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Mad Gene Vane
2011-10-08, 02:24 PM
You don't generally keep up on a character after the adventure of a campaign ends, but face it folks, the next generation of young adventurers has to come from somewhere.

I've seen character concepts, where the new generation of adventurers comes from commoner NPC parents, are orphans, or generally some less than ideal home life.

What's always struck me as odd is why not have retired adventurers have kids, who become adventurers. I mean say a 12th level fighter hooks up with a 12th level sorcerer and they pop out babies. With the loot they've gotten from adventuring, they'd have some money saved up to start a family.

They'd be more powerful than most NPC's running a town and would probably end up on the higher end of the social ladder in non-large cities.

You figure humans start adventuring between 17-21 years old, depending on the class. With a life of regular adventuring, you would end up being relatively high level before hitting 25.

I'm just wondering why, in D&D or Pathfinder or other related RPG fiction or in character concepts for campaigns (such as Pathfinder traits), you don't end up with more characters, whose parents were also adventurers.

It seems in RPG having adventurers should not be uncommon, so you'd figure there'd be families of adventurers, instead of adventurers just popping up out of adverse circumstances.

Chilingsworth
2011-10-08, 02:49 PM
Well, at least one character in CoffeeIncluded's Murphy's Law (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209177)has former adventurer parents. (The character being Serin and her parents being a 20th level wizard and a 20th level bard.)

Ravens_cry
2011-10-08, 02:54 PM
I had a human paladin character, I think I've told this story before, who was in love with and courted a harpy all through a campaign. I have an awesome DM and when the paladin, at the end of the campaign, proposed to said harp, the DM set up a big elaborate wedding where many major NPC as well as, of course, all the PC's showed up. He was offered immortality at the side of a good NPC, and turned it down. As he said,"What is eternity if it is eternity alone?"
Not many details where given life after, but one of the first things I did was homebrew up a Half-Harpy race.
Next time I am in a campaign with that DM, I am so seen if I can play one.

comicshorse
2011-10-08, 02:59 PM
Well just because you're parents were adventurers doesn't necassarily mean thats what their kids will want to do.
Or even that their parents having seen comrades die horrible deaths at the claws of various monsters even want their children to persue such a dangerous career

Indeed when my Warhammer character retired having managed to cheat, lie, gamble, fight and marry himself into the position of a Count I was damn sure my son was going to take over my lands when he came of age not wander of adventuring

Coidzor
2011-10-08, 03:08 PM
I have a character who has yet to see play who basically went from being raised by a semi-retired adventurer wizard to being raised/used as a trapmonkey by an adventuring company.

Friend's custom setting that he gave up making a system for and instead converted to D&D 3.X.

Have a couple of characters who are descended from adventurers, but generally I feel one has to start at a higher level to justify that in most cases. Have a gish in my group's Red Hand of Doom game that's somewhere around the 7th-9th son of a retired high-level adventurer general, which is why he was mostly sent out with what would be considered vendor trash to a properly equipped character.

Mad Gene Vane
2011-10-08, 03:43 PM
Well just because you're parents were adventurers doesn't necassarily mean thats what their kids will want to do.
Or even that their parents having seen comrades die horrible deaths at the claws of various monsters even want their children to persue such a dangerous career

Indeed when my Warhammer character retired having managed to cheat, lie, gamble, fight and marry himself into the position of a Count I was damn sure my son was going to take over my lands when he came of age not wander of adventuring

I figure, if you come out of adventuring alive, I'd be thinking about the bright side of things because the bad things didn't happen to me or assume those things happen to someone else.

Adventuring parents of kids, who decide to adventure too, will be thinking sure my kid will get hurt but I raised to have enough sense to make sure he always adventures with a cleric in the party or stock up on healing supplies/potions/scrolls.

tyckspoon
2011-10-08, 04:03 PM
Well just because you're parents were adventurers doesn't necassarily mean thats what their kids will want to do.
Or even that their parents having seen comrades die horrible deaths at the claws of various monsters even want their children to persue such a dangerous career


On the other hand, those kids who do take up adventuring are likely to be much better equipped and prepared to survive the very dangerous low levels so they can make it to the wealth, power, and prestige of higher levels. Which suggests that among successful adventurers you should see a higher rate of characters that had adventuring parents; the kid who grew up getting fighting tips from his Warblade dad and was given a breastplate to start his life has much better odds of succeeding than the peasant who used his life savings to buy an old sword and a thick jerkin and went out to make something of himself in the world.


