Verisimilitude question about level

[Conradine]

Let's say we're talking about a Wide Open Sandbox world ( a world that exists independently from the adventurers, the master and plot rules ), with an internal consistency.
Let's say it's the Forgotten Realms settings or the Greyhawk ( I think they're similar ).

My question: a scholarly character ( an Expert like a barrister or an historian, a Cloistered Cleric or a reclusive Mage ) enter in a monastery at age 20, level 1, and spend there 50 years studying and meditating in protected, serene solitude with the other initiates, oblates, monks, priests ecc.

What level will he reasonably reach for when he's Venerable ( 70 years ) ?

[MisterKaws]

A character gains experience from overcoming challenges. How many challenges would this expert be overcoming in his meditation? Is he secretly practicing some skill and perfecting his craft? If so, figure out how much XP he'd be getting daily or monthly or weekly from it. Probably not much more than 5 daily.

I did the exact calculations, and considering he gains 5 daily, he'd be level 14. Now, 5 points daily is a fairly high amount, so it's really up to you to determine it.

[Madsamurai]

NPC levels have an exponential fall off. Something like 1000 level 1, 100 level 2, 10 level 3, etc... Though I've surely gotten the factor wrong. That means that it takes more then just time to level up. This means that it takes more then just 50 years of study to become level 10 or whatever, you need something like a heroic spark, luck, etc.

So decide what level means in your world and why NPCs gain levels if they are not slaying dragons or w/e and go from there.

[Conradine]

A character gains experience from overcoming challenges. How many challenges would this expert be overcoming in his meditation? Is he secretly practicing some skill and perfecting his craft?


Well...
what is a challenge?

If challenge equates with "risking your life", then no, he never faces any challenge. He's not risking an explosion with alchemical comburents, he's not working with deadly poisons, and he's not hiding forbidden activities.

If challenge equates with make efforts and strain the mind to find creative solutions, then yes, his study presents him with constant challenges. Translating dead languages, finding - and understanting - obscure references, studying the patterns of the sky and the influence of the stars on the flow of magic, learning as many languages as needed in order to access all the avaiable books. And the bigger challenge of all: constant cross-reference of sources in order to cream off red herrings and false or incomplete informations.
All this requires effort, ingenuity and creative thinking, but none of this involves risking life or limb.

[zfs]

I mean, we're talking versimilitude, and it's well-known that 3.5 is very bad at modeling the concept of "guy who is otherwordly at one skill (or even lots of skills) but isn't physically heartier than your average person."

But 3.5 does allow you to gain XP without ever leaving your monastery or ivory tower.

[RedMage125]

Let's say we're talking about a Wide Open Sandbox world ( a world that exists independently from the adventurers, the master and plot rules ), with an internal consistency.
Let's say it's the Forgotten Realms settings or the Greyhawk ( I think they're similar ).

My question: a scholarly character ( an Expert like a barrister or an historian, a Cloistered Cleric or a reclusive Mage ) enter in a monastery at age 20, level 1, and spend there 50 years studying and meditating in protected, serene solitude with the other initiates, oblates, monks, priests ecc.

What level will he reasonably reach for when he's Venerable ( 70 years ) ?

The correct answer is, of course (assuming this is an NPC): Whatever level is necessary or appropriate for the story. As a DM, "internal consistency" does not necessitate "complete transparency to the players". You don't have to answer to them. Maybe this guy made discoveries or breakthroughs that advanced his understanding of magic. That should be worth extra XP, right? Maybe he's written completely new spells that can only be found by learning from him (let's say you want to add a few spells from the Spell Compendium, but not have them generally available to PCs right away). I would say that if, for example, he is the person who developed Prismatic Eye, then that should have been a HUGE xp gain for him.

[Conradine]

Then there are group activities...

bringing magical ( and mundane ) healing to the commoners, philosophical debates, lectures, lessons, instructing the younger apprentices and initiates.

And experimentation.
Trying magical potions, alchemical elixirs and spells on plants, bees and mices, and catalogue the results.

And...
a bit of gymnastique and sparring, also. Why not. ( mens sana in corpore sano ecc. )




The correct answer is, of course (assuming this is an NPC): Whatever level is necessary or appropriate for the story. As a DM, "internal consistency" does not necessitate "complete transparency to the players". You don't have to answer to them. Maybe this guy made discoveries or breakthroughs that advanced his understanding of magic. That should be worth extra XP, right? Maybe he's written completely new spells that can only be found by learning from him (let's say you want to add a few spells from the Spell Compendium, but not have them generally available to PCs right away). I would say that if, for example, he is the person who developed Prismatic Eye, then that should have been a HUGE xp gain for him.


No. No exceptional characters here.
I'm trying to determinate what level would be in a "standard" sandbox dungeons and dragons world an average dedicated, hard working - hard studying and cloistered monastery achimandrite.

[Inchhighguy]

The problem here is the D&D rules don't cover this. The D&D rules are about getting expereince by adventure and combat. That is it.

D&D simply does not cover ''non combat" experince. There is not a whole chapter of ''non-combat" anywhere in the rules. There are no dozens of pages about a ''challange class"(CC) and how you have to roll a Problem Sloution(PS) to over come the challange.

Otherwise, there are three answers:

1.The person is 1st level(or even zero level). They are a common nobody who never did anything with thier life ever.

