20th level before his 20th birthday

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

My current PC is 18 and has gone from 1st to 14th level in about 6 months... she will reach 20th level before she reaches 20 years old...

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

For physical-type classes, the low age relative to level works just fine. Compare Karl Malone of '98 to Karl Malone of '04 - he's still a great basketball player, but his '90s self would take him to pieces. It makes sense that most of the world's top warriors would, like most of the world's best physical specimens today and the vast majority of great warriors in the past, be in their 20s and perhaps 30s.

Clerics and sorcerers both make sense as young'uns, since they get the bulk of their power given to them, either externally or internally.

Rogues... eh, with the skill focus of rogues, I find it easier to imagine the really high level ones being older.

The main class that bugs me when it shows up in a 'youth movement' of this sort is wizards. Wizardry is such an academic pursuit, it seems like something that in almost every case would be mastered only by ancient archmages.

 

[Ibram]

This logic assumes that, unless you die (either from old age or while adventuring), your rate of gaining levels remains constant no matter how high in level you get. But realistically, as you get higher in level, it should get harder and harder for you to find challenges equal to your level. CR 1 orcs are a lot more common than CR 20 dragons. So as you go up in level, your rate of gaining levels should decrease, simply because the average CR of the challenges you meet doesn't keep up with your level. So the elf whose lifetime is 10 times that of a human might not really get many extra levels out of it, because it's so rare for him to find challenges that gain him significant XP.

But if thats true then how do humans reach 20th level durring their lifespans?

 

[Brother MacLaren]

At low levels, travel time is certainly a good way of slowing things down to a reasonable rate, without wasting too much game time. "The first month at sea passes uneventfully..."

At higher levels, you can hand-wave months if the PCs are running baronies. They don't have the flexibility to go on long journeys adventuring, and it just happens that a few months go by with no major crises to resolve. A marauding band of bandits might be too low-level for the PCs to gain *any* XP from, and so wouldn't be worth handling in game time.

I don't see a problem with hand-waved "down time." There doesn't have to be a challenge worthy enough for XP every single week of a character's life. As to the lifespan of elves, I would say that premature death is much more of a limiting factor than age. I'd assume that the challenges required to go up levels are such that only half of all PC-class characters make it to the next level, less for NPC classes (player PCs benefit from generally facing appropriate-CR encounters). You will then have only 1 in 500 members of PC classes make it to 10th level. And members of PC classes shouldn't make up more than 1% of the population.

A truly heroic warrior shouldn't be a kid, in most cases. I'd think 15th-20th level is like Achilles at Troy (and he had a grown son at that point), Odysseus upon his return, Aragorn or Conan upon being crowned king, etc.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Well if you want it slow just space adventures out a bit. Heck if your not in a really long camapign like a war or something it might make more sense anyways and it lets you use craft skills and item creaiton skills. An adventure poping up every time you sneeze can feel a bit silly depending on how things are run.

As for elves taking over the universe there easily oculd just be a lack of appropriate challenges above level 20, or some form of life extension may be fairly common for those who can afford it. Not sure if 3.5 kept it but in 3.0 reincarnate was the only way to reduce age that I'm aware of though. I think its a really stuipid decision to remove life extension potions and the like but hey I'm not the designer and maybe they had some reason to limit long lives to non-humans I mean according to them a long life isn't a balance issue so why take out elixers of youth. But hey one I hit my level 20 mark or something I'd go lich and outlive those elves natural life spans.

 

[PeterDonis]

But if thats true then how do humans reach 20th level durring their lifespans?

Maybe in some worlds they don't. It depends on how sharply the frequency of encountering a given CR challenge declines with CR. In a "high-power" world it might decline slowly enough that a human can reach 20th level in a reasonable time; in a "low-power" world it might decline quickly enough that even a elf doesn't have much chance of reaching 20th level.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I try to keep the PCs from leveling up more than 2-3 times in one year (in game) but I try to average to 1 level per in game year. I do this by there being low points during the game where the PCs might do nothing for several years. Maybe there is nothing they can do that they consider worth their time, maybe they want to manage their kingdom for a while, maybe they want to wait for there archnemisis's next move rather than the other way around (as my PCs sometimes like to do).

 

[I'm A Banana]

By-the-books, people don't reach Lv20 before they die. They don't reach level 5 before they die. They're lucky to reach Lv3 before they die.

PC's are special.

Of course, a lot of people like an age = XP rule, and with that it's best to assume a ratio of years...e.g.: 150 human years = 15 elf years or something. So an elf might reach maturity at age 110, while a human reaches the same maturity at 15, and then the human advances to level 4 (or whatever) automatically by age by the time he's 40 (35 years), that same elf doesn't advance to level 4 by age for 350 years. They advance slower, they learn slower, they're more interested in completeness or the long term view so they don't seize their day, whatever.

I do prefer it without that, myself.

And yeah, my rate is very quick...I've voluntarily slowed it to get them some use out of their powers before they get new ones, but when your average campaign lasts only 3-4 months, it's good to give them a spread, I think. I mean, if I only play in 12 sessions before starting over, and they begin at level 5, that's still a good spread of levels....true, I need to plan very fast (huuuge treasure troves, very tough encounters), but my group tends to enjoy the pace okay.

 

[FireLance]

The way I see it, high-level heros are the result of extraordinary people living in extraordinary times. Sometimes, nothing happens and everyone is stuck at low to middle levels because there just aren't enough high-level challenges. Then every once in a while there comes a githyanki invasion or a demonic incursion, and special people (the PCs) reach dizzying heights of power to match the challenges before them.

Works for me, anyway.

 

[Captain Tagon]

I try to keep the PCs from leveling up more than 2-3 times in one year (in game) but I try to average to 1 level per in game year. I do this by there being low points during the game where the PCs might do nothing for several years. Maybe there is nothing they can do that they consider worth their time, maybe they want to manage their kingdom for a while, maybe they want to wait for there archnemisis's next move rather than the other way around (as my PCs sometimes like to do).

So a skilled swordsman barely improves enough in 365 days to gain a +1 attack?