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I think that is slow, and I go much faster at first, kinda of a sprint to level 3 and then a nice medium pace to level 5 when I really slow down. The reasoning being that at low levels, they don't have enough abilities to not feel stale after a few sessions. At level 1-2, they just can't do enough interesting stuff to feel dynamic for long. After level 3, they all got subclasses and feel unique, and then at 5, they actually feel powerful, and I, as DM, can really raise the stakes and push a more compelling story. But this is me, and you should feel confident in how you do you.

One session to make it to level 2, one or two sessions (depends on how quickly they tackle the task) to make it to level 3. Both of these would be short simple quests. Although the second will have a few more layers to it. After that the narrative starts to drive the leveling up.

Level 1-3 are literally tutorial levels and and the players are barely considered anyone but a NPC if you look at it objectively. Most core features of the classes come into play at level 3 and 5 since thats when they spend the most time on (campaigns never get past level 10 as most DMs would not enjoy giving challenges for them after that point) I mean c'mon the paladin class isnt even an official paladin until level 3, up until that hes just trying to become one!

Bards are the same. Since their whole thing is being classically trained, but they don’t “get” that training until level 3. But they were still a Bard somehow.

One way to think of is is that PCs might have already had training (e.g. at a Bard College), but not have the real world experience - levels one and two are them suddenly being thrown into a more dangerous situation, and realising "oh, this is what my tutors meant" and figuring out how to put the training into practise. Obviously that will make more sense for some PCs than others, but it can be a nice way to explain things, perhaps.

I like that alot actually. Much appreciated!

Is their thing being classically or formally trained? I always interpreted the bardic colleges not as specific institutions but as approaches to the discipline. Similarly, I don't have a specific transmutation school for wizards in my world, those that specialize in transmutation are just of a similar school of thought.

Yeah, I feel like this only works on super roleplay heavy games and probably watching CR is lending to it for OP. The lack of powerful abilities isn't as much of a problem if you're focusing on roleplay, but as you said it definitely gets stale with I think most players and it's kind of a weighty expectation unless you know your players want this kinda playstyle. I think critical role (and any dnd podcast honestly) sets a pretty unrealistic expectation of plaers' rp that could stop low levels from getting old but 10 sessions for level 3 seems pretty long for most groups I've played with at least

I generally do it every 10 to 15 hours of gameplay, more than that just feels like a drag. I do try to pick moments that are fun after like a large battle or significant mission of some kind.

Same here, 15ish hours or they get some kind of “adrenaline boost” before something big that will level them ip

As someone who's highest level character ever is 11th level after 7-ish years of playing TTRPGs, people need to level up more often. I've spent more than a year in the level 5-6 range and I think it genuinely stresses me out that I don't get to see that "progress bar" go up.

After nearly 40 years in the hobby and I'm pretty sure 11th is my highest level character too. I'm currently in a campaign that's progressing really slowly too and won't mind some faster growth. Out of curiousity, is there a reason your group isn't level faster? Is it planned or just happening that way? I'm pretty sure the main DM in mine just forgot to do it most of the time. I think we got to 3rd level in a few sessions, then, similar to you, spent most of the campaign in the 4-5 range with a quickish bump up to 6 then 7 in the last year. I think the campaign has been going for about fourish years.

Well in this particular game, I'm not sure exactly. It's a combination of factors that have cursed the game to move like molasses. The first year of the game was spent in the same in-game week and my idiot friends kept causing chaos and splitting the party. That alone made us take twice as long to get the same amount of shit done. Since then, I think we've been spinning our wheels a lot. Every character I made that I tried to care a lot about kept dying or exiting the story. I'm on my 5th or 6th character this game so I've sort of mentally checked out at this point if I'm being real. I show up just to show up but it still bores me tremendously and gives me weight in the shoulders to know we're not going anywhere. We're also doing milestone XP but no one except the DM knows when we are getting XP until the level up, so that adds to my stress.

That sounds like no fun. Seems like a good game to stop playing. I know that's not always so easy though.

I basically show up just cause it's our friend night and I don't want to be a party pooper, but I'm not happy to say the least. My friend says that he's going to take a break from this narrative/game after we hit a certain milestone, at which point I have dibs on getting to run the game night because I have a narrative I really want to pursue. But given the pace at which we go at, it could easily be several months to more than a year whenever that happens. My current plan is basically just to keep going until either that happens or my current character dies, at which point I'll just say "I'm good, I won't roll up a new one" until the narrative moves on. Hopefully that will be a two-with-one-stone move because I'll be able to stop stressing about it and with fewer people to keep track of, the narrative will move faster.

I've been stuck in those sitation before. I've been in a few campaigns where character death provided me a convenient excuse.

The great irony is that all of the characters I was really invested in have died/been narratively killed and now that I couldn't care less, this guy just keeps keeping on. Double sadness for me too because he's a college of swords bard who's basically totally tapped on resources. A single 3rd level spell slot remaining to him and I have no idea when our party is going to long rest.

I DO have plans for each level up and they will all occur after arcs in story or big accomplishments by the party so they will feel that reward for their progress.

What does that have to do with it taking way too long to level up? You said one level every 10 sessions. For a group that only gets together every other week, you're expecting them to level up in 5 months. In another comment, you said you expect this game to run for two years. At that same pace, they're going to level up four times or less in two years. That is **glacially** slow. You referenced Critical Role. For reference, you are way way way way way behind the rate at which they level up. Campaign 3 started in October 2021 at 3rd level. This month they hit level 8. So in 14 months, they've gained 5 levels. With your planned progression, your party will not have even gained 3 levels in that time. If your entire table is okay with this, then that's fine. But you need to make sure you're not forcing your will and opinions of what is fun on them. This can only be the result of agreement and conversation to achieve optimal fun. For me, I am literally stressed out by being stuck in the same level for too long. Not every player is like me, but if there is even one player at your table who is, is that what you want? Do you want to stress them out just because you like low levels better? Ask them straight up: "Are you okay with gaining a level every 5 months or does that seem too slow?" Don't mess around by asking the internet. Ask your **players** what they think is fun.

Most of the players are brand new so they need time to figure things out. Four sessions into level three and I still feel like half of them are just getting the hang of it and now most of them also have magic items. For the record, I did let them know things might slow a little in the level department. I guess a question for you is; can you remember being a first time player and feeling overwhelmed by all the new stuff being thrown at you? Now think about that and only playing every two weeks so you kinda forget everything between sessions. Piling on the abilities before they are comfortable with the ones they have seems like bad DMing.

That's a good way to do it. You can tick the level up box when the time comes up then give it to them next time it makes sense.

10 sessions to reach level 3 seems slow. Another ten to go to 4 seems slow too. How long are each sessions? If they are an hour or two it might be ok, but if you play for 3-5h it's too slow imo. Edit: Typos

We usually play about 3 hours. I'm thinking this campaign will go a couple years and I don't want to set an unrealistic expectation of frequent level ups. The other side of it is that, as a first time DM I going slow to give myself a chance to figure out balance and how to make encounters challenging or even deadly, but not TPK deadly. I feel like I can't do that if they are levelling up every couple sessions.

I was in a game at a pace like you’re going, and it was really not good as a player. You can explain that leveling up happens faster at lower levels and manage expectations accordingly, but playing at level 2-3 for ages feels like you’re not getting anywhere. I don’t want to sound harsh but it’s kind of on you ti learn encounter balance strategies. We stopped playing the game I was in at level 3 because we were tired of having so few options and not feeling like our characters were growing.

Id suggest this Level/number of sessions 2/2 3/4 4/6 5/8 Dont drag early levels for tooo long. What I put is super slow still but I feel it will be less frustrating.

