1st level venerable

[LibraryOgre]

This is something that I don't quite understand.

How do you have a venerable anything that is only 1st level? Assuming it has a lifespan of even 30 years, what has it been doing for the past three decades that have had no significant impact on it? It gets even worse with races that live longer... humans, elves, dwarves.

[Edwin]

This is something that I don't quite understand.

How do you have a venerable anything that is only 1st level? Assuming it has a lifespan of even 30 years, what has it been doing for the past three decades that have had no significant impact on it? It gets even worse with races that live longer... humans, elves, dwarves.

How many 1st level venerable people do you see, anyway?

Short of optimizing PC's, of course.

[Waylor]

Just a regular farmer NPC, though i cant see one of my players making a new character as venerable. If you read some published adventures you can see that venerable non adventurer npcs are commoners 3-6. Theres no point on leveling for commoners, i think i doesnt even make sense, so you're venerable commner (20) human, you have 20hd and more resistance to damage/magic than a young boy.

Or just make him start as one of the npcs classes and then move to wizard/rogue/whatever

[golentan]

What do elves do for more than a hundred years that has no significant impact on their lives? They hit puberty at around the same time humans do in most fluff, but it's not THAT distracting...

The answer in venerable 1st levels (I think) is they've been scraping by. They have a job, and they do it, and it doesn't give them time to gain a ton of experience. And since they like eating, they keep doing it until they can break free.

[Duke of URL]

This is something that I don't quite understand.

How do you have a venerable anything that is only 1st level? Assuming it has a lifespan of even 30 years, what has it been doing for the past three decades that have had no significant impact on it? It gets even worse with races that live longer... humans, elves, dwarves.

The only reason I've ever seen to have "venerable" at 1st level is for CharOp. Those guys aren't concerned about RP logic, it's simply a matter of theoretical optimization for them.

[Sliver]

A wizard did it. Really, the mundane classes have no reason to start as venerable, so you can say that they were the almighty wizard until someone cursed them, stole all their stuff and made them lose all experience. They still remember their special status and power, but have no proof and everybody forgot them.. Or w/e. A wizard did it.

[Geddoe]

Simply done, you are fresh out of wizard school. Then you sleep with some god's daughter so he puts you to sleep with a magic spell for 50 years. Your punishment is that your youth is gone.

Alternatively, you get raped in some goddess's temple by another god. So the goddess punishes you by using the sleep spell to steal your youth.

[jiriku]

A level 1 venerable is someone who's led a confined life, or had a life full of wasted opportunities. In the real world, this is the middle-aged woman working at Arby's, the elderly man who's a greeter at Wal-mart, the uncle you have who at age 55 is living with his sister because he still can't manage to hold down a job for more than a few months at a time. These are the people who dropped out, dodged the draft, never went to college, never got married, got passed over for that promotion, missed out on the trip to Asia because they didn't want to spend the money.

In short, they've spent their whole lives putting in the minimum effort necessary just to get by, and they've never really accomplished anything.

They're the most unlikely sort to ever become adventurers, but if someone had a dramatic, pivotal experience late in life, they might come to question themselves and decide they're capable of more. They might decide it's never too late to take a risk.

I read an anecdote by Jack Canfield once (the guy who write the Chicken Soup books). He had interviewed a grandmother who was locally famous for having pulled a car off her grandson when he was being crushed by it. She was reluctant to discuss "the incident", and when he asked her why, she said "If I could pick up a car by myself, something I thought was impossible, how many other things have I not done in my life, just because I thought they couldn't be done?" Jack convinced her that it wasn't too late to do the impossible, and this grandmother who was a college dropout but had always had a love for geology went back to college, earned a geology degree, and began teaching geology at a local community college.

I'd say she was definitely an example of how someone who was still 1st level at a venerable age could decide to start really experiencing life (in the leveling up sense).

[Edwin]

Except that when you've spend 50 years that way, in and out of jobs that is, you've probably earned an even thousand experience.

When you're level one, cooking a burger is a challenge. A deadly one.

[Duke of URL]

When you're level one, cooking a burger is a challenge. A deadly one.

Hell yeah. A single bison (nearest equivalent to a cow in the SRD) is a CR 2 encounter. And if you want bacon on that burger, you're up to EL 4 (and enough XP to level up, if you survive the solo encounter).

[LibraryOgre]

Simply done, you are fresh out of wizard school. Then you sleep with some god's daughter so he puts you to sleep with a magic spell for 50 years. Your punishment is that your youth is gone.

Alternatively, you get raped in some goddess's temple by another god. So the goddess punishes you by using the sleep spell to steal your youth.

See, IMO, those wouldn't count. The increases in mental attributes theoretically represent that you lived your life, not just time served. That's part of why everyone hated magical aging in previous editions... it destroyed your body, but didn't help your mind at all.

[PhoenixRivers]

Except that when you've spend 50 years that way, in and out of jobs that is, you've probably earned an even thousand experience.

When you're level one, cooking a burger is a challenge. A deadly one.

Most jobs give you 90 days, so they can decide if you're worth keeping. You don't need a resume, or even a strong background, to get a job at the Taco Tiki. You get hired... You screw things up for a month or two. You get fired.

Unless life's DM is generous with RP xp, then your skills, endurance, knowledge, and expertise in field is squat. You are level 1, in all ways that matter. You're a failure.

That's how to be level 1 you're whole life. Never learn. Never grow.

[Sploosh]

What if he dreamed a life in this comatose state?

[Edwin]

Most jobs give you 90 days, so they can decide if you're worth keeping. You don't need a resume, or even a strong background, to get a job at the Taco Tiki. You get hired... You screw things up for a month or two. You get fired.

Unless life's DM is generous with RP xp, then your skills, endurance, knowledge, and expertise in field is squat. You are level 1, in all ways that matter. You're a failure.

That's how to be level 1 you're whole life. Never learn. Never grow.

So, what, he lives his entire life without ever having any kind of experience? Unlikely.

Hell, living as a walking, talking failure should give you experience just getting up in the morning. Your sad life story is bound to hand out a bit of RP experience, too.

[OMG PONIES]

A level 1 venerable is someone who's led a confined life, or had a life full of wasted opportunities....the elderly man who's a greeter at Wal-mart...In short, they've spent their whole lives putting in the minimum effort necessary just to get by, and they've never really accomplished anything.
.

That's right, Wal-Mart doesn't hire retirees who have lived full, significant lives and want part-time work to fill their time. I almost forgot. Thanks for reminding me.

[Gorilla2038]

Walmart is the devil, and actively hunts for the worst people to hire. IF you dont fall into that category, well, even thw best screenign tests fail sometime!

[Optimystik]

Too easy. Get level-drained.

@ Jiriku: Was it necessary to slam Wal-Mart employees like that? They may all be shiftless husks in your town, but damn.

[vanyell]

another possibility:

farmer Joe has lived a long life in Arpee-ville tending to his apple trees. every year or so, the evil empire of tippy comes in and tries to take over with a wight army. after many years of near escapes, farmer Joe decides to take up the [generic holy object here] and fight for his few remaining years.


there we go. a venerable level 1 cleric . possibly even cloistered, for real cheese.

level drain can do that

EDIT: damn ninjas

[awa]

the entire experience mechanic is unrealistic i wouldn't worry so much about it. Think about it pcs (assuming they don't die) can go from level 1 to 20 in a matter of months or even weeks. Compare that to the grizzled veterans and such who needed years to achieve the same level of skills. Or for example the fact that elves and dwarfs must have extremely sever learning disability to be hundreds of years old and still only level 1, or the fact that it is so much harder for high level adjustment races to earn levels why does a cloud giant have such an exponential harder time learning to be a wizard than a human or hell even a half orc he much smarter logical it should be easier.

"edit i actual got storm giants and cloud giants, and cleric as opposed to wizard confused but the point still stands "

Now those example were just for the sake of argument theirs no point in saying something about how cloud giants have some specific reason they cant learn class levels or any thing similar unless you can do it for all races with racial hit dice and or level adjustment.

I guess the point to take away from my rant is that exp is not realistic and just an attempt to provide game balance for pcs not npcs and theirs no real reason you cant start a game with an old charecter at level 1 with out resorting to magical aging and such.

[thubby]

So, what, he lives his entire life without ever having any kind of experience? Unlikely.

Hell, living as a walking, talking failure should give you experience just getting up in the morning. Your sad life story is bound to hand out a bit of RP experience, too.

level 1 fighters with 0 experience went through some kind of training. lvl 1 wizards spend ages in an academy. a 0 xp rogue could have spent his life on the streets picking pockets and robing stands. being level 1 means you have gained a command of the basic skills of your class.
someone who has consistently failed at life clearly has no such power.

and having a -6(?) to con at level 1 basically means 1 hp. it might pay off later but later is very unlikely to happen.

[drengnikrafe]

I was given an answer, once, by and old friend when I asked a simliar question. He told me the following:
"Think of the first level rogue, or the first level fighter. They were something before they were that. The fact that you have 0 experience means you have just started down this particular road. In reality, everything (before it became a PC class) had an NPC class, but for the sake of adventuring, that doesn't count worth a damn. You give up your NPC class levels when you become a PC."

Unless, of course, you'd like to say that people who don't yet have PC levels have no class (not even commoner) beforehand, which would clearly suggest that they also have no skill points, and no hit points.

You could live the first 4/5ths of your life being a commoner, and then take up a sword to be a fighter, and qualify to become a fighter by going through fighter college. When that time comes, it doesn't really matter how many years you pitchforked hay for (except maybe for strength and dexterity), it matters that you now are practicing fighting.

[Starbuck_II]

This is something that I don't quite understand.

How do you have a venerable anything that is only 1st level? Assuming it has a lifespan of even 30 years, what has it been doing for the past three decades that have had no significant impact on it? It gets even worse with races that live longer... humans, elves, dwarves.

They were never infected with the magical substance (drug) called XP. Thousands of adventurers every year are doing the XP. This builds a tolerance where they need more and more just to get their fix called a level.

It is a sad tale. Millions die every year trying to score some by fighting a dragon or in a war.

That old geezer telling the story was not infected until yesterday when he killed a robber attacking his sheep. He knows he will have to choose a class and maintain his fix from now on.

[deuxhero]

I personally prefer base level=3. Solves the housecat issue among other things.

[jmbrown]

This is something that I don't quite understand.

How do you have a venerable anything that is only 1st level? Assuming it has a lifespan of even 30 years, what has it been doing for the past three decades that have had no significant impact on it? It gets even worse with races that live longer... humans, elves, dwarves.

Rob Shneider was an average teenage boy until he ventured into a haunted house and magically aged by a ghost. Trapped in a 70 year old man's body, Rob Schneider has devoted his life to killing ghosts the world over. Rob Schneider IS "The First Level Venerable Adventurer."

Rated PG-13

[Gossipmonger]

They were never infected with the magical substance (drug) called XP. Thousands of adventurers every year are doing the XP. This builds a tolerance where they need more and more just to get their fix called a level.

It is a sad tale. Millions die every year trying to score some by fighting a dragon or in a war.

That is beautiful. Permission to sig?

[Pharaoh's Fist]

This is something that I don't quite understand.

How do you have a venerable anything that is only 1st level? Assuming it has a lifespan of even 30 years, what has it been doing for the past three decades that have had no significant impact on it? It gets even worse with races that live longer... humans, elves, dwarves.

Bestow Curse can advance you in age categories as per BoVD. All you need to do is convince your friendly local neighborhood caster to prepare the spell.

[Pinnacle]

Your level is how powerful you are. Most people never become powerful.

If the village elders all had the ability to take on armies, there wouldn't be anything for the PCs to do. Also, it makes a heckuva lot less sense than them being lower level in the first place.

[JadedDM]

Ah, but why assume that every adventurer begins their career as a youth? Perhaps the level 1 venerable lived a completely ordinary life, and only took up the sword (or staff or lockpick or lute, or whatever) as a senior.

For instance, instead of a young boy whose family is wiped by orcs, so he becomes an adventurer to avenge them, how about instead an old man whose children and grandchildren are wiped out by orcs, so he becomes an adventurer to avenge them?

[Demons_eye]

Didn't we have this conversation before and some one linked the goblin online comic as a good reason to be old and adventure?

[Starbuck_II]

That is beautiful. Permission to sig?

Sure. Much obliged.