I think we tend to rush through the first few levels too, even though in many ways they are more challenging because the characters are so much more frail. Because of our habit of "getting through" the early levels, I decided to at least make them interesting by using 1st level for back story, and 2nd level for the characters to get to know each other and develop their "group". Things usually start getting really gritty for us around 3rd. We almost never go past 12th because of the length of time it takes to resolve everything. It's kind of funny that you mention the idea of 2 players finding out they are enemies. We found ourselves in a similar situation. Since nobody knew who was going to be where, one player chose Calimshan as their home, and the other chose Tethyr. In our version of FR, those 2 kingdoms are on the verge of a 3-way war with the kingdom of Amn. The one good thing is that the player from Calimshan lives on the eastern coast, where there isn't much loyalty to their leaders. But they are having fun taking jabs at each other over which kingdom would better rule the region! :D
Iramus_the_Odd 02-28-07, 01:33 AM	It's interesting that 1-3 level are often ignored as "segway" levels. I.e. levels that are gained quickly with little story development or focus. I think ~75% of our best sessions to have occured between the levels of 1 and 4. I think the fact that at this power level player cleverness and ingenuity is the dominant factor in party success makes the encounters/combats so much more fun and creative. At higher levels (especially above ~10th) the class power level of the PCs creates an environment where game numbers & mechanics dominate the resolution of sessions. This seems especially true when each PC action requires 5-10 minutes of adjudication. I enjoy the low power (HP, spells, etc) of 1st level adventures. The potential for heroic action (as such) is greater than at high level. I don't mean the potential to do powerful impressive things. I refer to the potential for actions to be heroic in the context of regular npcs. A part of what it comes down to is that at high level the DMs job is tremendously hard and time consuming. I think the time required to construct an encoiunter at 12 level is 10x the time required at 2nd level. Thats alot of time for those of us with RL commitments.
The_Levitator 02-28-07, 01:56 AM	It's interesting that 1-3 level are often ignored as "segway" levels. I.e. levels that are gained quickly with little story development or focus. Just for the record, I don't ignore 1-3, and story development is precisely what I use them for! :P :D Just kiddin' around. :) Seriously though, Iramus makes a great point about the time commitment required by a DM for higher level campaigns. That's probably why the first few levels seem to fly right by, because the characters have fewer feats, spells, etc. to pour over to make every single decision. I think our group's favorite zone is levels 3-9. And as much as I like the lower levels, my players seem to start getting really excited about their characters in that 3-6 range.
thehitman4uall 02-28-07, 02:53 AM	I do things a little differently from the norm, Sorry for all I know this is D&D post but I also host Modern D20 and Star Wars RPG on top of D&D. I have tried 3 different ways of level progression and here is my response from the group. Star Wars: level 4- Started seemingly weak to them but feels great once you get a level up then realize what characters can do. D20: level 7- starts with enough feats/AC/Hp but lose that character development that happens throughout the 1st levels. D&D: level 10- Just started this one, so far everyone is initially excited about how "powerful" their characters are but will soon learn that monsters are also not such pushovers. This may not be exactly what you are asking for on this thread but I figured It is also the point of the players as well. I personally like starting in 1st through 4th level due to the fact that everything is so new for the character, instead of starting late in and wondering why I have such useless 0-3rd level spells that do nothing against foes you face. Well thats my say in this anyway. Sorry for taking your time if you decided that this is not what the thread is for.
Iramus_the_Odd 02-28-07, 09:25 AM	Totally not off topic Hitman. I also DM moderns and used to DM star wars in the long long ago. Those games are very different (IMO) for the very simple difference of the high chance of massive damage (or HP/vitality in SWRPG) I have actually had a much easier time running high level moderns games I think primarily because the PC power scaling is so much slower and D&D monsters match up at so well. Sorry Levitator I should caveat statements like that with "in some groups levels 1-2 are often.." :)
ElHiggz 02-28-07, 11:07 AM	I start my players generally around 3rd level, so that they can start to flesh out their characters more and I can send interesting low-level stuff at them. They are currently 5th level, Another DM and I rotate our campaigns every week or so so levelling goes slowly.
