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Leveling inDungeons & Dragonsmeans that players can look forward to unlocking powerful new abilities for their characters. Yet, there is often confusion when it comes to managing said levels. At character creation, you are met with an option for one of two systems: “milestone” and “experience”-based leveling.
Despite dictating how your character will progress throughout a campaign, they work in completely different ways. Oftentimes, Dungeon Masters will be the ones to state what kind of leveling a campaign will go through since for both systems, it is their responsibility to manage the overall party.
Leveling In Dungeons & Dragons
Within Dungeons & Dragons 5e, player characters can goup to level 20, where they will unlock the final features of their chosen classes. The road to level 20 is an arduous journey normally reserved for campaigns that have lasted for months or even years.
In special cases, Dungeon Masters may have campaigns beyond level 20, scaling as high as 25 or 30. But those are normally under somewhat homebrew rules that you may need to dedicate extra time to apply properly.
Within theDungeon Master’s Guide, there is a section dedicated to the style of play for each level bracket. It ishighly recommended to readthrough before judging how often you want to let your party level up to ensure your campaign fits the right style.
Levels 1-4
Local Heroes
“Bandits overrun a village and need the party to stop them.”
Levels 5-10
Heroes of the Realm
“A kingdom is being invaded and needs them to travel across the world to save them in time.”
Levels 11-16
Masters of the Realm
“A den of Dragons is stealing gold from the region and needs the party to defeat an Adult Red Dragon.”
Levels 17-20
Masters of the Wrld
“A rift opens to another plane of existence and the party needs to defeat an evil god.”
Milestone Leveling In Dungeons & Dragons
In the simplest form, Milestone Leveling is wherethe Dungeon Master lets the party level up after each major checkpoint/event in their campaign.
This is arguably theeasiestform of leveling in Dungeons & Dragons, but it gives the Dungeon Master freedom tofairly judge and decide when the best times are for the party to level up.They don’t have to worry about the timing of events or how many of a certain monster they need to do per encounter. They can simply let them level upwhen they feel the time is right.
That being said, the Dungeon Master willstill need to judge what level they want the party to be at by the end of their storyand place milestones/checkpoints along their timeline. Milestones are any major action or turning point in the story that a Dungeon Master would deem has enough impact on the players to allow them to level up.
Examples Of Milestones
While the rest of the campaign will still have side adventures and other context to your story,milestones prove to be a conclusion to a plotline, showing character growth to your party.
Experience Leveling In Dungeons & Dragons
Leveling based on experience in Dungeons & Dragonsrequires a lot more calculation, but you are rewarded with a more fair experiencebetween the Dungeon Master and the party.
With experience leveling, the Dungeon Masterrewards players with experience points based on actions within the game. If you choose to use experience leveling, there is a specified amount of “experience points” that are needed to advance to the next level, dictated in thePlayer’s Handbook.
1
2
300
3
900
4
2,700
5
6,500
6
14,000
7
23,000
8
34,000
9
48,000
10
64,000
11
85,000
12
100,000
13
120,000
14
140,000
15
165,000
16
195,000
17
225,000
18
265,000
19
305,000
20
355,000
Clearly, using experience-based leveling in Dungeons & Dragons requires the Dungeon Master tocarefully plot each event and action to make sure the experience is rewarded evenly. When setting up combat encounters, Dungeon Masters must follow the amount of experience per monster to reward the party and an equal amount of defeated enemies.
For example, within theMonsters Manual, Ogres are shown to have a Challenge Rating of 2 and are worth 450xp (experience points). This means that if you have a party go up against four of them, you take the total amount of experience points (1,800xp) anddivide it among the party evenly.
Experience pointsdo not need to come solely from combat encounters.In fact, Dungeon Masters can reward experience based on other actions, like giving gold to street urchins for 50xp or uncovering a trap door for 150xp.
Aside from the calculated combat encounters, Dungeon Masters can continue togrant experience points where neededto make sure their party is leveling at a consistent pace.
