Post/Author/DateTime	Post
budleiser 11-02-06, 04:04 PM	Im currently Marshal3,Fighter2,Rog1,Ranger1,Beastmast er1 Rogue is favored class and BM is prestige so it looks more like Marshal3,Fighter2,Ranger1 When I take a level of Hexblade next will my XP penalty go up because its another level 1 vs the Marshal 3? If I takea level of Marshal will that create another xp penalty because of the Fighter 2? It lists each penalty as 20%, but doesn't list what happens if you have 5 conflicting levels (if thats even possible before level 16) Lets say I end up: Marshal 3, Hexblade 2, Fighter 2, Ranger 1, Barbarian 1 What will my XP penalty be? Would I incur more penalties by adding more level 1's, or would I be better off by raising the hexblade up?
ShinAkuma2 11-02-06, 04:13 PM	Marshal 3, Hexblade 2, Fighter 2, Ranger 1, Barbarian 1 You have 2 classes that are not within one level of your highest class. Thus, you lose 40% of your experience. May I recommend taking a level of Bard, Sorceror, and Favored Soul so that you can no longer gain any exp?
clannagh 11-02-06, 05:30 PM	on the bright side your character will have a LOT of gp for its level and doesnt have to worry about early retirement
_m_ 11-02-06, 05:41 PM	on the bright side your character will have a LOT of gp for its level and doesnt have to worry about early retirement or in fact... any retirement at all.
budleiser 11-02-06, 06:32 PM	Shakes head... wait so it really is possible to take a 100% XP penalty!? OMG WOW AWESOME! Im at %20 now.. after 12th I can take 3 levels... Barbarian 1 %40, then Bard 1, %60, Paladin 1 %80...Then bump the Hex or Marshal up anotehr so it conflicts with more classes -%140 ;)
Arvagor 11-02-06, 06:43 PM	May I recommend taking a level of Bard, Sorceror, and Favored Soul so that you can no longer gain any exp?Marshal 3, Hexblade 2, Fighter 2, Rogue 1, Ranger 1, Barbarian 1, Beastmaster 1, Bard 1, Sorcerer 1, Favored Soul 1 ... BAB +9 at 14th level? Hope you won't consider him a frontliner... :mymy: Shakes head... wait so it really is possible to take a 100% XP penalty!? OMG WOW AWESOME!Yes it's called a capstone character, and some people do it intentionally so that they can keep playing "forever" at a given level. There's an article on the Verbobonc site (http://verbobonc.net/index.php?categoryid=8&p13_sectionid=4&p13_fileid=43)* that describes in great detail how to go about it (focusing on a final level of 8). on the bright side your character will have a LOT of gp for its level and doesnt have to worry about early retirementRead the above article, page 7-8 on the fallacy of "rolling in dough"... :$$: * Verbobonc's site requires you to create a user account to login and download any of their files, but it's free...
_m_ 11-02-06, 07:06 PM	there are certain advantages to small caps, 20% or even 40%, or cwi etc. but too much is kinda dumb. theres only so much fun you can have being a level 9 for 4 years :D
jhorred 11-02-06, 08:41 PM	Of course your triad can retire your character for you if they they believe you are trying to avoid retirement. (LGCS pg 12, Level Caps) IMHO, taking a high XP penalty is against the spirit of the rules.