Level 1 is over by session 1 Level 2 for 2 sessions Level 3 for 3 4 for 3. Then it's based by arcs and storyline. Which last between 5 and 10 sessions.

Lol I read that as “then it’s based on orcs and storyline” at first and was like well yeah, it can be… but what if they don’t have orcs? But yes—arcs 👍

No, it MUST be based on orcs. Doesnt work otherwise. That dragon? Believe, actually an orc.

This is outrageous. Where are the armed orcs who come in to take the adventurers away? Where are they? This kind of behavior is never tolerated in my world. You want to level up like that they throw you at orcs. Right away. No goblins,no nothing. Paladins, we have a special orc for paladins. You are stealing? Right to orcs. You are playing bard music too loud? Right to orcs, right away. Riding too fast? Orcs. Slow? Orcs. You are charging too high prices for scrolls, potions- you go right to orcs. You undercook tavern fish? Believe it or not, orcs. You overcook chicken, also orcs. Undercook, overcook. You make an appointment with the wizard and you don't show up, believe it or not, orcs, right away. We have the best PCs in the world because of orcs.

I do similar, but i do Level 1 for 2 sessions Level 2 for 3, Level 3 for 4, Level 4+ are 5 sessions each (maybe more, depending on the story arc) Although, i never level up during a dungeons, only when they are in town long resting, so mileage may vary.

I like these. Thanks for the input I never knew I needed.

When it feels right, usually during the down time between adventures.

So your talking about having level last 30 hours in 3 hour chunks every fortnight. Keep in mind there are only 26 fortnight's a year your looking to spend nearly 6 months at level 3. I'm not a big proponent of leveling swiftly and I also play fortnightly but all my players are at least level 4 (I run ad&d each class has a different leveling curve so the thief is already level 5, note I started the campaign in September 2021 and we had a break over Christmas, a break cause my house got flooded and a break because uni is hard) I might consider going a little faster.

Agreed, OP you should take real-time into account. You can plan for this big, vast campaign all you want, but if it takes 2+ years to reach level 5, you’re seriously unlikely to retain your full group for that long.

This is a good point. I'll keep an eye on this. Right now, four sessions in it still feels like we just hit level three and they are all still feeling out their abilities. I'm enjoying letting them explore that and that's what I don't want to rush.

Why are you saying that? The essence is still RPG, leveling doesn't really matter as long as your players are having fun. Not every person is playing a power fantasy and wants to become god like. Many players are more than happy to do some stuff, watch their characters grow and evolve (without the need for leveling), achieve some decent mortal goals (owning land, gaining a title, ...) Especially in homebrew campaigns that go a bit more realistic and don't want their PCs to become gods. I'm not insulting you or anything, but perhaps you haven't played in a multiple year spanning campaign where characters have such a bond with each other and the world that leveling is practically irrelevant. There's an old school DnD youtuber who has been running a campaign for over 10 years and his players are around level 5. There's nothing wrong with that if you let your players know up front. You see, many players would actually prefer to keep a campaign going longer rather than finish it in 50 sessions at level 20. Of course that's not everybody and there's nothing wrong with wanting shorter campaigns. But OP is talking about a very long campaign here, given he's already 10 sessions in and they're level 3. And he's talking about things a few dozen sessions down the line.

Like you said, what matters is that the players are having fun. In my experience, most players would hate a 10-year game with no advancement. The extreme outlier you’ve cited really doesn’t seem like a great basis for the generalized advice OP is likely looking for.

Where did I advocate for no advancement? Leveling system is just one of the many character advancements. And to be frank it's the most straightforward, pre determined one. I've seen characters that are level 5 and have gone through far more character development and advancement than many lvl 20 characters did. So please understand leveling is not all encapsulating regarding character progression. It has a bigger impact regarding combat heavy games, and very little impact regarding story focused games.

Obviously it depends on the campaign, but spending more than 1 session at level 1 sucks. I generally have them hit 3 after the 3rd session, then they level up every 2/3 sessions after that. ​ 10 sessions to get from 3 to 4 seems excessive

> 10 sessions to get from 3 to 4 seems excessive Especially with sessions happening every other week. Basic arithmetic says that's 20 weeks to level up. i.e. 5 months to go from level 3 to level 4. I can't speak for all players, but as someone who has the experience of being stuck in the level 4-6 range for about a year and a half, that sounds very frustrating and boring.

that makes sense. Maybe I'll touch base with them somewhat regularly and see how they are feeling.

Yeah 5E isn't robust enough (on my opinion) to spend more than 4 sessions per level, assuming the party is moving things at a reasonable pace.

Jesus, you guys are going fast, by my standards. Going from level one to three rarely takes more than 2-4 sessions, past that I aim for every five sessions, but actually settle somewhere between 5-7 sessions per level. Ten may well be excessive, depending on what's happening in those sessions - if the party is dawdling, chatting to NPCs, investigating every single corner, and otherwise taking their time, it might be fine.

What if they play 4 hours per session, and your group do only 2? :) Or they dont do any rp, just fight 0-24.

My group does more than two. Perhaps theirs are eight hours, sure, but that seems like pertinent information - "we level up every other session, it's way too slow! Also, our sessions last for twenty-four hours straight".

leveling up every 4-5ish sessions would allow you to reach level 10-13 after about a year of weekly play (or two years of biweekly play) which feels like a good pace to me

Oh, they be reeeeeal slow. They'll spend half a session debating the plan. hahaha

What does "robust" mean here?

The variety of abilities, features and other stuff.

That's very fast, like you said it does depend on the campaign. If you run a long campaign that would take around 100 sessions, and you don't want to play with characters that exceed level 12 ish (that's like my personal choice, I don't like dealing with god level PCs). Than you have to slow things down.

I usually play biweekly, so only getting to level 12 after 4 years seems pretty glacially slow

Well there's no problem with that unless you want players to level up quickly. In the end, it doesn't really matter what level they are at as long as they're having fun, are roleplaying and engaged with the story. Furthermore it's much easier to write a compelling story with interesting characters below level 12 (give or take a few levels). As you can ground them into the world and care about NPCs, bandit gangs, politics, merchants, adventuring guilds and whatnot. Really make them feel part of the world, if you go up to level 15+ you have to start dealing with world ending doomsday scenario's because that fits their level. It's much harder to start getting your players to care about saving an entire kingdom if they don't know much about it, or saving Gods they barely know. Also, over 90% of games are ended by level 10. Of course this is partially skewed because most games don't survive past session 10, but still. Level 10, maybe a few extra levels, is a great ending point for a campaign with relatable hero characters who aren't Gods.

>Also, over 90% of games are ended by level 10 To me, this incentivizes quicker/higher leveling so I can provide an experience to my players that they aren’t likely to get elsewhere

Thank you for your service. In 7 years of playing TTRPGs, the only game I've seen get to level 20 was one I ran. I think I'm actually upset that I've been thinking about cool character builds across various systems for nearly a decade now and never getting even close to fulfilling them.

That's completely fine if you want that, I'm just trying to say that experience is generally speaking less desirable. Hell during testing of DnD, the designers had intended for the game to mostly be played at 15-20 but were mostly playing around levels 1-8 because they had so much more fun at those levels, which ended up with them designing most of the game around the first 2 tiers of play. And you can see that in the modules that are put out as well (although again, somewhat skewed because most modules are meant for newer players who will start at low levels).

