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#1 darth_singe Jun 09, 2007 16:25:12

I can remember being a teenager and buying the 2nd edition AD&D collector cards and seeing characters in the mid to high level range all being in their late 30's, early 40's (some even in thier late 50's, early 60's!). I have also read many books and seen many movies where the most powerful characters have been alive for a little while, been around, and seen things. Maybe got a few aging penalties and/or bonuses. People like Gandalf, King Conan, Palpatine, Ramirez, Whistler, Elrond, Acheron Parthenopaeus, Flint Fireforge, Drizzt, and even Artemis Entreri to name but a few. So, why is it in many 3.5 campaigns that age is something ignored? I have played in a few games where time passes, but honestly the game is designed for semi-rapid leveling, with little to no lengthy passing of time between adventures. This is mostly a campaign or DM issue, but in a way it can be a player issue as well. For Example, I once decided as a DM to pass 20 years of game time to better tell my story, and one of my players threw a gasket because that meant his Fighter would now be middle aged and have to suffer aging penalties. It was a big fight, and in the end I won, but after having to play up my next story arc and promising untold riches and power, etc. Also, how many of us have shown off or seen other players showing off their 25th level Wizard only to glance over at the age column and seeing 16 written there, or even 25? I always laugh, because age and experience don't always go hand in hand, and as any RPG is supposed to be escapist fantasy, we usually just ignore it. However, there are those of us out there who believe you should not be just getting towards the end of puberty and single handedly taking down the tarrasque before breakfast twice on a Sunday. So what I am proposing is an age requirement in order to gain higher levels. I would break the levels down like this. Low Levels 1-5 Mid Levels 6-10 Peak Levels 11-15 High Levels 16-20 Epic Levels 21+ Each set of these level ranges would have an age requirement. Low Level does not have an age requirement, but most characters are near or at the end of their adolescent stage of life. Mid Levels would require you to be well into your adult life, so I suggest taking the high end level for this range (10), multiplying it by 2, and adding it to the base starting age for the race. Thus a human would need to be 35 years of age in order to take level 11, or 130 years for an elf. Apply the same equation to the other level ranges, and you have the following: Level 16 would require a human to be 45 years of age, while level 21 would require him to be 55. I suggest using the system of level ranges, but it can also be applied to specific levels above 1st. A particularly strict DM could require your human character to at least be 19 years to achieve level 2, or even 29 years to achieve level 7. Some might say this system is unfair or even unrealistic to certain non-human races, but I feel the level adjustment system works just fine for them. In conclusion, while maybe not a perfect system, it does lead to a game where the characters with the most experience have lived a little.