When playing Dungeons and Dragons, you level up as you play. Though you probably already knew that, there are some things that aren’t entirely clear when it comes to levels in DnD.
Some folks get confused when they see other people online talking about being level 20 because it seems to take so long to get there. How long should it take to level up in DnD?
There are various ways to approach leveling up in Dungeons and Dragons. One of the more common ways to do it is to reward players with a level-up when they complete adventures or scenarios. This is called milestone leveling. Some DMs let their players level up after a certain amount of sessions or adventures, and others just refer to the Player’s Handbook’s leveling table.
This question has by no means a straightforward answer. Do people use different ways of leveling up, and do you really need to follow the outlined required XP in the Player’s Handbook? All of this and more will be discussed below, so keep reading.
How Long Should It Take to Level Up in DnD?
First of all: there are rules in DnD, and rules pertaining to leveling up are in the Player’s Handbook. However, you don’t need to follow these rules abjectly if you don’t like them (most of the rules, anyway).
Here’s a table of the required XP to level in DnD 5e for each level (from the Player’s Handbook):
| Level | XP (to reach) |
| 1 | 0 |
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 |
Personally, my preference when it comes to leveling up is that players should be given adequate time to experience their new levels, but they shouldn’t be kept there long enough to become bored or demotivated.
How you balance this yourself depends, but there are a couple of common ways of doing this. For example, the first few level-ups are typically pretty fast, to give players incentive to keep playing and progressing their characters in a meaningful way.
Some DMs like to play something like 3 or 4 encounters per session, and then let players acquire new levels every 4 or so sessions. For some, this pacing is too slow, and for others, it’s too fast.
When you level up, you’ll naturally face more dangerous monsters who yield more XP, so it’s not hard to justify this tempo even at later levels. If you don’t like that kind of “mapped out” XP yield, play more loosely. Maybe milestone leveling is more appropriate for you.
Milestone leveling is when you use milestones, or accomplishments, as a way of leveling up. For example, when your party completes an adventure, they get to level up. For some people, this way of leveling is very rewarding because you get that little extra reward after a hard-fought adventure is over.
I’d advise DMs not to let players level up too quickly. They can pretty easily become too strong for the adventures you’re playing, and that makes conflict and story less appealing in general.
Another way of approaching levels is having players level up in about one to two sessions from levels 1 to 5. Then after level 5, you take a slower approach, having players level up every fourth or so session.
Ultimately, how long it should take for players to level up in DnD is up to the individuals playing the game. If you’re having fun with the game, then don’t worry if you’re taking the “correct” approach or not. There’s no need to apply arbitrary rules and then enforce them just because “that’s the way it’s supposed to be”.
If you feel that you aren’t progressing enough, that you’re stagnating and the game isn’t very fun, you should consider discussing possible faster level-ups.
How Long Should it Take to Reach Level 20 in DnD?
As you might imagine, it can take a long time for you to reach level 20 in Dungeons and Dragons. Quite frankly, many if not the majority never reach level 20 when they play.
So, how long would it take to reach level 20 in DnD? Well, first of all, that depends on how generous or strict you are in your approach. If you want to, you can be very generous and reach level 20 fairly quickly. It’s all up to how you want to play the game.
If we go by the table listed above, it would take a pretty long time to reach level 20 in DnD. Level 20 characters are pretty much overpowered demigods, so I think that it’s fair for it to take a pretty long time to get there.
A Redditor actually calculated the number of in-game days it would take for a character to reach level 20, if they did little other than sleep, fight, and loot. He came to the conclusion that it would take around 38 in-game days.
Realistically, however, a lot of characters would die in 38 days of constantly fighting to the death. Let’s go through how many days it would realistically take in real life, however, because they are obviously two different things.
In real life, the average time for most people would be considerably longer than 38 days. Depending on how much you fight, it would most likely take a few years to get to level 20 using the default leveling system, and that’s why so many people use other systems.
One user estimated that it would take around 4-6 years to reach level 20 using normal XP in DnD if you play once a week, which is way too long for many people.
Another user estimated that it took his/her party around 450 hours to reach level 20 in DnD 5e, and that’s a considerable amount of time to spend to see what demi-godhood looks like.
What Happens When You Reach Level 20 in DnD?
You might ask yourself, what happens when you have reached level 20 in DnD 5e? Is the game over? Of course, you can’t level anymore, so what’s really the point of playing?
As I mentioned before, when characters hit level 20, they become incredibly powerful. For example, Druids get access to Archdruid, where they can shapeshift as many times as they want, Barbarians get a flat four-point increase in Strength and Constitution and increase the max in both stats to 24, and so forth.
Most people probably start over on a new adventure if and when they hit level 20 because DnD has a lot less content that is designed for it. Homebrew content always works, of course.
A way of challenging your party when reaching level 20 is to increase the number of mobs drastically. Because of Bounded Accuracy, even low-level mobs can provide a challenge if they’re in a large enough number.
Up to level 20, you probably have been an adventurer, looking to complete adventures and collect loot. However, at level 20, since you’re now much more powerful, you can start looking at other things. For example, some players use their level 20 characters to create religions, guilds, or even empires.
You can also become even more powerful at level 20, in the form of Epic Boons. These boons are rewarded through various feats, such as completing adventures and campaigns.