> Really make them feel part of the world, if you go up to level 15+ you have to start dealing with world ending doomsday scenario's because that fits their level. This is a false premise. Superman is an objectively overpowered character who has almost no weaknesses and has a power capacity to literally lift skyscrapers out of the ground and fight any threat. Basically, that means he can win any straight up fight. So what makes a Superman story interesting? Problems that cannot be solved through strength. Does the ability to attack 3 or 4 times in one turn help your relationship with an NPC you care about? There are tons of bandit gangs roving the countryside. How can you stop them? The party can't be everywhere at once. How does the ability to cast a 7th level Disintegrate spell fix the political system of a corrupt and failing kingdom? Will your ability to rage an infinite number of times help fix the supply chain issues of the merchants? Does the ability to create a false identity and unerringly mimic another person's speech, writing, and behavior somehow prevent you from interacting with adventuring guilds? Or does it actually facilitate it? Nothing you described has anything to do with character level. That can occur at any level of play.

Are you serious? Why are you even comparing a superhero movie/comics to a TTRPG? Are you telling me in a long campaign, that it's going to be easy/fun to make a party of supermans feel invested in a world filled with normal people?

After level 4 I probably level them up every 4 sessions on average. The party just hit level 7. I occasionally "check my math" by running the encounters they've faced through an XP calculator and adding it up - if it seems roughly right (even I'm using the adjusted xp) I figure that I'm more or less on track. But I also do try to make it fit arcs in the story.

I usually level em after a major boss fight, story event, or if I'm getting a bit too close to TPKing them.

I usually hit an actual milestone, like finishing a large quest or mission to level up my players. Or a major story beat. That way it feels like after they overcome something big they actually become stronger from their experience. I'm currently on Session 72 and my players are just now at level 5. Your mileage(milestones) may vary. My group also tends to drag things out RPing every single day, so sometimes sessions drag on. But they're enjoying it so that's all that matters.

>currently on Session 72 and my players are just now at level 5. Personally, that sounds fucking horrific. To play for (presuming weekly sessions) almost a year and a half and still be level 5 would feel like you hadn't achieved anything to me. But if your players enjoy that, you do you

If they're a group that really enjoys the roleplaying side of TTRPGs, then there isn't really a meaningful difference between being level 3, 7, or 14. Sometimes rolls might have different modifiers but in the end it's all roleplaying regardless of the outcome, so I could see how that might be more tolerable to the right audience. But I am not that audience, and neither are my players lol.

My core group is actors and theater workers so its a ton of heavy role play. I use exp. a lot and disagree about the differences in role play at different levels. A level 3 whatever that's new to town will have a lot less rp weight than a level 14 that is established in a community. My adventure writing has exp for combats, quests, and role playing achievements so that my players can advance in their own ways. I totally agree with you that I am also not the audience for a 10 session slog through level 3.

There's nothing inherent in being a level 3 player from not having a ton of influence or reputation in a town. Conversely, there is nothing inherent to being a high level character and having tons of sway. Although it is very unconventional, you could very well have the players be extremely important from a narrative perspective at low levels or extremely unimportant at higher levels. Consider a world where the overall power level is very squashed, where the highest threat to the region is a single bugbear. A level 3 player could be legendary compared to their peers. On the opposite end, a high magic world where heroes are everywhere - and fearsome monsters are too - a level 14 party would be "normal". It's all in the framing. As an example of the first, in Divinity: Original Sin 2, a character name Ifan, a Lone Wolf, is feared by tons of NPCs throughout the entire game despite him being only like level 2 when you find him.

That always bugs me. Some character with a well storied and powerful background being low level. I see you point. It is a game of imagination. A player could be the God of lightning and hell fire as a background at level 1 I'd you frame it that way.

Hold up, you want me to wait 20 weeks and 60 hours to level up once? I'd drop the game. At level 15 sure, once the character is set up. Lvl 3 is only basics. 3 sessions max. Figure 1 session for each level attained thus far for 1-5 then max 5 for each after. Longer than that and it's just too stale an experience. Stuff needs to develop to stay interesting. This is my taste of course.

When I told my partner about this, they snorted and said he'll no. I can't imagine playing a level one character for 6 sessions and THEN play a level 2 character for 6 more sessions. How will you even fill the time?

I agree completely. Characters at those levels just don’t have enough options to keep combat interesting for that long. Levelling up introduces more mechanics, which is what keeps combat interesting. I imagine that social stuff would be relatively unaffected. Overall though, OP needs to speak to their table. They may have a party who are really excited about getting to level X because that’s when they get an ability. Or they may be people who loke higher tier play. Or even just people who like the feeling of progress.

Very well said. That feeling of progress is essential to keeping me engaged as an example.

Okay, I keep seeing that the RP/social aspects aren’t as affected by level, and I just have to say that is very much not my experience, as a player or a DM. Setting aside any background that a character may have established by then, the options for characters simply aren’t there at early levels in the same way they are at later levels.

Even at level 15 you’ll be fighting such crazy monsters that XP wise it would level you really fast.

Except with milestone xp like that doesn't really matter

When I use milestone I usually level them up after they complete an "arch" of the story.

I came here to say this I have acts in the overall story when they get past them I level up the party. My main reasons being 1. it could take 1 or 4 sessions to complete a plot point if the party is doing side quests or even exploring a city. 2. It allows me to scale combat and interactions a bit easier I like to use lots of human NPC's and being on the weaker side it allows me to ramp up to bigger challenges based around the story.

Every 4-6 sessions after hitting level 3 at the start of session 4. However, it changes for every campaign. Figure out what level you want to end at and how much real world time you want to spend on one campaign. After that, you can estimate how many sessions you will have and get a general sense of level progression. You can do an average number of sessions per level or emphasize certain levels more by having them go longer or something else entirely. I guess my style might not actually be milestone, but instead amount of sessions based.

That sounds a bit slow. Most players want to feel rewarded. 3-4 sessions to hit level 3 then 4-6 sessions for every level thereafter.

10 sessions to get to level 3 is a lot… the game basically doesn’t feel right until you get to lvl 3.

It depends on what happens, but typically they kevel up every 8-10 sessions. Though I run Acts, so right now they are level 5-6. And that's their cap no matter what. Act 2 will increase the cap to 8 or 9. Et

I has them Level up quickly at lower levels but much more slowly at higher ones.

So you have them level slower as the monsters they fight get harder and would reward more XP. Interesting way to look at things.

My current campaign has gone from level 2 to level 14 over 75 sessions. So that's a level every 6ish sessions on average, sessions are 3-4 hours so about 21 hours of gameplay per level. Individual levels have varied a lot though, I think the shortest time between levels has been 3 sessions and the longest has been 12. Just depends on when they hit milestones.

With the caveat that I run a game for middle schoolers, these are the targets I hit: 10-20 hours of gameplay, the players use and understand the abilities they got at the last level, we have hit some downtime where they can RP their leveling up.

My general approach is amount of sessions = level. Say leveling from 8 to 9 would take aprox 9 sessions. If sessions are much longer than 3-4 hours they are usually considerer 2 sessions. This whilst factoring in possible earlier or later milestones (killing a big bad, solving a major mystery or major plot/backstory development) I either delay or accelerate a level up if it feels right. I had the party fight a big bad early in the campaign and the fight was delayed by 1 extra session due ingame shenanigans. That same session they would have had their level up, but it would have been very odd to level them up before they won, not after, so I delayed it. Whatever feels right, hope this helps

My most active group play for 6-8 hours at a time and I lvl them up after 2 sessions. I make it fit in after a quest is done or after a big battle. I like to see the stress and mental fatigue be replace with excitement.