Indeed when my Warhammer character retired having managed to cheat, lie, gamble, fight and marry himself into the position of a Count I was damn sure my son was going to take over my lands when he came of age not wander of adventuring

Honestly, in a world like Warhammer and certain D&D settings? You want your kids to adventure. It's how they get strong enough to hold your lands later on when they're called on to be the defense against giants, trolls, dragons, Beastmen raids, Orcish incursion, and the like.

Ravens_cry
2011-10-08, 10:18 PM
In a meta way, true. But given the attriation rate, finding safer ways to hone ones combat skills would be preferable to risking ones child and heir out in the wild on some rumpus. This was true in Reality as well.

Coidzor
2011-10-08, 11:04 PM
In a meta way, true. But given the attriation rate, finding safer ways to hone ones combat skills would be preferable to risking ones child and heir out in the wild on some rumpus. This was true in Reality as well.

For the first couple of levels, sure, but those are easy enough to engineer anyway. It's once they start to get to a level to where they'd be relevant to anything at all ever that they'd need to leave the nest. And even then, unless the adventurer parents were doing something wrong, they could afford the necessary stuff to doublecheck in case things went wrong anyway in any setting with resurrection.

Ravens_cry
2011-10-09, 01:27 AM
Not every setting. In the Girl Genius webcomic, the equivalent of being resurrected forfeits one of all lands and titles, as well as potential inheritance.

Coidzor
2011-10-09, 01:29 AM
Not every setting. In the Girl Genius webcomic, the equivalent of being resurrected forfeits one of all lands and titles, as well as potential inheritance.

If you're not strong enough to hold onto it anyway or keep it secret, yes. Really though, if you're playing in a setting like that, your goal is probably to deal with the asinine nature of the GM more than anything.

CarpeGuitarrem
2011-10-09, 01:33 AM
Isn't it probable that some adventurers are gung-ho about the idea of their kids growing up to go adventuring, and that some wish to spare them the pains of said life? That's sorta how it works in real life, in various other occupations.

Which means that there are still second-gen adventurers. Sounds like a really interesting plot hook to me.

As an aside, this is actually the default assumption of the Pendragon RPG.

Calanon
2011-10-09, 01:41 AM
the kid who grew up getting fighting tips from his Warblade dad and was given a breastplate to start his life has much better odds of succeeding than the peasant who used his life savings to buy an old sword and a thick jerkin and went out to make something of himself in the world.

"Fortune shines on those who come from lowly backgrounds..."
-My First DM

Your character can have whatever background you deem worthy either Nobility (which i prefer) or peasantry (which is smarter) would you rather hear about the adventures of some duke's son who defeated the dreaded Undead of Lychfield Graveyard (<~fable reference) or the former slave child who defeated the dreaded Undead of Lychfield Graveyard. The reason your characters are even able to become famous world (or even planar) -wide is because of there backstory and I'm fairly confident that in D&D more NPCs are going to be able to relate with the lowly peasant than the Nobleman.

Kol Korran
2011-10-09, 05:20 AM
there was a game in which there was one guy who was sent (agianst his will) to learn to be a transmuter. why? because his mother was a changeling adventurer (now a noble) and she wanted him to expereince the "fun that was change". soon after graduating, she also signed him up on an advenutre, despite him wanting to just "stay home and red some books, maybe talk to some girls?"

she kept on appearing (in various shapes, we never knew) to try and nudge us to adventure, or to complicate things (in her words- "make things more fun!"). the DM played her as the "doting mother, who is sure what's right forher son, and never listens to anything he says" with the added "former adventurer" stuff.

this was SOOOOO much fun, and soooo hilarious!

"mom! mom! MOOOOM! why did you spring a basilisk on us? and the dumb orc routine is getting annoying"
(make a face, then shifting to natural form)"why, you never been an adventurer till you've been stoned once! and you can play the naughtiest tricks!" (continues to paint rude stuff on the statues.)
(son face palms) "mom, will you stop it! they are my friends! how am i going to get them back?"
(surprised look) "what, you don't have a stone salve?" (then big winking smile) "luckily, i do! everyone should carry one! why, did i tell you about the time Uncle Henry and i met this Gorgon, down at the Caves of Despair..."
"mom! mom! MOOOOM! yeah i heard all about uncle Henry, the salve please?" (then after a few seconds) "don't paint THAT there! he's a cleric!"

