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D1 Experience

From Diablo 2 Wiki

Basic information on gaining experience in Diablo and Hellfire

Experience Gain

In Diablo I and Hellfire, there is no experience penalty for monsters too far above your level. (There is in D2.) There is a cap on the amount that can be gained per kill, in multiplayer at least. It is listed in the table below.

Experience awarded is the monster's experience value (listed on the monster pages) factored into the following equation:

 base · (1.0 + 0.1·(mlvl - clvl))

Basically, monsters are worth 10% less for each level the Clvl exceeds the Mlvl. Characters with a Clvl 10 (or more) above the monster's level will receive no experience for the kill.


Experience Guidelines

Higher level monsters are always worth more experience, though this is often limited by the max exp cap in multiplayer. Low level characters will level up much more quickly if they continually descend deeper into the dungeon; though it's practically impossible to kill the monsters encountered, if you descend too quickly. (Barring twinked items.)

A rule of thumb:

  • Clvl 20-25: Maximum experience in Hell or Crypt/Normal, Cats and deeper/Nightmare, and anywhere in Hell.
  • Clvl 26-30: Sub-max experience in Crypt or Hell/Normal. Maximum in Caves, Hive, Hell, Crypt/Nightmare. Anywhere in Hell.
  • Clvl 30-40: Minimal experience in Normal. Diminishing experience in Hell and Crypt/Nightmare. Maximum experience in Cats, Cave, Hive, Hell, Crypt/Hell. (Diminishing in Cats in the high 30s, but killing is so fast there with good spells that it's often still worth it.)
  • Clvl 40+: Only Hell difficulty is useful for experience now. Diminishing gains in Hive and Caves, full in Hell and Crypt. Upper levels of Hell and Crypt start to be less than full into the high 40s.


Experience Requirements

Players must satisfy the following requirements to gain experience from a monster's death. The player must remain alive and on the same level between the time the requirements are met and the time the monster is killed, to gain experience.

  • Killing the monster (melee, bow, or with a spell).
  • Having your golem kill or deal damage to the monster.
  • Dealing any damage to a monster that another player kills.
    • Hitting a monster with an element that it's immune to does not deal any damage.
    • Using Stone Curse does not deal damage or count towards gaining experience.
    • Monsters killed by a Berserk monster (in Hellfire) do not give experience.
  • Using Telekinesis on the monster. (Deals no damage, but still works.)
    • Snotspill, Gharbad the Weak, Zhar the Mad, the Warlord of Blood, Lachdanan, Arch-Bishop Lazarus, Blackjade, and Red Vex are all immune to Telekinesis.


Hellfire Changes

Experience awarded for monsters from Diablo is unchanged in Hellfire. As for the new Hellfire monsters; those found in the Hive are equivalent to those in the Caves, and those found in the Crypt are equivalent to those in Hell.


Experience Tables

Adapted from Jarulf's Guide, with some added comparative statistics.

  • Max exp: Experience is capped in multiplayer at Clvl * 200, past Clvl 5. There is no such cap in single player, so leveling up is much faster, especially at higher levels.
  • Kills: How many kills of monsters worth the maximum experience would be required to level up. At low levels this is not feasible (barring super twinked gear) since your low level character can not hit or survive against monsters of high enough level to be worth the maximum experience. Even finding the stairs down to the next dungeon level without killing more sub-max exp monsters isn't possible.
  • Total Kills: How many monsters worth the maximum experience must be killed to reach that level. This isn't feasible at low levels, for reasons detailed previously.
  • Levels: There are about 180 monsters per dungeon level, after the slightly smaller levels 1 and 2. This figure gives you a rough idea how many levels you'll need to fully clear out to level up. For example, to go from Clvl 40 to 41 requires 6212 kills, which = about 34.5 dungeon levels, or about 9 games clearing out Hell (Dlvls 13-16).
Level Experience Increase Increase in % Max Exp Kills Total Kills Levels
1 2,000 -- 100 20 20 <1
2 2,000 2,620 131.0 231 12 32 <1
3 4620 3,420 74.0 402 9 41 <1
4 8040 4,449 55.3 624 7 48 <1
5 12,489 5,769 46.2 912 7 55 <1
6 18,258 7,454 40.8 1200 6 61 <1
7 25,712 9,597 37.3 1400 7 68 <1
8 35,309 12,313 34.9 1600 8 76 <1
9 47,622 15,742 33.1 1800 9 84 <1
10 63,364 20,055 31.7 2000 11 95 <1
11 83,419 25,460 30.5 2200 12 106 <1
12 108,879 32,207 29.6 2400 14 120 <1
13 141,086 40,597 28.8 2600 16 135 <1
14 181,683 49,392 27.2 2800 18 153 <1
15 231,075 82,581 35.7 3000 28 181 <1
16 313,656 110,411 35.2 3200 35 215 <1
17 424,067 147,123 34.7 3400 44 258 <1
18 571,190 195,379 34.2 3600 55 313 <1
19 766,569 258,585 33.7 3800 69 381 <1
20 1,025,154 341,073 33.3 4000 86 466 <1
21 1,366,227 448,341 32.8 4200 107 573 <1
22 1,814,568 587,327 32.4 4400 134 706 <1
23 2,401,895 766,756 31.9 4600 167 873 0.9
24 3,168,651 997,549 31.5 4800 208 1081 1.2
25 4,166,200 1,293,323 31.0 5000 259 1340 1.5
26 5,459,523 1,670,973 30.6 5200 322 1661 1.8
27 7,130,496 2,151,378 30.2 5400 399 2059 2.3
28 9,281,874 2,760,218 29.7 5600 493 2552 2.8
29 12,042,092 3,528,939 29.3 5800 609 3161 3.5
30 15,571,031 4,495,869 28.9 6000 750 3910 4.2
31 20,066,900 5,707,505 28.4 6200 921 4831 5.2
32 25,774,405 7,219,994 28.0 6400 1129 5959 6.3
33 32,994,399 9,100,803 27.6 6600 1379 7,338 7.5
34 42,095,202 11,430,609 27.2 6800 1681 9,019 9.3
35 53,525,811 14,305,407 26.7 7000 2044 11,063 11.4
36 67,831,218 17,838,843 26.3 7200 2478 13,540 13.7
37 85,670,061 22,164,762 25.9 7400 2996 16,536 16.6
38 107,834,823 27,439,976 25.4 7600 3610 20,146 20
39 135,274,799 33,847,210 25.0 7800 4340 24,486 24.1
40 169,122,009 41,598,222 24.6 8000 5200 29,685 28.9
41 210,720,231 50,937,022 24.2 8200 6212 35,897 34.5
42 261,657,253 62,143,167 23.7 8400 7398 43,295 41.1
43 323,800,420 75,535,020 23.3 8600 8784 52,078 48.8
44 399,335,440 91,472,909 22.9 8800 10,395 62,473 57.8
45 490,808,349 110,362,065 22.5 9000 12,263 74,735 68.1
46 601,170,414 132,655,203 22.1 9200 14,420 89,154 80.1
47 733,825,617 158,854,605 21.6 9400 16,900 106,054 93.9
48 892,680,222 190,228,390 21.3 9600 19,816 125,869 100.1
49 1,082,908,612 227,798,497 21.0 9800 23,245 149,114 129.1
50 1,310,707,109 272,788,700 20.8 10000 27,279 176,393 151.7
Max 1,583,495,809 -- -- -- -- -- --