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I'm in the middle of designing some town's for a game I'm running and was wondering what exactly is the "level cap" for npc's based on the towns and cities they live in. I know that 3.5 had tables to determine the highest level NPC's for different towns but as far as I know pathfinder doesn't have one listed anywhere. Anyone know if this is actually the case or where to find one?
I haven't seen any official city building rules outside of the Kingmaker adventure path. Since I'm currently playing Kingmaker, I don't want stick my nose into the GM materials, but I suggest you look there.
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I'm not really sure what the "official" response is, but they can't be too hard to find, given that you can find a spellcaster of whatever level you need to cast a spell easily enough.
The way I always do it is for every 20th level NPC there is in a region, there should be 20 level 1s, 19 level 2s, 18 level 3s, 17 4, 16 5, 15 6, 14 7, 13 8, 12 9, 11 10, 10 11, 9 12, 8 13, 7 14, 6 15, 5 16, 4 17, 3 18, and 2 19s.
So there should be roughly one level 20 out of every 210 people. Huge cities will have several level 20s, and a small town likely has one (though he may not give a damn about the rest of the town.)
For a much lower powered campaign, instead of a fibonacci setup like the above, you could go with powers of 2.
1 20 or 19, 2 18 or 17, 4 16 or 15, 8 14 or 13, 16 12 or 11, 32 10 or 9, 64 8 or 7, 128 6 or 5, 256 4 or 3, 512 2 or 1. In this setup, 1 in 1023 characters is level 20.
I know alot of people think the average peasant should be level 1, but I dont think the game supports that. I figure the average foot soldier should be around level 6 or 7, the average bartender/waitress 2 or 3, the average farmer 3 or 4 (the farmer and bartender having NPC classes).
The farmer will gain levels just by killing rats on the farm.
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I'm not really sure what the "official" response is, but they can't be too hard to find, given that you can find a spellcaster of whatever level you need to cast a spell easily enough.
The way I always do it is for every 20th level NPC there is in a region, there should be 20 level 1s, 19 level 2s, 18 level 3s, 17 4, 16 5, 15 6, 14 7, 13 8, 12 9, 11 10, 10 11, 9 12, 8 13, 7 14, 6 15, 5 16, 4 17, 3 18, and 2 19s.
So there should be roughly one level 20 out of every 210 people. Huge cities will have several level 20s, and a small town likely has one (though he may not give a damn about the rest of the town.)
For a much lower powered campaign, instead of a fibonacci setup like the above, you could go with powers of 2.
1 20 or 19, 2 18 or 17, 4 16 or 15, 8 14 or 13, 16 12 or 11, 32 10 or 9, 64 8 or 7, 128 6 or 5, 256 4 or 3, 512 2 or 1. In this setup, 1 in 1023 characters is level 20.I know alot of people think the average peasant should be level 1, but I dont think the game supports that. I figure the average foot soldier should be around level 6 or 7, the average bartender/waitress 2 or 3, the average farmer 3 or 4 (the farmer and bartender having NPC classes).
The farmer will gain levels just by killing rats on the farm.
Yeah i think that's how they did it in 3.5 though I'm usually of the opinion that their usually isn't even 20's floating around in most major cities and are usually just incredibly rare powerhouses meant to build campaigns around. This seems to be the case as the maximum hire able spell casting you can get is only 8th and that's in a metropolis. It also always seemed weird to me to have a bunch of cities with maxed out character's floating around and yet they have low level PC's out saving the world.
As for the low level peasents that has never been my problem I've just viewed them as the underlings to the farmer/general in question with the 1st being cheap hired hands, family, or new recruits. Remember back then a standing army could be as little as 30 people with none of them receiving any training, as for the farmers in most settled areas they probably didn't see much combat at all.
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I once played in a 2nd ed campaign where we'd identified the level/social structure based on the priest spell list.
At level 9 you had Commune; that guy could talk directly to his god. He becomes the pope.
At level 5 you have the people who can lift curses, place Glyphs and generally deal with most problems in a region; he's the Bishop. Below that you go into village priest levels. Above 9 you get level 6 spells at 12 and 7 at 14 (and nothing beyond that); that's where the minor prophets (level 6 spells) and major prophets (7) go.
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Yeah i think that's how they did it in 3.5 though I'm usually of the opinion that their usually isn't even 20's floating around in most major cities and are usually just incredibly rare powerhouses meant to build campaigns around. This seems to be the case as the maximum hire able spell casting you can get is only 8th and that's in a metropolis. It also always seemed weird to me to have a bunch of cities with maxed out character's floating around and yet they have low level PC's out saving the world.
