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
