D1 Experience

Basic information on gaining experience in Diablo and Hellfire

• See also the experience sweet spot table.

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	--	--	--	--	--	--