Dwimmerlied
First Post
I've pesonally always found this one a tricky one to rationalise;- the long adventure sequence, dungeoncrawl, or time-critical kind of mission that leaves little or no downtime for large stretches.
One problem seems to be that downtime is kind of an assumption, for creating magic items, or learning new skills, training and such.
But more challenging to represent, I think, is where characters don't get the downtime assumed to level. This is compounded when running an arc of adventures spanning multiple levels gained by touch-and-go, go, go!! encounters. The best plan seems to be that characters simply level as they go (which seems a little video-gamey). In the short-term, its not that noticeable, I guess; It can be rationalised by abilities manifesting that we assume the character has been training in during downtime. A fighter has gained enough combat sense to really make that power attack work, and sorcerers have focussed long and hard on producing fireball, and in a moment of inspiration it all falls into place.
But the suspension of disbelief is often stretched, I reckon, in the epic storyline campaigns that happen rapidly, especially in lower level campaigns. In some situations, characters who struggled against goblins are challenging the orc-king in a couple of weeks!
I've put this thread up because I'd be very interested in whether this is a problem for other people. Is it? How do you rationalise this? What interesting houserules or alternative ways in handling it are there?
Cheers!
One problem seems to be that downtime is kind of an assumption, for creating magic items, or learning new skills, training and such.
But more challenging to represent, I think, is where characters don't get the downtime assumed to level. This is compounded when running an arc of adventures spanning multiple levels gained by touch-and-go, go, go!! encounters. The best plan seems to be that characters simply level as they go (which seems a little video-gamey). In the short-term, its not that noticeable, I guess; It can be rationalised by abilities manifesting that we assume the character has been training in during downtime. A fighter has gained enough combat sense to really make that power attack work, and sorcerers have focussed long and hard on producing fireball, and in a moment of inspiration it all falls into place.
But the suspension of disbelief is often stretched, I reckon, in the epic storyline campaigns that happen rapidly, especially in lower level campaigns. In some situations, characters who struggled against goblins are challenging the orc-king in a couple of weeks!
I've put this thread up because I'd be very interested in whether this is a problem for other people. Is it? How do you rationalise this? What interesting houserules or alternative ways in handling it are there?
Cheers!