How long does it take to level up in 3e?

[Psychic Robot]

Shadow balls, please continue your crusade in this thread while the rest of us discuss Pathfinder.

[Ikeren]

2-3 minutes, if planned out in advance and you know what's going on.

Longer if you're trying to make optimal build choices mid-game.

[fbmf]

Even with a build in place, it usually takes me about 30 minutes if you count updating class features, buying/replacing magic and mundane items, and so forth.

Game On,
fbmf

[shadzar]

getting enough experience through play, or just to do the work with the character sheet?

[Josh_Kablack]

Here's a handy link to a character I am actually playing in an IRC game, with all the changes at levelup clearly indicated by different color text.

Most of them are simple +1s, but there are over thirty changes. Sure it's a wacky Tomebrew 3e game, and sure some of those changes are due to the acquisition of 2 items.

But even a prior levelup Had a similar number of updates to be performed on the character sheet.

So unless Pathfinder has fewer scaling abilities and choices at levelup than the Tomebrew rules Koumei is using, players are likely looking at updating a couple dozen entries on their character sheet for each level. Now with a stopwatch, it just took me 18 seconds to pull up the chart of base save bonuses for a hypothetical character of a random level. It'll likely take me at least 14 more seconds to add in the four other modifiers to each save (stat, race, item, misc) and doublecheck that I didn't make an error in a prior level and to actually type or write the new number down - making it a minute to update all three saves.

So if Pathfinder isn't massively simpler at levelup than my game either I'm a slowpoke or it's gonna take a 20 seconds per simple numeric update on a character sheet in the case of someone with ready reference, no distractions, and who knows they are on a stopwatch.

If Pathfinder is massively simpler at levelup, please provide linkage to what changes on your character sheets at levelup to show that such is the case.

And if you're calling me slow at D&D math, I'm gonna take it as a personal affront and put your ass on ignore.

If however, my data stands unchallenged, that means speed-leveling in private with ready reference takes 20 seconds per update and involves 30 or more such updates, for a minimum levelup time of 10 minute.


Yet if we consider the more common experience where a player is leveling up in the midst of a game group, with books being passed around, dice thrown, Monty Python skits being dead parroted and Pokemon trivia being corrected, then that player is likely going to be splitting time between actually doing the math and social activities and waiting for relevant rulebooks to become free. As an estimate not backed by my current data, they are probably splitting their time with no more than half actually spent actually doing the homework of leveling - and in that case, they are averaging no faster than 40 seconds per update on the character sheet. With 30+ updates needed to levelup, that's a minimum of 20 minutes - and that figure is still assuming that all the updates are table lookups and incremental scaling numbers. If they run into something where they want to consider a choice - such as which class to level up as, how to allocate skill points, which feat to take, or what new spells to gain, it's entirely reasonable for them to spend a minute or two contemplating it on their own, then spend a minute or two discussing it with other player(s) and then spend another minute or two asking the MC for clarification about one or more of the abilities that they are considering for their character.

That can bring a levelup time at the game table to about 30 minutes, and that's a reasonable estimate - without anyone being particularly pokey, overanalytical, argumentative, or new to the ruleset.

Except in very nearly every game I have ever played, there are always players who for at least two of those four categories. In my personal experience there's always pokey player, and/or an overanalytical player, and/or an argumentative player and/or someone new to the ruleset being used. Sometimes it's one player who's being pokey because he just worked a double shift and can't think straight, sometimes it's the overanalytical nerd being argumentative because wants to use his analytical skills to master something in the game world to make up for real world subserviance, other times it's a whole group just trying out new rules for the first time. Whichever, it means that in actual play experience, there are always unreasonable delays for someone leveling up.

[NineInchNall]

Are you grouping certain updates together? For example, although "+1 to all Dex skills" involves updating a large number of skills, it only involves looking at the rules once (to note that it's a +1 to all Dex skills) and then updating a bunch of shite on your sheet.


