Down time exp. award?

[Max Caysey]

I was wondering how much, if any, exp you gus would award for a year of down time (ingame). During which time the Wizard (lvl 30) at hand would be doing a lot of studying in the field of magic, experimenting on new spells and items, participating in seminars of magic, teaching an apprentice and working part time as a sell spell.

Thank you for all your comments in advance!

[Sir Chuckles]

At 30th level? Downtime? Well, downtime experience should be chalked up to role-play experience. However, the things you listed appear to be no more than giving the pseudo-deity a day job.
He should really gain little, if any, experience for becoming a one year NPC.

[Max Caysey]

At 30th level? Downtime? Well, downtime experience should be chalked up to role-play experience. However, the things you listed appear to be no more than giving the pseudo-deity a day job.
He should really gain little, if any, experience for becoming a one year NPC.

It goes without saying that it would be advanced magical study. Like that of theoretical physics... like string theory or the magical equivalent!

[Red Fel]

It goes without saying that it would be advanced magical study. Like that of theoretical physics... like string theory or the magical equivalent!

Big deal. That doesn't get a boatload of xp - it gets new spells.

At level 30, or epic levels in general, there's not a lot that can stimulate growth, apart from major things, like playing chess with a deity, sparring with an archdevil, or engaging in diplomacy with a sapient demiplane. The Fighter isn't going to gain a lot of xp from general training, even if he decides to open a school of swordsmanship. The Bard isn't going to gain a lot of xp from tuning his lyre, even if it's in the middle of a fey city. And the Wizard isn't going to gain a lot of xp from performing spell research, even if it's major stuff. If he wants to research a new spell, let him do that - there are rules for it.

But at epic levels, xp gain generally means you've done something substantial - created or saved a world, contended with beings of unspeakable power in or out of combat, something major. Monkeying around in your lab isn't going to compare, even if it's super interesting stuff.

Compare it with physics, will you? Sure, let's bite. At the elementary school level, your average physics student is a commoner - he has no PC levels. Perhaps he takes a course in middle school, becomes PhysWiz 1. In high school, he can take an advanced placement physics course, shooting up in levels as he overcomes new challenges. Maybe he's PhysWiz 5 by graduation, assuming he really plugged away at it. He goes to college, gets a BS in Physics - I'll give him PhysWiz 10. He moves on, gets his Master's and PhD, he's pushing PhysWiz 20.

And then what? Well, there are a handful of epic-level PhysWizzes in the world. There are names every PhysWiz knows. Hawking, Feynman, Greene - these are the Raistlins, the Elminsters. And studying string theory for one year isn't going to come close to their level. Your PhysWiz 20 is likely to sit at PhysWiz 20 for that whole year if all he does is study string theory. He needs to have some major encounters in that time to level up. Get a government grant, publish an article challenging M-theory, win a Nobel Prize, do a guest spot on Cosmos, something big. Sitting around studying won't cut it.

[cosmonuts]

In real life, sitting around and studying will cut it if you practice theory.

Poring over academic journals and taking what's useful.

Cut and reassemble messily into new theorems.

Smooth out and clean up theorem.

Publish theorem.

At every level of theoretical sciences, this is how things work. Now, experimental sciences--you have to go out and collect things. Is it hard? Adventurer-level stuff? No particularly.

Things like getting Nobel prizes, Fields medals, Fundamental Physics Awards, tenureship at MIT or Harvard--these things happen to come with doing the activity outlined above. No explicit "adventure" is needed for these things. You can be someone who works purely on theory, sitting in a library and doing math, and you'll get all your prizes, medals, awards, and tenureships.

Source: Doing undergraduate research.

Well, that said, D&D doesn't give XP for this. Shame, but it's how it is.

[prufock]

None. Instead, he has completed original study and learned and/or created several powerful new spells.

[Max Caysey]

I have always thought of magical recipes and formulas as mathematica equations, hense the parralel drawn to theoretical physics.

The thing is, that the wizard in question, has spent the last two year constructing a tower/ reseach facility. Where he has created a basement with multiple magical laboratories, alchemical laboratories, workshops and strengthened casting champers for spell experimentation. He currently have a staff of 1 master alchemist, 4 level 16 wizard apprentices. (with the help of the stronghold builders guidebook).

The wizards whats to do some deep study of abjuration, which he feels is a base school of magic, and therefor very important to fully understand before one can truely master the other schools and indeed higher levels of magic. He thus wants to deconstruct some level 9 abjuration spells to the particle (raw energy) level via basically analysis and math. By doing this, he hopes to discover some of the key components of magical interaction.(like that of the Higgs (karsus/Ioulaum) boson). By doing this, he hopes to discover the true radiation/frequency/energy signiture of the Weave (we play in faerun). By discovering this he hopes to rediscover above level 9 spells - gaining his own way into history. After a year of study, he wants to assebly the top minds of magic to a summit of theoretical magical composium where the top minds in the field can discuss and present their latest discoveries. This is sopposed to end op in two things. A new modern version of the nether scrolls, and a prize like that of the Feild Medal or nobel prize. He also wants to teach master classes via his tower, wich is equipted with a comprehensive library, reading halls, lecture halls and so forth. All what is needed to host such a summit.

Thats the back story. Since level 20 and especially after level 25 adventuring and thus combat have been reduced to a near nothing and so the player wants to gain exp from roleplaying a magical (physics) professor.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't know, that feels kind of... drab for a fantasy world. Cutting-edge magical research-- especially at epic levels-- should mean plumbing dangerous ruins, bargaining with forgotten gods, traveling through time to converse with past masters, stuff like that. Adventure material. Regardless of how the real world works*, you shouldn't allow massive discoveries to take place during routine down-time activity.

*Also, in RL-terms it'd probably take a human lifetime to come up with a huge breakthrough like 10th level spells, but eh.

