How experienced is an ape?

My son, still persuing our family quest to create the ultimate dwarf, has begun adventuring. One of his companions, a human from Jutland, has the Beast Friendship proficiency, and recently managed to recruit as his henchmen some trained white apes that my son's party encountered in a morlock lair.

My son, ever eager to help his party, has been dutifully noting down every experience point these apes have earned, that he might estimate how soon they'll advance to five hit dice. The amount required to reach five hit dice was fortunately easy to calculate: As white apes have no special abilities, they require exactly 24,000 expeirence points to go from 4 HD to 5.

Alas, there is one mystery he was unable to discern the answer to, and wrote to me to ask about - and which I, in turn, have found just as mysterious. How many experience points did the apes start with?

Animals that aren't henchmen do not earn experience points from adventures, of course, and there is no sign that these animals have ever been henchmen before... but a white ape has four hit dice by virtue of its natural strength and ferocity; it would not be absurd to assume it starts with experience appropriate to its HD.

Does it, though? Does a white ape henchman start with 0 experience points, and need to earn a full 24,000 before it can advance? Or does it start with 12,000, the minimum for a 4 HD creature? Help me, Autarchs!

IANAA, but I believe the answer is 12,000 the minimum for a 4 HD creature. You always start at the XP minimum for where you currently are. If you recruited a level 4 cleric they would start at 6,000 and need 12,000 to level, not start at 0 XP and need 12,000 to level.

[quote="Greatnate"] You always start at the XP minimum for where you currently are. If you recruited a level 4 cleric they would start at 6,000 and need 12,000 to level, not start at 0 XP and need 12,000 to level. [/quote] That level 4 cleric had to start at level 0 and get to level 4 by earning expeirence points, while a 4 HD white ape gained its four hit dice simply by being the right species. There's no hidden ape culture in which level 0-3 apes patiently grind experience until they get to four hit dice (so far as I'm aware), so the explanation for why a recruited human henchman starts with a certain amount of experience just doesn't apply to animal henchmen.

I can see good arguments for both possibilities: It feels wrong that a recently-recruited animal henchman should require twice as much experience to gain a new level as a human henchman with similar experience point requirements would, but it also feels weird that a creature that can't earn expeirence points until it becomes a henchman should have any expeirence points at all when it hasn't yet been one... 

If you look at the L&E rules for young monsters, though, you can see that over the years they slowly gained hit dice; they weren’t born as a 4 HD creature with no growth.

I am also not an autarch, but personally I’d give them the 4-HD minimum XP and assume that their growth and learning over the years is how they got it.

It’s not that they can’t gain XP anymore; it’s just that they have reached their XP equilibrium between ‘activities performed’ and ‘XP threshold’, which is why they are the HD they are.

[quote="Aryxymaraki"] If you look at the L&E rules for young monsters, though, you can see that over the years they slowly gained hit dice; they weren't born as a 4 HD creature with no growth. I am also not an autarch, but personally I'd give them the 4-HD minimum XP and assume that their growth and learning over the years is how they got it. [/quote] That assumes that earning XP is how monsters advance to adulthood, and that's simply not the case: If I take a baby white ape, and keep it fed and exercised but deny it any opportunities to win treasure or fight, it'll grow into an adult 4 HD white ape just as quickly as a wild white ape would. One can age without gaining experience, and vice versa, or all non-working puppies would remain tiny and adoreable forever.

[quote="Aryxymaraki"] It's not that they can't gain XP anymore; it's just that they have reached their XP equilibrium between 'activities performed' and 'XP threshold', which is why they are the HD they are. [/quote] That's not an unreasonable houserule to explain why animals don't gain experience outside of being henchmen, but it asumes that having experience points is normal for an animal, and whether they do or don't normally have 'em has not yet been answered.

That assumes that earning XP is how monsters advance to adulthood, and that's simply not the case: If I take a baby white ape, and keep it fed and exercised but deny it any opportunities to win treasure or fight, it'll grow into an adult 4 HD white ape just as quickly as a wild white ape would. One can age without gaining experience, and vice versa, or all non-working puppies would remain tiny and adoreable forever.

HOWEVER! We know from Lairs & Encounters that the HD of animals of the same mass varies widely depending on its nature. So perhaps the way an animal earns experience is by "living as an animal of its kind according to its nature", which peaks (under an XP Threshold style system) at its natural HD. But a zoo-raised tiger, for instance, would then have fewer HD because it hasn't been running around doing natural tiger stuff. And so there's the problem that "it can't survive in the wild" and it has to take time to "level up" first...