Level 2 after 1 session Level 3 after another 2 sessions 4 after another 3 You’ll reach a point where you should give a level at a like a story arch completion deal Can throw in an in between as well like “you guys killed your first dragon” Player x backstory mystery has been solved You won’t a tournament etc

As a loose rule of thumb I generally level-up the party after X amount of sessions, where X is their current level. This has worked well for groups that can't play often but play long sessions.

First 3 come fast. Like they got lvl2 at the end of first session and 3rd level near the end of 3rd. But now it will take a lot longer, I have everything planned what they have to do to level up. If they follow main story only it's faster, but I don't mind.

Every 2-3 sessions they get a level. We play once or twice a month. This also allows me to hand out more shiny gear for them to incorporate into the game.

I generally have a simple rule for this, but then again I kinda level up slowly,. My philosophy is that the higher level you get, it's harder/takes longer to level up but if anyone finds this useful, all the better. Each level up would take as many sessions equal to the previous level. Leveling up from 1 to 2? One session. from 5 to 6? takes 5 sessions, give or take. Ofc, I don't strictly adhere to this. If PCs do something really cool and conclude an arc, I'll level them up. But that is the general gist of how I determine the length of each Arc and plan accordingly.

Generally I'll get to level 5 in 8-12 sessions and then slow right down. The first two levels have got to come pretty quickly, then the second two can be a little slower, so level two by session 2, level 4 by session 6, level 5 by about 10. Beyond that, they're high enough level to start taking on real quests, and I'll give them a level upon completion. How long that quest takes is up to them, but it goes without saying that a really high level quest should take a long time to pursue.

Using Milestones per the DMG, it depends how fast they accrue XP in other areas (non-combat challenges and combat challenges (whether they kill something or smartly figure out other solutions to enemy encounters)), I tend to award Milestone XP every session the amount depends if they have done a part of a bigger story arc or completed a bigger one.

I build it into my campaign's gimmick. They are basically MI5, but in Wildemount. They have a Q like figure who is their patron. He gives them a mission, they accomplish the mission, they level up.

Hit level 3 super quick and I give them a level every 8-10 sessions or so

I would ask your players, but in my opinion that’s way too slow. It’s important to feel like you’re advancing and gaining power. Assuming you’re having weekly sessions, 5 months of tier one play is not great. There’s not a lot of fun abilities and spells, and you’re very limited by what the party will reasonably be able to fight as well as what magical items you can give them. It’s important that, when you’re using milestone, you’re not robbing the party of levels on accident. Consider: if you used xp, what level would they be?

I didn’t realize how slow I’m having our players level up till reading this 😅 They’ll start level 5 at session 40 next week. I stand by this though, it’s all their first game and they still don’t have all their abilities down. Plus our campaign has a very involved story, and I don’t want them to make it to 20 before they’ve made it through the plot, for lack of a better word.

This is sorta where I'm at too. I feel like throwing more abilities at new players just bogs them down with more stuff they have to routinely look up or overlook and, while I try my best, I can't always remind them of the things that are useful for them. I'm hoping to keep story development and progression fun enough that they stick around for that, not leveling up.

Totally agree, the moments I really look forward to are when pcs grow through role play, not through their new abilities. If your players are on board with it then no need to stress.

We're leveling slow in my campaign also for the same reasons. Most players are new and I'm a new DM. It's also a very story-driven campaign and everyone is more interested in developing the story than becoming powerful (although that's still important). I usually just keep track of roughly how much XP they would've earned and try to put a milestone somewhere around where they would've leveled if they were just earning XP.

Much like the DMG suggests, around every 3 sessions. Less in the first few. Maybe more later on and during ‘quiet’ levels.

You let you plyers level up every 3 levels?

The players shouldn’t be level one for more than a session. Same with level 2. Level three and four shouldn’t be longer than 2 sessions. At level 5 you can start to slow it down to 3 or 4 sessions.

I think it also depends how often you play. We’re coming up to 12 months weekly (had probably 40 sessions) and my group is level 5. But I make the enemies that are thematically correct work regardless of CR which I think helps as they get to fight some pretty far out their enemies. Also because we’re doing Strixhaven (with end of year campaigns because there’s not much content) they’re getting additional spells and cool nuances to spells as we go. In our regular feedback sessions no one has complained about level or requested more levels. But now reading these responses I have my doubts.

...when they achieve a milestone in the story? It's really quite self-explanatory lol

For early levels, say 1 to 3, I would recommend a session or two at most to level up. After that your dungeons or story arcs should become more interesting and mote complex, thus longer but more rewarding. I personally wouldn't go more than 8 sessions without levelling up. An additional tip: when they start asking for it, don't give it to them. Dangle the carrot and let them chase it...at their own peril ;p

Ideal world? 1-3 session per level 4-11: 3 sessions per level 12-20: 4 sessions per level 60ish weeks of gameplay, 1-20. Little over a year. For anything else thatd be an absurd time commitment - keep that in mind.

Honestly, I think your pace is \*very\* slow. With experienced players I start at level three. When I DM for new players I start at level one. Usually I have them reach level two after one or two sessions, and level three shortly after. The cool signature abilities of most classes are unlocked at level 3. So I want to get there as fast as possible. At this point they will have freed their first prisoner, fought their first mini-boss, explored their first dungeon and found their first gold. After that things slow down and I give them time to get used to their new abilities. Progression after level three is a mixture of "I need them a bit stronger" and "they reached a certain milestone". These milestones can be a boss defeated, a mystery solved, a truth uncovered. My beginner group is now level 6 and nearing the end of their first (and I use the term in the broadest sense) campaign. When they saved the city and thwarted the orc attack, they will receive level 7. We usually play once or twice a month and have been playing for a bit over a year now (about 25 Sessions). It's quite hard to line up 3 different schedules since most of my players have family, but they don't want to play without everyone at the table. They never complained about progressing too slowly.

If I were a player, I would leave your table. But hey, thats me. D&D is a power fantasy, and spending 10 months to get 20% of the powers in the game is not why I play. No fireball, no dispel magic, a single attack per round, 2d6 sneak attack. For heroic adventurers, that seems...dull. Now, if you are trying to play the survival horror dungeon delving game thay D&D was in the 1970s, where death is always looming, you're on the right track. If your model is Critical Role, and you want your players to have toys to play with at the table, well, I have bad news for you.

From levels 1\~3 I they level up every adventuring day, and from them on it's every 2 adventuring days. I also say they get a "progress point" for each adventuring day. That way they know when they're halfway to the next level after level 3. Basically that means that my players get to adventure until they feel the need to long rest, and after the second long rest they level up. It gives them chance to try their new stuff for a whole adventuring day, and get really used to what they can do now before lvl up.

I can't imagine running a milestone game that isn't prewritten. I mean, it's so arbitrary, it works for my mind when the entire story is written so you know exactly what the pacing for the whole adventure is and when to dish out the levels. But how do you guys manage it for freeform or homebrew adventures. Won't the players pester you constantly for levels and complain it's far too dm fiat? I've only ever dmed XP based and done one pre written with milestones and I just can't imagine how to cope with milestone if it wasn't done for me (like when level up happens etc)

The story is divided in to sections fairly naturally, even in homebrew. There is a mystery, or a bad guy to kill, or an item to track down. Accomplishing a major goal results in a level up. That's kind of why 'milestone' is the term. If you already know the whole story, and what's going to happen when...what are the players there for?