Anyway, in my experience, I can level up in under two minutes. It's not likely that I will, however. The under-two-minute leveling process is very, shall we say, generic. When playing a wizard, for instance, I'd pick a couple of generally useful spells and (maybe) a generally useful feat. That is, of course, not having to take into account odd skill point allocations that might be necessary in order to qualify for the four or five PrCs I could plan on taking or somesuch. It's not looking for more obscure spells or feats that might suit the campaign's or adventure's current direction better than the usual suspects.

So generally leveling takes a little longer than two minutes. Let's say somewhere around 10-30 as I dumpster dive through some thirty supplements that have wizard spells and deliberate over the relative benefits of the spells I find.

But then, as Josh mentioned, that's doing the leveling in private. With other people there, I'd be interrupted with people asking for advice, or a Fight Night challenge, or maybe the need to refill my absinthe, or having to weigh in on who would win in a fight between the Hulk and Febreze.

I mean srsly, in the optimal case where I'm not making any choices that would serve to distinguish my character from the hordes of other wizzies, yeah, it'd take me about two minutes to level up. That optimal case ain't funna happen, though.

[virgil]

In practice, I can make a complete character from scratch up to level 6 in about 10 minutes when I concentrate and ignore distractions (never tried for higher level ones). None of them will be Shadow Balls level of "competence", though they will be much more powerful by 'casual' gamer standards. While I can make characters up to that elitist standard, it requires a substantial time investment between games to study the available material and essentially have the character built ahead of time by virtue of familiarity, which makes updating the character seem fast. I've found that kind obsessive-compulsive system mastery to not play well with others who aren't doing the same (especially the DM).

Otherwise, I'm closer to Nine's experience on character creation. Actual practice makes it take like half an hour or more unless it's a factory-standard build.

[RobbyPants]

getting enough experience through play, or just to do the work with the character sheet?

Making the choices and updating the character sheet (at least, that's the context from the Pathfinder thread).

[Shadow Balls]

Though this was in the PF thread it was really about any 3.x based thing. PF might spam you with more pointless things to track, but it's not that much slower, especially since you already know what you're going to take.

One useful thing has came of this thread though. It's shown that a lot of people are too busy fucking around to be playing D&D, and that's why it takes them forever and a day to perform basic tasks. In hindsight, I wonder if this is the reason why PF determined that PA math was too hard because people were taking too long to decide how they attack for HP damage but that's another topic.

Making an entirely new character is not something you're going to be able to do in a few minutes, but progressing an existing one? That's quick and easy stuff, even for the complex characters.

As long as the thread is somewhat non trollish, here's a question for you: How many of you are DMs? People that DM are going to naturally be faster at making many different characters for obvious reasons. Not to the point if it taking hours otherwise, as that's just people being stupid but enough to be noticed for sure. Of course it goes without saying that DMing only counts if you are actually playing D&D, as opposed to just making up whatever random bullshit numbers came to mind.

[RobbyPants]

I DM. Largely speaking, I'm faster than pretty much anyone I've gamed with in the past, but I still take almost five minutes at a minimum by the time I've incremented all the things on my sheet. Skill ranks are the single biggest sink in terms of erasing and writing. At a minimum, that's a rank and a modifier. Also, if the ability score changed, that needs to be erased, but that happens less often. Probably over half of the erase-rewrites are due to skill points.

That's assuming I have everything planned out. I don't always with a PC. I often have a pretty good idea which limits most sifting, but sometimes I take campaign-specific events into mind when making these decisions, which might make me weigh out other options I'd normally ignore.

Other than that, you're right in that the bulk of my work goes in at character creation. If I'm not in a rush to make a PC during a chargen session or something, I'll spend several hours spread throughout several days just to develop the idea and tweak it how I want. A lot of that is coming from me making a personal challenge of trying something completely different with each new PC.

As for my old players, chargen was always a nightmare (even with my suggestions), and leveling probably would take 20 to 30 minutes.

[Shadow Balls]

But you do admit that when it comes down to it most of the process is incrementing numbers by 1, and occasionally by a higher number?

[Seerow]

But you do admit that when it comes down to it most of the process is incrementing numbers by 1, and occasionally by a higher number?

