Skill Advancement without Levels

cattoy said:
what would you propose to balance out elves and other races with long lifespans? Given your premise, it stands to reason that elven craftsmen would be so skilled as to render non elves uncompetetive...

I think the 'problem' is that D&D in general imagines very long-lived races who nevertheless always have the same average skill levels as humans. So, in a typical D&D world, the top-level elven adventurers tend to be about the same level as top-level human adventurers, even though the former may well have been adventuring ten times as long. It also seems strange that level 1 elves only get as many skill points as level 1 humans.This paradox will apply to anything in D&D worlds that involves learning, whether its gaining levels in wizard or gaining skill points in craft.

But it's easy enough to come up with rationalisations for elves/dwarves/etc. not learning. They get bored, they learn slowly, they go through different life cycles, etc. Personally, I'd like to see a setting that says, 'OK, so someone who carves wood for a living for 200 years really will be much better on average than someone who does it for 30. What consequences will that have on the game world?'
 

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