2.Eh, maybe 7th level? They got XP...but very S_L_O_W_L_Y. So sure it was a challange when they wrote a book, but that still only got them like 20 xp. They, maybe, got, 1,000 xp a year...so they went up a level every 2-5 years of life.

3.They would be a 20th level commoner/sage/expert/whatever.

Pick one.

[Biggus]

It would depend on their talent and dedication. According to the DMG, the greatest blacksmith in the world is probably level 20, so presumably the same goes for scholars. Somebody who studied dilligently but lacked the natural talent and single-minded obsession that makes a true genius could work their whole life and not get anywhere near that level though.

[Conradine]

1.The person is 1st level(or even zero level). They are a common nobody who never did anything with thier life ever.

I talked with university professors around 65-70 years. Of course, they would go down with half a punch, so low hp.
But they had an encyclopedic knowledge and hyper-trained memory that looked superhuman.

[Efrate]

Outside of fiat, you get xp by overcoming challenges that are appropriate to your level. There needs to be a real pretty personal risk or else its not a challenge, and you do not get xp. Taking a well trodden road and going to a town to heal a 1000 people is not a risk. No experience, does not matter.

If its a town infected by a horrific plague, you might argue there is a risk if you are exposing yourself to it to help. Disease trap, very low cr, very low xp.

Testing potions etc. if there is poison involvef ir is cr vs. poison, pretty low but higher than disease.

Spending 80 years as a hermit studing creating learning? No xp. Skill focus maybe as a bonus feat, but any low to mid leveled guy who kills goblins who put points in said skill is better at it than you. Your 80 years of study might give you information the pcs need in your collection, but that information doesnt give xp, collecting researching or receiving. The pcs get xp for the trails they overcome on the way to get the information from you, but actually receiving it does nothing, just like you got nothing for researching and compiling it.

[Talverin]

Honestly, 'years' isn't a very good way to determine level. What if he were an Elf? If an Elf studied for 350 years until he was Venerable, even as just a nonmagical scholar, what level would he be? Is 'just studying' enough to justify levelling up? Life experience and growth?

I don't think there's sufficient information to determine what level such a character would be.

As far as someone being very good at something without being necessarily a level 20 slays-dragons-with-punches 'regular dude', there's always feats like Skill Focus, and traits that give bonuses (In PF.)

A naturally smart guy with a skill focus and a couple ranks can get some pretty good rolls, especially if he's a class that allows rerolls on failed knowledge checks, or gives bonuses.

Unfortunately, years alone are not a sufficient basis for assigning a level, because levels imply much more than just high skill checks.

[KillianHawkeye]

Honestly, 'years' isn't a very good way to determine level. What if he were an Elf? If an Elf studied for 350 years until he was Venerable, even as just a nonmagical scholar, what level would he be? Is 'just studying' enough to justify levelling up? Life experience and growth?

I feel like this sort of "experience" is only good for gaining a few levels. Once you're level 4 or 5, the "challenges" of everyday life are going to be too basic to earn you any XP. So most people will stop leveling around there unless they can find more extraordinary ways to challenge themselves (such as making masterwork items/art pieces, performing in public places, debating or competing somehow against someone else in your field).

[weckar]

So, it's a houserule, but at our table we've in some games worked it where successful skill checks net DC/2 exp (DC/5 for non-players). The little bits add up.

By that logic, one needs to wonder whether the character does particularly strenuous or difficult things on the daily.

[Mars Ultor]

It's diminishing returns. The same way a high-level adventurer doesn't gain experience from fighting a bunch of goblins or orcs, an expert or commoner doesn't gain experience from ordinary tasks. Doing the same thing over and over again, even if it's somewhat difficult, doesn't mean you get experience.

I'm sure you know someone who's been in the same position for a long time and they've stopped advancing. Most people have limits and most professions have limits. There are limitations on being an expert in anything, you reach a point where you've translated enough rare languages that the next one is the same as the last one. It may not be easy, but you've learned the techniques, you know the books to check, you understand the patterns. You're using your experience, you're not actually gaining any experience.

Professional athletes are a good example. Most pro athletes reach a point where they don't get any better. Depending on the sport they reach the right age and the right level of experience and then there's a slight decline over time. They reached the top and there's really nowhere to go, there's not enough of a challenge to gain experience or they've reached their own limits. But every once in a while you have a great athlete who suffers a severe injury or accumulation of little injuries, or just gets old, and you see them completely change their game. They can't jump above the rim anymore so they develop a long-range shot, or they can't hit it out of the park so they get better at recognizing pitches and accumulate a lot of walks.

There are very few opportunities to gain more experience, the world doesn't work that way. You become sort of an expert according to your abilities and work ethic, and then you're refining your skills. Then you simply get older, most professions aren't as deadly as adventuring. It's a different situation when you're constantly fighting new and unusual monsters. Now you're a big shot, you can kill 1st-level orcs all day long, but a wyvern takes some effort. Then you're leaving the wyverns to someone else, you're taking on the Cloud Giants. Unfortunately the Druid wasn't quite up to it and he's gone now. Then you go to fight your first dragon and you're fried, that's it. You reached the extent of your abilities and experience and you paid the price. The Ranger is doing fine though, watching the dragon stomp you and continuing to fight while terrified has taught him a few things, he'll have a better chance next time.