Morghen
2011-10-09, 10:55 AM
Yeah, I'm going to try to keep my kids from playing football.

Because of the head injuries. That players get WHILE WEARING HELMETS.


There is zero chance that, having survived to a medium-high level, having seen numerous comrades/flunkies disintegrated, disemboweled, dismembered, soul-sucked, polymorphed, turned into wights, petrified, etc., that I'm going to speak with anything less than horror about my days as an adventurer.

Yes, it made me wealthy beyond all reckoning. That's why my kids get to be part of the merchant class instead of being peasants.

comicshorse
2011-10-09, 11:36 AM
Honestly, in a world like Warhammer and certain D&D settings? You want your kids to adventure. It's how they get strong enough to hold your lands later on when they're called on to be the defense against giants, trolls, dragons, Beastmen raids, Orcish incursion, and the like.

True enough but there's no Ressurection in Warhammer I think I'll settle for having him trained in safety by the best teachers money can buy.
Also as a noble I'd think strategy and tactics are going to be more useful than hand-to-hand skills.

Malimar
2011-10-09, 12:33 PM
Related observation: in any D&D world where your surname is your father's profession until you (literally) make a name for yourself, at which point your profession becomes your surname*, "Adventurer" should be a not-uncommon surname.

* I recognize that this isn't all D&D worlds, and may not even be a majority of D&D worlds.

Ravens_cry
2011-10-09, 12:36 PM
True enough but there's no Ressurection in Warhammer I think I'll settle for having him trained in safety by the best teachers money can buy.
Also as a noble I'd think strategy and tactics are going to be more useful than hand-to-hand skills.

No reason you can't have both, as hand to hand combat was taught (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_school_of_swordsmanship)historically (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_school_of_swordsmanship).
The way I see it, most actual adventurers of the noble classes, unless driven by some necessity, would be the non-inheriting ones who didn't desire to become, or couldn't find a place in, part of the local church hierarchy. They had the means to acquire good equipment, unlike most peasants, had a taste for the finer things, yet had no guarantee of said life style continuing once their parents died.

comicshorse
2011-10-09, 12:38 PM
No reason you can't have both, as hand to hand combat was taught (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_school_of_swordsmanship)historically (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_school_of_swordsmanship).
The way I see it, most actual adventurers of the noble classes, unless driven my some necessity, would be the non-inheriting ones who didn't desire to become, or couldn't find a place in, part of the local church hierarchy. They had the means to acquire good equipment, unlike most peasants, had a taste for the finer things, yet had no guarantee of said life style continuing once their parents died.

So first child inherits, second goes into the church, third goes adventuring

Ravens_cry
2011-10-09, 12:58 PM
So first child inherits, second goes into the church, third goes adventuring
Or becomes a merchant, that was another historical career choice for the non-inheriting child. This is not for the faint of heart mind, bandits see a merchant wagons the way pirates see galleys. It is not for nothing that the Norse were just as much known for being widespread traders, reaching as far Constantinople, as raiders.

Knaight
2011-10-09, 01:32 PM
I'd argue that the typical campaign arc precludes high numbers of adventurers. As a rule, campaigns emerge because everything has gone horribly, horribly wrong somewhere, and people are trying to set it right, and now it is set right. Calamity is averted, and unless yet another thing springs up immediately, "adventurers" won't be needed, particularly as the people who dealt with the last problem are still around to prevent another. There are situations where this isn't the case - take a look at World Wars one and two - but its a reasonable assumption.

Raistlin82
2011-10-09, 02:08 PM
Both my most important campaigns were centered around something that happened to a previous generation of adventurers, much like what the Order of the Stick does is fix a consequence of the adventures of the Order of the Scribble (and no, I didn't copy, I got the idea first... :smalltongue: ).

My first and longest campaign (D&D 3.0/3.5) didn't have a common thread. It was a bunch of invented or bought adventures loosely and randomly connected together. However, when the characters reached epic level, they obtained an item that allowed them to travel through realities and "fix what was wrong" in each world they visited (something like the fantasy version of Marvel Comics' Exiles (http://marvel.wikia.com/Exiles_%28Panoptichron%29)... and yes, this one is copied :smallwink: ).
Their last adventure had to deal with King X and the Six Companions. They were a group of ex-adventurers who had retired (one became the king, others became nobles of his kingdom, the ranger/druid became an elven "high priest" and the monk became an ascetic). Sadly, most of them were recently brainwashed, and since these were epic power people, they were doing some huge damage. Enter the heroes to stop them.