[Sir Chuckles]

A big thing to remember is that it is difficult to compare a real life profession to a Wizard. Why? It is very unlikely that many humans have ever reached past 5th level or so. Anything further and we're starting to talk about wuxia level powers.

At 30th level, a Wizard is beyond the ken of mortals. Gods themselves, and only the greater ones, are written as 40th level characters. As in, this Wizard is equal to some intermediate deities. He could outright kill Pelor, and is numerically bigger than Fharlanghn.
At that level, the character would not be gaining any experience for an encounter with a Tarrasque. Is a year of being a university professor worth anything to a character who can rewrite the laws physics in less than a round?

This sounds like a character who you need to worry less about exp points, and more about retirement.

[Max Caysey]

A big thing to remember is that it is difficult to compare a real life profession to a Wizard. Why? It is very unlikely that many humans have ever reached past 5th level or so. Anything further and we're starting to talk about wuxia level powers.

At 30th level, a Wizard is beyond the ken of mortals. Gods themselves, and only the greater ones, are written as 40th level characters. As in, this Wizard is equal to some intermediate deities. He could outright kill Pelor, and is numerically bigger than Fharlanghn.
At that level, the character would not be gaining any experience for an encounter with a Tarrasque. Is a year of being a university professor worth anything to a character who can rewrite the laws physics in less than a round?

This sounds like a character who you need to worry less about exp points, and more about retirement.

I have been told that before, but the character have been played for 10 years from level 1, and people are still having fun. Even though the character is level 30 its still seem to be a lot to learn. Larloch have spent something like 1000 years just studying and experimenting... so i guess the character can too. Indeed a year might not do it, but that was the timeframe we would start with. If the preliminary finding were good, we would continue the research.

But again the player is looking for ways to gain exp without encounters.

[Sir Chuckles]

I have been told that before, but the character have been played for 10 years from level 1, and people are still having fun. Even though the character is level 30 its still seem to be a lot to learn. Larloch have spent something like 1000 years just studying and experimenting... so i guess the character can too. Indeed a year might not do it, but that was the timeframe we would start with. If the preliminary finding were good, we would continue the research.

But again the player is looking for ways to gain exp without encounters.

The problem there is that it's pure DM fiat to gain exp outside of encounters.
If he is not actively role playing his research, he should not be gaining anything mechanically significant beyond the spell he is looking for.

The Larloch example is a bad one, as he's a lich that often has gods mark him for death (or, in Mystra's case, leave him alone). Research for him is not down time. That's his "build and rebuild his army while fighting off adventurers and spying on the world" time. His whole un-life is one big encounter that he rarely gains experience for.

Muddling about with some 16th level Wizards (who, in and of themselves, could alter time and space) with absolutely no challengers is not something that I would view as a meaningful way of gaining experience. Neither he nor his character are actively doing something. He's describing a set piece, pressing the skip button, and assuming *ding* experience points.
Consider the amount of experience point to level to 31st. 30,000 experience. A CR 30 encounter would give him 9,000 exp.

[Red Fel]

But again the player is looking for ways to gain exp without encounters.

Encounters don't have to be combat. There are non-combat encounters, such as diplomacy, puzzles, and various other issues. What is common to encounters, however, is that there is some kind of risk-reward dichotomy. For example, when haggling with a shopkeep, that's a minor encounter - there's a risk of getting the price jacked up, and a reward of having it lowered. Tackling a trap in a dungeon, there's the risk - triggering the trap and getting a faceful of poison - and the reward - trap dismantled, safe path ahead.

What you're proposing, laboratory spell research, is no risk, possible reward. The reward being new spells. There are explicitly rules that, in your downtime, you can research spells. Fine.

If he wants to earn xp in his downtime, let him come up with something clever to do. Explore the Elemental Plane of Fire to gain an understanding of the cosmological concept of the (Fire) subtype. Take a treacherous trip to Wee Jas' keep, and (with her permission) study some of her more sanity-endangering ancient magic. Negotiate with the Tome Archons for the ability to study Sanctified spells. That's the sort of thing that gets you xp.

But just sitting in a lab? Unless there's a very real risk that the lab explodes violently, hurling whatever survives deep into the Far Realm, I'm not seeing an xp reward there.

Your player is out of luck.

[Max Caysey]

But just sitting in a lab? Unless there's a very real risk that the lab explodes violently, hurling whatever survives deep into the Far Realm, I'm not seeing an xp reward there.

Your player is out of luck.

Ok... but how would you guys then, by going by the example mentioned with the study of abjuration, play it out, so the player could recieve some exp for the year`? I have a hard time imagining how to game reasearch.

[Red Fel]

Ok... but how would you guys then, by going by the example mentioned with the study of abjuration, play it out, so the player could recieve some exp for the year`? I have a hard time imagining how to game reasearch.

Simple. Have him submit a "My Summer Vacation" report to the DM. Basically, an explanation of how he spent his time.

Figure out a CR for each thing he describes doing, based on the risk-and-reward balance of the situation. For example, he went to the Capital to consult the Royal Library? Did he have to talk his way in? There's a (minor) encounter. He explored the crypt of an ancient archmage to discover secret writings on the walls? Did he fight off undead or evade traps? Did he have to decrypt (no pun intended) some arcane codes to decipher the archmage's notes? These are things for which you could grant small amounts of credit.

Did he travel to another plane? There you're getting into bigger credits. Exchange favors (or trade blows) with powerful beings? Credit. Get half of the Abyss angry at him? Start a fire in a Githzerai monastery? Abduct an Eladrin for experimentation? These are things that could grant more substantial credit.

Did he sit in his lab and do research? No xp. No risk, no reward, simple as that.