Not all the level 20 characters will be heroes. And in the games I've run/played, low level PCs don't save the world. They might save a small village from some goblins or orcs. 15th-20th level PCs save the world. 10th level PCs might be very valuable soldiers in a war. I agree with you. If an 8th level character is saving the world, what are the 20th level characters doing? surely some of them must want to stop the world from being destroyed; they probably don't want to have to pack up and move to another world. Some might even want to protect people in this one. If you have 8th level characters saving the world, then 8 should be near or at the max level cap in your game world.
I see that as less a problem with the existence of 20th level NPCs than a problem with people thinking 8th level characters are capable of saving the world.
As for the low level peasents that has never been my problem I've just viewed them as the underlings to the farmer/general in question with the 1st being cheap hired hands, family, or new recruits. Remember back then a standing army could be as little as 30 people with none of them receiving any training, as for the farmers in most settled areas they probably didn't see much combat at all.
If you beat an encounter through diplomacy, you still get the exp for the encounter, and farmers have to deal with hazardous conditions, potentially fixing and identifying rotten floors, which are worth trap exp. There are ways that even the non-fighty types can get exp, even if you don't include an XP-over time system like most GMs I know do.
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I don't believe anybody over 15th level exists...I'm odd like that. And there are 1,000,000 people for each 10-12th level character
What I've noticed in message board threads similar to this one in the past is that most players consider just about all townsfolk to be about 1st level. I don't think that has to be the case. If it could translate to real life, you probably know people up to third level, who have cultivated their skills and abilities and are known for them. I would say that people with skills recognized on a national or international level could be fifth level or higher, such as elite special forces, renowned craftsmen, possible others.
I remember doing some research on this stuff in the past as well. I don't remember the actual details but it boiled down to a level 20 PC or NPC was essentially 1 in a million people (if not higher than that).
Unless you're playing high-fantasy games, people above level 9 should be pretty rare.
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The D&D power curve isnt the real life power curve.
A few years ago someone wrote an article showing what D&D characters of various levels could do. This was for 3.5; and it was shown that if a world expert could do it in real life, it generally takes a 5th level character to do it in D&D.
But that's the real life power curve. If you're doing that, you're playing e5 (beginner box).
In the D&D power curve, it's not unheard of for a smalltime thief to be level 5 or 6. All you have to do is look at some of the published NPCs in adventure paths and other books. Pathfinder is larger than life. A 10th level fighter is a competent fighter. Possibly the captain of the guard, or the 2nd in command to a bandit lord, or a soldier with decent rank.
The way I always do it is for every 20th level NPC there is in a region, there should be 20 level 1s, 19 level 2s, 18 level 3s, 17 4, 16 5, 15 6, 14 7, 13 8, 12 9, 11 10, 10 11, 9 12, 8 13, 7 14, 6 15, 5 16, 4 17, 3 18, and 2 19s.
So there should be roughly one level 20 out of every 210 people. Huge cities will have several level 20s, and a small town likely has one (though he may not give a damn about the rest of the town.)
For a much lower powered campaign, instead of a fibonacci setup like the above, you could go with powers of 2.
1 20 or 19, 2 18 or 17, 4 16 or 15, 8 14 or 13, 16 12 or 11, 32 10 or 9, 64 8 or 7, 128 6 or 5, 256 4 or 3, 512 2 or 1. In this setup, 1 in 1023 characters is level 20.
Wow! Either way level 20s would be extremely common that way. If plotted out I think it would have to be more of an exponential curve.
As Bloodwort said I think level 20s should be one in a million if that. Normal people are level 1-10. If you actually look at the kinds of spells that are cast and types of monsters that are fought in the teen levels they're pretty much demigod levels. Like Hercules or even Thor levels. Having one quarter of your population (54/210 for levels 11-20) be semi-divine godlings seems a bit excessive to me.
As for the Pathfinder point of view. In the Gamemastery Guide the most exceptional elite of entire nations (kings, guild masters, high priests, etc) are in the low teens at best.
As I said before normal people should be levels 1-10. With most being toward the lower end of the single digits. While, based on what they do, levels 11-20 are "epic levels" (for lack of a better term). As I see it they should be used sparingly.
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Wow! Either way level 20s would be extremely common that way. If plotted out I think it would have to be more of an exponential curve.
As Bloodwort said I think level 20s should be one in a million if that. Normal people are level 1-10. If you actually look at the kinds of spells that are cast and types of monsters that are fought in the teen levels they're pretty much demigod levels. Like Hercules or even Thor levels. Having one quarter of your population (54/210 for levels 11-20) be semi-divine godlings seems a bit excessive to me.