When I started a 4E campaign with (roughly) the same players and new characters, I decided the whole campaign would have been based on recovering 11 lost "McGuffins" who used to belong to the characters of the old party (7 PCs + 2 cohorts + 1 resurrected old PC from the same campaign + 1 character that our new player used to have in a previous campaign of his).
Basically, 50 years ago, the old party "landed" on this world/dimension while fighting a terrible monster who happened to hitch a ride (a pimped up, homebrewed Ashardalon). They are helped in their fight by a local hero belonging to this world (the new player's previous char). After winning, they got stuck in this world and proceeded to make it their new home (one becomes Archduke of a land, another one builds his own druid's grove, another one becomes the mistress of a local thieves' guild, etc...).
Now, a new (somehow connected) threat arises and the party has to find out what happened to those 11 heroes and recover the 11 "items" (they're not just items, it's more complicated than that, but there's no need to explain it here... let's just say they're important).
The new player's character is a wizard and a disciple of his previous character (the local hero, also a wizard), thus he's the one holding most informations about these events and jumpstarting the plot.
Turns out most characters are dead, one way or another, except a (now old) lady and two elves.
The interesting thing here is that the whole campaign revolves around finding out what happened to the "retired" heroes.

Morghen
2011-10-09, 02:08 PM
As a rule, campaigns emerge because everything has gone horribly, horribly wrong somewhere, and people are trying to set it right, and now it is set right.Incorrect. I think you're thinking of RPG video games.

Knaight
2011-10-09, 02:37 PM
Incorrect. I think you're thinking of RPG video games.

I'm thinking of D&D standard plot. The heroes journey is fundamentally about overcoming adversity, D&D is about meteoric rise to power and the capacity of individuals, making the standard D&D plot one of some big evil guy who gets taken down by the protagonist. I'm not particularly fond of the formula, but it is the default. As for video game RPGs, its not like they haven't been ripping D&D off in everything else. Most of the early ones were essentially AD&D clones, and the D&D games in particular are the ones with the save the world plot.

Emmerask
2011-10-09, 02:38 PM
Incorrect. I think you're thinking of RPG video games.

No, I´m pretty sure this is 90%+ of the campaign arcs in a nutshell...
Either something has gone horribly wrong from the start or something will go horribly wrong soonish.
There are some rpgs that are the exception shadowrun for example but those exceptions in general have a different focus then heroic adventuring :smallwink:

Knaight
2011-10-09, 02:43 PM
No, I´m pretty sure this is 90%+ of the campaign arcs in a nutshell...
Either something has gone horribly wrong from the start or something will go horribly wrong soonish.
There are some rpgs that are the exception shadowrun for example but those exceptions in general have a different focus then heroic adventuring :smallwink:

Though considering the Shadowrun module formula, it might just fit. Mr. Johnson always betrays you. Always. Heroic adventuring isn't even a requirement.

Calanon
2011-10-09, 04:54 PM
So first child inherits, second goes into the church, third goes adventuring

So one becomes an Aristocrat, the other a Cleric and the third an adventuring class of his choice/potential?

...That poor Aristocrat child... :smallfrown:

Kaun
2011-10-09, 05:03 PM
I thought that it was a given that when as an adventurer you hang up your bag of holding and retire that you had to buy a tavern in a small and remote farming village. You then get to dwindle your remaining years away beating the snot out of uppity low level adventurers who come to town to kill goblins and end up starting fights in your pub.

tyckspoon
2011-10-09, 05:14 PM
So one becomes an Aristocrat, the other a Cleric and the third an adventuring class of his choice/potential?

...That poor Aristocrat child... :smallfrown:

Gods, no. Aristocrat is the wastrel kids who don't bother to make anything of themselves. If your actual heir is an Aristocrat, your family has become so far removed from their adventuring origins that nobody probably cares about them any more; they're just another minor nobility that used to be awesome. No, the inheriting child gets a proper class, he just doesn't level as fast or as dangerously as the adventuring kid(s).