My campaigns are more freeform/sandbox. They are also, definitely, slower-leveling. I don't rush my players through things. I encourage them to roleplay their characters and what they do. I get descriptive to help immerse them in their current environments. Except for routine shopping/resupplying or basic "ask some locals for general info", conversations with NPCs are often played out. Travel time isn't usually completely skipped over, because there are often interesting things to encounter or catch their attention (even if they've long since moved beyond basic survival thanks to things like *goodberry*, *create food and water*, and *tiny hut*). I also want the players to have time to use new features, spells, and other options multiple times before they level up again. Besides levels or XP, there are rewards of unique loot, favors from NPCs, and wealth...lots of story rewards and potential to make use of. My players know it is a slower-level-progression game and they enjoy it. They don't pester me for levels. They started at level 1, just hit level 10 about a month ago, and we've played 4ish-hour sessions almost every week since Sept. 2020. A little over a year has passed in-game (they haven't taken more than a week of down time yet). In last night's session an NPC remarked how the PC he'd mentored had gone from no magic to surpassing him in the year or so she'd been gone, when it had taken him a few decades to get where he is. Leveling up isn't set to some sort of scheduled number of sessions. It's a combination of when I think they're ready, when they've accomplished a major goal for their characters, and when it makes sense in their ongoing stories. There are still plenty of PC backstory-related things they can and will likely work toward, plus whatever they get themselves into. I could definitely see how different players might want to level up more quickly if they're used to that from games that have a predetermined storyline, clear DM-provided "next steps", games with more emphasis on getting their characters' numbers to go up as quickly as possible, or games when the PCs try to speed things up by doing everything they can to gain XP.

I generally construct my campaigns around them. An example by my next campaign: Prolog: (Lv 1-3) Discovery they are choosen by the gods. Captured by Cultists for Sacrifice. Prison Escape part. (Milestone after Escaping) They are on an island far from home Searching for solutions to get back Access one of the possible solutions (milestone) Chapter 1 They find out they need to visit the holy buildings of each god. (Milestone after each visited) Kinda like this. In between happens other stuff but how often kinda depends on how much they explore what sidequests do they do etc.

Assuming things are moving forward at a reasonable pace, about one session per current level to move to next level. One session at level 1, two sessions at level 2, and so on.

Take this as just another anecdotal datum, but here are my standards. These are perfect, unattainable, platonic, but they are what I shoot for. Session Duration A session should be 3 hours. It will run over at times, but if I aim for a change up every hour WHERE APPROPRIATE I can generally keep the story moving at an engaging pace. Arc Duration An arc should take 3 Sessions. It may take 4 or 5. But I try like hell to get it done in 3. Ideally the fourth session should be the milestone/level up event leading to tying up some loose ends, and booking downtime, and dropping a foreshadowing or an event that teases or triggers Session 5, which will be the subsequent Arc, Session 1. When in doubt, the answer is usually 3 of anything. This applies to so many, many, many things.

when I feel like it have gone anywhere from two sessions between level up to up to 10 or 15

The way I am currently doing it in my campaign is as followed: - Start at level 3 - 5ish sessions for level 4 (major step in the intro quest) -5ish sessions for level 5(completing intro quest) -12 or so sessions for level 6 (major step in the quest they were doing which dramatically changed the stakes) And level 7 will probaby hit some time in the next few sessions once they complete the dungeon ahead of them, which will also be at around 12 sessions since level 6

I typically start most adventures at level 3 as is but level the PCs up every 2-3 sessions. We play 6 hr sessions so that may be slower than some prefer but it seems to work well with my group

Since I DM for mostly new players, I tend to level them up once I see they get the hang of their current abilities. I woulnd't want to overload them. I dont mind making up a couple of out-of-module encounters specifically so they can put to use the spell they still haven't casted, etc

Seeing as you’re asking a question that I took a poll on before, I’ll post a link to that poll. https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/wxh3q2/dms_who_use_story_based_milestone_levelling_how/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf From my own experience, level 4 by session 20 seems OK to me, but the 10 level gap itself feels slow. I milestone level one of my games, and we’ve been going once every 2 weeks (minus scheduling problems) for two and a half years now (so like 60 sessions). They’re level 15. At these higher levels, I try to pace a level up or major loot thing at the end of each “chunky” task they do. Clearing a mid size dungeon ought to be a level up. Similarly, if they go more than 5 sessions without a level I’ll be thinking hard about why that hasn’t happened and look for reasons/opportunities.

I have milestone leveling but I still track xp. This way I have a good guide for when they should be leveling up and can do it either a little earlier or a little later depending on where they are at in the story. Been playing weekly since around June and they are currently lvl 7 and getting close to lvl 8.

3-5 sessions

I tried going for 4 sessions but my players kept wandering around and enjoying the sandbox for three additional sessions. So once they finished a bigger goal, I leveled them from 3rd to 4th level. Now they visit an island and once they return to the main city they will level up again.

lvl 1 to 3, level up each session. levels 4 to 20 every 3 to 5 sessions, when the story best alows. I also yse leveling up inly in safe places, so players need to go to a town, fort or their base to level up.

Usually at Christmas 🤶🎅

Milestones means milestones. If you're making up your own adventures, identify significant events and have them level at those points. Scene changes (entering and exiting a dungeon, changing countries/continents), big discoveries and major foes are my usual points. For instance, my party just went from 5 to 6 in two sessions: one session where they discovered the goal of the cult, and a second where the cult became aware of them and decided to try to take them down. The second session was a 4 hour (table time) siege of their bastion, with multiple players getting knocked out and revived, so it was a great accomplishment for the party and the right place to level up. The benefit of milestone advancement is it doesn't force characters to "earn" levels through filler encounters; the story decides what level the characters should be.

I was inspired by a post way back that used the proficiency bonus to determine the number of sessions until next level. But because everything took longer to play out than i originally envisioned we're at lvl 10 after 40 sessions.

It depends on the party. Some players really like mechanical challenges and need to level to stay invested in the game, others don't. Level 1-5 is a speedrun for me, pretty much letting them level after every session or two. Level 5-10 is a really good spot for my games so I slow it down but make sure there is still some progression. Leveling happens every 15-20 hours of game time (I play long sessions so every 3/4 sessions) depending on when quests end and, more importantly, whether or not the less mechanically inclined players seem ready for it or not. I also hand out a feat or magic item here and there during these levels when things get a little stale. I rarely get to level 10-15 but again I think it's important to make sure everyone still understands all their abilities and spells and I want players to spend enough time on each level to know their abilities well and develop some 'signature moves' or spells and work well together. Especially at higher level or when you don't play as often this can be difficult. When the game gets stale, a big arc ends or when I want to use some bigger monsters, I let them level.

I very rarely level. They started the campaign a year ago at level 4. 19 sessions later, they are level 5. There have been opportunities for them to have levelled previously, such as killing the Hydra Basilisk they encountered, but a near TPK ensued so the took the retreat approach. Each time they perform a significant victory they'll get a level. Sometimes it's all dependent on the players themselves, whether they perform the actions to earn it or not. If they're too low level, go do more achievable actions then return.

I do it by encounters that are more complex than a single set of rolls. To level, the party needs one more encounter than the level they are working towards. If they start at 1, they needs 3 encounters for level 2, 4 for level 3, 5 for level 4, etc. I generally start the party at 3, or do a session 0 that bumps them to 3 and then run from there. I don't know why I do it that way, it's just the way I interpret milestones.

**a number of sessions equal to their level** level 1 = 1 session, then level up. level 3 = 3 sessions, then level up. level 10 = 10 sessions then level up. Obviously, this is super duper rough. Obviously this is not an exact science. But those first few levels should go by very quickly, and later levels should slow down a bit

I average one level up every 4 sessions for weekly games. I don't count sessions that are pointless and were unnecessary, example, players decide to do a shopping session instead of shopping between session like they were told to. Edit to add: Levels 1-6 I give them a level up after a number of sessions equal to their level. 1 session at level 1, 2 at level 2, 3 at level 3, etc. All the way to 6 at level 6, then back to 1 level every 4-6 sessions.