Yeah, if you ignore the entire decision making process by assuming everyone has a level 1 to 20 build preplanned out, including levels feats skills and spells.

I don't think anyone has argued that it takes more than a few minutes to update the stuff via writing it on the sheet, the majority of the time is spent looking up and comparing various options, because even the biggest nerds among us don't have every feat and spell in every book memorized.

[fbmf]

I've been DMing for the better part of two decades for more or less the same group.

I still need about 30 minutes to level a character and about an hour or so to make a new one. I use EXCEL, and have a template I pull the formulas from. Most of the 30 minutes leveling up comes from feat and spell selection and noting/adjusting for new class features.

FWIW, I play a Time/Houserule Hybrid. I've not played D&D per se since about 2007. When I did play True D&D(TM), leveling up took about the same amount of time and chargen took significantly longer.

Game On,
fbmf

[fbmf]

But you do admit that when it comes down to it most of the process is incrementing numbers by 1, and occasionally by a higher number?

Yes. I plug it into the spreadsheet and let it distribute the bonus around for me.

What is time consuming is deciding what feat/spell/magic item is going to who in order to figure out where the bonuses go.

Game On,
fbmf

[Shadow Balls]

But you do admit that when it comes down to it most of the process is incrementing numbers by 1, and occasionally by a higher number?

Yeah, if you ignore the entire decision making process by assuming everyone has a level 1 to 20 build preplanned out, including levels feats skills and spells.

Nope.

BAB: Increments by 1, if it changes at all.
Saves: Usually increment by 1, only changing by 2 if taking a new class if they change at all.
HP: Increases by a number that is almost certainly greater than 1.
Skills: 99.9% of the time, you +1 the skills you're already raising and call it a day, and 99.9% of what's left you +1 the skills you're raising anyways except 2, and then take one of the few skill tricks worth using.
Feats: If it comes up, it's not a simple number, but is still usually a simple decision.
Spells: Already addressed this.

[Seerow]

But you do admit that when it comes down to it most of the process is incrementing numbers by 1, and occasionally by a higher number?

Yeah, if you ignore the entire decision making process by assuming everyone has a level 1 to 20 build preplanned out, including levels feats skills and spells.

Nope.

BAB: Increments by 1, if it changes at all.
Saves: Usually increment by 1, only changing by 2 if taking a new class if they change at all.
HP: Increases by a number that is almost certainly greater than 1.

All simple +effects, which have already been given.

Skills: 99.9% of the time, you +1 the skills you're already raising and call it a day, and 99.9% of what's left you +1 the skills you're raising anyways except 2, and then take one of the few skill tricks worth using.
Feats: If it comes up, it's not a simple number, but is still usually a simple decision.
Spells: Already addressed this.

Skills: Not always. Especially if you're aiming for a prestige class, you have to check if you need to be raising some specific skill to get in. And in classes with fewer skill points, I find myself frequently wanting to spread the skill points around, because being ridiculously good at a couple of things tends to not be very worthwhile, while having middling ranks in several skills can be occasionally useful.

Feats: Except it's not always a simple decision. Once again you're handwaving the decision making process, in an attempt to say that people don't take time on these decisions. Can you honestly say with a straight face you've never seen anyone spend half an hour or more going through several different books looking for a feat that looked good to them, or debating the pros and cons between two different feats? Because that's shit that actually happens when you play with real people who don't preplan their entire build months in advance.

Spells: See feats. Except worse because there's about 10x more spell options, and there's fewer trap options you can easily dismiss. Not too big a deal to the Wizard cause he figures he can learn another spell later if he wants it too, but if it's a Sorc, that's a very hard choice to make, and one that will define the character for time to come.


And you completely ignored another big choice: Class. Picking the class you level up in will affect the BAB, saves, and skill points gained (and make skills particularly annoying as some are no longer class skills this level while other new ones are. Trying to build a multiclassed character and assigning his skill points is a pretty big pita, though admittedly PF makes this less annoying), so until you make that decision you can't increment any of the easy things. You also can't write down your class features or new spells or anything else.

