Level Advancement Over A Lifetime

[seasong]

mmadsen:

[COLOR=coral]Adventurer          Specialist
combat ability      [i]no[/i] combat ability
many extra feats    few extra feats
decent skills       mad leet skillz, yo[/COLOR]

This was stated in the summary, but I probably could have made it clearer. The adventurer is built for the rigors of adventuring, whereas the specialist is built for soft urban living and an immense degree of, well, specialization.

The warrior could be named fighter, or maybe fighter-lite. It's a fighter that has been down-powered for the Europ setting, and modified to fit in with my arms & armor skill rules.

I plan to have these ready to post by tonight. I'll link to the thread from here .

 

[LightPhoenix]

If you live a long life, taking few risks (because you've got "all the time in the world"), you'll presumably spread out a typical human's life-time of experience over hundreds of years.

No, what I'm saying is that elves, because of their great longevity and slow maturation, don't cram as much life experience into any one decade.

Maybe I'm just missing the point completely.

I was thinking that the experience you were giving humans was experience for doing the simple act of living day to day. Simple survival. Likewise for Elves. Am I wrong?

If novel experiences and challenges yield enriching experience points, then long-lived races, operating on a slower schedule, might experience much more in their lifetimes, but much less in a typical decade than shorter-lived races who go from childhood to adulthood in a single decade.

Lending credence to my assumption that you're not assigning experience based on living, but specific, undefined challenges. Surviving a plague, for example, or fending off the wolves that are attack the crop (not necessarily killing them, maybe the simple act of hiring adventurers as a solution to the problem is enough).

What determines how many of these are faced in, say, a year? Do Elves just magically have less experiences than Humans? "Eh, another plague, nothing special, done it three times before", and they get no experience? Or is it that Elves just don't face the challenges? They just let the wolves kill the flock and herd more animals?

Needless to say, I'm a bit confused by your logic.

And the culture and environment of a long-lived elf is quite different from the culture and environment of a short-lived human -- partly from the culture they're born into, and partly from the decisions they'd naturally make (or not get around to making).

So Elves are lazy because they live a long time? That explanation I could live with, but it's still cultural, even if it is a result of long lifespan. Another group of Elves could be quite active; it's all a matter of what sort of culture you imagine Elves to have.

Maybe one groups faces more challenges than another? So then overall level should be higher, right?

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

I agree with mmadsen on elven developement

(he saved me the trouble of writing all that myself)

 

[mmadsen]

Maybe I'm just missing the point completely.

Well, you did crop out the one paragraph that best illustrated what I was getting at:

Compare three decades at the same job, performing the same task at the same desk, married to the same woman, to serving overseas in the military, making one group of friends, going to college, meeting girls, working odd jobs, going back to grad school, meeting your wife, having kids, helping start a start-up, trying to bring it to IPO, watching that start-up fail, going back into industry, etc.

I was thinking that the experience you were giving humans was experience for doing the simple act of living day to day. Simple survival. Likewise for Elves. Am I wrong?

Yes and no. Day-to-day living is different depending on how you choose to live your day-to-day life. Compare another year at the same house, at the same job, etc. with a year overseas.

Experience doesn't accumulate linearly; doing the same thing every day for a second year doesn't double the "experience" you get from it. You learn more from varied experiences.

Thus, if you feel that life is short, and you make the time to travel, meet new people, learn new things, and otherwise broaden your horizons, you experience more in your day-to-day life. If you feel that you have all the time in the world, and you take years or decades enjoying your comfortable, languorous lifestyle.

Lending credence to my assumption that you're not assigning experience based on living, but specific, undefined challenges.

I fail to see the distinction. Life is full of minor "specific, undefined challenges", and I already gave my example of working different jobs, seeing different countries, starting a family, etc.

What determines how many of these are faced in, say, a year?

The choices you make and the "choices" life makes for you both.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Well, you did crop out the one paragraph that best illustrated what I was getting at:

Compare three decades at the same job, performing the same task at the same desk, married to the same woman, to serving overseas in the military, making one group of friends, going to college, meeting girls, working odd jobs, going back to grad school, meeting your wife, having kids, helping start a start-up, trying to bring it to IPO, watching that start-up fail, going back into industry, etc.

Yes and no. Day-to-day living is different depending on how you choose to live your day-to-day life. Compare another year at the same house, at the same job, etc. with a year overseas.

Experience doesn't accumulate linearly; doing the same thing every day for a second year doesn't double the "experience" you get from it. You learn more from varied experiences.

Like killing monsters over and over again? Same thing, different day.

Thus, if you feel that life is short, and you make the time to travel, meet new people, learn new things, and otherwise broaden your horizons, you experience more in your day-to-day life. If you feel that you have all the time in the world, and you take years or decades enjoying your comfortable, languorous lifestyle.

Problem is, there are people who feel both ways. Just look at the differences between the East and West coasts of the US - totally different cultures. East coasters are (on average) more rushed, west coasters are generally more laid-back. We're all humans, right?

I fail to see the distinction. Life is full of minor "specific, undefined challenges", and I already gave my example of working different jobs, seeing different countries, starting a family, etc.

The choices you make and the "choices" life makes for you both.

And since I ignored a point, you ignore one in return?

So an Elf only gets experience for the first plague he survives, the first couple of years he raises crops? In that case, just cap everyone at 3rd level, because unless you live in an area with lots of challenges (an environmental, not a biological cause), you're going to be pretty much repeating the same stuff over no matter what race you are. There's not much challenge to raising crops after the third or fourth year.

For that matter, why do adventurers get experience for killing stuff after a while? Wait, they do stop gaining experience for killing low level monsters. So again, just cap everything at a fixed number, because you won't gain any experience once the challenges aren't special anymore. Maybe they gain 365 the first year, half that the second, a quarter the third, and so on. If after a time survival isn't a challenge, then why should they gain experience at all?

Or are Elves just inherently lazy that they don't deal with as many challenges as Humans do?

 

[seasong]

Core Classes



Sorry I'm late on this. I got home only to discover that my phone lines were not working.

Anyway, go to the Core Classes In My Setting thread for the adventurer, fighter, laborer and specialist classes, along with the extra rules and whatnot that go with them.

And thanks to all of you for your comments already! I'm working extra hard on it now.