Somebody may have already asked this question and I missed it.
Are we using the level progression chart in the 5e PHB?
If so a character needs 3800xp to go from level4 to level5.
Currently only mods HP 1 through HP 6 are for character at 4th level. With that all being said the total possible xp from those mods is 4410, which means a character has to play all of those mods after reaching level 4 or they can never reach 5th level, since missing one mods would be 3780xp 20xp shy of 5th.

If I got my math wrong please let me know.

The XP of the mods was calculated to have Characters reach specific levels by specific mods. As such, the XP they gain should follow official 5e conventions, but the XP is calculated by the needs of the campaign rather than using the DMG or Monster manual's rules/suggestions.

Okay, but is my math wrong?

If the players in my group have already played a few of the early Hard Point mods at 2nd level, or even 1st, and they level out of the Intro mods when those mods cap at 3rd characters and then switch back to doing Hard Points mods there are not currently enough left for them to play at 4th level to get enough xp to reach 5th.

I will double check the xp on the mods and make sure they are aligned to the progression chart in the book. The goal was definitely for a character to reach 5th by playing all the intros and year 2 hard points.

What might be tripping you up is that the level guidelines on the front of the mod are not intended to be a hard level cap. That's our error for not making that clear. The mods are designed that anyone can sit down and play them, at least anyone level 1-5. We will clarify that in the campaign documentation.

That's what is going on. I have been doing most of the LA coordination for events in my area, so I want to make sure that I don't cause an issue for my player's.

Thanks for the clarification.

The clarification I've received from PCI_StatMonkey is that the level restrictions are 'guidelines' rather than hard caps. You can still play the intro mods after level 3, or play the 5th level mods at a lower level.

Hi. I realize I’m reviving yet another years-old thread here, but this issue just came up for my online Living Arcanis 5E group, and I thought I would seek some understanding:

My group has just finished playing the first five hard point adventures of Season 2 of Living Arcanis 5E. We have done well, earning max XP for each module. As you know, characters have to be level 4 to start the adventure path. At the end of the fifth adventure, though, we noticed that every character that had previously leveled to 4th by playing all eight of the intro season modules had enough XP to reach 5th level, whereas every character that had previously started at 4th level by applying the 4th-level advancement cert did not. Specifically, every PC that started the campaign through the cert was just 20 XP shy of reaching 5th level at the end of adventure HP 2-05 — that is, 6480 XP towards the level goal of 6500. (The advancement cert doesn’t specify an XP number, but we have all interpreted it as setting the character at the minimum 2700 XP needed to be 4th level.)

This isn’t a complaint or criticism, just a request for information: The modules are so carefully calibrated that the 20 XP shortfall seems either a deliberate design or an oversight. I was wondering if the adventure path is intended to have everyone level together at certain chapters. (Since the max XP award for any particular adventure is sometimes lower than the sum of XP for all its individual achievements, it seems like they are paced to hit level milestones at specific intervals.) Or was it the intent to give players/characters who were able to complete all eight intro modules slightly earlier advancement over those who had to make use of the cert?

The quoted comment above suggests to my reading that level advancement is indeed intended to coincide with finishing certain modules, so I thought I’d ask.

It’s not a big deal, as everyone else will level the next time we play, but the misalignment had me curious as to the thinking behind the difference. Thanks for any insight you can give.

getting max xp is quite unusual for many games, so it normally doesn't come up so directly.

I’m surprised it hasn’t come up more. The maximum total XP award in several of the modules we have played thus far is set below the maximum possible XP award if you add up all the individual awards for achievements and roleplay. So you can still get the max total XP award for the adventure without always succeeding at every challenge.

But that’s sort of beside the point. My question was more about the quirk of some characters who all start the campaign together leveling at HP 2-05 while others level at HP 2-06. The previous discussion in this thread made it seem like the plan of the authors was for characters to level at expected intervals in the story.

Sounds like an oversight to me. The purpose of the leveling up cert is to get everyone to the right level...