Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Zzasrix 12-09-04, 08:56 AM	How fast do should PC’s level? I would like to follow the general D&D rules and also give out exp awards for roleplaying, travel, and story awards. I have hopes that this small group will continue to level as far as possible, even into and beyond epic levels. I am also worried about survivability at the lower levels. I didn’t quite realize how dangerous 16 kobolds could be to 3 1st level characters, and if it wasn’t for some fudging the numbers on my part I would have killed 2 of the players. Should getting them more HP and skills be a motivation for me to level them faster? So what is your rule of thumb when allowing a group to level up? Any and all suggestions are welcome.
DrMorganes 12-09-04, 09:10 AM	16 kobolds (CR 1/2) vs 3 1st-level PCs (Effective Party Level of .8!) is, as you discovered, good for at least one PC death and possibly more. The Encounter Calculator puts this encounter at Level 6 - meaning it's balanced for a group of 4 6th-Level PCs! As far as how fast should they level, that depends on your personal opinion and goals for the campaign. Wizards recommends the party gain a level after 13 "even CR" encounters, but no more than once per adventure. How often your players run into an even CR encounter is entirely up to you. I don't necessarily agree with the "no more than once per adventure" bit; I think it's a bit more complicated than that based on how you define "adventure", whether you want your players to quickly reach a certain level, etc. However, for a rough guideline I think it's a good place to start. Adjust the frequency up or down as you see fit. Personally, I don't worry overmuch about this. Adjusting adventure difficulty isn't particularly difficult or time consuming. Toss in an extra monster or two, tweak hit points per die, grant a class level or two, etc, and your players will have an even challenge regardless of whether they reached a given point in your plotline a level or two ahead of what you planned.
ECOM 12-09-04, 09:16 AM	How fast a group should level is really a mater of how the dm and players want to. I personally like between 10 and 15 encounters per level which for our group is about once every other week (we play for about 12 hours a week) sometimes as often as weekly other people have diferent opinions i am sure. the dmg does not come out and say youshould have x encounters per level but if you follow the rules for xp in the dmg you should come out with 13 1/3 encounters of equal level with a party for 4 charicters. this will very with the dificulty of hte encounters hope this helps
clarkvalentine 12-09-04, 09:34 AM	In the campaign I'm running, the PCs level every three sessions. I don't even bother with XP.
Felonious Monk 12-09-04, 10:31 AM	Our game sessions are weekly for about 12-14 hours. I'd say we level every other session, too. It works out fine right now, as the number cruncher gets to play with archery modifiers as a Ranger/Deepwood Sniper, the two who are most familiar with the system get the complexities of Wizard and Psion, and the lazy one and the dyslexic one get the Fighter and the TWF Ranger. If we were playing different characters, it wouldn't work out as well. If you are giving out extensive RP experience and story awards, remember that the PCs will be fighting fewer than the 13ish encounters per level. If that still seems fair, then all's cool.