20th level before his 20th birthday

[kigmatzomat]

Who is this Pug person that keeps being mentioned?

One of the prime characters in Raymond E. Feist Rift War/Midkemia series.

At age 13 he was passed up for military service and was apprenticed to a wizard out of pity. Pug could work magical devices well but sucked at spell preparation. Under stress he managed to cast a fireball with no prep (in game terms, he's a sorceror trying to learn from a wizard who's never heard of sorcerors). Then an interdimensional war breaks out and he's taken as a slave to another world. There he is inducted into their style of magic which is more sorcery.
He spends a few years there where he is widely considered to be one of their greatest, if strangest, mages. Only the fact he has so thoroughly adoped the rules of their society keeps them from killing him out of fear. Then the emperor defies the rules of their society in a very blatant way, enraging Pug. He summons a storm, earthquake, elementals, fireballs, et al to decimate the royal colliseum. The other mages are unable to dispel his magics indicating that not only did he have initiative but was also of higher level.

On a side note, Pug's childhood friend Tomas who did get accepted to the guard ended up inheriting a sizable portion of a godling's power. (Celestial template). After several years of very personal, vengeful war he gained the talent and skills to be named War Leader of the elven people. He was, if not level 20, then at least level+ECL=20.

 

[Trickstergod]

20? Maybe not. But now you're quibbling. You've gone from "he was 8th level tops!" to "he was at least twenty FOUR when he hit 20th level".

Chuck

Actually, the first post said I'd put most around 8th-15th. So that's more like "8 minimum, 15 tops."

Secondly, I had a 'perhaps' on the 20th level. I still likely wouldn't stat out most of those individuals at 20th level and definitely wouldn't stat them out at 20th by age 20.

Also, my age 20-24 'quibble', again, was in my first post. I put right in it that I see 5-10 years being decent stretch time for hitting high levels from low ones.

So, to get back in line with the post topic, again, I believe 20th level characters by age 20 is rather ridiculous and don't particularly believe there are many examples to support such rapid advancement. Those that I might peg at 20 years old and 20th level would have some good 4-6 years of worthwhile experience under their belt (and probably a few more years tacked on when including tutoring).

 

[Gort]

She also pushed the British out of France (mini campaign) winning battle after battle basically reversing the victories of Henry V.

The ENGLISH. It would have been purest comedy to see Joan of Arc going up against the BRITISH army

 

[Vigilance]

Potato potahto, my father was English, but never called himself anything but British... capiche

Chuck

 

[DMCF]

I would totally act like Justin Bieber. Dont give an F, show up at the king's ball in a wife beater and do burn outs in my ferrari f40 wagon drawn by 8 nightmares all over Beverly Hills Shire!

 

[Caliburn101]

Yes it is really counterintuitive for me and my campaigns.

1st level apprentice wizard leaves his master to make his fortune. Over the next three years, his master finally unlocks the secrets of the highest levels of magic through exhaustive research in his bespoke wizards tower (becomes 17th level).

The apprentice turns up on his doorstep riding a dragon - "Wazzup grandpa - long time no see! Lookie!!" Casts Gate and shows him his new castle in the Feywild...

It jars....

So I have a houserule.

Under normal play, 'one month x level to be attained' of downtime is required to 'consolidate' a level increase and there must be a month's R&R between the consolidation of multiple levels.

On ongoing adventure paths with few breaks, I put in downtimes as plot allows, and use devices such as minor deific intervention to explain some level increases, but the debt accrues until the next significant downtime, when the adventurers go off and have lives for a while until the next time adventures calls.

That way, they are at least in their thirties before they become world shattering superheroes...

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Most of the PC in my game are so old from the effects of Ghosts they don't have to worry about it.

 

[Celebrim]

On the question of level of historic and literary figures...

IMO, there are no 20th level characters in history, and few in literature. My opinion:

1) Mozart: 6th level Expert
2) Joan of Arc: 3rd level Paladin
3) Alexander the Great: 6th level fighter
4) Lancelot: 15th level Fighter
5) King Arthur: 11th level Paladin

Leveling up in game:

It's definitely faster paced in 3e than 1e, but it really depends on the style of campaign you have more than anything else. I tend to run, and tended to have played in rather involved campaigns. The fastest levels I've ever seen a PC legitimately earn is 9 levels in a 6 month in game span. The fastest levels I've ever earned as a PC is 6 in one year of game time. However, since in every campaign I have ever been in, game time has moved more slowly than real life time, gaining 4 or 9 levels often involves 5 or 6 years of play. I've never seen any PC go from 1-20, and the length of such a game IRL boggles the mind - 15 years real life?.

Granted, I've never played an Adventure Path designed to produce that result either.

So for me it is less a matter of how young the PC's would be upon obtaining 20th level, as it is how old I would be IRL. Certainly the PC's history would be very great indeed by that time, no matter how much game time that history encompassed.

 

[Remathilis]

Eh, people have a problem with 20th level demi-gods before their 20th birthday, but a different there is a genre of fiction that does that regularly: comic books.

The "teenager with superhuman power" is a well-worn trope there. Consider characters like Superboy, Robin (any of them), The Original 5 X-Men, Spider-Man (original Peter or Miles), the Teen Titans, the New Mutants/Generation X, etc. Not only do some or more have super-powers, but a large amount of them are trained fighters (able to fight much older and experienced foes), scientists/inventors, investigators, and other skills people take normally years-if-not-decades to master. Simply put, your typical adventuring D&D party is usually an example of Medieval Teen Titans than they are anything else...