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View Full Version : [3.5] Shorter-Lived Races Learn Faster.



Zovc
2009-11-09, 01:41 PM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description#VitalStatistics.htm

When looking at the aging table, we can see that half-orcs age the fastest of all of the 'player races.' Going by this table (and its notes), we can conclude that Half-Orcs learn more quickly than other races. Any time you reach a new age group, you become smarter (and weaker, which makes sense). While I understand the reasoning behind this, I find that to be a curious "statement."

If Half-Orcs learn faster from their experiences time than other races, shouldn't they have a HIGHER intelligence? Shouldn't they get more skill points?

To be honest, this is a problem of abstraction, because experience is not equal to age (although it is naturally related). It makes sense for an older person to be weaker, but not when your experience is tracked separately from your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.

Discuss.

jiriku
2009-11-09, 01:49 PM
Reasonably speaking, races ought not gain bonuses to mental stats after reaching the adult bracket. It's conventional wisdom that experience makes you wiser, but in D&D it would be more accurate to say that experience gives you class levels. If anything, age ought to accrue mental penalties along with physical ones; just ask any of the elderly if they feel that age has made their memory sharper or their senses better.

Oslecamo
2009-11-09, 02:07 PM
If anything, age ought to accrue mental penalties along with physical ones; just ask any of the elderly if they feel that age has made their memory sharper or their senses better.

If you ask any eldery in a fantasy story, yes, they'll be filled with words of wisdom and good advice, and they'll notice the signs of impending doom better than anyone else, and direct the main heros on their quest.

Myrmex
2009-11-09, 02:21 PM
Half orcs exist either in human society, where they are too dumb and ostracized to do much, or in orc society, where they are too weak and ostracized to do much.

Zovc
2009-11-09, 02:25 PM
Half orcs exist either in human society, where they are too dumb and ostracized to do much, or in orc society, where they are too weak and ostracized to do much.

I think I'm missing your point, sorry.

Riffington
2009-11-09, 02:26 PM
If you ask any eldery in a fantasy story, yes, they'll be filled with words of wisdom and good advice, and they'll notice the signs of impending doom better than anyone else, and direct the main heros on their quest.

Grimm's has some examples of this, and even more counterexamples...

Optimystik
2009-11-09, 02:35 PM
I think I'm missing your point, sorry.

I think he's saying that half-orcs, despite having a shorter "turnover" time to master skills and professions due to their brief lifespans, are generally limited no matter which society they end up in, and thus have lower potential.

Though this doesn't account for half-orc communities, where they'd fit right in.


Reasonably speaking, races ought not gain bonuses to mental stats after reaching the adult bracket. It's conventional wisdom that experience makes you wiser, but in D&D it would be more accurate to say that experience gives you class levels. If anything, age ought to accrue mental penalties along with physical ones; just ask any of the elderly if they feel that age has made their memory sharper or their senses better.

Nonsense; everyone knows hearing and vision grow sharper with age. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0218.html) :smallwink:

Volos
2009-11-09, 04:30 PM
You could just as easily argue that elves live for longer times so they should have more time to mature and absorb knowledge while their brains are still of a child-like or teenage mentality. Therefore they should get more skill points and higher INT.

AstralFire
2009-11-09, 04:34 PM
Compare a 2 year old dog and a 2 year old human and see which one is smarter and better fends for itself.

Now compare a 20 year old dog and a 20 year old woman.

Myrmex
2009-11-09, 04:47 PM
{Scrubbed}

AstralFire
2009-11-09, 04:55 PM
...

:|

Not funny.

Optimystik
2009-11-09, 04:56 PM
'Twas a bit obvious, I'd say.

Grumman
2009-11-09, 06:45 PM
If I was going to address this issue, I'd probably fix it by giving the longer-lived races free skill points they can only use in "civilian" skills. So an 18 year old human and a 120 year old elf may be equally effective fighters, but the elf might have a whole lot of free ranks in Profession or Craft skills.

Starbuck_II
2009-11-09, 06:50 PM
You could just as easily argue that elves live for longer times so they should have more time to mature and absorb knowledge while their brains are still of a child-like or teenage mentality. Therefore they should get more skill points and higher INT.

No, you argue Elf are retards on the special bus (or is the PC term mentally disabled). So they should get Int penalty.
I mean they spend 100 years and learn nothing more a 16 year old human learns (less actually as humans have skill point advantage).

FMArthur
2009-11-09, 07:10 PM
So... when a half-orc finds a way to circumvent death by old age, the payoff is even greater? They continue their accelerated learning well into lichdom (or whatever else you can get), and become super-intelligent!