paigeoliver 11-02-06, 09:49 PM	At this point I doubt it is possible to start a brand new character and "avoid retirement" via XP penalties. You are looking at around 4 years NORMALLY from character creation to retirement. A 40 percent XP penalty is not unreasonable at all, and plenty of perfectly valid non-human builds have them (such as even a mildly optimized halfling archer or gnome melee character, who may not have a single level in their favored class, but may easily have a mix of the full BAB classes). A 40 percent character would be 5 or 6 years to retirement, while a 60 percent character would be looking at more like 8 years to retirement. I have a 40 percent XP penalty character, sitting at level 7 (and out of time units for the moment). I think she made level 3 during year 5, and level 7 during year 6 (with about 24,000 XP). Right now (play at APL at even levels and up at odd ones) I am 6 adventures from level 8, 18 adventures from level 9, 29 adventures from level 10, 42 from level 11, 54 from 12, 66 from 13, 78 from 14th, 91 from 15th and and 104 adventures from retirement. That is another 4 years minimum. It could be done in three and some change if I was dedicated to playing as many regional and metaregionals as possible, but many regionals don't support the higher levels and there often isn't a higher level table to sit at. The rules will be changed, the level cap will be different, the rules system will be 4th edition, you won't be playing Living Greyhawk anymore or the campaign will be gone before it will ever even matter for most characters. There would be solid guidelines about the XP penalties and avoiding retirement if it was truly a problem, it isn't a problem. If a 40 percent XP penalty is a problem then the LGCS would say so. Anyway, lots of characters die and lose levels multiple times during their careers, that can add up to just as much extra time if not more than an XP penalty. In the same area the LGCS also mentions avoiding retirement via magic item creation. Did they actually do the math on that one? If a caster spent every dime he ever earned crafting he couldn't even avoid retirement by more than a handful of modules. From 1st to 10th level a character should earn a maximum of 45,000 GP. Crafting that ALL up will make the character lose a grand total of 2250 XP. In ten levels they put themselves behind TWO MODULES. The gold is twice the XP at APL 10 and 12, so they should earn another 92000 before reaching 14th. If they craft that ALL up they lose 4600 XP, which makes another 3 modules. Finally there is APL 14, which gives 3.66 times as much gold as XP. From 14 to retirement they will earn 106140 gold. If they craft ALL of that they will lose 5307 XP, which is another 3 modules. So, if a character spent every gold piece they ever earned over their entire career crafting they would be a grand total of 12157 XP behind, which is less than a single character level. To do this they would need to be a cleric or a druid since sorcerers don't have the spell capacity to craft away all their gold and wizards spend too much putting spells in their books to do it. It would also take about 12 years to do it since you would spent more time units crafting than you would adventuring.
_m_ 11-02-06, 09:57 PM	since everyone else was thinking it, il say it: wow... someone has an even easier job than i do... thats alot of free time.
Maesto 11-03-06, 04:13 AM	Actually, using MIC to halt retirement is really quite possible, especially if you have banned schools (transmutation especially), if you're a wizard. Limited wish is 300 xp a shot. If I want to make a luckstone, that's 20 limited wishes, or 6000 xp, plus the 800 xp for making the thing. That corresponds to only 10,000 gp, and so you end up going through XP faster than you go through your gold. However, you'll probably run out of items to make...
vvincent 11-03-06, 08:03 AM	Of course your triad can retire your character for you if they they believe you are trying to avoid retirement. (LGCS pg 12, Level Caps) IMHO, taking a high XP penalty is against the spirit of the rules. Yep. The Capstone article referenced on the Verbobonc website is there strictly as a courtesy to the author and because it's an interesting read. It's not an endorsement of the idea. Any Triad, if they feel that you are avoiding retirement, can declare your character retired. So - you will probably want to check with the Triad of any region in which you plan to play your charater and make sure they see things as you do. Vernon L. Vincent Verbobonc Triad
_m_ 11-03-06, 08:17 AM	as said by a retired druidy friend of mine, when asked if she was sad about having to retire her highest level druid: nar. it got kind of boring. i just killed everything. in other words, the fun is in the playing, not the destination. who cares if you have the uuber hardcorest richest longest unretired toon. its fun getting there, and using it, but after its done, so what, make a new one.
Arvagor 11-03-06, 01:31 PM	Actually, using MIC to halt retirement is really quite possible, especially if you have banned schools (transmutation especially), if you're a wizard. Limited wish is 300 xp a shot. If I want to make a luckstone, that's 20 limited wishes, or 6000 xp, plus the 800 xp for making the thing. That corresponds to only 10,000 gp, and so you end up going through XP faster than you go through your gold. However, you'll probably run out of items to make... 1) If you're using limited wish in this manner, then yes, IMO, you're striding a fine line between useful crafting, and crafting to intentionally avoid retirement. 2) That being said, I don't believe you can use limited wish (or wish or miracle, etc.) for the purpose of crafting items in this way. You're not casting a spell during crafting, and wish and its ilk let you duplicate another spell when you cast it. What is memorized in your head is wish, and it is what is in your head that counts during MIC. Therefore, a wizard could not even craft* a luckstone, since it requires divine favor, a cleric spell, to be crafted. IMO... * Barring, of course, access to the spell via the Arcane Disciple feat, or multiclassing, etc.