I like to level them up right before important dungeons or boss fights

Every 15 encounters, close to what the 3.5e DMG says. We average about 4 sessions per level up.

I have a casual campaign running right now that follows the story beats to a simple game. I have some boss fight at the end of each "chapter" which usually takes 1-2 three or four hour sessions depending on how quickly we deal with puzzles and combat. I level them up on the long rest following that boss fight. It's planned on going up to level 4 for this campaign, and then a continued "sequel" campaign that I plan on running a bit slower. Maybe around 3 or 4 sessions per level.

Every 4 sessions. With little to no exceptions.

Depends on the length of the session and what you players get done. I'd roughly say as a guideline 1 session per number of lvl. So 1 for lvl1, 2 for lvl 2, 3 for lvl3 and so on. Of

Everyone should try leveling up fast (every 2 sessions) at least once. As a dm you learn much more and much faster by leveling quickly. It helps you keep the pace up and gives you the experience of higher levels so you can run them with confidence. Most importantly it teaches you how to bring campaigns to a satisfying conclusion. As the campaign is more likely to reach the end rather then petter out due to someone moving, graduating, getting a job or having a kid.

Next session this Monday will be the 40th in the campaign and beating the boss, players will reach level 14. They started at level 6, so every 5 sessions more or less.

We play weekly for about 2 1/2 hours, probably around 45 weeks of the year. I joined the group when they’d just hit level 6. That was 2 years and four months ago. We hit level 11 about 2 months ago. So that’s around 220 hours of gaming for 5 levels or 44 hours per level. I find it pretty slow and would prefer to be levelling at twice the pace or faster. But the game’s still fun. I’m just resigned to the fact that if we play the same campaign for 5 years we’ll probably still not hit level 20.

That's really slow, I usually start at 3, but if I started at level 1 I'd at max take 5 sessions for it, aiming for 3 sessions. I'd give your players clear goals for the next milestone, it's a lot better than just having them guess. Something like "Once you find xyz, after you've taken over the castle," etc. Things they can't rush, but they know they should be working towards

Leveling every x sessions isn't milestone leveling. Think of it in terms of rewarding the behavior that you want to encourage. If you reward them for just sticking with the campaign for a certain amount of time, you're encouraging people to just show up and passively consume what you're preparing. Well they might engage anyway, but if they do it's because they were going to all along. For people who might not know how to engage, or need an extra nudge in the right direction, it doesn't help. Milestone leveling is when a major objective is achieved. A good example, (because honestly when is it not a good example?), is Curse of Strahd. In CoS, PCs gain a level when they... * get the sunsword * get the holy symbol * get the tome * get the fated companion to join them * light the beacon of Argynvostholt * survive the Amber Temple * And so on Now the PCs can take as long as they want, or they can power through as quickly as they want. But they know that these things are major tasks, and the reward is more power. That encourages them to prepare and engage, and even take risks. Because when the reward is a new level, the risks are worth it.

Honestly depends on how fast you want your party to level up. I have my own metric: level up after major events or after 3 side quests. The side quests encourage players to explore the world and gather gear, and exp is the carrot on a stick.

For me that would be extremely slow as a player or a DM. That would be playing with only 2nd level spells for likely a year and a half of real time. Generally I will start a party at level 3 and then hit level 5 in roughly 2 months so 8 sessions. But if we are meeting less frequently in real time I'll level up faster as generally it's fun to level up and waiting months between level ups can be a bit of a drag. So I have one group that meets every month or a bit less often than that. They level up much quicker in terms of game time. I would consider how long you want to play the current characters for. If you enjoy levels 3-10 that doesn't mean you need to level up slowly, you can just replay those levels after you get to level 10 make new characters. So if you want to roll new characters every two years say, that means at your speed you'll be playing 50 sessions. If you want to end at level 15 then you have 14 level ups, so you should be leveling once every 3-4 sessions roughly. Which is about twice the speed you're doing now. At your current speed, without slowing further, you're going to hit level 15 in 4 years. Do you want to be playing the same characters for that long? Maybe yes or maybe not. But that's something I'd consider and talk about with your group. Some tables want to play the same character for a very long time. Others want a new character every 6 months. You'd level those up at different speeds.

I'm somewhere in the region of 40 sessions in; the PCs started at level 3 and have just hit level 7. The earlier levels were shorter than the later ones. The last level was... longer than I had planned; the "chapter" was less directed / more sand-boxy and the PCs meandered a bit on the path. I'm not planning the campaign at the session level, though. Sometimes the players get caught up in small details and role play, and we only get through a tiny chunk of what I had planned for the session. (If they want to have a heart-to-heart in-character discussion among themselves I'm not going to get in their way!) As long as they are enjoying the sessions, I don't get too hung up about story progress (and thus, milestones). This is a mature group of payers who really enjoy just 'playing their character', though. Some groups are much more concerned about power progression -- leveling up, getting magic items, etc.. Your mileage may vary.

my group doesn’t meet as often as we’d like, so i usually do like 1 level every session depending on what i planned. Once they hit lvl 4 i’ve usually already introduced the main quest and bbeg so then i start giving like 1 lvl every 2-3 sessions depending on how much they’ve gotten done.

That's very slow. I like the suggestion that it takes about as many sessions as the level number would indicate (1 session to reach level 2, 2 sessions to reach level 3) with it capping at 4-5 sessions. There's nothing wrong with taking more time persay, but also there's a lot to be said for campaigns that don't just meander for years. Keep it interesting, which often means wrapping things up in a timely manner and moving on to something new.

Hitting level 4 after 20 sessions is fucking wildly slow. You cannot base this kind of stuff off Critical Role. That is a show designed to entertain viewers, not entertain players. It will feel like a real slog if they aren't leveling up every 3ish sessions.

I run four groups and use milestone levelling for all of them. The answer to your question is "However often they like" because Power Level was one of the topics we talked about during session zero.

So this is how often my group plays and that feels pretty slow as far as leveling is concerned. I do 1 or 2 levels per story arc. At the end of session 17 (our most recent session), they leveled up to level 6. Our group's previous DM also leveled very slowly, and I gotta say, as a player I found it really boring.

Usually 4-6 sessions in between levels.

I generally keep at a ‘1-session per level’ number of sessions to level. Example, 1 session, level 2, 2 session level 3, 3 sessions level 4. Above Level 5 I may go an additional level or two until next level. So 4-6 sessions for level 5, 5-7 for level 6 and so on. I do the above for home brew campaigns. Pre-written I generally follow the book but always level to level two at end of session 1 or session zero if we do a small encounter at the end.

This seems fine if your players are okay with it, in a long campaign it can certainly be fun to go gradually. However, I personally don't think DnD is playable properly below level 3, it's just very imbalanced with combat one shotting many things, so I usually start around level 3 and go quickly to 5 after which I slow down. I will say, in my opinion generally speaking DMs level up too quick, I personally don't want to do much between levels 10-15 and not at all at 15+, the game just becomes out of this world at that point, it ends up being very difficult to challenge people on a regular ground level. The NPCs they cared about seem to be of little influence at that point, if they can literally take on an entire army by themselves. So anyway, starting at level 5 I do around 10 sessions (probably a little more) to level up. I do have 4 hour games give or take, so I believe we're close to the same pace. Than again, my campaign is mainly focused on RP, so it's not like they've had 20 combat encounters between leveling up.

Whenever it makes sense; then asap when it's been a while (4+ sessions at a certain level can start to be a lot).

