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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 4448181" data-attributes="member: 1165">If he's that old, why hasn't he retired? He's not a Chosen of Mystra, he doesn't live forever, he should be slowing down with age, only stirring himself if he or his "town" are directly threatened, and only leaving to go raid a dungeon if things are desperate.Such powerful, elder mages should be rare, otherwise every town is going to have its own defender mage. Yes <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Note that the players should be the ones proposing what he research, at least much of the time, so they're still the ones driving the story. At least, IMO. Bad example. He's a Chosen of Mystra, after all, so aging doesn't affect him that much. And while he's so old he literally went senile, this does not affect more active CoM like Khelben (who so very recently died, but was a problem in the setting for many years).Khelben is an active player on the scene. He helps run Waterdeep, has his own organization (the Moonstars), and has an information network so precise he knows when a single drow is trying to "infiltrate" Waterdeep (but didn't know why).Also, as a high-level mage, Khelben can teleport, so (unlike Drizzt) he can be literally anywhere there's a massive problem. And to top it off, he can solve magical problems the PCs can never solve, like moving elven gates.And the less powerful Storm Silverhand is capable of sealing off an entire castle with Silverfire and defeating a Malaugrym that thought it was Bane (and it had good reason, since it was deific powers). And she has access to Cormyr's magical vault, since she used to sleep with Vangerdahast! So, influence and mega deific-derived powers in possibly the weakest of the Chosen.And if that isn't bad enough, Mystra has personally defended Elminster at least twice (most obviously in Elminster in Hell), and Azuth will defend the "ghost" Chosen of Mystra if anyone tries to destroy her (says so directly in 2e's Heroes Lorebook).Chosen of Mystra aren't just powerful NPCs, or even deific agents, they're basically walking deus ex machina. Dealing with them takes much more effort than dealing with regular powerful good-aligned NPCs.So the answer to that is no. The Chosen are capable of much more than that, and most were good-aligned non-retired powerful adventurers, many with social influence (two or more owned kingdoms, for instance). Alustriel herself participated in battles (helping Drizzt out) while the Simbul almost singled-handedly rendered the Red Wizards of Thay a joke.All these guys are acceptable. Personally powerful NPCs who aren't villains should be rare, and if possible shouldn't be wizards (at least not in 3.x rules!).</blockquote>

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