[RPG] How long would it take to teach a 6 year old magic?

classdnd-5emagicnpc

I am currently DMing Curse of Strahd for a group of 4 players, including a dwarven life cleric, a circle of the land elf druid, a dwarf fighter, and a half-elf barbarian. After rescuing a few children from some hags, they tried to return them to their parents. After realizing that one of the children happened to be from the village of Barovia, instead of back tracking to the town they have already passed through and returning her, they decided to take her with them on their adventure.

They bought light leather armor for her and gave her a dagger to defend herself, and seem to be really intent on bringing her with them. They are hoping to be able to train her to either be a cleric or a druid or teach her some sort of divine magic.

I know that a six year old is unlikely to be able to be much help for them. Usually a child of her age would just be a noncombatant, they plan to try to have her avoid any dangerous situations but she will undoubtedly be in danger at some point.

How long would it take her to be able to learn some divine based magic, and is it within reason for her to be able to learn it at all?

Best Answer

You are quite firmly in homebrew territory at this point, but I can perhaps give you some guidelines to work within.

5E does not have this, but 3.5E lists the minimum age for a character to be functionally capable of being a PC Class.

For a human Cleric or Druid, this would be 15+2d6 years old. This reflects the character having reached physical maturity, as well as the time required for them to gain the skills necessary to serve as a cleric or druid. The easiest to be would be a Rogue, Barbarian, or Sorcerer...which is 15+1d4 years old.

From this, we can derive that it takes at least 2d6 years to train a physically mature individual into being a First Level Cleric or Druid. And, at the bare minimum, it takes 1d4 years to reach 'First Level' in any class. And this assumes the physical and mental maturity of someone who is at least 15 years old. Given that apprenticeships in the middle ages tended to start very young....the actual numbers may be higher than that.