And don't be overgenerous, either. For example, a Ghaele is a CR 13 Eladrin. He could capture one of those in broad daylight, standing right in front of it, after telling it he was about to capture it. He could do it blindfolded. With one hand. He gets virtually nothing for that. Capturing a Balor for study, that's a bit more impressive.

Most of the kind of "down time" adventures PCs tend to go on are the kind with a low-for-their-level CR, because anything more than that might require DM approval. Unfortunately, at level 30, things that are low for your level tend to be virtually worthless, at least xp-wise.

[Zweisteine]

I agree with what has been said about the high character level.

At those levels, you are far, far, far beyond learning anything in downtime. I suppose personally studying with Boccob would work, but he isn't called "the uncaring" for nothing...

[Grod_The_Giant]

Simple. Have him submit a "My Summer Vacation" report to the DM. Basically, an explanation of how he spent his time.
If you must do it, I'd suggest something like this. Maybe even assign a chance of failure to each step and roll to see if something went wrong. (And the larger the failure chance, the more experience you get, down to a minimum of 100% success, 0 exp). That way, it is a series of adventures that you just happen to be fast-forwarding through. Sitting in your tower, reading books and teaching apprentices, is not an adventure. Hosting a conference is not an adventure, barring some story-worthy happenings. No adventure, no exp.

If you really, absolutely, positively must come up with a formula, I'd let him get enough experience to get 1d4% of the way to the next level, or something similarly small... but again, I strongly advice against that. Never mind the in-game reasons; it's just bad precedent to say "OK, you do nothing dangerous for a while and get XP. No what?" Especially when time isn't a factor anymore.

[Max Caysey]

Thanks for the suggestions...

I personally have always thought that becoming more experienced was the same as gaining exp, and that was why I initially thought of gaining exp that way. We're not talking a lot but a few thousand. It was not meant as a vacation since he would be actively trying to conduct research, taking time away from adventuring - while the rest of the party was still doing "adventuring"(the party is grossly un-optimized) - which was not yet know to the wizarding community. Perhaps to Larloch, Srishshee etc... We would mainly fast forward because well gaming that he goes to the library the first two tendays, using his ring of scholars touch, would get pretty boring. And so too would we skip the countless hours staring at the intricate equations and magical formulae. We would however game some of the more flamboyant experiments, where, based on his writing (description of what he would like to happen) the DM would determine a result.

I do see your point of no risk no exp, but while the other keep leveling I think it would be fair to grant exp for something else than just standard encounters seeing this player wants it so bad. I guess I could set up most of the thing as encounters, but how do I determine how the CR of books, and spell-experimentation? As of right now, he wants to uncover/discover the energy signature of the weave by himself, in his lab. So the only thing I have been able to come up with, was that he needed some Chardalyns to contain spells as batteries during some of the lengthy ritual-like casting sessions he and his apprentices would have. Besides the cool ideas mentioned, what material component and focus would be cool to have in relations to abjuration magic?

[Angelalex242]

At level 30, capturing a Balor is a snooze. He's gotta capture Orcus for his personal experiments before he gets any credit.

Or Asmodeus. Whatever floats his boat that day.

However, almost all gods are 40th level, even demigods. Hercules is still Fighter 20/Barbarian 20, for example.

[Sir Chuckles]

Expect he's developing spells at 30th level. Developing his magical prowess with apprentices is fine and dandy at low to mid levels, but when you have the legitimate ability to turn the universe into your personal cat toy, and then create seven new ones to play with as you wish, stating out the DCs for an epic spell or two is 1) not going to take a year and 2) is trivial in all but the most extreme of circumstances.

And you don't really need to worry about material components and focuses when he has access to Creation and Wish.
Finding the CR of these encounters is difficult, as the success and failure effects are largely determined by you as the DM, as there is little known on the RAW for failing to make your Spellcraft check when researching a spell.
I mean, in a full 365-day year, you could probably research nearly every pre-written Epic spell there is, from Momento Mori to Damnation. What your player is describing is pure, unadulterated role play, and asking for experience. For a solo 30th level character, a CR 25 gives 1,500 exp. A CR 22 is about 500. So you have to ask yourself: Is this year of peeping on Mystra and her weave equal to an encounter more difficult than a Titan or Solar?

[Max Caysey]

Expect he's developing spells at 30th level. Developing his magical prowess with apprentices is fine and dandy at low to mid levels, but when you have the legitimate ability to turn the universe into your personal cat toy, and then create seven new ones to play with as you wish, stating out the DCs for an epic spell or two is 1) not going to take a year and 2) is trivial in all but the most extreme of circumstances.

And you don't really need to worry about material components and focuses when he has access to Creation and Wish.
Finding the CR of these encounters is difficult, as the success and failure effects are largely determined by you as the DM, as there is little known on the RAW for failing to make your Spellcraft check when researching a spell.
I mean, in a full 365-day year, you could probably research nearly every pre-written Epic spell there is, from Momento Mori to Damnation. What your player is describing is pure, unadulterated role play, and asking for experience. For a solo 30th level character, a CR 25 gives 1,500 exp. A CR 22 is about 500. So you have to ask yourself: Is this year of peeping on Mystra and her weave equal to an encounter more difficult than a Titan or Solar?

Very good point... The fact is that the player no longer, or at least in only a small way, cares for combat encounters, and seeing that a battle against a solar or titan would last only a few rounds I think doing a year worth of something with the very good risk of blowing op in his face, merits some award. While the other players hack and slach their way through the abbys.

[Thrudd]

Very good point... The fact is that the player no longer, or at least in only a small way, cares for combat encounters, and seeing that a battle against a solar or titan would last only a few rounds I think doing a year worth of something with the very good risk of blowing op in his face, merits some award. While the other players hack and slach their way through the abbys.

