Class Quest

This page is a rules extensionEx and not part of the official rules.

Obtaining

A character can seek a quest from a trainer in order to cover a portion of training costs. In game terms, this means the player tells the DM of their desire for such a quest at least 1 week in advance of the desired play session.1) Depending on the current state of the campaign, including any other players who have requested class quests, it may be longer than 1 week before the quest can begin. But an absolute minimum of 1 week should be allowed to the DM to prepare a quest or properly attach an objective to an already-active adventure site. The player should also inform the DM as to the desired difficulty level in “DL” or Dungeon Level terms.2) See Appendix C. Players should note that in AD&D, DL is not equivalent to “challenge level” in other versions of the game. Higher DLs require not only levels, but proper equipment, magic, and henchmen in order to be “balanced.”

These quests are played during sessions just like any other adventure, and will always be a whole-party adventure, where everyone can expect the same opportunities for reward as a “regular adventure,” not just the character seeking training. There is no “nerfing” or reduction of rewards for these quests to compensate for the training discount.3) You might ask, “If there isn't less treasure on class quests, why not always seek class quests?” The answer is that players probably will indeed often seek class quests! It all works out though – usually only one PC's class quest will be able to be attempted at once, and time is a limiting factor. Furthermore, in a good campaign players will be interested in adventure sites and goals which will not usually overlap with the desires of NPC trainers.

Training will not be provided in advance of these quests. For this reason, a character may want to request a class quest prior to reaching the amount of XP needed to advance a level. Otherwise, their XP may end up capped during the quest if it takes more than one expedition to accomplish.

Rewards

A training discount is given based on the DL of the completed quest:

DL Equivalent of Quest Relative to PC Level Upon Quest Completion	Training Discount
-4 or lower	0%
-3	20%
-2	55%
-1	75%
+0	90%
+1	100%
+2	100%, plus next level training cost discounted 10%
+3	100%, plus next level training cost discounted 25%

Reasoning

DMG 86 reads,

Note that the tutor might possibly accept some combination of gold and service in return for his tutelage, at the DM’s option.

However, no system is suggested for handling this. We have created our own system, “class quests”. We've found to work quite well for reducing training costs and engaging PCs with the world. Class quests are a great way for the DM to introduce objective-based quests, or to add objectives to an adventure site that the PCs are already interested in, similar to optional objectives in video games. The effect is that PCs have the ability to take on specific, additional challenges in order to reduce their training costs and avoid needing to take out a loan to avoid being XP capped.

There are of course numerous ways a trainer might offer to reduce training costs for a PC. We commonly hear that NPC trainers in other campaigns send PCs on annoying errands or tedious tasks. That isn't really our style – when we get together to game we want to have a full-fledged adventure. That is why we use this system.

DM notes

Class quests should be used as an opportunity for you to guide the campaign in some respect. Perhaps there is a certain adventure site you've prepared which you'd like to run. Perhaps there's a locale in the campaign world you'd like to explore. Whatever it is, this is a chance to offer a carrot that can benefit you as well.

You should also use class quests as a valve to manage the expansion of adventure sites. For example, if there are not very many active adventure sites in the campaign at the time, this is a chance to add one with an easy hook. If there are already a lot of active adventure sites (as can easily happen even within the campaign's first year), you might choose to have the quest add an objective to one of these sites, rather than create an entirely separate adventure site for the quest. You might even have multiple PCs class quests all lead them to the same adventure site, which is a great way to connect characters in-world.