OK so I run Stonehell Dungeon as an open campaign with dozens of different players & PCs of different levels, in the Gygax/Arneson style. In this play style 5e D&D default XP seems to meet Gygax's suggestion of levels 1-9 (or 1-10 for 5e) in about a year of regular play; from starting in November and playing weekly the most frequently played PCs have just hit 8th.

However Gygax suggested advancement after Name Level (ca 9-11) should be much slower, 1-2 levels a year, whereas 5e deliberately speeds up advancement. I don't think it will work well if some PCs hit 11 and suddenly shoot ahead, so I was thinking about how best to slow them down. Halving XP awards for 11+ would help; 11-12 would go from 15,000 to 30,000. As compared to 10th to 11th needing 21,000; that seems a more natural progression anyway. Any other ideas?

I've strongly considered being even more radical:  File a zero off of all experience point awards after 10th level is achieved.  Haven't made up my mind yet, because technically according to our group agreement, once most of the main characters hit 10th, we are starting a new campaign in the same world.  So there are other considerations (not relevant to your question) as to whether I want to even slow down advancement or not.  I might prefer to let it run fast and move onto something else, depending upon what the group wants.

My other strong option is the way I am leaning right now:  Rules stay the same, but there simply aren't that many threats above about CR 12, though plenty in the 10-12 range.  That makes it tough to do anything to get the experience to level very fast.  I like that option because it will be felt more strongly the higher they go.  Part of my interest in this is the effects I've seen from some of my mixed-level sessions at lower levels.  A bunch of characters 1st through 5th, the 5th level guys don't advance very fast, because they can't tangle with stuff that will let them do so, and keep the rest alive.  People have had fun anyway.

I should note that I am already awarding 1/10th experience for all wandering monsters, as an explicit encouragement for the players to focus on whatever goal they have set for themselves.  When the players are smart and dedicated, they level as fast as they would in any 5E game.  When they starting monkeying around, it slows down considerably.

Decouple from XP entirely. You level up whenever you overcome enough challenges sufficiently above your current abilities for the GM to rule that your abilities improve. It keeps the players hungry and willing to take bigger risks since pursuing "at-level" challenges will never actually level them up (there's little to learn by beating up more orcs once you can drop a dozen at a time without breaking a sweat).

Heck, I'd do this from the start. Simply surviving a nighttime goblin raid would be notable enough to get to level two. risking life and limb to enter their lair and wipe out their threat would get you to level three.

Most times I've been involved with 5e, the DMs generally race through levels 1-4 at about a level per session, then slow down to maybe a level every 4-5 sessions through about level 10, then more like 10+ sessions per level thereafter.

Also, my players that have the more powerful characters all have a second character.  When the lower-level characters are being played, the highest level ones simply aren't going on the quest.  That effectively halves the experience point gain for the high level guys right now, and it might be even more severe this year.  Not sure if that accomplishes what you want, but "not playing my high level guy" certainly slows advancement.

Quote from: Chris24601;1053933Decouple from XP entirely. You level up whenever you overcome enough challenges sufficiently above your current abilities for the GM to rule that your abilities improve.

Er...

...I'm not sure if you read my post. I have dozens of players, a few have more than one PC! No way am I tracking whether each PC has "overcome enough challenges sufficiently above current abilities" - other than by awarding XP for doing so.

I suppose I could technically only give XP for 'challenges sufficiently above current abilities' but the calculation would have to not be too complicated, and I wouldn't want to be doing individual calculations for every PC in a group.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1053934Also, my players that have the more powerful characters all have a second character.  When the lower-level characters are being played, the highest level ones simply aren't going on the quest.  That effectively halves the experience point gain for the high level guys right now, and it might be even more severe this year.  Not sure if that accomplishes what you want, but "not playing my high level guy" certainly slows advancement.

Yes, some players choose to play new and lower level PCs, and I sometimes ask players to stay within about 4 levels, eg 1-4 or now 5-8.  I could require PCs above 10th level to only be played fortnightly, say, and keep the alternate fortnight for lower level PCs. Hmm. I could even alternate my whole Meetup, and ask GMs to alternate high and low level games.

