In D&D 3.5, what are the rules for being trained in spell casting, swordsmanship, etc? I want the party to find an orphan who had been abandoned when his home town was raided. I want the kid to have no combat knowledge but have to be trained by the PCs.
[RPG] What are the rules on training NPCs
dnd-3.5enpctraining
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So first of all, I really like this idea. I tried it once or twice a long time ago and I'm still fantasizing about it. With that out of the way, let's move to my 2 cents.
Make the NPCs well-rounded characters
These NPCs aren't just some recurring characters, not to mention some one-time ones. They're gonna be with the party for a very long time. Whole adventures, actually, which is quite a lot. This means that they should be really well rounded. Your players should get to the point of distinguishing between them after just a few words, especially when the NPCs are the ones who spark the conversation.
More than that, though, they should be more than cardstock characters. You want them to express feelings, you want them to have goals, and you want them to react. Otherwise, your players will have hard time connecting with them, and this is far less good. As a rule of thumb, make them round and distinguishable from each other. A wizard is different from a fighter, true, but we want a greater difference. The prince will have hard time adjusting to the wilderness and to the bugs in his bed. The merchant will always stop to collect the better loot so she'll be able to earn much from those bargains. Classes are a dirty way to distinguish, but they're better when accompanied by some other traits.
Don't let them speak right one after the other
The players aren't coming for the game as an audience for a theater, they're here to play, and hearing NPCs talk with each other is far less fun. If you must make them speak between themselves, make it as quickly as you can and immediately move on. If you can narrate the conversation instead ("they're talking about what happened, Elsa thinks that they should go east and Hans thinks that they should go west…"), it is far far better.
Give the players the center stage
The players and their characters are the real stars of the campaign. The NPCs are extras, and should always be seen like for you that when you're playing them. If they're far cooler than the PCs, or if they have much more screen time, something is off with your campaign. It's better to not have the NPCs with the group than to let them illuminate and shadow the PCs.
They're not all knowing
Think for yourself what is more important, a character who knows everything or a character who knows only part of them. For me, it is the latter. That comes from one simple thing: There's no drama when everyone knows everything (it is not entirely true, but that's for another time). Make them say sometimes stupid or idiotic things, make them come to wrong conclusions, let them make mistakes. They're not a kind of supernatural deity who knows everything, but humanoids who are as humane as the characters, and they should be played this way.
Make them important for the story
They should always be important to the overall story, in one way or another. In one of my more successful D&D campaigns, the characters had to escort a princess to a neighboring kingdom through the forests. Having to keep her safe from one hand, and dealing with all of her complaints from the other one made the game so much richer. They don't have to be important to each and every one of the scenes, but they should always be important for the overall story. Otherwise, the characters may just leave them to rot one day, when things will turn the wrong way.
And an end
Hope I succeeded with helping you a little bit.
The best way for the wizard to defend a spellbook is the same as the best way for you to protect your precious computer files - have multiple backups.
But, if he hasn't had time to make a copy, if he knows someone is trying to steal the book back, he wouldn't leave the book in the shop overnight. He'd keep it on himself, likely guarded by as many guards as a 7th level wizard can afford to hire on a temporary basis.
If he must leave the book in the shop for plot points, he'd certainly have the book very well protected and secured. He's 7th level, so he knows 4th level spells. He might, for example, use Stone Shape to fabricate a 'doorless' safe in a wall or floor block. And he'd certainly know to keep the book in a lead box to block scrying and detection attempts. He could also use illusions to hide/conceal the book. And decoy books and safes to waste the thieves' time. And of course, a 1st level Alarm spell on the shop would work wonders. He might hire a dozen men at arms who hang out in a neighboring building waiting for the alarm to go off.
You say he can't use anything too damaging in terms of traps. Well, poison gas doesn't cause much physical damage and dissipates after a while. And while you say its illegal for him to create fatal traps, a) he may not care, b) bribes and Charm Person can get the well-to-do out of trouble, and c) dead thieves can't report you to the town guard. If you don't want to do that, you can always fill the shop with a Web.
Beyond defending his shop, since he knows there's likely going to be a break-in, he might have a familiar watch the shop from a distance and follow the thieves back to their home/inn/hideout. And when they aren't looking, he can rob them blind.