As for the Pathfinder point of view. In the Gamemastery Guide the most exceptional elite of entire nations (kings, guild masters, high priests, etc) are in the low teens at best.
As I said before normal people should be levels 1-10. With most being toward the lower end of the single digits. While, based on what they do, levels 11-20 are "epic levels" (for lack of a better term). As I see it they should be used sparingly.
Ah.
The way I see it if level 20 characters are much less common than 1 in 1000, the game shouldn't have rules for them as player characters, and they should be like the level 30 demon lords, statted out as god-things you don't likely have a chance at defeating.The idea of a game where the players have left all of the rest of their race behind half way through is far too much of a power gap to be remotely believable in my opinion.
If regular people don't pass 10, players shouldn't be able to pass like 12-14. The master wizard of a respected mage's guild? level 20, maybe 19. I would probably have wizards stay "apprentices" until level 5 or so.
The Players are basically Justice League Power level by like 15 or so, and I figure that must mean that Justice league power level characters aren't that hard to find, otherwise it's not very believable for me to have opponents for my level 15 party, or justify them getting to this power level. Are they having to get possessed by gods to level up at each level past 10?
It's like, They beat 4 CR 15 characters and they've now cleared the continent of all challenges appropriate to their level. Oh well, back to fighting orcs. The alternative (with that rarity) is Dragon Ball Z. They become the most powerful thing in the universe, and then something else even more powerful shows up out of nowhere.
And the way I see it, if the players can reach level 20, it can't be that unusual. Every peasant should at least know someone who knows someone who knows someone who is level 20.
I guess it comes down to how common you want superhero types to be. The Justice League analogy actually seems pretty sound. Sure world wide there lots of supers that run in the same circles but for each one of those there's going to be thousands if not millions of ordinary people.
For me I look at more from the point of view of mythology and fantasy novels/movies. I look at the spells and monsters of the teen levels and compare them to other sources. Based on that what they do/fight what level would Gandolf, Hercules, etc be? In most fantasy settings the main characters at their peek wouldn't be very high in level at all. From that perspective teen levels are pretty OP. But then there's room for a few Supermen and Wonder Women in a high fantasy setting.
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PS.
If you really want to chart it out how about a simple curve by making every level being half as common as the level before?
That would look something like this...
1st = about 1/2 of the population = 524,228 people
2nd = about 1/4 of the population = 262,144 people
3rd = about 1/8 of the population = 131,072 people
4th = about 1/16 of the population = 65,536 people
5th = about 1/32 of the population = 32,768 people
6th = about 1/64 of the population = 16,384 people
7th = about 1/128 of the population = 8,192 people
8th = about 1/256 of the population = 4,096 people
9th = about 1/512 of the population = 2,048 people
10th = about 1/1,024 of the population = 1,024 people
11th = about 1/2,048 of the population = 512 people
12th = about 1/4,096 of the population = 256 people
13th = about 1/8,192 of the population = 128 people
14th = about 1/16,384 of the population = 64 people
15th = about 1/32,768 of the population = 32 people
16th = about 1/65,536 of the population = 16 people
17th = about 1/131,072 of the population = 8 people
18th = about 1/262,144 of the population = 4 people
19th = about 1/524,288 of the population = 2 people
20th = about 1/1,048,576 of the population = 1 person
That way only about one in a thousand would be levels 11-20 (1,023/1,048,575) and less then one in a million would be level 20. With almost 97% of the population being levels 1-5.
This chart could be used to estimate the highest level NPC you'd likely find in a town too. In a town of 250 the highest likely would be about 8th. In a city of 4,000 the highest likely would be about 12th. You'd need a whole nation of over a million before you run into a level 20.
I dunno. I think this could work and more or less fits with what we see fluff wise.
Going a bit further with this 1 in a million for 20th level characters, just to make it easier to feel out. In the 1300's the world population is thought to have reached 350 million people, so that's 350 20th level characters in an earth sized world with 5% of the population of today.
Europe had an estimated population of 70-100 million people, and Britain was estimated at 5-7 million (5-7 level 20's), France with 18-20 million (18-20 level 20's).
That's a considerable number of 20th level people in a relatively small area (in comparison to the entirety of the planet).
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I guess it comes down to how common you want superhero types to be. The Justice League analogy actually seems pretty sound. Sure world wide there lots of supers that run in the same circles but for each one of those there's going to be thousands if not millions of ordinary people.
