Battle Elves

[irdeggman]

Irdeggman, I don't understand why you have a problem applying the D&D concept of levels to the wider circle of a demographic, realm-level game situation.

D&D classes and the explanation of experience were designed for PC-level play. BR takes D&D a step further and thus requires adjustment. Note that there have been MANY D&D supplements through the years, Dragon articles, and even the 4th edition DMG that arbitrarily apply significant class level mechanics demographically. For instance, there at least used to be a general rule that a 20th level character is 1 in a million, and that for every character of a given level, there were twice that many in the level below him. The DMG has a different formula for finding levels of people in towns and so forth. So there are already abstractions about levels in D&D that don't rely on the very limited Experience description you quoted that is only intended to focus on PCs.

Those demographics have nothing to do with age but with relative "experience". They are comleted removed from age makes you better concepts.

3.5 D&D experience is measured by overcoming "challenges". The DM is free to assign what is and what isn't (or was and wasn't) a challenge - but again they have nothing to do with age.

There should be no problem whatsoever or conflict with the rules, then, when coming up with any other abstraction to account for character levels among NPCs. D&D DOES try to approach things logically, only sacrificing logic where it is deemed necessary to improve game play. Since the class system includes such things as skill at arms and skill points, it is obvious that training and time spent at something (age) play a role. Apprentices at a trade did not often assume journeyman status until they were into adulthood, and master status until much later. Similarly among the clergy and knighthood.

Because it will have a direct corespondance to PC levels.

If a PC regent has a troup with 2-3rd level warriors then why is he only a 1st level character? {That is the arguement you lead to with line of usage}

There are present rules for apprenticeships already and again they have nothing to do with age.

The closest thing you can find is the starting ages for classes. But note that this is for initial level and not even for multiclassing or subsequent levels.

[geeman]

Age is related to experience. The assumption that people will live
their lives without even accidentally engaging in the kinds of
challenges for which they will earn experience is very difficult to
believe. A system that attributes experience to age is simply taking
an "average" of such incidental and accidental
challenges. Experience gained from adventuring, of course, will pile
up much more quickly, but to look at the experience award system and
see challenges as only the results of standard adventuring is a very
narrow interpretation.

It *is* remotely possible for characters to live long periods of time
without many such encounters, but not having them at all? Highly
doubtful. I would avoid a system that automatically gave levels to
characters based on their age. Rather, it makes more sense to me to
do something like consider the activity of the character in question
and then. Someone who has spent twelve years in the army is more
likely to have done things that gained him experience than someone
who spent twelve years on a farm or factory. It makes more sense to
me to assess years of activity rather than just years and then use
that as a modifier to determine the _possibility_ of gaining
levels. Let`s say every year spent in some sort of active profession
gives a character +1. Every other year spent doing something
relatively active gives him the same modifier, and every four years
spent "inactive" gives him +1. Roll a d20 and if the results are
greater than 10 the character is 2nd level, greater than 15 for 3rd,
20 for 4th, etc. Those numbers might be tweaked a bit here and there
to determine how far the character might go.

The problem is that experience awards start to taper off at 4th
level, and immortal elves make for some very long years. The maximum
modifier for years might be +20 or something since eventually
characters will stop having encounters in "daily life" that are the
sort for which they`ll earn experience given their character level.

Gary

[Rowan]

Irdeggman, I don't think anyone is suggesting that age be the strict determinant of level, so there's obviously no problem with younger folk having higher levels based on what they've done in their lives. Rather, the point the rest of us are making is that age can be used as a guide for relatively how much experience people have accumulated on average. The reason elves are often favored for these higher levels is simply because they by nature are living much more adventurous lives than humans, if only for the simple implication that very few elves are living on farms their entire lives like the vast majority of humans. No, elves are much more likely to wander, try new skills, take part in skirmishes and conflict over the centuries of their lives. The elven pattern of life for almost all of them seems to match that of human nobles, knights, warriors, wizards, and general adventurers. That creates a strong argument that, with relatively much more time for these pursuits, elves tend to be much higher level.

Age is merely a measure of time over which the experiences that you acknowledge lead to level advancement can occur. So it makes sense to extrapolate this demographically.

[irdeggman]

Age is related to experience. The assumption that people will live
their lives without even accidentally engaging in the kinds of
challenges for which they will earn experience is very difficult to
believe. A system that attributes experience to age is simply taking
an "average" of such incidental and accidental
challenges. Experience gained from adventuring, of course, will pile
up much more quickly, but to look at the experience award system and
see challenges as only the results of standard adventuring is a very
narrow interpretation.

