Celebrim
Legend
KM: Well, you are absolutely right about how the DMG rules it, and that reasoning has always been the backing for the predominately 1st level (or 0 level back in the old days) population.
The problem is that assuming that experience only comes from killing things also leads to some wierd situations.
One thing that always bugged me, especially with 1st editions slower rate of advance, was that the experience point system didn't make alot of ecological sense. That is to say, the ammount of things that you are required to kill in order to gain levels is greater than the ecologies ability to replace those things. It simply becomes impossible to justify the existance of high level NPC's on the grounds that they mostly got thier by killing things. It left me feeling that probably orcs, kobolds, goblins and etc. etc. should be extinct based on the published and accepted commonality of high level NPC's.
Another problem is a lack of versimilitude. We know in reality that people can improve thier skills without killing things. By ignoring this, we risk creating highly unrealistic worlds were all nations train thier armies by having them kill armed slaves and criminals in subtly rigged duels - after all, it is the only way to insure a skilled army, and any nation that didn't do it would be doomed when war came.
And of course, we have a really hard time explaining the existance of skilled craftsman. 'Bobby, you finished your apprenticeship as a Blacksmith, but before you can become a Journeyman, you must go out and kill 13 orcs'
And I think from a stictly game mechanics standpoint, you have to drop the idea that many 1st level commoners become 2nd level commoners in the same fashion as PC's. The odds are simply against it. For every one commoner that made it, how many would have died on average? Six? Eight? Ten? What sorts of circumstances would leave a commoner in a dangerous situation repeatedly while his family in friends were slaughtered around him? A few, but the normal responce of commoners to threats is to just flee, and I'm hesitant to say that the commoner earned skill in profession (farmer) just because he's been running every time the orc war band came over the hill.
You also run into some weirdness when trying to model typical fantasy conventions. You want the Duke's young son to be reasonably high level, even though such a protected figure probably hasn't had much oppurtunity to kill things. You could explain this by intence training if you accepted some sort of training mechanic, but if you don't you pretty much have to accept that 'it just is'.
So, in my own campaigns for the longest time I've made assumptions about the number of XP per day you can gain by accomplishing certain tasks.
For instance, I've tradiationally allowed PC's to teach lower level characters at the rate of PC level minus student level XP per day. And of course, I reverse this. If the PC finds the 'enlighted master', the PC can gain master's level - his level XP per day. I've generally allowed 'profession' type characters to earn 1 XP per day for practicing thier profession. So if the fighter wants to go out in the courtyard and practice fencing all day long, he gains 1 XP.
I don't think under such rules you'd ever have much problems with 'I'll camp until I reach the next level'. For most characters, this is a matter of months if not years of practice. You might very rarely have a character 1-3 XP away wanting to camp, but I'd be inclined to say, 'Don't worry about it. Your close enough, level up.', and take the XP off the back side afterwards.
And I don't think you'd have much problem with '+ECL grandpa' either. As I previously noted, even if you allowed a 'grandpa' character to begin leveled, what advantage he would gain in the short term would be seriously hampered in the short term and more so in the long term by the reduced physical stats.
'The campaign is starting at 1st level so everyone has to be young' is an old problem with D&D that has always bothered me. You can always create a character who is older but who has been doing nothing with his life and is thus just 1st level, but if you try to create a character with an extensive backstory almost immediately you run into the problem of 'If this much stuff has happened to you, why aren't you higher level?' GURPS doesn't have this problem, and most point based systems let you trade out age for more skills knowing that you will more than pay for it lost attributes in the long run. The same system is tough for D&D. I'd love to see a well written age for starting XP system but I can't think of one that answers all the questions.
So I think D&D is stuck with 1st level = young no matter what you decide.
The problem is that assuming that experience only comes from killing things also leads to some wierd situations.
One thing that always bugged me, especially with 1st editions slower rate of advance, was that the experience point system didn't make alot of ecological sense. That is to say, the ammount of things that you are required to kill in order to gain levels is greater than the ecologies ability to replace those things. It simply becomes impossible to justify the existance of high level NPC's on the grounds that they mostly got thier by killing things. It left me feeling that probably orcs, kobolds, goblins and etc. etc. should be extinct based on the published and accepted commonality of high level NPC's.
Another problem is a lack of versimilitude. We know in reality that people can improve thier skills without killing things. By ignoring this, we risk creating highly unrealistic worlds were all nations train thier armies by having them kill armed slaves and criminals in subtly rigged duels - after all, it is the only way to insure a skilled army, and any nation that didn't do it would be doomed when war came.
And of course, we have a really hard time explaining the existance of skilled craftsman. 'Bobby, you finished your apprenticeship as a Blacksmith, but before you can become a Journeyman, you must go out and kill 13 orcs'
And I think from a stictly game mechanics standpoint, you have to drop the idea that many 1st level commoners become 2nd level commoners in the same fashion as PC's. The odds are simply against it. For every one commoner that made it, how many would have died on average? Six? Eight? Ten? What sorts of circumstances would leave a commoner in a dangerous situation repeatedly while his family in friends were slaughtered around him? A few, but the normal responce of commoners to threats is to just flee, and I'm hesitant to say that the commoner earned skill in profession (farmer) just because he's been running every time the orc war band came over the hill.
You also run into some weirdness when trying to model typical fantasy conventions. You want the Duke's young son to be reasonably high level, even though such a protected figure probably hasn't had much oppurtunity to kill things. You could explain this by intence training if you accepted some sort of training mechanic, but if you don't you pretty much have to accept that 'it just is'.
So, in my own campaigns for the longest time I've made assumptions about the number of XP per day you can gain by accomplishing certain tasks.
For instance, I've tradiationally allowed PC's to teach lower level characters at the rate of PC level minus student level XP per day. And of course, I reverse this. If the PC finds the 'enlighted master', the PC can gain master's level - his level XP per day. I've generally allowed 'profession' type characters to earn 1 XP per day for practicing thier profession. So if the fighter wants to go out in the courtyard and practice fencing all day long, he gains 1 XP.
I don't think under such rules you'd ever have much problems with 'I'll camp until I reach the next level'. For most characters, this is a matter of months if not years of practice. You might very rarely have a character 1-3 XP away wanting to camp, but I'd be inclined to say, 'Don't worry about it. Your close enough, level up.', and take the XP off the back side afterwards.
And I don't think you'd have much problem with '+ECL grandpa' either. As I previously noted, even if you allowed a 'grandpa' character to begin leveled, what advantage he would gain in the short term would be seriously hampered in the short term and more so in the long term by the reduced physical stats.
'The campaign is starting at 1st level so everyone has to be young' is an old problem with D&D that has always bothered me. You can always create a character who is older but who has been doing nothing with his life and is thus just 1st level, but if you try to create a character with an extensive backstory almost immediately you run into the problem of 'If this much stuff has happened to you, why aren't you higher level?' GURPS doesn't have this problem, and most point based systems let you trade out age for more skills knowing that you will more than pay for it lost attributes in the long run. The same system is tough for D&D. I'd love to see a well written age for starting XP system but I can't think of one that answers all the questions.
So I think D&D is stuck with 1st level = young no matter what you decide.