Coidzor
2011-10-09, 05:25 PM
Gods, no. Aristocrat is the wastrel kids who don't bother to make anything of themselves. If your actual heir is an Aristocrat, your family has become so far removed from their adventuring origins that nobody probably cares about them any more; they're just another minor nobility that used to be awesome. No, the inheriting child gets a proper class, he just doesn't level as fast or as dangerously as the adventuring kid(s).

I'm imagining them getting their first couple of levels from wrestling a specially trained St. Bernard. <_< >_>

Mad Gene Vane
2011-10-09, 05:26 PM
I thought that it was a given that when as an adventurer you hang up your bag of holding and retire that you had to buy a tavern in a small and remote farming village. You then get to dwindle your remaining years away beating the snot out of uppity low level adventurers who come to town to kill goblins and end up starting fights in your pub.

Yeah, but with the potential of adventuring with some high charisma characters - sorcerers, bards and maybe even a cleric, who has good stat roles or generous point buy system - you are looking at getting to know some hotties pretty well.

This is why I'd amend that you'd buy a tavern in a remote farming village, but after you marry the sorcerer(ous) with the 21 charisma, you've been spending a few years getting to know via some very intense situations.

I mean seriously, human adventurers start out between 17-21 years old, which are, in my opinion, the prime years to start looking for a mate. I figure there'd have to be some hook ups somewhere along the line.

And as the old saw says, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Ugh the Barbarian pushing a baby carriage". :smallbiggrin:


Yeah, I'm going to try to keep my kids from playing football.

Because of the head injuries. That players get WHILE WEARING HELMETS.

I know a lot of folks, who are the opposite. They played up to at least high school football and encourage their kids to do the same.

I think it might be a good analogy of adventuring parents and adventuring kids. Some may discourage kids from following in their footsteps, while others encourage it.


I'd argue that the typical campaign arc precludes high numbers of adventurers. As a rule, campaigns emerge because everything has gone horribly, horribly wrong somewhere, and people are trying to set it right, and now it is set right. Calamity is averted, and unless yet another thing springs up immediately, "adventurers" won't be needed, particularly as the people who dealt with the last problem are still around to prevent another. There are situations where this isn't the case - take a look at World Wars one and two - but its a reasonable assumption.

I think in a D&D setting adventuring would be more common.

First the huge disparity between what common folks earn versus what adventuring gear and rewards end up being, means the risk/reward for adventuring is high. Potentially lots of risk, but with an equally huge reward.

Second, most D&D settings have some level of goblins, bugbears or whatever hanging around and causing trouble for folks. Commoners aren't designed to handle these problems, so here comes the adventurers to lend a hand.

I'm not saying adventurers are very common, but they wouldn't be so rare to the point that people wouldn't know an adventurer or have come across one.

Most people aren't doctors, policeman, ambulance drivers, etc., but we've all had some interaction with folks in these professions. I figure it'd be similar for the commoners interactions with adventurers. Very few people would actually be adventurers, but they'd have jobs that are high enough profile that most folks have at least had some sort of encounter with an adventurer at some point in their lives.

Calanon
2011-10-09, 05:48 PM
Gods, no. Aristocrat is the wastrel kids who don't bother to make anything of themselves. If your actual heir is an Aristocrat, your family has become so far removed from their adventuring origins that nobody probably cares about them any more; they're just another minor nobility that used to be awesome. No, the inheriting child gets a proper class, he just doesn't level as fast or as dangerously as the adventuring kid(s).

...Can i give the Aristocrat kid 3 levels of Warblade at minimum? :smallsmile:

IRON HEART SURGE!

Thiyr
2011-10-09, 06:55 PM
I thought that it was a given that when as an adventurer you hang up your bag of holding and retire that you had to buy a tavern in a small and remote farming village. You then get to dwindle your remaining years away beating the snot out of uppity low level adventurers who come to town to kill goblins and end up starting fights in your pub.

Alternatively, you use your amassed wealth to purchase a bar in a large and well-traveled port town, with the expressed purpose of being "The place where bar fights happen but nobody dies so it's mostly acceptable", to keep the more dangerous adventurers more localized. Had a character kinda like that at one point. Granted, he was in the middle of his adventuring years and used adventuring to pay the bills (as the bar wasn't paying for itself, nor was it meant to), but it still works.