What does this player do? How is this even playing? Doing magical research is what every magic user is assumed to be doing, every second that they aren't sleeping or adventuring, and they don't get XP for that. This is how you justify giving them new spells for free whenever they level up. Not going on adventures means no XP.

So the player doesn't want to participate in the adventures the other players are having? I guess you could give him his own separate adventure, run sessions with him alone. If he really wants XP for doing research, that research needs to be dangerous and have an actual chance of causing him harm. It needs to be an adventurous research project. Going to another plane and negotiating with a deity to allow a new magical effect to work on the material plane, recovering some spell ingredient from a demon prince on the lowest layer of the abyss, that sort of thing. There has to be an actual chance of failure, and the failure needs to have a chance of actually hurting him in some way.
If he wants to spend the year creating a new epic level spell, that is fine. That's not something you get XP for, but it does give the character more power.
If he doesn't actually want to play, but just wants his character to get more XP, go ahead and roll some dice to decide what happens to him while he is off-screen from the other characters. Make a couple tables, one for positive results and one for negative results. On the positive results, have varying amounts of XP earned, from 0 up to whatever max amount you think is practical. Modified by the potential reward, determine what consequences were suffered, higher rewards means more of a chance of bad consequences. Then tell him how much XP he earned and what he had to pay for it, and make up a story about what happened.

Example - (did not put much thought into the numbers, of course adjust to whatever feels appropriate, maybe the max reward is 1/2 way to the next level)
roll for XP award :
d10
10- Enough to gain a level
9 - 9/10ths of the way to the next level
8- 4/5ths
7- 7/10ths
6- 3/5ths
5- 1/2 way to next level
4- 2/5 ths
3- 3/10ths
2- 1/5th
1- 1/10th of the way to the next level

roll for expenses/hazards: the award die roll is added to the result of the expenses roll, so the greater the reward, the greater the risk

d100
+100- death
91-100 - loss of 2 levels
80-90 - loss of 1 level
60-79 - spend 50000 gold or equivalent magic items, or earned the enmity of a devil/demon prince or evil demi-god
40-59 - spend 30000 gold or equivalent, or earned the enmity of powerful demi-dracolich (or whatever super powerful monster you can create to actually be a challenge)
20-39 - spend 10000 gold or eq., or lost 4 apprentices
1-19 - spend 5000 gold or eq., or lost 2 apprentices

yes, there's a chance the character could die off-screen. If he wants XP, he has to be taking real risks.

If he doesn't want to risk rolling on the table, then he can adventure with the other players. It would almost surely be less risky.

[Rainbaw]

If what he achieves was a personal goal, or eevn a quest point, you can give him exp for that. I don't see an epic PC gaining any xp from doing just studies, you can give him a lot of new spells or even let him make his own spells...

[Max Caysey]

The player want this to be a roleplaying thing, but at the same time, knows that its a big ordeal meaning that he can either do the research or do adventuring. So he wants quest exp for the thing. I not so much he wants to gain epic spells, but he wants to do it as a personal goal, be recongnized in his community and gain insight into the deeper aspects of magic e.i. the deep structures of the weave. He ofc want some exp while the other players might gain 1-3 levels during the same time. Which I understand.

The risk from this could be something like this This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wBzu-lfW6U)

[NichG]

I was wondering how much, if any, exp you gus would award for a year of down time (ingame). During which time the Wizard (lvl 30) at hand would be doing a lot of studying in the field of magic, experimenting on new spells and items, participating in seminars of magic, teaching an apprentice and working part time as a sell spell.

Thank you for all your comments in advance!

The thing is that XP is really a metagame entity - its a tool to control the pacing of a specific type of campaign (one with adventuring and battles and the like), and the system doesn't really go through much effort to integrate it into the game world beyond that.

So the question of how much XP they gain comes down to 'how does this activity relate to the pacing of the campaign?'. In general, I'd say its a bad idea to let a player explicitly farm XP with downtimes that the other players don't get, because even if that seems reasonable in-world, it violates the meta-game goal of trying to get all the players to have roughly the same power level. Now, if this is something like a one-on-one campaign or something that has gone far enough from the traditional game that XP differences don't matter so much, then that meta-game goal disappears and the answer can really be 'as much as you like'.

To put it another way, in the meta-game point of view, if a character can convert a year of downtime into X amount of xp, then the player spends exactly as much out of game effort and time to say 'I take a year of downtime' as they would to say 'I take 10000 years of downtime'. In-character there's a huge difference, of course, but that is hard to enforce in any sort of fair or meaningful way.

So, if this is a game with multiple players and there are 'adventure' segments which comprise the majority of the play, with the downtime being mostly glossed over, I would categorically not reward XP for it but would instead reward other benefits in the form of having made contacts, connections, getting the new spells, discovering new plot hooks, etc. If the player really wanted to 'advance through not doing combat', that would be fine, but the point is that they would only advance from things that occur on-screen.

So what you could do is say 'You research for 6 months but hit a wall. To proceed further, you need to check out certain planar locations and get certain materials like the hair of an overgod. If you do that sidequest on-screen, then there'll be an XP reward for you and anyone else who participates.'

[Thrudd]

The player want this to be a roleplaying thing, but at the same time, knows that its a big ordeal meaning that he can either do the research or do adventuring. So he wants quest exp for the thing. I not so much he wants to gain epic spells, but he wants to do it as a personal goal, be recongnized in his community and gain insight into the deeper aspects of magic e.i. the deep structures of the weave. He ofc want some exp while the other players might gain 1-3 levels during the same time. Which I understand.

The risk from this could be something like this This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wBzu-lfW6U)


It sounds like he would enjoy an old-school D&D or OSR game, where high level characters are expected to build strongholds and rule domains, and stop adventuring for the most part. Adventurer, Conqueror, King System is one where they have guidelines and rules for gaining XP for domain management and magical research, along with tables for results and risks of that research.
However, a 30th level character would be fairly unrecognizeable after being ported over to such a game, it'd be better to start over with new characters.

