Not enough xp for a 100th level wizard - revisited

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I was reading through an old post of mine that I had saved, dealing with the old canard that there is not enough xp in a world to allow for a wizard reaching 100th level. I have no idea where this idea came from, or who invented it, but it's been out there forever. I re-read my analysis of this and caught some math errors and expanded on it, so I'm re-posting it here to show how absurd the idea is.

The Claim: "The 100 level wizard (or any other class) is an impossibility. There's just not enough XP in the world to get to that level."

The Reality:

I've never understood this argument. It makes no sense, unless your world has an immutable, fixed number of monsters, magic items, etc. In fact, even then it doesn't make sense.

There will always be more monsters reproducing and therefore new xp being generated. For every orc, dragon, zombie, or umberhulk a wizard slays, there will be dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands more being produced around the world. Then there's xp for casting spells, for researching new spells, for creating new magic items, etc. If we look at the wizard xp progression from 2E, it tops out at 375,000/level, from 18th level on. Extrapolating, with the wizard needing 375,000 for each level above 20th, he would need to gain 375,000 xp x 80 levels (20th + 80 = 100th level). That comes to a grand total of 30,375,000 xp needed for a 100th level wizard.

Let's calculate the xp needed for a specific number of characters of each class at each level. If we look at the xp needed for a single level character of each class - fighter, ranger, paladin, druid, cleric, wizard, thief - at each level (1st - 9th), that comes to 2,752,750 xp needed. In other words, those xp give us one fighter at each level (1st - 9th), one ranger at each level (1st - 9th), one paladin at each level (1st - 9th), etc., etc.

Now, let's go back to the "impossible" 100th level wizard. Let's say he's "impossible" because the world is only "short" by 2,847,500 xp to allow him to hit 100th level (I chose that number to make the following math easier - just follow along). That means there is a sum fixed total of 27,527,500 xp in the entire world.

What that means is - assuming a world with only 5 continents, no characters above 9th level, and only one individual of each character class at each level from 1st - 9th - we can only have 10 such characters at each level, as that comes to 27,527,500 xp (which is the sum total xp available). Breaking that down, that means with 5 continents on the planet, we can only have 2 of each level per class on a given continent. For example, a single continent will have a total of 18 fighters (2 of each level, 1st - 9th), 18 wizards (2 each of level, 1st - 9th), etc. That's a pretty damned barren landscape as far as adventurers go! And that doesn't count any villains of any level - we sort of have to have villains to fight, or what's the point?

And that means no characters above 9th level, so no access is possible to any spells (wizard or priest) above 5th level, period. A PC gets petrified - no stone to flesh spell available. Want to put up a wall of force or stone or iron? Not happening. Reincarnation? Guess again. Permanency? No permanent magic items on this planet! Want to stop time or cast a wish (limited or not)? No way. Need to heal a team member, or regenerate a severed limb or resurrect the dead or banish a demon with a holy word? Too bad. You can't, because there are no characters of sufficient level to cast those spells.

When we look at the idea of the world not having enough xp to support a single 100th level wizard, the PHB itself proves how wrong that oft-repeated claim is. One need only look at the druid hierarchy, as described in the PHB.

Assuming one Grand Druid (15th) (the highest ranking druid - only 1 per setting), he needs 3,000,000 xp alone. Then there are the Great Druids (14th level). Great Druids need 1,500,000 xp and they rule "regions" of the world. Assuming an earth-sized world with 7 continents and a few large islands and/or remote areas (i.e. Greenland), we can assume there would need to be 10 Great Druids (one per continent, plus 3 remote areas or large, non-continental islands).

Keep in mind, the rules describe regions as much smaller, so each country would probably have at least 1, but I'll use 10 total in the world as a minimalist approach. That's another 15,000,000 xp needed. So just for the Grand Druid and 10 Great Druids, we need 18,000,000 xp in the world. The Grand Druid is served by 9 Druids. Three of them are Arch Druids, so that's 900,000 xp (3 x 300,000). Now we're up to 18,900,000 xp needed. There are 6 other druids serving the Grand Druid, all ranging from 7th to 11th level. So let's set 2 of them at 7th level, the others being one each at 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th level. That's another 545,000 xp needed, so now we're up to 19,445,000 xp needed. The Great Druid has 3 11th-level druids under him, so that's another 600,000 xp, for a total of 20,045,000 xp needed. Arch Druids are 12th level, and there can only be 3 per geographical region.

Let's again assume 7 continents plus 3 other large areas (in reality, there would be many more, but I'm going super minimalist to highlight the absurdity). That's 30 Arch Druids x 300,000 xp = 9,000,000 more xp, for a total of 29,045,000 xp. Each of these 30 Arch Druids are served by 3 10th-level druids. That's 90 10th-level druids, who would need 11,250,000 xp, so now we are up to 40,295,000 xp - far more than a single wizard needs to hit 100th level.