Legendarius 02-28-07, 03:56 PM	When I've had the pleasure of running or playing in a regular game (every 1-3 weeks) I prefer to start the characters at first level. I really love the simple dungeon delve at the first few levels because so many things work well. But, especially when playing spellcasters, the high levels are a lot of fun because of all of the choices. Historically (over the last 25 years or so) most of the games I have played in started at the low levels 1-4 and went to around 10-14. The last regular game I played in I joined a group (who had started at first level) with a 6th level character and by the time the campaign ended our characters were in the 16-17 range. Nowadays, my gaming is sporatic at best for logistical reasons so the usual focus is to create PCs at the minimum needed to begin an adventure and try to close that adventure in a few sessions (likely months apart). If the players really want to keep going with those PCs after that adventure completes we can but for variety probably new PCs will get made up. Basically one-shot mode. That said, when I do get the chance to begin running a regular game again I plan to start the PCs at level 1. L
DmMagnus 02-28-07, 05:02 PM	My campaigns usually go from level 1 to level 6-8 ish... Then they just seem to end.. its always been like that I dont know why... Probably because I am in love with the lower levels :) where everything is dangerous, and exciting :) I hope the campaign im running now will take the party beyond mid levels...
Iramus_the_Odd 02-28-07, 10:13 PM	This discussion is really interesting to me. I started thinking about this in the context of my first wide eyed view of the Char op boards. I believe my first thought was "damn I hope my players never see this" (j/k.. sort of). BTW: I felt giving a high five after reading Magnus's post. :w00t: I wonder if the phenomenon of "builds" and the whole munchkin thing is the result of or reason for campaigns starting well above 1st level. Do DMs feel obligated (maybe to strong a word) to start games at higher than 1-3 when players show up with a sack full of splat books and dreams of PrCs in their heads. :thinks:
OleOneEye 02-28-07, 11:28 PM	I prefer starting at 1st level for a regular campaign, and so, have the characters' full development play out. I don't really have a preferred range of levels to play up to high levels - say around 15th. At that point, NPC creation gets to be alot of work on the DM. However, if I had someone else willing to put in the extra DM work it takes, I like playing high/epic levels just fine. I play a lot of games that are not a full campaign, though. Rather, they may last a couple sessions then peter out. With no long-term expectations, we create characters whatever level feels fun at the time.
EscherEnigma 03-01-07, 01:16 AM	In the past I've had campaigns that started at 1st and went into the early teens. My current group started at 3rd (I think. Maybe 4th?) and is currently hovering around 10. Personally... I like the lower levels because resolution of combat is much faster, characters tend not to have such obscene bonuses so things are more iffy. At high levels if I create a villain that the tank doesn't automatically hit then the rest of the team can barely hit it. Same with saves or damage. The party tends to get very unbalanced at higher levels as each character gets really good in their own focus. I like high levels becuase the options allow for more interesting characters. As a DM it means that I can start to throw enemies that have fun or interesting abilities at them without worry. I can create a challenge without having a solution planned, and be surprised what they come up with. The increased party resources means that there are significantly fewer things that they CAN'T deal with. Anyway, my perspective. Though I definitely think that as a DM with a group of PCs around 10, I'm going to institute a 3 minute rule or something on a turn. Maybe get an egg timer. It just gets silly (and annoying) when someone changes their bonus to hit five times in ten seconds because they forgot half their buffs.
DmMagnus 03-01-07, 07:18 AM	This discussion is really interesting to me. I started thinking about this in the context of my first wide eyed view of the Char op boards. I believe my first thought was "damn I hope my players never see this" (j/k.. sort of). BTW: I felt giving a high five after reading Magnus's post. :w00t: I wonder if the phenomenon of "builds" and the whole munchkin thing is the result of or reason for campaigns starting well above 1st level. Do DMs feel obligated (maybe to strong a word) to start games at higher than 1-3 when players show up with a sack full of splat books and dreams of PrCs in their heads. :thinks: It seems like it to me! In my friends campaign we always start at level 6. So we can get a level in some prestige class. To be honest I dont like that to much. Its much more rewarding getting a prestige class when you`ve been struggeling since level one. Personally I "love" my characters more when I`ve played them since level one ( "I`Ve had him since he was a little puppy" ). I dont feel obligated to start at a higher level, just because my players are like, "its gonna be so cool when I become a thief acrobat!!!" I think I am doing them a favor as they will get that good feeling of working hard to achive something, and then succeed :)
Zumarai 03-01-07, 07:32 AM	I started the players in my current Planescape campaign at ECL 3, and we've been playing fortnightly for about 10 months and the characters are now ECL 11. Even though I've been playing this game since 1987, up until now I have never played in or DM'd a campaign past level 9. I can already see how the came can breakdown/become a headache past level 10 or so, especially, of course, with casters/manifesters etc.