This would work if racial aging bonuses continued to accrue even after venerable at regular intervals. In the long run, the poor downtrodden half-orc is the best caster there is! :smallbiggrin:

Yeah, massively divergent racial lifespans are a completely stupid concept in D&D. The age advantage is poorly represented, and if it were represented properly, magic allows extrapolation of said advantage into unbalancing effects...

AstralFire
2009-11-09, 07:18 PM
Or... here's a thought, I'll just put it out there:

Creatures with a shorter development period are born with more of their behaviors hardcoded, and their brain firmcodes and develops its neural pathways faster. Thus, creatures with a shorter developmental period tend to be more instinctive and less analytical, with less variation within a community. Once fully developed, they have a more difficult time relearning to adapt different traits.

Creatures with a longer development period are born with very few mental pathways hardcoded; this means that basic development takes a long time. However, once basic development passes, they would be more mentally suited towards a wide variety of extremely divergent roles against their nature. Once fully developed, they quickly can adopt a number of different mindsets.

Rather than:

Creatures that live longer also learn slower uniformly through their lives, rather than actually having different emphasis on different development phases!

This isn't statistically represented in D&D, because it's not the sort of thing relevant to D&D.

Draken
2009-11-09, 07:22 PM
No, you argue Elf are retards on the special bus (or is the PC term mentally disabled). So they should get Int penalty.
I mean they spend 100 years and learn nothing more a 16 year old human learns (less actually as humans have skill point advantage).

I think it is actualy more likely that the elf just gets 84 years of leisure time more than the humans.

maijstral
2009-11-10, 08:39 AM
http://irregularwebcomic.net/123.html

This pretty much says it all.

Riffington
2009-11-10, 10:35 AM
I like this. Note that you still have to do something fancy/confusing with longer-lived races. But I like it a lot for the shorter-lived races. They always seemed more instinctive to me anyway, and there's nothing that wrong with mental shortcuts.

It also relates to the fact that kittens aren't smarter than human babies. Just more competent.


Or... here's a thought, I'll just put it out there:

Creatures with a shorter development period are born with more of their behaviors hardcoded, and their brain firmcodes and develops its neural pathways faster. Thus, creatures with a shorter developmental period tend to be more instinctive and less analytical, with less variation within a community. Once fully developed, they have a more difficult time relearning to adapt different traits.

Creatures with a longer development period are born with very few mental pathways hardcoded; this means that basic development takes a long time. However, once basic development passes, they would be more mentally suited towards a wide variety of extremely divergent roles against their nature. Once fully developed, they quickly can adopt a number of different mindsets.

Rather than:

Creatures that live longer also learn slower uniformly through their lives, rather than actually having different emphasis on different development phases!

This isn't statistically represented in D&D, because it's not the sort of thing relevant to D&D.

Yukitsu
2009-11-10, 10:56 AM
http://irregularwebcomic.net/123.html

This pretty much says it all.

Fortunately races of the wild addresses that wizards realizes that that would be stupid. Elves are fully physically mature at 25. They just get smothered by the community for 100 more years before they get tired enough of it to adventure.

drengnikrafe
2009-11-10, 11:05 AM
Fortunately races of the wild addresses that wizards realizes that that would be stupid. Elves are fully physically mature at 25. They just get smothered by the community for 100 more years before they get tired enough of it to adventure.

That is where you and I disagree. Sure, Wizards published something that says exactly what you said it says. I disagree with it based on this: If wizards mature at 25, then they grow physically just a bit slower than humans. However, this also gives them that additional 100 years to be training in something. No matter how your society is, it's almost completely unreasonable to say you have only as many skill points as you have gathered over that 100 year period, as well as lack of experiences. If elves mature at 25, why isn't the world overrun with 20th level elven wizards? It can't be that hard, they have the time. Furthermore, they could all be 80ish in age.

Also, it's that I hate the pidgeon-holing that WotC has done with it's races and classes to an almost extreme amount.

Yukitsu
2009-11-10, 11:18 AM
Only adventurers and people who do things have high levels. Most people die at level 1-2 regardless of age. Why? You have more bakers than you have scholars or fighters, and your typical baker doesn't accrue more levels as he ages.

In theory, the game really flubs advancement in a non-combative manner for skill checks in a profession, but that's more a flaw of the system as a whole than it is for aging in particular.

hamishspence
2009-11-10, 11:23 AM
But what counts as "doing things"?

According to Cityscape and DMG2, you can expect pretty much any serious professional, to accumulate levels. The best smith in the city, is probably level 10 or so.

Though it is likely a farm labourer, or some other person best represented as a "commoner" accumulates levels far more slowly.

If levelling is partly based on age, then the 80% or so of the people in the community who are 1st level commoners, could be young- early twenties- and the highest level commoners could be old- late forties or so.

