Question about canon NPCs and epic levels

[schreier]

I've been reading a lot, and working on high level NPCs for a campaign. I was surprised at how old a lot of the Faerun heroes were (Elminster - over 1200, Khelben - 960 years, etc...).

I know they're very high leveled (35 and 27 respectively in 3.5) - but I started to think that that seemed awfully low. When you consider how quickly characters get to 20, it seemed strange to think that those characters basically didn't level for centuries. They clearly aren't retiring ... I am guessing it's just a balance issue? It shouldn't be that hard to gain epic levels if you are still adventuring, right?

Obviously, epic levels are truly epic ... but the rules, as written, would seem to support them being significantly higher level considering both their activities and the length of time involved. Any thoughts? The reason it came up is that I was working on an ancient character, and was trying to determine the appropriate level. My guess, honestly, is that it's just that epic is so broken that they gimp NPC level gains after hitting epic to keep them within the realms of regular PCs?

[OldTrees1]

2 thematic answers:
1) The authors presumed more Downtime as part of an adventurer's lifestyle.
2) Logarithmic xp gain due to exponentially decreasing availability of challenges.

[schreier]

Definitely understood the increasing experience costs ...
but it doesn't seem logarithmic .. it goes up by an additional 1k per level (and obviously xp is reduced for the same level monsters as you increase in levels)

I guess it depends on how much "administrative," "banal," and "political" actions they have to take as opposed to the "killing the big baddie" - the second doesn't give XP. Same with helping lower level characters grow.

[Esprit15]

Pretty much that. You gain less exp when you settle down and start just running a city, rather than hunting for rare artifacts. You also reach a point where you run out of non-unique creatures. When the only thing that is even worth getting up for in the morning is another adventurer (still several levels below you), or the rare outsider or dragon with class levels, it becomes harder and harder to gain levels.

[OldTrees1]

Definitely understood the increasing experience costs ...
but it doesn't seem logarithmic .. it goes up by an additional 1k per level (and obviously xp is reduced for the same level monsters as you increase in levels)

I guess it depends on how much "administrative," "banal," and "political" actions they have to take as opposed to the "killing the big baddie" - the second doesn't give XP. Same with helping lower level characters grow.


Logarithmic xp gain due to exponentially decreasing availability of challenges.

If you look at how many NPCs exist at a specific level you will note it is exponentially decreasing(as one would expect). This also means the higher level you are the rarer it is to meet an NPC that can challenge you. As the availability of challenges decreases, the time between XP rewards increases. This increased time per XP reward turns the normally linear growth (XP costs to level increase at the same rate as XP gained per challenge increases) into a logarithmic growth.

[Flickerdart]

When you're level 1, and you kill a goblin, it's one of a thousand goblins in your area code and the world goes on.

When you're level 31 and you kill a goblin, that goblin was a demigod chosen one of his people, and now Maglubiyet is sharpening his knives, the power vacuum has caused a brutal goblinoid civil war that has engulfed the entire continent and threatens humanoid populations, and ten dark lords show up at the goblin's keep to claim it for themselves.

Not only are there fewer foes at your level, but any battle you enter has setting-scale importance, so you tend to weigh the pros and cons before rolling initiative.

[Âmesang]

I'm not terribly familiar with specific FORGOTTEN REALMS® characters, but didn't Elminster spend centuries under a temporal stasis or similar "frozen in time" effect?

…as opposed to WORLD OF GREYHAWK'S® Mordenkainen whom, last I checked, topped out at 27th-level at around 80 years of age.

[Inevitability]

A PC levels up at a speed of roughly once per fifteen level-appropriate encounters. A NPC levels up at the speed of plot.