Quote Originally Posted by EmperorSarda View Post
I think his finding a new patsy to topple his governments every couple of years might get him some xp. Plus the whole special mid-week gladiatorial propaganda event probably gave him xp too.

His soldiers arresting Thog and then being thrown in the ring, probably not.
PLUS: Tarquin is smart enough to see the advantage of continuing to gain levels and to figure out a way to do it, if he so chose. It's not a case of merely dispatching zero-levels who would gain him no points, but of figuring out how to game the system to farm XPs. For example, if a room full of trolls would be a good enough challenge to net him 1 percent of the XPs needed for the next level, and would be actually likely to wound but not kill him, then he could just have to start off each day by chopping up that room full of trolls and then healing up over breakfast, before getting about the business of running his empire. That's net him a new level every 4 months or so. When the CR of the trolls gets too low, add more trolls or something else that regenerates when killed.
Now, this system has to have a flaw, otherwise Tarquin would be very very high level indeed. It may be that T just didn't think of it, or it may be that the gods don't like it and punish anyone who tries it. We don't know that T does anything like this, but some lesser variation on it may explain how T can have spent the latter part of his career running things rather than hacking at them, and yet be much higher level than the Order.