Coidzor
2011-10-09, 07:11 PM
...Can i give the Aristocrat kid 3 levels of Warblade at minimum? :smallsmile:

IRON HEART SURGE!

What? :smallconfused:

Knaight
2011-10-09, 07:20 PM
What? :smallconfused:

Obviously, poverty is a negative status condition. Making Iron Heart Surge the best tool the nobility will ever have. :smallamused:

Calanon
2011-10-09, 07:24 PM
Obviously, poverty is a negative status condition. Making Iron Heart Surge the best tool the nobility will ever have. :smallamused:

I love how you got that from what I said...

Noble: I don't have enough money *Iron heart surge to get more money*

Poor person: Please sir, I can haz moneh?

Noble: loln00b gtfo *Iron Heart Surge, this poor person is harassing me*

I see it as either the Poor person would get money or would fade out of existance... either way you win :smallbiggrin: (See kill the Poor person and take his money)

Darthteej
2011-10-09, 08:33 PM
There is zero chance that, having survived to a medium-high level, having seen numerous comrades/flunkies disintegrated, disemboweled, dismembered, soul-sucked, polymorphed, turned into wights, petrified, etc., that I'm going to speak with anything less than horror about my days as an adventurer.

Yes, it made me wealthy beyond all reckoning. That's why my kids get to be part of the merchant class instead of being peasants.

The amount of truth contained in this single post is like the sun compared to all the other puny little candles of insight.

Adventuring is NOT the kind of thing any reasonable parent would let their kids do.

Knaight
2011-10-09, 08:37 PM
The amount of truth contained in this single post is like the sun compared to all the other puny little candles of insight.

Adventuring is NOT the kind of thing any reasonable parent would let their kids do.

Adventuring is also not a profession particularly likely to produce reasonable parents.

Kaun
2011-10-09, 09:02 PM
Adventuring is NOT the kind of thing any reasonable parent would let their kids do.

The world is full of parents but sadly a large number of them would not be classified as reasonable or above.

+ If the parents dedicated their life to something, telling their children that what they did isn't worth doing could be difficult.

Ravens_cry
2011-10-09, 10:44 PM
Adventuring is also not a profession particularly likely to produce reasonable parents.

Yeah, given what they probably went through, they will just as likely to go all overprotective as go the "Adventuring with naught but a point-ed stick builds character" route.

Anxe
2011-10-09, 11:18 PM
I think the reason why people who start at first level don't come from prestigious families is because it would be hard to explain why they don't have more money for buying starting gear. Or hard to explain why they are adventuring at all if they used to have a rich and comfortable living standard.

However, when starting above first level my players often make themselves connected to important people in some way.

Also, this made me think of LoTR, where more than half the party is connected to past adventurers or nobility.

Ravens_cry
2011-10-10, 12:39 AM
Actually, given the prices for things in the PHB and the amount of money a common peasant is expected to bring in, even basic gear is beyond most peoples reach.

Anxe
2011-10-10, 08:41 AM
Not if they sell everything they own before going adventuring. Think how much a farmer or blacksmith would get if he sold all his crops/wares in one go along with the land/building. He'd have to get a bad price on the land/building, but it'd be enough to buy all the 1st level gear.

Ravens_cry
2011-10-10, 09:25 AM
Not if they sell everything they own before going adventuring. Think how much a farmer or blacksmith would get if he sold all his crops/wares in one go along with the land/building. He'd have to get a bad price on the land/building, but it'd be enough to buy all the 1st level gear.

Assuming they can get anything for them. One of the classic, to the point of practically cliché, motivations for adventuring is ones village/farm/town was destroyed.
It also assumes it is theirs to sell. Look up the rights of a typical serf in medieval style period.

hayabusa
2011-10-10, 10:14 AM
...Can i give the Aristocrat kid 3 levels of Warblade at minimum? :smallsmile:

IRON HEART SURGE!

In all seriousness, there is the Noble class from the 3rd Edition Dragonlance Campaign Setting. Moderately good hit die and the ability to inspire the group kind of like a bard does. It also gets all knowledge skills as a class skill, so it can rule effectively. That's likely where a wealthy firstborn heir would start their career, and then multi-class for a couple to indicate training in a specific discipline.

GungHo
2011-10-10, 01:01 PM
You don't generally keep up on a character after the adventure of a campaign ends, but face it folks, the next generation of young adventurers has to come from somewhere.