It *is* remotely possible for characters to live long periods of time
without many such encounters, but not having them at all? Highly
doubtful. I would avoid a system that automatically gave levels to
characters based on their age. Rather, it makes more sense to me to
do something like consider the activity of the character in question
and then. Someone who has spent twelve years in the army is more
likely to have done things that gained him experience than someone
who spent twelve years on a farm or factory. It makes more sense to
me to assess years of activity rather than just years and then use
that as a modifier to determine the _possibility_ of gaining
levels. Let`s say every year spent in some sort of active profession
gives a character +1. Every other year spent doing something
relatively active gives him the same modifier, and every four years
spent "inactive" gives him +1. Roll a d20 and if the results are
greater than 10 the character is 2nd level, greater than 15 for 3rd,
20 for 4th, etc. Those numbers might be tweaked a bit here and there
to determine how far the character might go.

The problem is that experience awards start to taper off at 4th
level, and immortal elves make for some very long years. The maximum
modifier for years might be +20 or something since eventually
characters will stop having encounters in "daily life" that are the
sort for which they`ll earn experience given their character level.

Gary

Other than being completly wrong in D&D ruleset. . .

You (and the others) are using real world comparisons to an abstract game (D&D).

So, if I'm playing an elf PC and another player is playing an Anuriean PC - shouldn't my PC, using this reasoning, be several levels "higher"?

Or a dwarf when compared to a human?

Or an elf compared to a dwarf?


No the "logic" being applied has no basis in the D&D game set (only in real life) and there is "false" when talking about D&D rules and mechanics.

As I pointed out previously - Experience (in D&D) is based on overcoming challenges (DMG pg 36 & PHB pg 58) not simply on getting older.


Specifically (DMG pg 36):

"Expereince points are a measure of accomplishments. They represent training and learning by doing, and they illustrate the fact that, in fantasy, the more expereinced a character is, the the more power he or she posseses. Expereince points allow a character to gain levels. Gaining levels heightens the fun and excitement."

"When a party defeats monsters, you award the characters expereince points.. . . . .

You must decide when a challenge has been overcome."

DMG pg 38

"Challenge Ratings for Traps"

DMG pg 40

"CRs for Noncombat Encounters

You could award experience points for solving a puzzle, learning a secret, convincing an NPC to bring help, or escaping from a powerful foe."

DMG pg 40

"Mission Goals"

"Roleplaying Awards"

DMG pg 41
"Story Awards and Standard Awards"

Nope, nothing listing for "getting older".

DMG pg 107

"NPCs gain experience points the same way that PCs do. Not being adventurers, however, their opportunities are more limited. Therefore, a commoner is likely to progress in levels very slowly."


So please show me where in any WotC 3.5 product they equate "age" to "experience" in relationship to levels.

[ConjurerDragon]

irdeggman schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=4131
> irdeggman wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> How exactly do we get an old man who never got better at anything? Not his craft, he should have gotten better as expert or commoner. He learned nothing about local history, his profession, or couldn`t bargain any better in the market than he could when he was a teenager.
>
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> Simple - in D&D (note I said D&D) you can`t.
>
> Character levels are based on experience.
>
> Experience is based on overcoming challenges (DMG pg 36 & , PHB pg 58) not simply on getting older.
>
However in Birthright we can - if we use the rules that already 2E
Birthright had, that everyone can train using a character action and
gain +1 Hitpoint or improve a non-weapon-proficiency.
If you play with gaining only average hit- and skillpoints in 3E then
the common human might not find the time to maximize his hitpoints and
his skillpoints - but a thousandyears old sidhelien might.

[Rowan]

Irdeggman, D&D wasn't designed for realm level play where we're trying to get a grasp on demographics. All BR rules are an expansion on D&D because it couldn't handle the type of game BR represents. Therefore, we recognize an expansion to the rules as a guideline--not even a hard and fast rule!--to help us play at the realm level better, and one that's realistic, by your own admission.

Just as not every 40 year old human is 4th level and just as not every 500 year old elf is 5th level, player character level would remain consistent across the party as befits fun and fair game play. None of us are proposing age as an absolute rule, only as a general guideline to aid the GM in game play and in picturing and understanding the game world.

To refer to one of your earlier examples, of course a regent can be accompanied by or surrounded by soldiers of higher level than he. Level has no bearing on whether you can be a regent, and regents routinely employ champions better at what they do than he. A GM running a game with PCs probably won't want minions doing stuff for the PC, but it's certainly not unrealistic to have higher level minions. In fact, it would be unrealistic NOT to have some.

[geeman]

At 10:49 AM 2/6/2008, irdeggman wrote:

>Other than being completly wrong in D&D ruleset. . .

Of course it never explicitly says that age equates to experience
(and I think you`ll note that neither did I) but the D&D ruleset
doesn`t side with you either, and can be read to indicate the opposite.

