How do I age a character? [Archive] - Wizards Community

How do I age a character? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Phaseroth
09-27-05, 01:12 AM Do any of you experienced players/DMs/writers have some guidelines on aging a character? I'm trying to figure out "minimum" ages for characters of different levels. I want to do this for NPCs, as well as for characters in stories (I'd like to take a crack at writing a D&D novel, or at the very least fan fiction).

To be more specific, my story characters are obviously not all going to start at 1st level. Let's say I want to create a 7th-level human paladin. According to the age table in the PHB "Description" chapter, a human reaches adulthood at 15 years of age. To randomly determine a 1st-level paladin's age, I roll 1d6. So my 1st-level paladin can be between the ages of 16 and 21. What would be a good age range for my 7th-level paladin? Let's assume that she has been adventuring on a fairly steady basis since she became a paladin, with reasonable breaks between adventures.

Since she already going to be a 7th-level character when she is first introduced in a story or game, I naturally haven't spent "game time" leveling her up. If I had played the character from 1st to 7th level, I could use the passage of time in the game (as dictated by the DM) to guesstimate the aging process.

What I've been doing (while creating loads of characters, trying to find the ones I like) is adding a year for each 10,000 XP. This technique would mean my paladin reached 5th level (10,000 XP) in her first year of adventuring, and takes a little over one more year to reach 7th level (21,000 XP). By this measuring stick, it would take her nineteen years of regular adventuring to reach 20th level (190,000 XP). I don't know if that's too long, or not long enough. Spellcasters creating magic items or casting spells that have an XP cost would mess up this method, too.

Any suggestions will be appreciated. I'm trying to avoid having characters who are unreasonably young for their character levels.
Fithero
09-27-05, 03:19 AM There is no hard and fast rule for aging a character. It is totally possible for a character to get to lvl 20 within one year (a long shot i know, but it is possible). Just have tons of healing and tons of battles and they would reach it in no time.

Remember, level doesnt equal rank in society. Just because your paladin is a higher level than other paladins, doesnt mean he is above them in a paladin order etc.

Later
braindead345
09-27-05, 04:52 AM Realisticly, add a year to your character's age for each level. This might sound harsh, but it averages out when you get beyond 8th level. It takes longer to earn all the XP you need for the next level. Sure the monsters are tougher, but you still need to go find them.

There is a lot of stuff going on in your character's life besides just dungeons and healing. There is travel time from one dungeon to the next. Sinister plots (invading armies of monsters, evil wizards taking over the kingdom, etc) do not happen weekly. There might be 3 or 6 months between adventures in character time.
Phaseroth
09-27-05, 12:39 PM Realisticly, add a year to your character's age for each level. This might sound harsh, but it averages out when you get beyond 8th level. It takes longer to earn all the XP you need for the next level. Sure the monsters are tougher, but you still need to go find them.
That works out about the same as my current (10,000 XP = 1 Year) fomula. Cool. While I suppose it may be possible to gain 20 levels in a year, I personally find the idea of an eighteen-year-old, 20th-level wizard ridiculous.

There is a lot of stuff going on in your character's life besides just dungeons and healing. There is travel time from one dungeon to the next. Sinister plots (invading armies of monsters, evil wizards taking over the kingdom, etc) do not happen weekly. There might be 3 or 6 months between adventures in character time.
My question was sort of inspired by looking at sample NPCs. For example, King Boranel of Breland (Eberron: Five Nations) has class levels of Aristocrat 3/fighter 8, despite the fact that he is at least fifty years old. Although few of my characters will be royalty, they will have one thing in common with King Boranel: They will have other things to do besides adventuring. Like spending all that treasure they've "liberated" ;)

There's also the fact that many feats and skills clearly require a character to spend time in training outside of adventures, whether the skill or feat description says so or not. For example, a rogue who gains ranks in Open Lock probably has available to him a variety of different kinds of locks, at home or at the headquarters of the local thieves' guild, to practice on when he's not adventuring. Or bards learning new material - I'm a musician myself, so I know that I don't learn a whole lot by only picking up my instrument when it's time to give a performance. I may gain "experience" by performing, but I don't actually get better at Perform (Stringed Instruments) unless I spend a lot of non-XP-gaining time between performances practicing my instrument and learning new songs.