Maybe you could look at a game like this, and design rules for doing something similar in 3e.

[Darkweave31]

I'm usually liberal with experience for roleplaying a character rather than being a murderhobo. It encourages creative solutions and interaction beyond "I kill it and take its stuff." However, in this case it doesn't really seem like any of this happened during a game session, but was more of an aside. Still it shows some depth of character so some exp is in order, the more thought and depth the more exp. If you can roleplay some of the interactions from during that year I'd encourage it and reward good roleplay with more exp.

[SinsI]

I was wondering how much, if any, exp you guys would award for a year of down time (in-game). During which time the Wizard (lvl 30) at hand would be doing a lot of studying in the field of magic, experimenting on new spells and items, participating in seminars of magic, teaching an apprentice and working part time as a sell spell
Ask yourself: which of those he can fail, wasting resources? Or that pose inherent danger to him? Those are the only things that should give him XP.

Seminars and teaching should not provide any XP.
Sell spell should only give XP if the spell can fail due to his inadequate caster level(i.e. fails to overcome Spell Resistance). 1/25 of the sell price is OK, I think.
Note: fail chance should assume he does everything he can at his absolute best - if he has items that increase it, he is assumed to be using them, etc. No getting drunk to lower that Int bonus!
As for experiments - determine how much he spent on those of them that could fail. 1/5 of that is the maximum XP he can get from them.

Multiply the result by the failure chance to get the final amount of XP he should get.

[Max Caysey]

I think there is basically 3 things he can fail and failing either first second or third part would thus have a cumulative effect.

First there is the analysis of the chosen abjuration spells. If the data is wrong the rest of the calculations and formulae will be wrong too.

Secondly there are the calculations. Since we base it around a mix of math and chemistry, some of the equations could go wrong and thus the chemic (components, focus etc... ) could go wrong as well.

And lastly there is the experimentations themselves. Basically they could go right, nothing happens, a lesser failure and major failure. So the last part I would give 25% chance of each with a bonus of his int modifier, giving this guy a 41% chance of experimental success. Without including outcome of the previous parts.

How does this sound?

[da_chicken]

I was wondering how much, if any, exp you gus would award for a year of down time (ingame). During which time the Wizard (lvl 30) at hand would be doing a lot of studying in the field of magic, experimenting on new spells and items, participating in seminars of magic, teaching an apprentice and working part time as a sell spell.

Thank you for all your comments in advance!

If he actually produces something of note, I might consider granting CR 17 XP if they research a level 9 spell, CR 15 for level 8, CR 13 for level 7, etc. That's not particularly significant for a 30th level character, of course. Epic spells would have to be based on the DC. I would only do that if the player actually created the spell and spell description himself, however. "Reasearching" a spell from the Spell Compendium doesn't get you anything other than access to the spell.

If you're just going to fast forward through the year and assume some stuff happens, though, the player gets nothing. Players need to earn the rewards their characters get, especially at 30th level.

[Thrudd]

I think there is basically 3 things he can fail and failing either first second or third part would thus have a cumulative effect.

First there is the analysis of the chosen abjuration spells. If the data is wrong the rest of the calculations and formulae will be wrong too.

Secondly there are the calculations. Since we base it around a mix of math and chemistry, some of the equations could go wrong and thus the chemic (components, focus etc... ) could go wrong as well.

And lastly there is the experimentations themselves. Basically they could go right, nothing happens, a lesser failure and major failure. So the last part I would give 25% chance of each with a bonus of his int modifier, giving this guy a 41% chance of experimental success. Without including outcome of the previous parts.

How does this sound?

What will be the cost and risk involved for him? Research should cost a lot of gold, which is spent regardless of the outcome. Each stage should have a set cost in time and money. All three phases need to be paid for and completed before he finds out if any of it was a success (meaning you don't tell him if the data is wrong, and the calculations and experiments automatically fail, regardless of the die roll). He needs to spend more money and time to find out at what stage the failure happened, and then start again from that stage.
Also, what are you thinking for the consequences of failure in the experiment? Lost XP? More money lost?

Look up 1e AD&D DMG guidelines on spell research for something similar to this, might give you an idea. Decide what spell level the knowledge he's looking for would be equivalent to, and calculate the time and cost requirements based off of that. The higher the level, the more time and money it will cost, and the lower the chance of success.

[Thrudd]

I also wonder how this character meshes with the rest of the group. It's all well and good for the player to decide that his character should retire to a life of study, totally appropriate for a high level wizard. Does he also run another character that goes on adventures with the other players, and he just wants to keep tabs on his long-running wizard? Or do you split your session time between the adventure party and him roleplaying being a scientific researcher?

The task before you is basically to homebrew a new game supplement just for him, to allow non-adventuring methods of character advancement, particularly rules for scientific research into the nature of magic. Are the other players near his level? Are they also ready to move into non-adventuring careers? If so, then this might be a good idea. You might see if anyone else has yet homebrewed a domain-management game for 3.5 yet, that could save you a lot of work.

Or do the easy thing, and just hand him a thousand XP for roleplaying his character during the session, whatever it is he wants to do. Spend five minutes with him, letting him describe whatever his character is doing, roleplay an interaction with an NPC research assistant or colleague, and then move on to the normal adventure with the other players. Ultimately there will be no risk or consequence to this, but it might make him happy to feel like he is appropriately roleplaying the character and being rewarded for it.

[The Grue]

Very good point... The fact is that the player no longer, or at least in only a small way, cares for combat encounters, and seeing that a battle against a solar or titan would last only a few rounds I think doing a year worth of something with the very good risk of blowing op in his face, merits some award. While the other players hack and slach their way through the abbys.


no longer...cares

This right here? This is usually taken as a sign that it's time to retire the character.