This is another example of something that is really fast and easy for someone preplanning their build, but someone who makes their decisions at levelup will take some time with. While the easy answer is "I take another level of ____" the option of multi-classing is there, and having that option will drag out the process as players determine if it's more efficient to stay barbarian, or go pick up a level or two of Fighter, or Warblade, or if they want to go dip into Sorcerer and look into something else like rage mage or abjurant champion down the line.




Updating a character sheet is quick and easy when the decisions are already made. Actually making the decisions is a process that will vary wildly between individuals, and will frequently take far more time than what you claim. You come off as the sort of person who spends hours prebuilding characters at home, so when it comes to game time he already knows what his next level is. Your situation is the exception, not the norm.

[RobbyPants]

But you do admit that when it comes down to it most of the process is incrementing numbers by 1, and occasionally by a higher number?

Assuming I already have the build completely planned and I'm not re-evaluating anything based on campaign-dependent events, then yes.

[TheFlatline]

It takes me about 15 minutes, because I'll verify that all the math is correct for stuff like BAB and AC and saves, which have issues occasionally because the same bonus types don't stack.

Generally speaking I've got the next few levels planned out ahead of time. Figuring out "where do I want to go this level" is a great way to go down a false option path.

[Josh_Kablack]

BAB: Increments by 1, if it changes at all.

Check.

Saves: Usually increment by 1, only changing by 2 if taking a new class if they change at all.

Incorrect. At any level divisible by 3 or 4, feats or ability increases selection can cause them to increase by more than one.

See also: 3.5 Paladin Divine Grace, Blackguard Dark Blessing, Tome Scaling items, and similar abilities.

HP: Increases by a number that is almost certainly greater than 1.

Check

Skills: 99.9% of the time, you +1 the skills you're already raising and call it a day,

IMX, it's more like 75% of the time, due to PRC requirements, multiclassing and avoiding paying cross-class skill prices, buying one rank in a trained-only skill or having a shift in adventure objectives (like wanting to learn to speak to the Lizardmen in their own tongue without needing the wizard to translate for you). But YMMV.

Feats: If it comes up, it's not a simple number, but is still usually a simple decision.

Totally baffled how you think this is a simple decision in the common case.

Sometimes there are obvious choices and preplanned builds, but other times players are going to need to reread the higher level feats that just became available or even dumpster dive through a half-dozen splatbooks to find the best feat. In my own experience, these cases each happen with approximately equal frequency.

[TheFlatline]

Sometimes there are obvious choices and preplanned builds, but other times players are going to need to reread the higher level feats that just became available or even dumpster dive through a half-dozen splatbooks to find the best feat. In my own experience, these cases each happen with approximately equal frequency.

I have to say it'd piss me off as a player to level up in 15 minutes and have the guy across the table pull out six or seven splatbooks and start thumbing through them, at table, looking for options.

That shit takes up valuable table time. Show up early, read at home, hang out afterwards. Just don't spend an hour leveling your character up please. That's probably 20-30 minutes everyone else is twiddling their thumbs.

Now that I'm in my 30's, I find it's nearly impossible to get half a dozen people to synch up their schedules for an evening. Which means that 4 hours or so that we are together needs to have as much gaming done as possible. Which means that anything that *can* be done outside of that window *needs* to be done outside of that window. My game sessions have a "arrive by Xpm" time frame, and I let people know I'll be around an hour ahead of time if they need to level up, refresh the rules, discuss something with me, etc etc... That way we don't start two hours into the goddamn session because someone was page-flipping and reading obscure splatbooks.

[RobbyPants]

Skills: 99.9% of the time, you +1 the skills you're already raising and call it a day, and 99.9% of what's left you +1 the skills you're raising anyways except 2, and then take one of the few skill tricks worth using.

I wouldn't say 99.99%. I usually do three things with skills:

1) Put in max ranks always, no exception. These are the important ones to keep maxed, but they're only about 50 - 75% of my skill points, depending on the class.