Quote from: S'mon;1053936Er...

...I'm not sure if you read my post. I have dozens of players, a few have more than one PC! No way am I tracking whether each PC has "overcome enough challenges sufficiently above current abilities" - other than by awarding XP for doing so.

I suppose I could technically only give XP for 'challenges sufficiently above current abilities' but the calculation would have to not be too complicated, and I wouldn't want to be doing individual calculations for every PC in a group.

I read it. It's not hard or complicated at all.

Even for small groups I use notecards with name, class and level, alignment, AC, hit points and key passive skill values for initiative order and general bookkeeping. Whenever a PC does something I think might be worth a level during their turn (since I have their level right there on the card I know just by looking at the card if what they're attempting would be a challenge or not) then I put a check mark on the corner.

At the end of the session I look at the number of check marks on the cards. Anyone with as many check marks as their current level earns a new level (and a new card since at the very least their level and hit points will change). The rest go back into my folder until next session.

That's it. Just using the cards I already use for initiative lets me easily track it. I may not remember why I put a specific check on a PCs card (or even which specific PC it was given the situation you describe) by the end of the session, much less stuff from sessions ago, but I know I checked the card at the time for a reason and that's good enough.

It's far easier than rejiggering XP thresholds and/or awards and hoping the values come out right, but still allows individual tracking. There's also the even simpler approach for any system with a unified XP table for leveling of just saying "Okay, after achieving this as a group you're all level X now. See you next week."

Here we go again...

Actually the EXP curve for 5e is more or less the same as the average for AD&Ds EXP curve if you knocked a zero off AD&Ds EXPs. In comparison an AD&D Fighter actually levels to 10 faster than 5e classes do and the Thief warps along really fast.

Quote from: Chris24601;1053989I read it. It's not hard or complicated at all.

Even for small groups I use notecards with name, class and level, alignment, AC, hit points and key passive skill values for initiative order and general bookkeeping. Whenever a PC does something I think might be worth a level during their turn (since I have their level right there on the card I know just by looking at the card if what they're attempting would be a challenge or not) then I put a check mark on the corner.

At the end of the session I look at the number of check marks on the cards. Anyone with as many check marks as their current level earns a new level (and a new card since at the very least their level and hit points will change). The rest go back into my folder until next session.

That's it. Just using the cards I already use for initiative lets me easily track it. I may not remember why I put a specific check on a PCs card (or even which specific PC it was given the situation you describe) by the end of the session, much less stuff from sessions ago, but I know I checked the card at the time for a reason and that's good enough.

It's far easier than rejiggering XP thresholds and/or awards and hoping the values come out right, but still allows individual tracking. There's also the even simpler approach for any system with a unified XP table for leveling of just saying "Okay, after achieving this as a group you're all level X now. See you next week."

OK, thanks. The idea of using an index card for each PC seems potentially viable, although I think the tick mark system won't work for me since some of the PCs are also played in other GMs' games in the shared campaign world - short of getting every GM to adopt a new system, we need to stick with XP, and the published XP table. But the way we award XP can and does vary, as long as we all give a very roughly similar amount overall.

Currently I use a note pad where I record each session on a page with the date, each PC present, and usually some details like their passive perception.

I'll have a think about not awarding high level PCs XP for below-level challenges, & awarding full XP for at-level stuff, which is close to how 3e D&D did it. Not sure if this will work in a mixed group. Maybe if low levellers get double XP awards for above-level stuff, again similar to 3e.

Quote from: Omega;1054001Actually the EXP curve for 5e is more or less the same as the average for AD&Ds EXP curve if you knocked a zero off AD&Ds EXPs. In comparison an AD&D Fighter actually levels to 10 faster than 5e classes do and the Thief warps along really fast.

Yes it's very similar 5th to 10th, which seems deliberate. Obviously it's different after 10th. It's designed to accelerate advancement after 10th, rather than slow it down.

