NPCs and Exp. Cost

[darkfnord]

Do DMs out there generally hold their NPCs accountable for experience cost of making magic items? It seems kind of absurd that a master craftsman of magic items would eventually have to go out and risk his life (adventure) after making a certain number, just because he had run out of some imaginary source of mystic power (experince points). The only way I can think of to justify this is that he runs out of some rare material component, but that doesn't quite do it, since he really just needs to go face some tough encounters to get experience. Also, since skills are based on experience, this means the more you practice your ability to make magic items, the slower you learn.

Matt

 

[Chacal]

A way to circumvent this problem is having the craftman buy some power components to replace the XP cost.



Chacal

 

[StealthyMark]

You could assume, that everyone (NPC) earns a (small) amount of XP just by living his daily life. That way, the existence of mid- to high-level non-combat sages, spellcasters, commoners etc. would be justified. Remember, CR, XP and EL are made to advance player characters.

 

[Magic Rub]

You could assume, that everyone (NPC) earns a (small) amount of XP just by living his daily life. That way, the existence of mid- to high-level non-combat sages, spellcasters, commoners etc. would be justified. Remember, CR, XP and EL are made to advance player characters.

I agree.

NPC's are there to keep your world turning, if you had to write out all of thier life stories & keep them up to date you wouldn't have much time to run a game, or your own life.

A world of 1 million NPC's x 0.5 (half of them are boring) = Q

Q x 0.5 (can't get xp due to whatever misc. reason) = W (250,000)

W = Actual number of NPC's who gain XP in your world

W x 1 hour (aprox. amount of time to flesh out a good NPC) / 24 / 365 =

aprox. 28.5 years is time needed for a world of "correctly" made NPC's