Talk:Time and Experience (3.5e Variant Rule)

Ratings

 * IIRC, I intended that the demographics be those in the DMG community generator. I am not vouching for whether they do. --Ideasmith (talk) 03:33, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * That's why it would be interesting to work out the actual numbers. --Foxwarrior (talk) 04:10, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, so it would. I might come up with assumptions about birth/death rates and attempt it some day.--Ideasmith (talk) 03:22, 23 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't see why leveling once per in-game year would require light in combat. In an RPG, game time in which not much happens can be played through very quickly. --Ideasmith (talk) 03:33, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Well that sounds like exactly when not to use this rule. Then you're just giving players free levels for doing absolutely nothing. --DanielDraco (talk) 04:28, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If the DM wants the years to pass the possible free levels (sans XP) are a reward for going along with the DM's plans. if the DM doesn't want too many of them to pass, then adventure hooks, offers/requests from NPCs and adventure coming to the PCs can happen at whatever rate the DM finds workable.--Ideasmith (talk) 03:22, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Implications
So... according to this rule, there might be 30-year old level 30 commoners out there who are level 30 just because they got lucky despite doing nothing their whole lives? --Ghostwheel 17:43, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The rules assume that training and such happen in the background (PHB page 197). So why assume they did nothing? --Ideasmith 18:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * 1 in 20 quintillion. For every 1 such creature, there are 20000 with 18s in every stat from 3d6 roll down. --Foxwarrior 18:38, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * That only proves that they "got lucky", which portion of Ghostwheel's statement is was not contesting.--Ideasmith 18:52, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but when you talk about getting lucky, it's often interesting to know "how lucky". In this case, it's "so lucky the DM didn't actually roll for it or even use statistical probability, but rather declared it to be so for dramatic effect". It's lucky enough that even if you could locate such a creature by being in the same universe as it, you'd never find it with continuous Well of Many Worlds abuse. --Foxwarrior 19:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Interesting
It takes an average of 425 years for a level 1 character to become a level 20 wizard by doing research in a perfectly safe place, which means that while your 1 level per year restriction (somewhat) deals with a Rowdy Elven Youth problem most DMs would choose to ignore or simply dismiss as not really being a sequence of meaningful encounters, it makes almost explicit another less ridiculous but still truly idiotic thing: if a typical Elven village has dozens of level 1 Commoner/level 19 Wizards in it, how can a party of level 10 PCs matter?

Half of the problem with this is actually the stupidly long lifetimes of many races, I suppose; if you took out all of the populous races with maximum ages more than a hundred years or so, you'd be left with only creatures who used dark and unholy powers to stay young, like people who turned into Elans and people with Druid friends, and having them be filled with great power is somewhat appropriate, actually. --Foxwarrior 17:47, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks like I’ll need to adjust the roll frequency based on lifespan. --Ideasmith 18:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I was about to suggest that. It's a very Lord of the Rings-ish solution, really. --Foxwarrior 19:19, 4 September 2012 (UTC)