Hehe

Actually that works quite well within an XP style game system, as that would explain why creatures that are in a more hostile enviroment (or becoming henchman) actually tend to be a bit tougher than their brethren that live in a more typical enviroment (I.E. Judges altering the creatures hit dice to chalenge parties as needed).

[quote="Alex"]

HOWEVER! We know from Lairs & Encounters that the HD of animals of the same mass varies widely depending on its nature. So perhaps the way an animal earns experience is by "living as an animal of its kind according to its nature", which peaks (under an XP Threshold style system) at its natural HD. But a zoo-raised tiger, for instance, would then have fewer HD because it hasn't been running around doing natural tiger stuff. And so there's the problem that "it can't survive in the wild" and it has to take time to "level up" first...

Hehe

[/quote]

For extra credit, extrapolate that to a new stronghold type that starts at 1st level for the Beastmaster class, so we can toss in Mowgli, wait, recieve Tarzan.

[quote="Loswaith"]

Actually that works quite well within an XP style game system, as that would explain why creatures that are in a more hostile enviroment (or becoming henchman) actually tend to be a bit tougher than their brethren that live in a more typical enviroment (I.E. Judges altering the creatures hit dice to chalenge parties as needed).

[/quote]

That's true!

Quick, we need to Kickstart ACKS Environments & Ecology

 

[quote="koewn"]

 

HOWEVER! We know from Lairs & Encounters that the HD of animals of the same mass varies widely depending on its nature. So perhaps the way an animal earns experience is by "living as an animal of its kind according to its nature", which peaks (under an XP Threshold style system) at its natural HD. But a zoo-raised tiger, for instance, would then have fewer HD because it hasn't been running around doing natural tiger stuff. And so there's the problem that "it can't survive in the wild" and it has to take time to "level up" first...

Hehe

 


-Alex

 

For extra credit, extrapolate that to a new stronghold type that starts at 1st level for the Beastmaster class, so we can toss in Mowgli, wait, recieve Tarzan.

[/quote]

I have only just now realized that Mowgli is a 1st level beastmaster. *mind blown*

 

[quote="Alex"]

 

I have only just now realized that Mowgli is a 1st level beastmaster. *mind blown*

 

[/quote]

 

New, from Autarch: Mancub, Packmate, Jungle Lord

  • All animals are classed (see L&E), all animals and mancubs recieve Perform(Singing) and at-will Speak With (other) Animals
  • All giant snakes get Arcane Values; specialized magic build concentrating on Enchantment
  • All mancubs get "Red Flower" ceremony, requiring flint and steel as ceremonial implements

[quote="Alex"] So perhaps the way an animal earns experience is by "living as an animal of its kind according to its nature", which peaks (under an XP Threshold style system) at its natural HD. [/quote] Thanks! That implies the information I need.

[quote="Alex"] But a zoo-raised tiger, for instance, would then have fewer HD because it hasn't been running around doing natural tiger stuff. And so there's the problem that "it can't survive in the wild" and it has to take time to "level up" first... [/quote] That's really cool! I guess that if my players ever find an animal raised on milk and sop and free it to live in the wild (yet somehow keep tabs on it), I should assume it gains experience at some fixed rate per month equal to the GP threshhold for a creature of that species' peak HD less its actual current HD's GP threshold, or something.

[quote="koewn"] New, from Autarch: Mancub, Packmate, Jungle Lord​ [/quote] I'm suddenly curious what this game would actually look like.

[quote="Alex"]

 

 

 

HOWEVER! We know from Lairs & Encounters that the HD of animals of the same mass varies widely depending on its nature. So perhaps the way an animal earns experience is by "living as an animal of its kind according to its nature", which peaks (under an XP Threshold style system) at its natural HD. But a zoo-raised tiger, for instance, would then have fewer HD because it hasn't been running around doing natural tiger stuff. And so there's the problem that "it can't survive in the wild" and it has to take time to "level up" first...

Hehe

 


-Alex

 

For extra credit, extrapolate that to a new stronghold type that starts at 1st level for the Beastmaster class, so we can toss in Mowgli, wait, recieve Tarzan.

 


-koewn

 

I have only just now realized that Mowgli is a 1st level beastmaster. *mind blown*

 

[/quote] What's Dr. Doolittle?