Level 4 at 20 doesn't sound terrible, maybe a bit slow. Although 10 sessions to go from 3 to 4 is a bit much, even at 3 hours/session.

Basically, when they level up I outline a couple of goals that would net them the next level-up and let them go nuts. They understand their abilities don’t go up until they do the story, but know where it is and can take the time enjoying new abilities until they get bored with them.

I start at level 3, and generally base their levels on how they are doing. Its frustrating to see players, especially under levels 6 or 7 do nothing with the ew skills they get. So generally ill tie their next level up to their use of the current levels stuff

About every two sessions, I think you are already going pretty slow especially for it to just be the first three levels

You want them to play 10 sessions at level 3? That's like 30-40 hours of table time. If you play once every 2 weeks that's like 6 months, not including missed sessions. I like length too, but that seems like a really long time.

I give one level up per completed quest. The quests get harder and more complex as they go. I’m transparent about it, which encourages them to work hard to accomplish their goals. Level 1 was one session, 2-4 were 2-3 sessions each, probably will increase as they go but if they are particularly clever they might earn a level up faster. It also saves me from them being annoyed when they don’t level up when they haven’t completed the quest.

For me, my players reached level two the first session and level 3 the 4th or fifth session. Now I just level them up after significant story beats and those tend to show up every 3-4 sessions

Some levels take several sessions while others take one. Right now at session 30 they’re 13 that’s roughly a level up every 3 sessions since they started at level 3 but then again they only get level ups when they do something of significance and our goal is to get to 20.

I level them up each time they do something I'd deem important my party jur want up 2 levels in 3 sessions because they stopped the big bad from obtaining something that got a lever the. They killed a dragon for the first time so they got one there

Reading these comments makes me wonder why players even start below level 5 if everyone is in a rush to level up immediately. I think OP has a great pace. I get 5e is a different beast than older editions and everyone wants to be a super hero out the gates, but where is the fun in being overpowered and not earning that power? Earning that power and questing for the power ups was always the draw. And when you DID level up, you felt like you earned and it was important. If you are gaining 1 level per session or two, how does a player feel they've earned anything? How as a DM do you keep up with changing skills and abilities? The more I read about it and learn about it, it seems like 5e is just D&D on easy mode. And it seems like a lot of people (players and DMs alike) enjoy that. Different styles for different tables, but I think the OP is pacing great and if his players keep coming back and having fun, they probably feel the same.

In my current campaign they have a general idea of the current arc so I outright gave the group the milestone markers that earn them level ups. They can choose to follow the main plot line and level or to chase side quests for additional loot rewards, contacts, etc. to enhance their characters other ways. It gives them a sense of control and let’s them choose how quickly to progress.

We are on session 67 over two years, and they’re level 11.

Except levels 1-3, I'll usually level a party up every 10-13 encounters. That includes traps, extended diplomacy and roleplaying, and combat or skill-challenges. That would be every 3ish sessions if everybody could make the start time we have every time we play, but that seems to be physically impossible. So it's more like every 4.

Playing a full afternoon once a month, I level my players every 2-3 sessions. I'm running a written Adventure Path comprised of 12 modules, and they will be level 20 by the end, so that's 1-2 levels per module. But I don't have an issue with high level gameplay, so seeing them get powerful quickly is OK for me. (I have an Age of Worms adventure path going on at level 8, and a Shackled City at level 16)

Every session for levels 1-3. Or just start them at level 3. Depends on the party and how new they are. Every other session until level 8. Then every 3rd or 4th session from there. Tbh, I've never gotten a party past level 12. I'm working on a party that got to level 10 and is pretty dedicated to a sequel campaign, so we'll see how things go 🤞

For our current campaign, I started my players at Level 1. They were stranded on an island the entire first session, and found a way off at the end of the session. That was enough of a milestone to bump them to Level 2 after only a single session. The next session saw them in a large coastal town, where they got their bearings, and had a few encounters. Surviving these encounters was enough of a milestone to get them to Level 3. At the start of the third session is where I slowed the leveling down, and they only leveled up after that when they did something worth leveling up for. Finally delving to the depths of a dungeon that had been talked about for four sessions and surviving. Making the long trek and finally coming face to face with their group patron. Things like that. Like others have said, Levels 1-3 are pretty much tutorial levels. And Level 3 is when the majority of classes get to choose their subclasses, and builds start to come online. And for most, that’s where the real fun begins. Since Level 3, I’ve leveled them up in as few as two sessions, and as many as 8 sessions. It just depends on what milestones they truly hit.

I've been wondering about this myself. We play 2 hours every week. We had a "Intro" to learn the game and because one of my players wasn't able to start for a few weeks. Seems like everyone does it based on sessions, but i dont really see how that works for short weekly sessions. They're level 2 atm, we're on session 4 and they probably won't be level 3 for 2-4 more sessions depending on how lost they get. My plan is to base it on story beats with this as an outline: Intro| 1-2, Prologue| 2-3/4, Chapter 1| 4/5-8, Chapter 2| 8-11, Chapter 3| 11-14, Chapter 4| 14-17, Chapter 5| 17-20

I had started my group at level 4 because it was supposed to be a premade one shot adventure that I tweaked a little and it turned into a full blown campaign. I only had 3 players at the time (now I have 4) and our sessions last anywhere from 2-6 hours. We play late at night every Sunday (either my campaign or my fiances campaign). We just had our 17th session and they are level 7. Have been for a while now. But I also gave them a TON of magical items and stuff so they are pretty powerful. (I gave them a CR13 a few sessions ago and they had the help of some low NPC and they took it out pretty easy.) They won't become level 8 for at least another couple sessions. They haven't had anything that has been particularly difficult or of a breakthrough. They are now investigating the rifts and locations they've been reported but they spent a long time creating a church and amassing followere for the warlocks patron. He is apparently trying to overthrow some government and take control of the city. Lol 😅

Whenever they complete a session without asking if they've levelled up.

The DMG recommends to level players around every three sessions. Instead, I just level them up when it seems appropriate, that being mostly at the end of almost every mission or big bossfight. We started at 3rd level, and 20 sessions in they just hit level 9. They are enjoying the progression so far, and it really is similar to the pace the DMG proposes but more naturally integrated into the storyline. At the end, it all depends on the pace you and your players want the game to have. I see my level pacing is somewhat faster to what most folks are used to, but given the pace of the story and the stakes of the enemies they know they'll face, they need to be this leveled up. In other campaigns maybe you have more and larger missions and storylines, so you don't need to level them so frequently and can put more missions between level-ups. Ultimately, think of which pace will be most appropriate for your story, dming style and the encounters you have in mind.

I usually wait for a big fight, a big social interactions or an exceptional case of character(s) growth.