The need to travel lightly is going a preclude the rogue carrying a backpack full of practice locks, and the need for silence is going to keep a bard from practicing when he's on guard duty while the rest of the party sleeps in the middle of a dangerous forest. These characters will need to practice their skills at home, between adventures.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Phaseroth 09-27-05, 01:12 AM	Do any of you experienced players/DMs/writers have some guidelines on aging a character? I'm trying to figure out "minimum" ages for characters of different levels. I want to do this for NPCs, as well as for characters in stories (I'd like to take a crack at writing a D&D novel, or at the very least fan fiction). To be more specific, my story characters are obviously not all going to start at 1st level. Let's say I want to create a 7th-level human paladin. According to the age table in the PHB "Description" chapter, a human reaches adulthood at 15 years of age. To randomly determine a 1st-level paladin's age, I roll 1d6. So my 1st-level paladin can be between the ages of 16 and 21. What would be a good age range for my 7th-level paladin? Let's assume that she has been adventuring on a fairly steady basis since she became a paladin, with reasonable breaks between adventures. Since she already going to be a 7th-level character when she is first introduced in a story or game, I naturally haven't spent "game time" leveling her up. If I had played the character from 1st to 7th level, I could use the passage of time in the game (as dictated by the DM) to guesstimate the aging process. What I've been doing (while creating loads of characters, trying to find the ones I like) is adding a year for each 10,000 XP. This technique would mean my paladin reached 5th level (10,000 XP) in her first year of adventuring, and takes a little over one more year to reach 7th level (21,000 XP). By this measuring stick, it would take her nineteen years of regular adventuring to reach 20th level (190,000 XP). I don't know if that's too long, or not long enough. Spellcasters creating magic items or casting spells that have an XP cost would mess up this method, too. Any suggestions will be appreciated. I'm trying to avoid having characters who are unreasonably young for their character levels.
Fithero 09-27-05, 03:19 AM	There is no hard and fast rule for aging a character. It is totally possible for a character to get to lvl 20 within one year (a long shot i know, but it is possible). Just have tons of healing and tons of battles and they would reach it in no time. Remember, level doesnt equal rank in society. Just because your paladin is a higher level than other paladins, doesnt mean he is above them in a paladin order etc. Later
braindead345 09-27-05, 04:52 AM	Realisticly, add a year to your character's age for each level. This might sound harsh, but it averages out when you get beyond 8th level. It takes longer to earn all the XP you need for the next level. Sure the monsters are tougher, but you still need to go find them. There is a lot of stuff going on in your character's life besides just dungeons and healing. There is travel time from one dungeon to the next. Sinister plots (invading armies of monsters, evil wizards taking over the kingdom, etc) do not happen weekly. There might be 3 or 6 months between adventures in character time.
Phaseroth 09-27-05, 12:39 PM	Realisticly, add a year to your character's age for each level. This might sound harsh, but it averages out when you get beyond 8th level. It takes longer to earn all the XP you need for the next level. Sure the monsters are tougher, but you still need to go find them. That works out about the same as my current (10,000 XP = 1 Year) fomula. Cool. While I suppose it may be possible to gain 20 levels in a year, I personally find the idea of an eighteen-year-old, 20th-level wizard ridiculous. There is a lot of stuff going on in your character's life besides just dungeons and healing. There is travel time from one dungeon to the next. Sinister plots (invading armies of monsters, evil wizards taking over the kingdom, etc) do not happen weekly. There might be 3 or 6 months between adventures in character time. My question was sort of inspired by looking at sample NPCs. For example, King Boranel of Breland (Eberron: Five Nations) has class levels of Aristocrat 3/fighter 8, despite the fact that he is at least fifty years old. Although few of my characters will be royalty, they will have one thing in common with King Boranel: They will have other things to do besides adventuring. Like spending all that treasure they've "liberated" ;) There's also the fact that many feats and skills clearly require a character to spend time in training outside of adventures, whether the skill or feat description says so or not. For example, a rogue who gains ranks in Open Lock probably has available to him a variety of different kinds of locks, at home or at the headquarters of the local thieves' guild, to practice on when he's not adventuring. Or bards learning new material - I'm a musician myself, so I know that I don't learn a whole lot by only picking up my instrument when it's time to give a performance. I may gain "experience" by performing, but I don't actually get better at Perform (Stringed Instruments) unless I spend a lot of non-XP-gaining time between performances practicing my instrument and learning new songs. The need to travel lightly is going a preclude the rogue carrying a backpack full of practice locks, and the need for silence is going to keep a bard from practicing when he's on guard duty while the rest of the party sleeps in the middle of a dangerous forest. These characters will need to practice their skills at home, between adventures.