XP averages

Our sessions are about 2.5 hours long, over G+ Hangouts.

Where possible, I normalized on the XP of a fighter, using the highest level character.

GAME      LVL  SESS  LENGTH       LVL PER HOUR
Playtest  14   96    ~4.5 hours   0.031
James*    1     6.5  ~2.5 hours   0.040
Tywyll    5    26    ~3.0 hours   0.063
Cameron   10   24    ~6.5 hours   0.065
Opelenean 2.5   8    ~4.5 hours   0.069
jedavis   7    15    ~5.0 hours   0.094

  • James mentioned that the party spends about 50% of their time pursuing non-XP interests, so I halved the session number. It’s also worth noting that James’ campaign is over chat, which is a fundamentally different medium.

This is hardly scientific: six self-selected data points out of a presumed campaign population of around 100+ (based on Kickstarter numbers). And there is evidence that the rate slows down as the levels ascend, but we don’t have enough data points to even guess at the exact effect, so the fact that they are all different levels makes it difficult.

… but even with all that, there is still a mean of 0.060 and median of 0.064, and a maximum variance of about ±50% (and based on descriptions of risk taken, most of that variance may be attributable to risk; it would be easier if we also had a total deaths number for the campaigns).

If you want another play-by-post to compare to, I keep a relatively detailed timeline (in-game timeline) of ours: http://www.pbpmap.com/pbpforum2/viewtopic.php?f=838&t=6410&p=80340

that includes every time anyone has gained XP, only one person (who has since quit) leveled up their bard to level 2. We started in July.

Even with my cheating, my PCs only managed average advancement? I will have to tell them they’re not taking enough risks …

http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/for-a-few-gp-more/wikis/list-of-the-slain is a list of all dead PCs and henchmen… Looks like in 15 sessions we’ve had 12 PCs and 16 henchmen killed. I am a little curious how this compares to other campaigns, though I think the faster level rate might be because my PCs wished for 20,000 platinum pieces and received accompanying XP…

We had 3 dead PCs and 1 dead Henchmen in 11 sessions. (and I still had a couple players drop out with “too deadly” as one of the reasons… -_-)

We’ve had 3 dead Hirelings, 1 dead PC (raised), and iirc about 6 permanent wounds from the Mortal Wounds table (about double the number of rolls on it too)

Surprisingly light actually. Only two dead henchmen and one dead pc. My players are both skilled and cautious…and there are usually two priests in the group.

We had one drop because of lethality… though to be fair he did die twice in the first session, so his complaint was well-justified.

Now I feel bad for killing everyone :frowning: On the other hand, for a looong time they didn’t have any divine casters, so that might have contributed. These days they have a ridiculous front-line of four plate+shield+Fighting Style (Shield) fighters backed by a pair of clerics and a wizard with Healing x3, so lethality has gone down a lot recently. The introduction of antivenom has also drastically reduced deaths from poison. Now the primary obstacle to levelling is having nine shares, rather than XP losses due to casualties.

We've had 10 losses in 15 sessions.

In Opelenean Nights, 2 out of the 6 PCs have been permanently killed. 8 out of 9 NPCs have been permanently killed or retired after being raised with a gruesome side effect.  

PCs - Raziel (permanently dead), Tor (permanently dead)

NPCS - Abiram (permanently dead), Audarius (permanently dead and currently undead), Avda (raised, retired), Bechir (raised, retired), Cleopas (permanently dead), Kamishar (raised, retired), Kemt (permanently dead), and Wazir (permanently dead)  

This does not include the multitude of non-fatal permanent wounds that the party has endured, of course.

Wow. Looks like I’m late to the party. My campaign’s stats are as follows:

Sessions: 4
Hours: 23-ish (average 6.5 hrs/session, but half or more of the 1st session was spent in character creation).
Highest level: 1st, with 441 xp before Prime Requisite bonuses. The treasure is out there. My PCs are just really good at avoiding it.
Deaths: 2 PCs, 1 Henchman. In addition, 1 henchman quit and there are a lot of grevious wounds among the rest of the party.

Rodriguez, am I understanding correctly that your PCs earned 490 XP in 11 sessions? And that’s with (300 XP / shares) bonus XP per session? Or was the 490 XP an old number?

With three PCs and ten henchmen, the bonus XP across 11 sessions comes out to 412.5 each . . .

Have they managed to kill anything?

No no, 490 XP is the average per player per session.

They have killed so far:

9 Goblins
10 Orks
6 Gnomes
4 Boars
3 Stirges
1 Mummy
1 Rhagodessa
3 Giant Scorpions
15 Skeletons
3 Ogres

5 PC deaths and 3 hench deaths. Almost all early on.

Two more sessions and one off weekend later, the roster of PCs is as follows, along with sources of domain XP:
8th level assassin (has domain of ~2500 families and extensive thieves’ guild)
7th level fighter (has domain of ~300 families)
7th level wizard (has beastman domain of ~300 families)
6th level venturer (trades for domain XP)
6th level cleric
5th level wizard (has small stable of thief henchmen who spy)
5th level Thrassian gladiator
5th level bard (writes propaganda, sells to domain rulers for +domain morale and XP)

So by Tom’s method, we’re still holding to about .094 levels per hour of the highest character, with the others gradually catching up.

We had 4 Sessions (roundabout 15 hours) so far with:

13 Character dead
11+ Henchmen dead

Nearly all of the character death where in session 2 & 4.
By session 2 they were simply not prepared and to arrogant to hire henchmen.
Session 4 they were nearly wiped by a bunch of 8 orcs. Granted the orcs killed 4 of them in the first round despite them having plate armor on everyone in the front row…

At the moment they have a mage with ~2350XP & explorer with ~1500XP.
The rest is near 0. But one of their henchmen leveled so there is that. :slight_smile: