How do you justify a PC who's older and more experienced than everyone else, but who is still the same level as the others for balance purposes?
>>98900633he just really sucks
>>98900633Explain Wizards the thread
>>98900633>olderThat's easy
The married 36yo at boot camp knows as much about soldiering as the 17yo runaway standing next to him.
>>98900633>justifyI’m playing a game not on trial who gives a fuck
>>98900633if youre worried about the meta, just make up a reason. I played a post man who's wife died and so he left to fulfill his boyhood dream of adventuring. fuck does a post man know about survival or fighting? Ive seen priests who lost faith in their gods, I've seen exiled nobles, I've seen farmer pick up a book try to cast magic. Lots of reasons to go adventure.
>>98900633He's been out of action for a while and his skills are rusty. Improving his abilities, whether advancing in levels or spending xp on skills or whatever's the way advancement works in the specific system, represents him getting back into shape rather than learning new things. Alternatively, he's just very experienced in something completely unrelated to what's going on in game, like a master baker who's raised five children into respectable adults who gets drawn into some bullshit adventure that requires him to learn how to fight, sneak and survive in the wilderness.
>>98900633expert fighter who was crippled and decided to learn magic or whatever instead
>>98900633Here you goNext thread
>>98900633Experience just means being better at making optimal decisions, it has nothing to do with attribute scores, skills, or character levels. As long as they're giving solid advice, their relative strength in combat is unrelated.
>>98900633Why would combat experience be based on age?
>>98900716>He's been out of action for a while and his skills are rusty. Improving his abilities, whether advancing in levels or spending xp on skills or whatever's the way advancement works in the specific system, represents him getting back into shape rather than learning new things.This is how I've done it in games. It works well to keep verisimilitude.
>>98900670THIS. Just play the fucking game, for fucks sake. All this hand wringing, whining, mewling, and meta nonsense has you idiots tied up in knots for no good reason. It doesn’t add anything to the game or your enjoyment.Just play the game, have some fun with your friends, and go out for pizza afterwards.
>>98900633Why do you have to justify anything?
>>98900633I just don't make those pcs. Campaign starts us at level 1? I'm a teenager setting out into the world for the first time.
>>98900633well, he's old, experienced but it's been a while since his adventuring days so he has to get back into the groove of things gradually. can't go immediately back to doing 4 attacks per turn or he'd throw his lumbars out.Old man is old (65-ish) and his adventuring days ended at 21 and had money enough to fund his life until now.The only reason he's out adventuring is because the adventure is effectively unfinished business from his adventuring days and he's the only one of his former party who can/has the means of participating, either because the others perished or are far too busy/important to just go waltzing back innawoods to go kill the big bad or one of the big bad's lackeys that is now trying to finish his master's designs.Grants the party a guide/veteran and the GM an outlet for exposition/lore without having to use a DMPC.It's actually quite handy.
>>98900633Amnesia. Mechanically, if he's actually more experienced it should reflect that, and if I were handling him he'd have a higher starting level at the cost of getting the most minimal stat growth from it so there remains an incentive to begin at 1st level.
>>98900633Wash-out hireling of some other adventuring party or whatever structure the PCs have. He started as a starry-eyed youth with dreams of adventure, now he bitterly clings on to those dreams while lamenting his wasted youth carrying heavy objects out of (formerly) monster-infested, trap-filled holes.Essentially someone who earned being at the starting level through the school of hard knocks with a lot of false starts and delays involved.
>>98900747See, this is the problem with mortal Elves: 100 years of arthritis. They can spend a whole two human lifetimes as a feeble geriatric. If you're not going to make them properly immortal, at least let them die quickly.
>>98903310no elves deserve to suffer
>>98900659>>98900659I am now a 36 year old, I went through Phase I when I was 18.That 36 year old going through your hypothetical basic has my deepest admiration. I would probably die if I had to do that again.
>>98900633Give them weaknesses that entails with age.Sadly the only RPG I can think that takes age into account on character creation is Mousegard.
>>98900633Don't bother with starting them with the same level, give them bonus levels and negative traits to compensate, along with making their experience hyper-specialized. Sure, the 40 year old militia sergeant has been soldiering on for 20 years, risen in the ranks, and knows everything there is to know about leading a disorganized force of conscripted farmers against a warband of orc raiders: He's got a bonus to commanding a medium sized unit and fighting in a defensive formation, a bonus against orc warbands and countering their tactics, and thinks quickly when the nightwatch wakes him and and tells him the enemy is at their gates.He's also completely unsuited to delving ancient tombs on an adventure with three other guys who think independently and don't follow his orders, dealing with undead who don't have vital organs or have fear like orcs do, or figuring out provisions for a long journey away from local support. In addition, he gains experience slower while he's adjusting to his new life, having spent years learning a completely different mode of fighting.Another way to look at it is the ancient wizard who memorized entire libraries worth of information doesn't really fight any better than a novice.
>>98900633If you care about verisimilitude you shouldn't be playing D&D.
>>98900633Take the GURPSpill, give him disadvantages to reflect his old age and use the points to buy better combat skills.
I do not care. This is not a real problem.
>>98900633>he spent 30 years in his magical realm>he spent 30 years studying the sacred texts>he fucked up his leg/arm/hands/etc, then had to relearn how to fight>he was heavily relying on some magical macguffin that got destroyed, forcing him to stop being a nancy wussy pussy boy and rely on his own abilitiesEtc
>>98900633You wouldn't. If he is actually more experienced and more capable, than he should be a higher level. I find a lot of time this is abused by players who want to give a lot of free stuff to their characters.If you want him to be at level 5 or something, make him at level 5. But you can't if we're starting at level 1, so make a character that is appropriate for that level.
>>98900633My sciatica acting up
>>98903015Yeah when we play something with a level system and without intrinsically supernatural beings the maximum age of the PC is 23 unless they're a construct of some kind.
>>98900633It's a matter of what that experience is. Because you're acting like it's one of those terrible anime or litrpg worlds where every level of society has actual xp points and levels as a mechanic of how their world works, and not that the in game xp and levels represent more abstract in setting concepts. Which they actually do. Your old character has experience but not in things the levels and classes account for. Your wizard might really know magic but lacks practical experience outside the study hall. Your veteran soldier is great at following orders and fighting with a unit, but he's not experienced as the frontliner against a giant spider. If the character is meant to have experience in the things the class accounts for then they should be a higher level, but that requires the GM to account for and balance for it. But the gameplay needs to be balanced or else you hand-wave away that there should be a level gap for the sake of keeping things simple.
>>98900633Career change is normal for people in their 30s deciding to get their shit together or disassemble their shit if they had it together. So they end up places where they don't know how to do much but have a better ability to pick up on what's happening if they think about it and can step back from what they're already supposed to know.
I think wizards should have pointy hats and long gray beards and be old. My first-level wizards are always archmages in the fiction but with sclerosis or similar problems. When I'm roleplaying them, I often deliberately mix up character names, I call someone by the name of a long-dead apprentice, sometimes I remember that he died in a magical accident and sob, I press random buttons knowing in the meta that they're probably traps, I say things and conspiracy theories that are nonsensical for the game setting etc. I justify higher levels by saying that he knew these spells from the beginning but only just remembered them now.
>>98908341Take me for example. In my 30s, trained in graphic design, work doing it for year, actually really good at it. Somehow they have me working in finance filling in spreadsheets for twice as much money. The economy is fucked.
>>98900633Barbarian just learnt to read and started studying magicBard is just your mid-life crisis guy who decided to learn how to play WonderwallCleric's deity was defeated, no diving freebies anymore, and he needs to swap careers to anythingThief got old and gained weight, needs to learn new tricks for her tradeFighter lost his dominant arm and how needs to learn to fight with the other armDruid was living peacefully in one biome, but the adventure brought him onto sea/desert/mountains/jungle where mother nature is a bit of bitchSorcerer just manifested their magical heritage for the first time and need to learn to control it. The dragon genes don't always awaken during puberty.
>>98903310Why would an elf suffer from arthritis. That's a dwarven thing because they work with heavy metals a lot.
>>98900747>>98903310not a problem with mortal elves, that's just someone being retarded in trying to equally stretch out the way a long lived species ages. Why can't a race that lives to 300 not show advanced age until 260? And with dwarves, I like the idea that they don't show any major signs of age until the last decade of their average lifespan. They don't slowly decline, they just hit a wall and then rapidly decline. It helps with my favorite thing with dwarves, where other races can't seem to see much difference between them.
you dont get to be a mid-30s grizzled veteran soldier or mercenary if you're starting at level 1. At best you can be a deserter or former bandit or something who's kind of a fuckup and loser. if the campaign is starting at level 3 so everyone has a subclass (which is the norm in 5e at this point) you can be a professional soldier with a good amount of experience, and anyone playing a younger character is just explained as they're a young prodigy, the 18 year old farmboy is level 3 despite not being able to grow a beard because he's a huge outlier while the 30-something level 3 veteran soldier has actual combat experience and is better than the vast majority of militia and average soldiers and is comparable to professional knights
>>98900633was recently thinking of rolling a demonic sorcerer that is old. seeking occult power can be done at any age and maybe it just took a bit longer to finally get it
just play as el nino every timehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ETGhIO4TAs
>>98903310>>98903385>overblown population>put them out of their weary misery>clearing the way for younger, healthier populations>everyone looks at you like a genocidal monster>but you just care about ending their suffering>actually just do it for the love of the game
>>98900633Level? What's that?
>>98900633Depends on what type of 'more experienced' you want. He's just older and more canny? Well, he wasn't an adventurer, just a guy that did other stuff and is wise to the world but not a strong warrior or mage before whatever dragged him into adventuring. Is he knowledgeable about adventuring but not very strong? There's two good ways for this. Old veteran that is past his prime and is out of shape, where leveling up is more just getting back to where he once was. Or, in a more unique set up, you could have him basically be a former pack mule type camp follower that worked with a lot of adventurer teams over the years but never got a chance to shine as a warrior or mage himself. The guy that realismfagging GMs have players spend money on hiring to justify being able to carry all the supplies a party often has with them on a trek. Absorbing knowledge, but never actually getting his chance to quest on his own until now.
>>98913528>if the campaign is starting at level 3 so everyone has a subclass (which is the norm in 5e at this point) you can be a professional soldier with a good amount of experience, and anyone playing a younger character is just explained as they're a young prodigy, the 18 year old farmboy is level 3 despite not being able to grow a beard because he's a huge outlier while the 30-something level 3 veteran soldier has actual combat experience and is better than the vast majority of militia and average soldiers and is comparable to professional knightsThis really comes down to what you think 'average' is for a DnD setting.