That's just for the minimal sized druidical hierarchy of an earth-sized world!

And that does not take into account the numerous 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level druids out there, or all the 10th and 11th level druids out there, who would be in addition to the ones I counted in above. And then we have Hierophant Druids. Each of these result from a Grand Druid earning an additional 500,000 xp, then stepping down. So to go from a 15th level Grand Druid to a 16th level Hierophant Druid takes 500,000 xp. To go from a 16th level Hierophant Druid to a 17th level one takes another 500,000 xp, etc. So every 2 levels a Hierophant goes up requires another 1,000,000 xp. Assuming there is only 1 Hierophant druid (16th) in the entire game world, that brings us up to 40,795,000 xp. Let's assume there are a total of only 5 druids at each lower level - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th - in the entire world combined. They need another 452,500 xp to exist, That brings our planetary total of xp just to have a minimalist druid hierarchy to 41,247,500 xp. That's 10,872,500 xp more than what the single "impossible" 100th level wizard needs. If there is not enough xp in the world for a single 100th level wizard, then there are not enough xp for even a relatively small druidic hierarchy (as described in the PHB) to exist, much less a druidic hierarchy in addition to characters of various other classes and levels.

And what about all the rangers, fighters, paladins, wizards, thieves, monks, bards, etc.? Even with a minimum number of relatively low level characters and just a few rare higher level characters of each class, you're talking about many times the number of xp needed for even 1 single 100th level wizard.

I don't know who it was who originated that myth about "not enough xp in the game", but they should have done the math first, so I didn't have to.

[McDeath]

Who even said that? When I played, I didn't put a heck of a lot of realism into the fantasy world. Limited XP for a single planet is just stupid. I don't keep a living counter on all living organisms, undead, elemental, constructs, other planars, and other things. I'd need a damn computer program to figure out replication, death, construction, and migration to/fro the world. Fuck that!

A planet can have as many or few critters as I want. Unlimited advancement is "unlimited" and if i had the patience and a group that got to munchkin land 100 or level 1,000 who cares? It might be a bit boring if the DM is just playing stupid xp munching pc Pacman nom nom nomming xp though.

I've place crpgs and mmorpgs and getting to level 1k is friggin tedious depending on the xp server and game. A pnp tabletop? LOL! Man, that would have to be some epic playing and DMing to not lose interest. Burn out happens and sometimes.... you don't recover.


Edit..... you can stack a lot of mega-dungeons in a world and many have underworlds and some have hollow worlds and moons to explore and hell... a solar system or more. Don't forget thr boundless inner/outer planes. I hear the abyss is INFINITE.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

McDeath wrote:

Who even said that? When I played, I didn't put a heck of a lot of realism into the fantasy world. Limited XP for a single planet is just stupid. I don't keep a living counter on all living organisms, undead, elemental, constructs, other planars, and other things. I'd need a damn computer program to figure out replication, death, construction, and migration to/fro the world. Fuck that!

Oh hell, I've been debating this for years on various sites. We touched on it at DF I believe, and I gotta look but I think Garhkal and I discussed it here at BIP on another thread. But yeah, I have no idea where the idea originated from or from whom. Probably one of the wannabes at DF long ago.

Yeah, you could never keep track of that much info. It's almost infinite.

A planet can have as many or few critters as I want. Unlimited advancement is "unlimited" and if i had the patience and a group that got to munchkin land 100 or level 1,000 who cares? It might be a bit boring if the DM is just playing stupid xp munching pc Pacman nom nom nomming xp though.

Yep. On a given world, monsters always spawn more monsters. Orcs and goblins breed liek rabbits on fertility enhancers. Undead create more undead. Deepspawn spew out new monsters like a fountain. Evil NPCs will always exist. For every one you kill, more are waiting to take their place. Evil wizards create new monsters for fun. Evil races such as Drow, Sahuagin, Kuo-toa and Mind Flayers constantly reproduce. There's a ever ending supply of xp just from monsters and evil NPCs. And then you hav e to count xp from good ideas, from casting spells, from all the things that give xp in 2E rules. Or for gold pieces if you use that method from 1E.

And if you think about it, the idea that there can't be enough xp for basically anything or any level cannot make sense when xp is just that - a marker for how much experience you have. XP are not physical objects like gold coins where there may be a finite number on any given world. Right now they estimate there are only 171,300 tons of gold on earth. If we go by 10 coins to the pound (in D&D terms), that would mean a finite amount of 34,260,000 gold coins available. Still a huge number, but finite.

But xp are a measure of experience, which is not tangible or quantifiable. The more experiences you endure, the more you earn. Every time you figure out a riddle, disarm a trap, accomplish a mission goal, use a spell creatively, etc - you are earning xp. So for the argument to be true, there would have to be a fixed, finite number of experiences you could ever have to learn from. It makes no sense.