Personally the way I handled it is that every person in the world is born with a limiter, dictating how strong they can become. Most commoners are stuck at level one or two because that's all they're destined to become, PCs and some key NPCs are destined to be level 20 epic heroes (or villains). When put in dangerous situations a persons power quickly grows till they hit there limit (this is exp). Depending on the story I want to tell someone could work really hard to break there limit and increase in power slowly or the pcs destiny can rub off on an NPC allowing them to bypass there limiter, but I think this handles most of the problems.
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The rules do not handle this well, as you can only improve or die.
There should be penalties for retirement, in an abstract way, you would lose levels over time if you do not keep adventuring. Tha would require staging campaigns over long years, which is not the way adventures are written.
In a way, the RPG lands are the land of the young.
So, I was just thinking, how many of you see level and age as linked?
They aren't. Level is linked to risking your life.
For example, you can do an AP where you start off as level 1 and play to the end of the AP where you are around 16 or so. But how long does that AP take? A few months? A few years? A few decades?
Or, you can play a game where you start at level 1 and play for years in game, only gaining 10 levels or so.
So, that brings me to the reason for my question. How would you (as GM or as player) see a character concept at level 1 that is a human (with the Reincarnated trait) whose backstory is that she was in her 40's when she was reincarnated by a witch? So, she still has all her memories of before, but being as this is a level 1 campaign she's not the high level one would think a 40 year old should be?
I've always myself seen level as a mechanic necessary because its' a GAME... but to say that one can't be any age you want (granted, she of course doesn't get any bonuses for being that old... again, mechanic vs. concept) and your level only matters in the context of the story narrative.
But seeing your underlying assumptions behind the question... Ugh.
If level only matters in the context of the story narrative, how come it can be easily evaluated on the spot by people in the game world, including those who decide whether to hire a party or not? All they have to do is to see how many Magic Missiles you can squeeze out per casting.
That said, absolutely nothing mandates a 40-years character to have levels and nothing prevents her from being Reincarnated by a spell at level 1. Except that the Reincarnated trait has nothing to do with it, and it is unclear why she decides to become adventurer now, after not being so for 40 years.
The rules do not handle this well, as you can only improve or die.
There should be penalties for retirement, in an abstract way, you would lose levels over time if you do not keep adventuring.
Why?
It is both antithematic (if we count fantasy characters who are inconvenienced by old age and long retirement in any way vs. those who aren't, the count would be overwhelmingly in the favor of the latter group) and nonsensical. Why you are trying to apply RL standards to superpowers that are supposed to make a character about 512 times stronger compared to his baseline level 1 abilities, before even touching mythic and whatever.
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For once, because the more of those characters there are, the less special they become.
The characters that are not inconvenienced by old age are often novel characters, and do not have to worry about their impact on a game world and balance.
And then, the adventures focus mainly on the young age of new adventurers, but why would the characters not retire on their own ? Not everyone would want to always risk life and limb forever. If they stop training, like an athlete who drops off from competition, why should they keep ALL of their powers ?
Of course, it's largely irrelevant as campaigns don't last more than a few months of game time.
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I will have to disagree with you on that point as I have and have been told by others that have asked such questions and informing the priest asked what it was for (ie acting, book or story, play, game) that most of the time they were OK with the question but I also do remember one such case in which the person asked was not.
But again I think it can really depend on where you live, the person you ask and how you ask the question.MDC
You may as well ask Philip from accounting. The reincarnate spell has nothing at all to do with the concept of reincarnation, in D&D it's just "make a new body for this dead person since their old body is broken".
If you were asking about the reincarnation that is discussed in Occult Adventures, then I could see their being used discussing it with an individual of a faith that incorporates reincarnation.
Exactly, this is why I said it would confuse anyone who actually believed in reincarnation.
But seeing your underlying assumptions behind the question... Ugh.
If level only matters in the context of the story narrative, how come it can be easily evaluated on the spot by people in the game world, including those who decide whether to hire a party or not? All they have to do is to see how many Magic Missiles you can squeeze out per casting.
Because that's not how it works (at least not in any game I've ever ran or been in.) They don't ask you how many times you can cast magic missile, they just hire you because you think you are competent enough for the job and the job is the adventure written by the GM. Any 'tests' you might go through (if any) are merely written as part of the story, you WILL be hired (or not) because that's what the GM's story is. Then, when it comes to combat to do said job... Well, we can assume the GM isn't going to put level 1 characters up against the tarrasque. Any group of adventurers of any level will be able to do the job (might be challenging, but it will be possible) due to that simple idea that it's a game and the basic assumption that the GM is not a moron who will throw significantly higher level things against the PCs.
Of course, it's largely irrelevant as campaigns don't last more than a few months of game time.
While that may be true for you, it's not true for everyone.