I've seen character concepts, where the new generation of adventurers comes from commoner NPC parents, are orphans, or generally some less than ideal home life.

What's always struck me as odd is why not have retired adventurers have kids, who become adventurers. I mean say a 12th level fighter hooks up with a 12th level sorcerer and they pop out babies. With the loot they've gotten from adventuring, they'd have some money saved up to start a family.
I do this to a certain extent. I run a generational/legacy campaign, and we have a lot of this sort of thing going on (it's gone on for 13 years of real time and 450+ years of game time... we jump a generation or a few between full campaigns and make even bigger jumps/continuity shifts for new rule-sets e.g. 2E to 3E to 3.5E to 4E back to 3.5E). Sometimes a player is the child/grandchild/nephew of one of the retired/dead PCs. Sometimes the player is the child/grandchild/nephew of one of the rivals of the retired/dead PCs. Sometimes they have just heard of the PCs or are from the same hometown and consider them role models. We always screw up the history (purposefully) because that's what history/time does. Sometimes the PC's legacy character goes on to avenge their death, or right one of their wrongs (the PCs are never perfect).

Where we have to be careful is inheriting magic items... this can make things over powered pretty quickly. So, there's a certain amount of "item attunement" that is accessed at higher character levels for inherited items (i.e. if you're only 3rd level, that sword that was blazing, +4 to your dad is only a little glowy, +1 to you). Additionally, if the PC died, his items may have not been recovered, so sometimes they end up questing for the same stuff (which got distributed by monsters, etc). Or, the PC may be a general and may not want to give his sword to his kids because he still needs it, and he believes their can earn their own damn glowy sword. Same for money.

What we did was add a legacy roll that you determine what, if anything, you received from your predecessor and the general GP value. Then I'll let them revisit the old sheet and determine what, within reason, is inheritable. I sometimes didn't give it to them all at once, and made them earn whatever they got. They soon learned that getting a high legacy roll and getting greedy actually made things worse, as the more powerful the item, the more likely someone else might want it, too... and those people scale with the power of the weapon, not the power of the new PC.

Coidzor
2011-10-10, 03:10 PM
Assuming they can get anything for them. One of the classic, to the point of practically cliché, motivations for adventuring is ones village/farm/town was destroyed.
It also assumes it is theirs to sell. Look up the rights of a typical serf in medieval style period.

Generally we don't actually play in an authentic medieval setting anyway, or you'd not have anyone become an adventurer who wasn't from the middle class or higher, cities, or good at disguising the bit where they're criminals.

Ravens_cry
2011-10-10, 04:33 PM
Generally we don't actually play in an authentic medieval setting anyway, or you'd not have anyone become an adventurer who wasn't from the middle class or higher, cities, or good at disguising the bit where they're criminals.
I am not saying it's impossible, but if you are playing a quasi-authentic medieval setting, then yes, the large majority of adventurers will come from such backgrounds. A gift, an improvised or stolen tools of the trade would account for most of the exceptions.

comicshorse
2011-10-10, 06:18 PM
Assuming they can get anything for them. One of the classic, to the point of practically cliché, motivations for adventuring is ones village/farm/town was destroyed.
It also assumes it is theirs to sell. Look up the rights of a typical serf in medieval style period.

" Son now that you've decided to be an adventurer I have something of your Grandad's for you. Have you heard of the Battle of the Twin Falls in his time."
" Wow, Grandad fought at that !"
" Well no, but he looted the battlefield afterwards "

Ravens_cry
2011-10-10, 06:32 PM
" Son now that you've decided to be an adventurer I have something of your Grandad's for you. Have you heard of the Battle of the Twin Falls in his time."
" Wow, Grandad fought at that !"
" Well no, but he looted the battlefield afterwards "
Yes, this has already been brought up.

noparlpf
2011-10-10, 07:09 PM
I played a Fighter once who had learned swordplay from his father, who was a retired adventurer and basically bummed around the village until monsters showed up. Then he protected the village, but largely because that's where his favorite tavern was. I don't think there was a mother around, though.
Another character had a commoner mother but his father was an adventurer who never came back from one adventure early in the boy's childhood. Of course, then the mother had to die because what's a backstory without drama, trauma, and dead parents?
Hmm...I think when I played a Paladin he had become a Paladin because his father was a Paladin.