I guess what I've seen in 5e using the XP table is:

Levels 1-3/4 advance very quick, for Stonehell I generally reduced XP awards so it took about 2 sessions to level 1-2 and 2-3 instead of 1 session, and about 5 sessions for 3-4.
Levels 4/5-10 is perfect. Generally PCs are taking about 5 sessions to level up, though it varies a lot depending on specific achievements - one cowardly level 5 PC group insisted on spending the session in a level 1 dungeon (Mrodnar's cellar) outside Stonehell, while another went down to dungeon level 9 & nearly TPK'd but got lots of XP.
Level 11+ advancement is faster than 5-10, especially the early bit ca 11-13. This has been ok in my previous 5e campaigns (I've GM'd up to 18-20 a couple different campaigns), but won't work so well in a megadungeon game with PCs of mixed level including some of 8-10 and some of 11-13.

For very high level PCs there are also issues around potentially out levelling the content. Stonehell has 10 dungeon levels and is designed for Labyrinth Lord PCs of levels 1-10. In 5e it probably best suits PCs of levels 3-16. After a year of play (I see the first online game PCs reached Stonehell September 2017, November 2017 for tabletop groups) PCs  have reached as deep as dungeon level 9. There is no big risk of running out of gameable content, but it's not really designed to cope with ultra high level PCs; I'd say dungeon level 10 is probably best suited to PCs in the 11th-14th range, maybe a bit higher.

So I guess my preference is about 5 sessions/level at 5-10 but more like 10 sessions/level at 11th+. Which would be about 50 sessions to go from 11th to 16th, something over a year of play - I think the most active PCs get in about 40 sessions a year.

Quote from: S'mon;1054008Yes it's very similar 5th to 10th, which seems deliberate. Obviously it's different after 10th. It's designed to accelerate advancement after 10th, rather than slow it down.

Ive graphed it out and surprisingly, by comparison, 5e advancement is slower than most of AD&Ds core classes aside from the MU. And if it kept following the progression past level 20 then it would end up slower than even the MU.

Bemusingly 3e and especially 4e are even faster than 5e or even the AD&D Thief for levelling speed. 4e goes so fast it should create a time warp. Nearly 3x as fast as 5e. 3e levels about twice as fast.

Heres my old chart as I was curious just how fast 5e was in comparison.

Quote from: Omega;1054070Ive graphed it out and surprisingly, by comparison, 5e advancement is slower than most of AD&Ds core classes aside from the MU. And if it kept following the progression past level 20 then it would end up slower than even the MU.

Bemusingly 3e and especially 4e are even faster than 5e or even the AD&D Thief for levelling speed. 4e goes so fast it should create a time warp. Nearly 3x as fast as 5e. 3e levels about twice as fast.

4E was set up so you were always getting something.

However it did expand the old 20 levels into 30 - so that's probably worth bearing in mind.  1 level in other editions is more like 1.5 levels in 4E.

I saw that and guessed it was the case. Its 1mil EXP to get to level 30. Not exactly sure how well though it equates to regular D&D levels though. Is a level 20 wizard on par with a 2e level 20 wizard or is the level 30 4e Wizard on par with the level 20?

Because 4e fights are so slow, if you use the rules as written it plays much slower than 3e. 4e is designed around 10 at-level encounters to level but in practice levelling after 10th level is about once per 5 4 hour sessions, or 20 hours of play, unless you add a lot of extra bonus XP. Whereas 3e is about twice that rate in terms of hours played.

I don't find 5e is slower than 1e but obviously it depends on how much XP is earned. 1e is dependent on gp for XP and has very low XP awards for low level monsters. 5e by RAW gives nearly all XP for defeating monsters and could be very slow if the PCs aren't constanty fighting. 5e is mostly slower than 3e, except at 1st & 2nd level.

If you want to estimate advancement rates you can't just look at amount of XP to level, you need to look at the rate at which it's earned. Different editions give different amounts for monsters and other activities, and have different amounts of time taken up by a fight encounter. 4e is much much slower than it appears if you don't take encounter duration into account.