Best Answer
This is the kind of thing the DM handwaves away. The rules make it impossible for a creature lacking racial Hit Dice that advances exclusively by level not to have at least 1 level in a class, usually, unfortunately, commoner. Being a level 1 commoner might as well be the same thing as having no combat knowledge; ignoring the orphan's ability scores, the orphan'll be proficient with 1 simple weapon, have 8 skill points, no base attack bonus, no bonus to his saving throws, and all of 2 hp. Because he already exists, though, he does have his starting feat... maybe even two. He remains alive because PCs don't look at him too hard.1
But, with some work, the PCs can turn the little scamp into someone who can contribute. The PCs'll probably have to hold his hand, though, because
Following the Rules as Written to "train" an NPC is extremely dangerous for the NPC
The only rules-as-written thing the PCs can do to "train" the orphan is include the orphan in their adventures. Having the orphan participate in encounters gets the orphan an even share of the encounter's XP value (DMG 36-7), but the DM must rule the orphan participated in the encounter. (Stuffing the orphan into a bag holding when the encounter begins may or may not count.2)
When the orphan has XP enough to advance a level, the DM makes any decisions about how he gains that level as the DM controls all of the campaign's characters but the PCs. If the DM decides the rambunctious little nitwit continues taking commoner levels, there's really nothing the PCs can do about it except look on in horror.
Persuading the DM: Some Options
Broadly speaking, there are two alternate ways that PCs may persuade the DM that the orphan shouldn't take his next level as commoner. Neither are very good in that the PCs still have no influence over the NPC and both are meant for PCs rather than NPCs. I present them here mainly so they can be disregarded and the DM can simply dispense with this process instead.
Option 1: Make the orphan take the feat Apprentice (DMG2 176)
Upon reaching level 3, the orphan takes this feat, selecting a PC as a mentor. The PC need not have the feat Mentor (DMG2 176), but won't get any of the benefits from being the orphan's mentor if he doesn't. In fact, it's probably funnier if the PC doesn't have the feat Mentor so the kid spends time training around the PC he's selected anyway, copying his moves, vying for his attention, and probably just making a nuisance of himself. That's fine, genre-appropriate, and gives the player an opportunity to assume the grizzled veteran role normally assumed by NPCs.
This is, I admit, an unusual reading of the feat Apprentice, which is intended for PCs rather than NPCs and reading the feat this way requires switching around much of the jargon associated with the description. It doesn't help that the description of the feats Apprentice and Mentor is deeply fiddly, likely to cause frustration and dismay, and goes on for five pages.
I don't recommend this option both because it's a bookkeeping headache and relies on a counterintuitive reading. Further, you'll probably eventually end up--if the DM doesn't handwave it away after reading those rules in the Dungeon Master's Guide II--using the option below anyway.
Option 2: Accompany the orphan on his Rebuilding Quest
The Player's Handbook II describes the processes of Retraining (192-5) and Rebuilding (196-9). These are usually options for players who have made regrettable character choices or want to play something different but want to keep the character's background. Retraining and rebuilding are usually used by high-level characters, but to rebuild one just goes on a DM-designed Rebuild Quest that
Luckily, as the orphan is an NPC Commoner 1, the rebuild quest that the DM designs could be pretty short and--from the PCs' perspective--utterly tame. In fact, such a quest could reasonably be an encounter with the PCs.
I don't recommend this route either unless everyone's idea of fun is escorting the NPC scamp as he fights his way through dire rats with his dagger only at the end to emerge battered yet reborn as a 1st-level sorcerer.3
This is, of course, barring shenanigans like taking the commoner-only flaw Chicken Infested (Dragon #330 87) while simultaneously getting the skill Handle Animal to the point where the character rears and trains rocs. But optimizing commoners is an exercise usually better left theoretical.
Although this DM would lean toward may. If a character must expend his actions to keep alive another character, the other character has participated in the encounter, albeit to the party's detriment.
Note that the DM may rule that it's possible for the PCs to create encounters for the NPC. Traps are easiest, with a camouflaged pit trap (CR 1) (DMG 70) costing a weirdly-high-but-nonetheless-affordable 1,800 gp. A commoner who encounters such a trap 3-4 times (not, one hopes, in a row) gains a level. What encountering means in this context I leave to the imagination.
Okay, I admit, that could be fun once. Once.