>As I pointed out previously - Experience (in D&D) is based on
>overcoming challenges (DMG pg 36 & PHB pg 58) not simply on getting older.

Yes, but in doing so you assume that no one is going to encounter
challenges as part of getting older, which runs against the
experience of most people. See the disconnect there? To you people
age without ever breaking the hermetic seal. They NEVER engage in
activities that earn them experience in the absence of an
adventure. That flies in the face of most people`s
experience. While you may not have grown more experienced, wiser,
educated or more skilled in the years since you turned 15 or so, it`s
clear that other folks around here have had that experience, yet very
few of us have slain dragons, rescued princesses or otherwise
adventured. It`s merely common sensical.

>No the "logic" being applied has no basis in the D&D game set (only
>in real life) and there is "false" when talking about D&D rules and mechanics.

First off, I`m not convinced that these ideas are false in the face
of D&D rules and mechanics (see below) but even if what you`re saying
is true... is that really even a criticism? How does your suggestion
that these ideas are based on real life not game mechanics an
argument against them?

>So please show me where in any WotC 3.5 product they equate "age" to
>"experience" in relationship to levels.

How about that last quote. What do you think it meant by "a commoner
is likely to progress in levels very slowly"? Commoners are not
adventurers. They don`t engage in the challenges that adventurers
do. Yet it specifically says they advance in levels and that this
process is slow.... How does that happen if not by NPCs gaining
experience as they age? This process is left up to the DM to
adjudicate, and that`s all we`re talking about doing. If there was
some sort of system for doing this in the core rules we needn`t
bother coming up with one, but if there were a system of domain rules
in the core rules we needn`t have to bother with one that is made for
BR either. At the pace at which BR campaigns can sometimes progress
it is important for us to have some sort of way of thinking about the
slow progress of commoners, and that`s all we`re talking about here.

Gary

[ryancaveney]

How about Arthur? Or Robin Hood? Or any of the legendary heroes of literature. Their "equivalent level" in D&D terms is measured by what they did not by their age.

But Arthur at age 10ish, when he pulled the sword from the stone, was much lower level than at age 20ish when he formed the round table, and continued to gain levels though adventuring until his fall on the battlefield at age 50ish. Since level-draining monsters are rare, and in 3e level draining is generally temporary anyway, within any one person's life there simply must be some relationship between age and level. You just write down the year in one column and the experience level in the other, and notice that both sets of numbers increase over time. This correlation is not perfect, but it is significant. Therefore, once you are dealing with groups of thousands or millions of people, it is actually quite easy to compile their life histories into a table of average level at any given age. It does not predict any one person perfectly, but on average it is pretty close to most people, so it provides a good reference point when making lots of NPCs from scratch. It makes no argument about whether age causes experience -- it merely observes that both age and experience tend to increase over time (since neither can decrease), in ways which are not identical but are similar enough to have real demographic effects.

If "age" is directly tied to character level - then shouldn't Michael Roele be of much lower level than other "regents" becasue he died at 35? And yet his was an expansionistic regency, frought with great battles and such.

That has nothing to do with character level. He could have been a first-level aristocrat his entire life but still done all that because Emperor of Anuire is the title he inherited simply by being born. By your own argument, he need not have gained a single xp from his battles because he need not have fought in them himself -- that's what having an army is for.

[ryancaveney]

Ryan, your Cerilia seems like a very dark place, where you've revised it to basically eliminate every beacon or major leaning toward Good alignments. Not my cup of tea (it would seem to me futile to play in a world with no sense of Good), but whatever floats your boat, I guess.

It doesn't seem all that dark overall to me, but what seems to generate the most discussion here are the darker parts. I certainly don't eliminate every beacon of good -- I've still got Cuiraecen and Nesirie and Laerme and Erik -- I just don't happen to think that either Haelyn or Avani is more good than lawful, and I think many of their priests tend toward the evil side of lawful neutral; Haelyn, in particular, is perfectly happy with explicitly Lawful Evil clergy. In any case, I don't use the alignment system at all IMC, and never really think about it except for purposes of discussions here. I think that from the point of view of the orogs he's killing, a human paladin is Chaotic Evil; and from the point of view of many elves, Rhoubhe's actions are positively Good.

[kgauck]

Experience is based on overcoming challenges (DMG pg 36 & , PHB pg 58) not simply on getting older.

No one said “simply on getting older.” Gary offered the argument well I think.

Age is related to experience. The assumption that people will live their lives without even accidentally engaging in the kinds of challenges for which they will earn experience is very difficult to believe. A system that attributes experience to age is simply taking an "average" of such incidental and accidental challenges.

A five year period is a long time not to accumulate 1000, 2000, or even 4000 experience points if small awards are given for challenging tasks that involve some risk, for normal people.