[Sir Chuckles]

This right here? This is usually taken as a sign that it's time to retire the character.

If not retiring it, than converting the character, or at least it's theme/spirit/whatever you want to call it, to a system better suited to what the player wants to do with it.

[Max Caysey]

This right here? This is usually taken as a sign that it's time to retire the character.


If not retiring it, than converting the character, or at least it's theme/spirit/whatever you want to call it, to a system better suited to what the player wants to do with it.

Well the player still hasn’t reached all of his goals with the character and I for one am not just going to give it to him. His overall goal is to become the most powerful wizard of the face of Toril. Since Larloch and the Srishee exist, he has some way to go. When he has reached what he thinks is omnipotence he is going to go after Shar! He also wants to read the Nether scrolls... so finding them is a quest waiting to happen.

I have asked before about retirement, but he blatently dismisses that. He really want to continue playing. He feels that he has finally reach a level and a power where he can go after the nether scrolls and where he has the resourses to start this kind of research. So... no retirement any time soon. The other players feel the same way... albeit other goals.

[The Grue]

Well the player still hasn’t reached all of his goals with the character and I for one am not just going to give it to him. His overall goal is to become the most powerful wizard of the face of Toril. Since Larloch and the Srishee exist, he has some way to go. When he has reached what he thinks is omnipotence he is going to go after Shar! He also wants to read the Nether scrolls... so finding them is a quest waiting to happen.

I have asked before about retirement, but he blatently dismisses that. He really want to continue playing. He feels that he has finally reach a level and a power where he can go after the nether scrolls and where he has the resourses to start this kind of research. So... no retirement any time soon. The other players feel the same way... albeit other goals.

Seems like the player is conflicted. He refuses to retire and expresses a desire to continue playing, but by your own description he is bored and disinterested in playing the game.

I was in a similar place the first time I played Civilization V - I wanted to keep playing and see what the end-game units and techs looked like, but I wasn't enjoying having to slog through the midgame as each and every AI empire declared war on me for being in the lead. I wanted to reach the end-game as soon as possible, but I couldn't just skip turns or the AI would overrun me. So what I did was I enabled cheats. That way, I was able to advance turns rapidly with minimal effort, and not risk losing everything.

Sound familiar?

[Sir Chuckles]

Larloc is a Netherese Human Lich Wizard 32.

You're talking about someone who is a Wizard 30.
All that needs to be done is 1) Become a Lich and 2) Either become a Demi Lich, or gain three levels.
The biggest problem I see is that the players have different goals. You have to write a campaign or plot hook in which their goals align themselves in such a way that everyone can participate, rather than everyone doing something different while Steve fiddles around with his apprentices who can already take over the known world.
The nether scrolls themselves have little to no mechanical information on them, and, while there are many ideas spread across the internet, it's up to you to hammer out the details. I'd recommend making them impossible to be found via magic, as Locate Object would find them pretty quickly.

A Wizard 20 is already omnipotent if they prepare correctly. Can we get Tippy in here to explain how? As in a big brother version of his 'verse?

Ultimately, unless you can write it out as a specific epic campaign, you're going to have to resolve his ambition off screen, as "Studying magic formula for a year" is nearly 0% progress toward doing any of what you're describing. If he was studying "How to meet up with Mystra and hold debates and seminars with her", that would be an entirely different, and easily plausible, game-able thing. Maybe Larloch finally snaps and he becomes a BBEG. Maybe you push the moral buttons and have some poor farm kids literally dig up a scroll or two and they demand power/money/something.

But ultimately, if he is reluctant to doing something that involves the whole group and is insistent on what basically amounts to vacation, then he's no longer a player, he's a recurring NPC.

[Max Caysey]

Seems like the player is conflicted. He refuses to retire and expresses a desire to continue playing, but by your own description he is bored and disinterested in playing the game.

I was in a similar place the first time I played Civilization V - I wanted to keep playing and see what the end-game units and techs looked like, but I wasn't enjoying having to slog through the midgame as each and every AI empire declared war on me for being in the lead. I wanted to reach the end-game as soon as possible, but I couldn't just skip turns or the AI would overrun me. So what I did was I enabled cheats. That way, I was able to advance turns rapidly with minimal effort, and not risk losing everything.

Sound familiar?

As far as I know, he feels he have taken enough dragons, liches, and npcs, so that now he want to focus a bit on research for a year or two and then get back, stronger, into the game of removing evil.

We only play a few times a year, and only doing combat year in year out, he feels he misses out of other aspects of wizardry.

Larloc is a Netherese Human Lich Wizard 32.

You're talking about someone who is a Wizard 30.
All that needs to be done is 1) Become a Lich and 2) Either become a Demi Lich, or gain three levels.
The biggest problem I see is that the players have different goals. You have to write a campaign or plot hook in which their goals align themselves in such a way that everyone can participate, rather than everyone doing something different while Steve fiddles around with his apprentices who can already take over the known world.
The nether scrolls themselves have little to no mechanical information on them, and, while there are many ideas spread across the internet, it's up to you to hammer out the details. I'd recommend making them impossible to be found via magic, as Locate Object would find them pretty quickly.

A Wizard 20 is already omnipotent if they prepare correctly. Can we get Tippy in here to explain how? As in a big brother version of his 'verse?

Ultimately, unless you can write it out as a specific epic campaign, you're going to have to resolve his ambition off screen, as "Studying magic formula for a year" is nearly 0% progress toward doing any of what you're describing. If he was studying "How to meet up with Mystra and hold debates and seminars with her", that would be an entirely different, and easily plausible, game-able thing. Maybe Larloch finally snaps and he becomes a BBEG. Maybe you push the moral buttons and have some poor farm kids literally dig up a scroll or two and they demand power/money/something.