2) Put in 4 or 5 ranks (give or take). This is usually for things like PrC prereqs, maybe synergy bonuses, or other benefits (like not being flat-footed while balancing with 5 ranks).

3) Put in exactly 1 rank, just to make an trained check. I do this with a lot of Knowledges depending on the PC.

Other than that. Remaining skill points get pumped into skills I'd like to keep high, but that I don't prioritize as highly as in example #1 above. So, on any given level, I may have to say "okay, I hit 5 ranks on Balance. Where is this rank gonna go?"

Feats: If it comes up, it's not a simple number, but is still usually a simple decision.
Spells: Already addressed this.

This could be. I usually have a pretty good idea, at least though level 6 - 10 at chargen on feats, but I don't always lock in every feat on a build if it's not necessary. That, and for my own personal example, I'm trying completely different PCs each time, so sometimes I avoid something just because it's what I did last time and I want to mix things up a bit.

[Shadow Balls]

Incorrect. At any level divisible by 3 or 4, feats or ability increases selection can cause them to increase by more than one.

Falls under usually.

See also: 3.5 Paladin Divine Grace, Blackguard Dark Blessing, Tome Scaling items, and similar abilities.

Falls under account for class abilities.

IMX, it's more like 75% of the time, due to PRC requirements, multiclassing and avoiding paying cross-class skill prices, buying one rank in a trained-only skill or having a shift in adventure objectives (like wanting to learn to speak to the Lizardmen in their own tongue without needing the wizard to translate for you). But YMMV.

In such a case, one of the skills you are raising is one needed for a PRC, so it's just that one that gets the +1. The only time that doesn't happen is when you hit the enough point. But really, skills aren't worth sperging about. You could even ignore them entirely and likely never notice.

As for Speak Language, that's a case of you realizing you need to speak the language of the Lizardfolk, but by the time you can actually do so you're already past that adventure.

Totally baffled how you think this is a simple decision in the common case.

There are very few things worth taking. Narrow it down to concept specific stuff and the list is even shorter. You're either continuing down the chain you decided on 6 levels ago, or taking one of the few good stand alone feats.

Skills: Not always. Especially if you're aiming for a prestige class, you have to check if you need to be raising some specific skill to get in. And in classes with fewer skill points, I find myself frequently wanting to spread the skill points around, because being ridiculously good at a couple of things tends to not be very worthwhile, while having middling ranks in several skills can be occasionally useful.

Skills are weak enough as it is without doing them poorly.

Feats: Except it's not always a simple decision. Once again you're handwaving the decision making process, in an attempt to say that people don't take time on these decisions. Can you honestly say with a straight face you've never seen anyone spend half an hour or more going through several different books looking for a feat that looked good to them, or debating the pros and cons between two different feats? Because that's shit that actually happens when you play with real people who don't preplan their entire build months in advance.

Being unsure because the number of options is > the number of things they can take yes. Deliberating for literally 30 minutes or more? Fuck no.

I rarely do more than a general outline and I can still generally make snap decisions and be done in a minute or two. Remember, just leveling, not items or making a whole new character or any of that.

Spells: See feats. Except worse because there's about 10x more spell options, and there's fewer trap options you can easily dismiss. Not too big a deal to the Wizard cause he figures he can learn another spell later if he wants it too, but if it's a Sorc, that's a very hard choice to make, and one that will define the character for time to come.

There are more spells and also more good spells. At the same time, that means there are more right choices. Sorcs, as stated before will go for general purpose stuff to make the most of their limited selection.

And you completely ignored another big choice: Class. Picking the class you level up in will affect the BAB, saves, and skill points gained (and make skills particularly annoying as some are no longer class skills this level while other new ones are. Trying to build a multiclassed character and assigning his skill points is a pretty big pita, though admittedly PF makes this less annoying), so until you make that decision you can't increment any of the easy things. You also can't write down your class features or new spells or anything else.

In that case, you are doing one of the following:
Advancing down the line in a single class.
Advancing down the line in your current PRC.
Following a planned build, because lol at random multiclassing.