Take a smith. As an apprentice his master does the hard work, but he gets some opportunities to do some challenging work, even if its rated at CR ¼ or CR ½. Such experience, though lower than the standard table is more suitable for people like farmers and smiths. A Commoner 1 needs 14 CR ¼ challenges to get to Commoner 2. Is this possible in 60 months? I think so. It means once a season he has to make a test that has risk and difficulty. So after 5 years I think that everyone who is not getting experience assigned for typical actions (fighting, solving mysteries, resolving disputes, &c) can at least claim to have been faming, smithing, knitting, or doing something during this time period to merit a Commoner level. Not an adventurer level, an NPC level, and most probably a Commoner level, which is the saddest of the bunch. Its also noteworthy that if our smith or farmer seems especially proficient, I need not assume extra levels, I can just put Expert levels in place of Commoner levels. A 30 year old smith who is a Commoner 2/Expert 1, is hardly some kind of game breaking abuse of the experience point system. Its actually a much more sensible than assuming some middle aged smith is still a Commoner 1. Surely the most typical way to acquire Commoner levels (and Expert levels for that matter) is by doing mundane things, not adventuring things. Accumulating the slow grind of ½ and ¼ CR’s until after long last, your skill at Craft (Blacksmithing) and Profession (Blacksmithing) increase by one rank.

Sorry, but it is simply a fact. "Logic" has relatively little to do with D&D, especially D&D combat - which is by design extremly vague.

Vague mechanics just mean I can apply a different logic to explain what is going on than some other guy. It doesn’t mean no one can be logical. Further if this were actually your belief, you would not argue as you do below, with logic. So your own use of this skill belies that you don’t really believe this.

Now if you want to say that the character in question has overcome X number of challenges, that is proper - but overcoming challenges is not age dependent. If it was, than adventurers should in general be much "older".

Why do you always rigidly apply a principle as if it’s the only principle in the world that could ever apply? Did anyone ever say that age and only age determines level? What absurdity! Several of us have said that there is a minimum that should apply so that the guy who doesn’t get busy adventuring isn’t just watching grass grow. If 14 CR ¼ challenges in 60 months is too fast for the guy who never actually enters a crypt or battle, then make that argument. But to argue that this minimum rate must also be the maximum rate is just being silly. Obviously people can acquire, by the standard rules, several levels in a single adventure. The experience point award for challenges assumes 14 (actually 13.33) challenges resolved at an EL equal to the player character level to allow them to gain a level. So I assume that even if you try and stay home, you’re getting a single challenge once a season. If you go out an adventure, you could realize this number in a couple of days. I also assume that while CR 1 encounters continue to provide experience through your 8th level, CR ½ stops providing experience past 3rd level. A 9th level character needs CR 2 challenges to continue to acquire experience and it will be painfully slow. A 4th level character needs CR 1 challenges.

I have great trouble with people saying that because elves are ageless they should be higher level. If the logic was more along the lines of they have had a life of strife and encounters with X creatures was common they should be Y level - is fine. But the character in question could have been nothing but a "log" and actually done nothing of note nor left the "farm" at all. Note that the DM does have the ability to define "challenges" so that system can be used, they are just not mutally dependent.

A character who is a log should get a level in log. If I’m not mistaken a 2nd level log gets the special ability Resist Termites. A character who stays on the farm should gain a commoner level after five years.

Because "age" has nothing to do with it. That is all I am saying. If "age" is directly tied to character level - then shouldn't Michael Roele be of much lower level than other "regents" becasue he died at 35? And yet his was an expansionistic regency, frought with great battles and such.

If I were to construct an argument like irdeggman, I would say that if age has nothing to do with level, than there are the same number of 20 level five year olds as there are 20 level 30 year olds. But of course such a thing is absurd. Its not that age is the sole determinant of level, it’s the idea that even a quiet life has some small challenges. Michael Roele, like any adventurer, can aquire his 13.33 encounters in a day or two. Some connected set of encounters, like a war, can see a character gain a lot of levels in a very short period of time. But observing that this is so, is not the same as saying that everyone must progress at the same rate of speed. Advancement should be determined by the challenge and frequency of encounters. All I am saying is that this challenge never gets as low as zero, and the frequency is never as low as zero. I argue that ¼ is probably the minimum challenge for a season of time.

-In the 2nd ed Book of Elves it suggested granting elves a non weapon proficiency in some sort of art-related proficiency (like dancing or singing) to reflect their "upbringing" - but it never, never suggested that merely becasue they were "older" that they gained more levels.

2nd edition lacked the ability to give weak classes like warrior or commoner to NPC characters to reflect the accumulation of mundane experience, or to employ a high skill class at 1st level to give a character oodles of skill points to reflect a rich live before adventuring. 2nd edition was just so much weaker in this area. After all they had the 0-level character.
time.