But ultimately, if he is reluctant to doing something that involves the whole group and is insistent on what basically amounts to vacation, then he's no longer a player, he's a recurring NPC.

We go by Ed Greenwoods take of Larloch and the Srinshee's level respectively level 46 and level 54, so he not quite there yet.

[Sir Chuckles]

We only play a few times a year, and only doing combat year in year out, he feels he misses out of other aspects of wizardry.

We go by Ed Greenwoods take of Larloch and the Srinshee's level respectively level 46 and level 54, so he not quite there yet.

3.5 is a combat sim, through and through. I'm sorry to say that there are few, if any, non-combat Wizardry aspects. And those that are non-combat are usually involved in either taking over the world or improving the world, 90% off screen. The other 10% is combat or combat-like encounters.

Honestly, I think the heart of this issue is sunk-cost fallacy. Nothing you do will have a satisfying end at this point.
To answer to original question: He should get less than 1000exp for this, and should really participate in the group actively.
To answer the rest of the thread: Switch systems, find more time to game, or start play-by-post.

[ace rooster]

As far as I know, he feels he have taken enough dragons, liches, and npcs, so that now he want to focus a bit on research for a year or two and then get back, stronger, into the game of removing evil.



So he feels that he can gain more from books (mostly written by characters lower than level 20) than direct interaction with creatures that are a source of magic, sustained entirely by magic, and are powerful magic users respectively? The experiments might help, but I would rule it like trying to understand windows by dismantling a computer; the basic rules of magic are actually very simple, and easy to understand for even a low level mage, but the interactions between these rules get complicated so fast that high level abstractions are the only way to actually do anything. They are much easier to see than to explain, so that books have limited value in boosting understanding, even if they can give instructions for particular spells.

The other way of thinking about it is just saying the CR was too low. xp is an abstract way of keeping score that characters have limited perception of, and is only granted for creatures taking on an appropriate challange.

[Seto]

I was wondering how much, if any, exp you gus would award for a year of down time (ingame). During which time the Wizard (lvl 30) at hand would be doing a lot of studying in the field of magic, experimenting on new spells and items, participating in seminars of magic, teaching an apprentice and working part time as a sell spell.

Thank you for all your comments in advance!

Don't know if someone already said that. What I would do is give nothing (except maybe some roleplaying XP if he did extremely interesting things during his downtime), because he's just basically updating his XP. What I mean is that : a wizard can go up 5 levels and suddenly go from no-one to a highly regarded local magic expert, just by going from dungeon to dungeon. Does that make sense ? No. So, if the Wizard took downtime to lock himself in his tower and study magic, I'd say that represents the XP that he gained while adventuring. (Hence the term "update"). Of course, such an update is not absolutely necessary. I would not force players to make their characters take time off. (But I'd encourage them to, because I like the idea).

[Max Caysey]

I agree with a lot of the ideas here. I personally like the idea of him spending a lot of time trying to really understand magic, and like physics he has a masters level but now tries to write a phd. I also very much like the idea of his thought of going about it. First is the basic understanding, which he has as alevel 30 wizard, then comes the thorough analysis of abjuration spells. Specificaly Mordenkainen's Disjunction. He is working on a containment spell/ item that can keep spells active for longer, like casting a fireball, where the explosion would have a duration. THe he wants to cast mord's Disjunction into this thing and via analyse dweomer get to grips with the intricate workings. Perhaps even cast other spells into the continues disjunction effect. (which a fordee as blowing the f#¤% up. :smallwink: Hopefully this will somehow allow him to deduct some formula of the underlying structures of the spell shcool. He then wants to do this with different spells. So to speak to find the "Mystra particle" cia the isolations of variables in the equations.

So its not so much he wants to read a lot of books he want to conduct he own research and uncover things for himself. This might indeed lead him to planar travel. I personally think its cool that the player wants other things than just combat.

[NichG]

The thing is, he needs to be doing this on-screen. If this is 'cool', then this kind of thing is what the game sessions should be about, and XP should derive from that fact. Otherwise you've really got two campaigns going - the stuff that happens onscreen that seems to be boring this player, and the downtime sessions which are where the meat of the game actually is for him. Instead try to figure out a way to wrap all the players into things like research and exploration and make that the main campaign. There's no reason that the main campaign has to all be about combat, after all - just being non-combat doesn't mean non-challenging or downtime.

[Sir Chuckles]

I agree with a lot of the ideas here. I personally like the idea of him spending a lot of time trying to really understand magic, and like physics he has a masters level but now tries to write a phd. I also very much like the idea of his thought of going about it. First is the basic understanding, which he has as alevel 30 wizard, then comes the thorough analysis of abjuration spells. Specificaly Mordenkainen's Disjunction. He is working on a containment spell/ item that can keep spells active for longer, like casting a fireball, where the explosion would have a duration. THe he wants to cast mord's Disjunction into this thing and via analyse dweomer get to grips with the intricate workings. Perhaps even cast other spells into the continues disjunction effect. (which a fordee as blowing the f#¤% up. :smallwink: Hopefully this will somehow allow him to deduct some formula of the underlying structures of the spell shcool. He then wants to do this with different spells. So to speak to find the "Mystra particle" cia the isolations of variables in the equations.

So its not so much he wants to read a lot of books he want to conduct he own research and uncover things for himself. This might indeed lead him to planar travel. I personally think its cool that the player wants other things than just combat.

I think you need to abandon the masters>PHD comparison, especially since he's level 30.
A 30th level Wizard is not an expert in the field, he is capable of entirely rewriting the field from scratch. Level 30 is not one PHD, it is seventeen PHDs, six Nobel prizes, and a guaranteed head position of any college in the world by simply walking in the door.
At 30th level, he can research and develop spells that create entire species in about a week.