In all cases, this is easy.

Updating a character sheet is quick and easy when the decisions are already made. Actually making the decisions is a process that will vary wildly between individuals, and will frequently take far more time than what you claim. You come off as the sort of person who spends hours prebuilding characters at home, so when it comes to game time he already knows what his next level is. Your situation is the exception, not the norm.

I rarely prebuild anything. I just know what decisions are important and which are not, and make the important ones quickly, and don't waste everyone's time with the rest.

[Josh_Kablack]

I have to say it'd piss me off as a player to level up in 15 minutes and have the guy across the table pull out six or seven splatbooks and start thumbing through them, at table, looking for options.

I'm with you on it being a pisser and I'm in a constant tug-of-war to get my players to fucking handle that shit by email between sessions so as not to waste precious session time for everyone else. Eric outright didn't get to rejoin the group when his work schedule changed, because I was not wasting another hour of session time to help him advance his character the three levels he'd gained since he'd dropped out to earn a living.

I'm not with Shadow Balls assertion that such maddening timesinks are rare in actual gaming. The reality of late 30s gaming is that many of these people actually have ONLY the session time, because during the week they are out working multiple jobs and then trying to wrangle their rambunctious kids into bed, so it's often a fight for them to even find the time to put 15 minutes into figuring out what they need to ask me and typing it into a coherent email in the weeks between game sessions - when it's easier on them to just try to ask me during the night they already had scheduled off from their second job and a sitter scheduled.


Another way that I am really *not* with Shadow Balls, is in the way he assess people prioritizing social interactions over performing math on the character sheet

It's shown that a lot of people are too busy fucking around to be playing D&D,

Personally, I play f2f D&D largely because it's an excuse to hang out with my friends - sure there's some direction and goals, but the Monty Python and Pokemon jokes and bitching about real life and other "distractions" are at least as important as incrementing a bunch of +1s, and dismissing the social interactions as "fucking around" is missing the point so badly that if this wasn't an offhand comment on a message board, I'd want to speculate about the possibility of autism here.

[Previn]

BAB: Increments by 1, if it changes at all.

Check.

Well, BAB increases by 1, your Total Attack Bonus can fluctuate wildly.

Skills: 99.9% of the time, you +1 the skills you're already raising and call it a day,

IMX, it's more like 75% of the time, due to PRC requirements, multiclassing and avoiding paying cross-class skill prices, buying one rank in a trained-only skill or having a shift in adventure objectives (like wanting to learn to speak to the Lizardmen in their own tongue without needing the wizard to translate for you). But YMMV.

I'd also put this more around 50%. Ranks may increase slowly most of the time, but your total skill modifier is effected by your stats, classes, feats and your other skills.

[Shadow Balls]

Another way that I am really *not* with Shadow Balls, is in the way he assess people prioritizing social interactions over performing math on the character sheet

Correction: Over playing D&D. Some of that is math on the character sheet, but from the description given it's clear everyone's attention is on something else other than the game that they are playing the entire time, and not just during that time.

Personally, I play f2f D&D largely because it's an excuse to hang out with my friends - sure there's some direction and goals, but the Monty Python and Pokemon jokes and bitching about real life and other "distractions" are at least as important as incrementing a bunch of +1s, and dismissing the social interactions as "fucking around" is missing the point so badly that if this wasn't an offhand comment on a messgae board, I'd want to speculate about the possibility of autism here.

If I wanted random chatter, that is what emails, phone calls, and any number of other things are for. It is for getting together just to make random chatter. When people gather for a specific purpose, and that purpose is to play D&D, I expect the focus to be on the game called D&D. When it's actually about something else entirely, that is called a bait and switch.

Do you also make "trips to the movies" that are more about random blabbering than watching a movie together? If so, fuck you for being a jackass and talking over the movie.

BAB: Increments by 1, if it changes at all.

Check.

Well, BAB increases by 1, your Total Attack Bonus can fluctuate wildly.

Then it increased by virtue of Str hitting an even number, or a feat, and is addressed in those sections.