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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 1603822" data-attributes="member: 15999">Well, essentially XP are "kill points" in most D&D games, and even more so for soldiers or fighters.  You get XP for overcoming significant challenges, not for doing routine or easy things.  And, for a soldier, the typical challenge is a battle - overcoming it means defeating foes in battle, which often results in at least some fatalities.  (You could have the "infinite level generator" where two fighters go at it and take turns retreating and conceding defeat, but that would not earn XP in my book.)  Even if the culture doesn't normally fight to the death, you still need to win a number of battles with an actual chance of defeat in order to levels.I would amend this to say that as a house rule, one could gain levels in NPC classes (only) by simply doing one's job, even at no significant risk.  The adept casting spells to make village life a little easier; the warrior patrolling on guard; the expert practicing his craft and trying new techniques (at the "risk" of materials cost).  But this would have to be very slow and not universal - establishing that all middle-aged humans are 6th-level and thus immune to sleep and daze just doesn't sit right with me.  But if a PC Aristocrat wanted to spend every fall attending to the estate harvest and other business, perhaps 100 XP or so every year might be appropriate. I didn't think SKR's article was very good - my idea of a high-level commoner is Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer - someone who, despite lacking any real heroic abilities, has actually faced and overcome a wide variety of challenges that are far beyond the norm.  The article was an interesting attempt to justify the outrageous levels of NPCs given in the DMG, but I didn't find it convincing.Also: bugbears were 3 HD in BD&D and 2E - don't know about 1E.</blockquote>

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