[Thrudd]

I agree with a lot of the ideas here. I personally like the idea of him spending a lot of time trying to really understand magic, and like physics he has a masters level but now tries to write a phd. I also very much like the idea of his thought of going about it. First is the basic understanding, which he has as alevel 30 wizard, then comes the thorough analysis of abjuration spells. Specificaly Mordenkainen's Disjunction. He is working on a containment spell/ item that can keep spells active for longer, like casting a fireball, where the explosion would have a duration. THe he wants to cast mord's Disjunction into this thing and via analyse dweomer get to grips with the intricate workings. Perhaps even cast other spells into the continues disjunction effect. (which a fordee as blowing the f#¤% up. :smallwink: Hopefully this will somehow allow him to deduct some formula of the underlying structures of the spell shcool. He then wants to do this with different spells. So to speak to find the "Mystra particle" cia the isolations of variables in the equations.

So its not so much he wants to read a lot of books he want to conduct he own research and uncover things for himself. This might indeed lead him to planar travel. I personally think its cool that the player wants other things than just combat.

Then I'd say create adventures that the other players can participate in which also meet his goals. It is true, characters of this level will find very little challenge in most combat encounters. So the burden is on you to devise a game which all the players can participate in that will challenge them.

Pretty much anything he would want to accomplish regarding magic research should require boldly going where no one has gone before...that's why the knowledge he is seeking is still unknown. In D&D, unlike in our world, this means planar travel, interacting with deities, delving into long forgotten civilizations. Instead of writing a new game supplement about conducting scientific experiments, tell him what the results of his characters' year-long experiments are. Those results should point him to needing to collect something, meet someone, go somewhere, that he has not been before in order to complete the experiment or make the next level of discovery.

In real life, hypotheses often could not be verified until there was some advancement in technology allowing for proper experiments to be conducted. In the same way, perhaps he needs to create a special magical device to isolate the Mystara particle, like a magical particle collider. This will require securing a specific location appropriate for it (which coincidentally is a very dangerous place or controlled by someone who doesn't want him to be there), collecting rare materials from all over the planes that are very hard to get, maybe requires the participation of someone with a particular skillset or bloodline that is not exactly friendly or interested in helping out...

With a little creativity, I think you can create an adventure that all the players will be happy with without needing to homebrew a whole new game.

[Max Caysey]

I think you need to abandon the masters>PHD comparison, especially since he's level 30.
A 30th level Wizard is not an expert in the field, he is capable of entirely rewriting the field from scratch. Level 30 is not one PHD, it is seventeen PHDs, six Nobel prizes, and a guaranteed head position of any college in the world by simply walking in the door.
At 30th level, he can research and develop spells that create entire species in about a week.

Well in some games this power (Tippy) comes at level 17. As I have mentioned the game is very un-optimized. So this player cant. He has great knowledge and great casting capabilities, but he does not know the true secret of magic... Not even Larloch seems to have uncovered that in his 2000 years of age. So if there's still something for him to discover, I'm betting that a 46 year old human wizard have not the power nor the knowledge to rewrite the setting as he pleases. I understand what you mean, but this gue wants to rediscover level 10, 11 and 12 true dweomers or at least the key to unluck Mystra's ban.

[Sir Chuckles]

Well in some games this power (Tippy) comes at level 17. As I have mentioned the game is very un-optimized. So this player cant. He has great knowledge and great casting capabilities, but he does not know the true secret of magic... Not even Larloch seems to have uncovered that in his 2000 years of age. So if there's still something for him to discover, I'm betting that a 46 year old human wizard have not the power nor the knowledge to rewrite the setting as he pleases. I understand what you mean, but this gue wants to rediscover level 10, 11 and 12 true dweomers or at least the key to unluck Mystra's ban.

Those epic spells are literally one Spellcraft check away. As low as DC 38. For creating life as if you were a deity. He has access to the power, he's just taken the slowest, arguably most boring, most inefficient, and least supported by the game system path there is. Which is fine, if you're willing to DM it and the group, as a general whole, is ok with playing it. As for the knowledge? At worst, he's got, what, about 25 intelligence? That's still more raw intellect than some gods. Considering that an average human is a 10 an stats are exponential, he has far more knowledge than you think.

And if he really wants to do that, he should show it. This research is autopilot. Really, the only things that should get done on autopilot is predetermined crafting. That's the big disconnect. He's trying to be a major world player in a world where, unless plot convenience says otherwise (Larloch), you pretty have to be doing something to mean anything. Optimization aside, he's still packing abilities that are just shy of actual divine rank.

[Max Caysey]

Those epic spells are literally one Spellcraft check away. As low as DC 38. For creating life as if you were a deity. He has access to the power, he's just taken the slowest, arguably most boring, most inefficient, and least supported by the game system path there is. Which is fine, if you're willing to DM it and the group, as a general whole, is ok with playing it. As for the knowledge? At worst, he's got, what, about 25 intelligence? That's still more raw intellect than some gods. Considering that an average human is a 10 an stats are exponential, he has far more knowledge than you think.

And if he really wants to do that, he should show it. This research is autopilot. Really, the only things that should get done on autopilot is predetermined crafting. That's the big disconnect. He's trying to be a major world player in a world where, unless plot convenience says otherwise (Larloch), you pretty have to be doing something to mean anything. Optimization aside, he's still packing abilities that are just shy of actual divine rank.

I see your point. He has not chosen Epic magic because he felt it didn't fit the setting of fearun. He does no cheese, or loops or rules abuses because he thinks that spoils the game. So we have a guy that albeit has some nasty spell and PrC, does not go arround playing a god. He usually cast very few spells and does not have all thise epic contingencies as Tippy. So this guys underwear is not capable of conquring entire planets :smallsmile:

I will make sure that a lot more of this reseach will be on screen. I think there have been some very good arguments for that.