Starbuck_II
2009-11-10, 11:34 AM
That is where you and I disagree. Sure, Wizards published something that says exactly what you said it says. I disagree with it based on this: If wizards mature at 25, then they grow physically just a bit slower than humans. However, this also gives them that additional 100 years to be training in something. No matter how your society is, it's almost completely unreasonable to say you have only as many skill points as you have gathered over that 100 year period, as well as lack of experiences. If elves mature at 25, why isn't the world overrun with 20th level elven wizards? It can't be that hard, they have the time. Furthermore, they could all be 80ish in age.

Also, it's that I hate the pidgeon-holing that WotC has done with it's races and classes to an almost extreme amount.

Exactly, even WotC think Elves are 'Tards. Physically mature, but not mentally :smallbiggrin:

Riffington
2009-11-10, 12:50 PM
But what counts as "doing things"?

According to Cityscape and DMG2, you can expect pretty much any serious professional, to accumulate levels. The best smith in the city, is probably level 10 or so.

Though it is likely a farm labourer, or some other person best represented as a "commoner" accumulates levels far more slowly.

If levelling is partly based on age, then the 80% or so of the people in the community who are 1st level commoners, could be young- early twenties- and the highest level commoners could be old- late forties or so.

So, this is something I despise about those books/that theory. If the town doctor is a 5th level expert, then the only thing a 1st level rogue is competent to do is to play hide and seek with kids. He's not competent to break into a warehouse or to save a town from even mild danger.

It works a lot better if the first level adventurers are actually able to help out a town; ie if they are better warriors (or sneaks or firefighters) than most/all of the other townsfolk. This means that well over 80% of people in the world should be 1st level, and well over 99% of people should be 3rd or lower.

hamishspence
2009-11-10, 12:56 PM
they can- if its a very small town.

If you follow the DMG, generally, there will be at least a few people above 1st level in any but the smallest towns.

A 1st level rogue, is quite young, and new, after all.

Your figures are probably not far off- the point being, that most of the world is very small hamlets surrounded by farms.

Towns, Cities, etc, are rare- but the people in a town, can be expected to be talented- with higher level characters on average, than those in a small village.

DMG: A thorp (smallest community) can have a highest level commoner of between 1st and 13th level, a highest level expert of between 1st and 9th level, and a highest level warrior of between 1st and 5th level. But the vast majority of people in this thorp will be lower level than this.

deuxhero
2009-11-10, 01:04 PM
I prefer the explanation of Elfs being mentally stunted (hence why they only reach adulthood after 7 times as long as a human). At the very least it gives me another reason to hate the unoriginal race of sues.


So, this is something I despise about those books/that theory. If the town doctor is a 5th level expert, then the only thing a 1st level rogue is competent to do is to play hide and seek with kids. He's not competent to break into a warehouse or to save a town from even mild danger.

It works a lot better if the first level adventurers are actually able to help out a town; ie if they are better warriors (or sneaks or firefighters) than most/all of the other townsfolk. This means that well over 80% of people in the world should be 1st level, and well over 99% of people should be 3rd or lower.

Personally, I prefer level 3 being the default (rather than 1). It solves the cat problem.

Yukitsu
2009-11-10, 02:43 PM
But what counts as "doing things"?

According to Cityscape and DMG2, you can expect pretty much any serious professional, to accumulate levels. The best smith in the city, is probably level 10 or so.

Though it is likely a farm labourer, or some other person best represented as a "commoner" accumulates levels far more slowly.

If levelling is partly based on age, then the 80% or so of the people in the community who are 1st level commoners, could be young- early twenties- and the highest level commoners could be old- late forties or so.

Being the best at something rather distinguishes someone from the average population though. They wouldn't be the best if they were the average.

I'd say that if you're not really doing anything new in a given lifetime, you aren't going to level. The majority of the common folk's lives exemplify this. Make a few dozen clay pots in the same way, day in and day out. A few who go out of the way to learn new and exciting ways of making a clay pot, or dare I say, inventing a new method of making a clay pot are doing new and interesting things, testing boundaries etc. and may be gaining levels, but they aren't common, nor are they all old. Hence, a level 13 commoner knows how to make a pot better than a level 1 commoner would, even if they've both been doing it for similar periods of time.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-11-10, 02:57 PM
An E6 game/setting I'm working on (E6 caps levels at 6) sets 1 as the baseline. Level 2s are fairly common, though; the sort of people we notice as go-getters. Level 3s are the real elites, but relatively common in history's scope. Level 4 are the leaders of their day, and level 5+ are legends. These levels assume NPC classing; subtract one for PC classes.