question about modifying a characters stats

[Selby]

I doubt that that's possible without really playing heavily, i.e. over 4 hours per day. Most of us don't have the time to do so (apart from vacation), and I wouldn't just call that 'solid'. So an hour and a half every now and then isn't solid? Don't think so.

By solid I am referring to playing 3-4 hours a night for a week or so (10 days, 14 days depending on luck). And that's not even just playing through, but going for the places that give you the most experience per challenge.

And I'm assuming that we're not talking about partying with higher lvl characters to profit from the shared experience here.

Of course not. And it wouldn't matter anyways, you have to kill the monster to get the experience and you are capped to 200xclvl in your experience gained.

On the other hand, I found that getting the character up to lvl 40 over a lot of time and the whole thing of finding/evaluating items, changing tactics etc. was way more fun than just leveling later on and occasionally getting dropped an item that one really could employ with all the good stuff one usually wears at that late levels.

I agree, but the guy wants to get up to level 40 as fast as possible without cheating, so I gave him some advice on how I would do it if it were me. Years ago I used to play for hours on end and get there, but nowadays I don't care so much about the goal as I do about having fun in my gaming. About 18 months ago I started a rogue and went from 1 to 43 in about 3-4 weeks worth of time, playing a good 2-3 hours every other day or so (and maybe a good long Saturday or Sunday).