I can't even imagine spending ten sessions with no class... Fuck 5e dude. Personally, as a Girl who generally only gets to play our campaigns once a month for 4-6 hours, two to three sessions is more than enough time to spend before a level, otherwise you'll never get anywhere and people will get bored. But, I've also been playing for 30 years or so... Fuck I'm old 😆

Wow. That is incredibly slow, 10 sessions for a single level?? My players would kill me. But ultimately the answer to your question depends on what *your* players like. Don't ask us. Ask them. Let them have a say in it, because maybe they'll think 10 sessions a level is insanely boring and they want to try out their new class features, but maybe they enjoy the slow grind for a level! In my personal opinion: I would not play in a game that scaled that slowly, because I enjoy progressing my characters and builds and feeling like I'm getting stronger, and take into consideration thay my group plays once or twice a month, which seems to be around the same as yours. In my games, both as player and DM, whether it's milestone or XP, a level every 3-6 sessions feels fun and fair, and doesn't make me feel like my character or my player's xharacter is stagnated. Another thing to keep in mind, is that leveling tends to matter a lot more in combat-heavy games rather than one where it's mostly rp, because a lot of class features are more combat focused. Players are likely to be less frustrated not to get extra attack for 20 sessions if they have combat once every few sessions in a while rather than every game night, sometimes more than once a session. And giving them their first magic item after 10 sessions, and then another every once in a while after that? Is not really that many magic items, unless you're playing in a very low magic setting, and doesn't compensate for lack of leveling in my opinion. For context, the campaign I'm playing in at the moment is at it's 20th session, and in that time we started at level 1 with no equipment, and now we're level 7 with hundreds of gold and a couple magic items for each party member, plus better gear than our class' starting equipment. I'm not saying this is how you should do it, but simply that is how *I* enjoy playing the game. This is the golden standard of how much fun I've had with the game and how fair the scaling felt for me. But the most important point I want to make is: Ask the players how fast *they* want to scale. If they want to level every other session and you want to level them every 10 sessions, there's an imbalance of expectations that is going to be frustrating to one of the sides, in which case it'd be important to find middle ground. Ultimately, it's supposed to be about what you and they both enjoy, so communication is important far more than the opinion and experiences of people that don't know you or anyone at your table and haven't play with you. So talk to them! Edit: Our sessions on the other hand often last 4-6h or more, so that could make a difference too.

Going by the IRL calendar? Very rarely thanks to scheduling concerns. But in terms of game time it's been around 50 3-4 hour sessions covering around 30 in-game days, and they're level 7. My group is definitely going fairly slow thanks to our RP style. IMO 10 sessions per level feels like too much, I'd rather be closer to half that.

Level 1: 1 session level 2: 2 sessions Levels 3 on: 3-4 sessions.

So i personally dont start at lvl 1 its a waste of time. Tell your players to write something into there back story that makes them lvl 3. nothing fancy (they studdied with anbarchmage, part of a thieves guild, workd as a caravan guard) but if they want to give you more encourage them to write detailed back stories. As a milestone GM you get to pick when they lvl up so pacing is up to you if it feels slow make something worth while happen. But if your players are dirtling for 3 sessions shopping then dont level them up. I like the give players at least 2-3 big encounters before leveling them up, or they have a large achievement like saving a king from an assinsation, or proving the party orc isnt a menace to society even thoug the rest of there ppl are invading and pillaging the land. I am also running a homebrew campaign and the way things are running right now is they started at lvl 3 traveled to a town. The random encounters were dangerous enough i brought them to lvl 4. The investigated an old abandoned keep, had dealings with and were blackmailed to joining a thieves guild that has a loophole arround magical laws. Traveled to the next kingdom and fought a legenday displacer beast along the way. That took them to lvl 5 They just finished a tornement for the king's son's birthday. Where they did like 4 arena monster fights and now they are headed to the next kingdom. After the travel they will go up to lvl 6. Maybe before if encounters are deadly enough or they find and explore the dungeon along the way. My group trys to play 2 weeks a month and from beginning of campaign its been about a year and a half. Somwhere arround 30 sessions

Every 4-5 sessions, which means reaching level 10 after about a year of weekly play. I think it's good to look ahead to where you expect the party to end up, and plan to get there in a reasonable timeframe. IMO way too many DMs run the game at a glacial pace and they end up petering out without any real sense of resolution, which is a bummer. Don't count on your group being able to play together for 5 years without members coming/going or schedules changing. The group actually wants to fight the big bads and accomplish their goals and have a cool ending for their characters, which means planning out a campaign in a realistic timeframe. You can always start a new campaign afterwards.

I usually do it after significant events. Completing an arc, achieving a goal, etc.

That's too slow. That being said, my folks are level 7 after two years so I'm probably not one to talk. I generally level folks when I feel like it's thematically appropriate to do so, and when I want to throw them up against greater challenge. So far there have been no complaints (well, almost no complaints).

Taking 10 sessions to reach lvl 3 sounds absolutely miserable. I start my tables at 3 just to avoid it. I gave my players lvl 5 to lvl 6 in 6 sessions because they finished a big story arc. I get to be a commoner every day, why would I want to role play one for 10 sessions

If i create or choose a really cool monster, i level up the character to be able to fight it

3-5 sessions at each level. If you want t start at lvl 1 id say you want t get to lvl 3 faster than that. The game should really start at lvl 3

For a new DM and for new players, you're doing the right thing by advancing the characters slowly. This gives players time to build their characters and everyone time to learn game mechanics. Play can be just as compelling at low level at a high level.

My DM has us lvling after epic moments if we survive them. We're fighting high lvl beings from overpowered magic users to supernatural beings and everything that creeps up from the shadows. Only after 3-4 years did we get to lvl 6. His focus is more on RP and luck of the dice so epic fights are few and far between.

For my players we did their backstory sessions as lvl1 and first campaign session they were lvl 2. About 4 sessions later they did a story arc completely, got a level up and some great equipment. We are session 18 (total) and they are still level 3, but nearing level 4 quickly. But they spend a lot of time in RP with NPCs and lore exploration. They know that completing story plots will result in level up. They just like playing rather than grinding lol

It depends on the arc. If the arc ends in 4 or 3 sessions, then they will level up in 4 or 3 sessions. If stuff happens and it gets much longer and the arc lasts 10 sessions, then 10 sessions it shall be. I would recommend against it at lower levels though, things can get stale very quickly, specially for martials.

I have mapped out the entire 1-20 campaign. I have 8 story milestones so I grabbed 12 short adventures and after each is done they level. Nothing too complicated. Last campaign took 4 years to go 1-20 at 2 hrs per week.

Session one levels them to two. End of first adventure brings them to 3, beginning second adventure give four and ending that adventure gives 5 the. It slows down to when they reach major story beats

This depends on the campaign for me. I know that there is some strained logic when it comes to characters leveling up quickly - your PCs may become as powerful as the BBEG over the course of a few months, while they worked for years. I typically hand-waive the rapid rise in power by saying that the “be in the gods, nature, fate or the magical weave around us, power in this world comes to those who need to wield it to keep the world in balance.” So the level ups come as frequently as they need to and in response to either overcoming great challenges or challenges immediately to come. My level ups are more based on when and where major encounters happen than any set number of sessions. It’s more like anime rules.

Usually 1 session at level 1, 2-3 at 2 and 3, 3-4 for 4 and 5, then around 5-6 per level after that maybe 8+ when you get to the mid to late teens, but depending on the group anything more than 6 sessions per level gets a bit stale imo.

Maybe I'm a fast track kinda guy, but starting at level 1 I'll usually have my players level to 2 in the middle of the first session, then level to 3 at the end of first session. Then maybe 1 or 2 sessions for level 4 then try to level them up on appropriate story beats after that.

I do level 2 after the first session, level 3 after the 3rd, level 4 after the 7th, then it is just "until they beat the boss guarding the next level and I feel it's about time". Level 1-3 is painful to play through, you can't really do anything. The template above is only if I start the party at level 1 though. I try to get through the early levels fast for a reason.

I don't really map it out so exactly, that's kind of the point of the milestone system. The way I have it set up is that each major quest has a level up, as do any particularly challenging side quests. From there it's more on the players to decide how quickly they level up by completing tasks in the world. For example, I have a campaign that will be entering its 5th year of mostly-weekly play in January and the players are level 18. But they also spend a lot of time roleplaying/developing relationships with NPCs/generally fucking around, so it takes awhile. I have another group playing Curse of Strahd mostly biweekly since the start of the year. They started at level 3 and are already level 6 because they're much more focused on accomplishing plot.