And the way I see it, what qualifies as "Super Hero" is rather proportional to how common it is in the world.
I simply have no interest in running a game where the player characters are constantly twice the level of the NPCs they encounter. I expect those NPCs to be their allies and enemies. Kindof hard to do when the players can squash them all like insects. So there needs to be enough high leveled NPCs that the players have competition.
For me I look at more from the point of view of mythology and fantasy novels/movies. I look at the spells and monsters of the teen levels and compare them to other sources. Based on that what they do/fight what level would Gandolf, Hercules, etc be? In most fantasy settings the main characters at their peek wouldn't be very high in level at all. From that perspective teen levels are pretty OP. But then there's room for a few Supermen and Wonder Women in a high fantasy setting.
But that's exactly my point. Gandolf, Hercules, etc are below level 10 (Herc MIGHT be level 10). If thats your benchmark for the upper tier, then your game should cap out much earlier. Gandalf is likely level 8 or 9, and Hercules is likely somewhere between 9 and 11. Any time I've seen a build of Aragorn that's actually based on what he can do in the movies and books, he's somewhere around level 5. Pathfinder is a MUCH higher powered game.
The Players don't save the world at level 10. The things that could destroy the world are challenges for a level 20 party. Things like the Tarrasque, huge armies of demons led by a demon prince, that sort of thing. There's people at level 20 handling that. The players get to save the world when They're level 20 too. If the players are saving the world at level 10, then that means they can handle the worst threats that I could throw at them, at least one at a time. In which case, I shouldn't be using threats above 13 or 14, and I've effectively changed the level cap in the game (which is fine if that's what you want to do as the GM).
(Don't get me wrong, I like that genre too, but when that's what we want to play, we don't use Pathfinder, we use a game that's designed for it. I suppose we COULD play Pathfinder Basic, e6, or e8. - Generally we play Mongoose' Legend for this, with some house rules for less magic., I would also consider Song of Ice and Fire RPG or Ghosts of Albion (If you want some help with having a more D&D experience there, I'd suggest adding to Ghosts of Albion with Dungeons and Zombies (And its free web enhancement), and Angel - Both of which I own and are quite good.)
I guess I'm saying, I dont think pathfinder does that sort of low powered fantasy very well, as I think it involves not using a huge chunk of the game; but there are other very good games that are specifically built to do exactly that genre.
As for the 1/2 as many, there was a reason why I lumped them into 10 groups instead of 20. So in my list, characters who are (either level 19 or 20) make up 1/1024 of the population. Whereas in your list, if you add the 19s and the 20s together like I did, you get roughly 1/349525 of the population.
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For Golarion specifically, my Level Demographics thread seems relevant, as do the Settlement Rules.
Check those out.
For homebrew worlds it is, of course, entirely up to you. Feel free to work it out however youlike, just think through the implications for different levels of PCs and apply them logically.
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Nifty.
Well there's golarion. Personally they seem a little bit low for my tastes (but pretty close I suppose - I'd expand the first group to 1-7, then 8-12, then 13-17, then 18-20), but that's specifically because I dont want quite that degree of special snowflakeness to the players, but those guidelines seem reasonable, if a bit easy.
[Edit!] Actually, now that I recall that Paizo APs end around the 15 or 16 mark, it makes perfect sense to me that he put those numbers the way he did. In an official Paizo campaign, you're probably never going to get above 16, so where they're putting 18-19 is roughly where I was putting 23-24.
And the way I see it, what qualifies as "Super Hero" is rather proportional to how common it is in the world.
I simply have no interest in running a game where the player characters are constantly twice the level of the NPCs they encounter. I expect those NPCs to be their allies and enemies. Kindof hard to do when the players can squash them all like insects. So there needs to be enough high leveled NPCs that the players have competition.
But going with the Superhero analogy Superman, the Green Lantern, Flash, etc are more powerful then most people and could pretty much squash 99% of anyone they meet without a second thought. At that point the balance comes in fighting other super powered people not normal everyday folks that make up the bulk of the population. If half the populace is super powered then it kind of looses all significance. Even in the DC Universe there's what maybe a couple of thousand supers in a world of billions?
As riatin pointed out using the one in a million ratio something the size of the Roman Empire would have at least 50 level 20s and quite a lot more 18s and 19s. That's a lot imo.
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Based on what is in the Game Mastery Guide, under Settlements Statistics (Table 7-36)
here is what I use as a starting point:
Size = the size of the settlement
PC = highest level of characters with PC class levels
NPC = highest level of characters with NPC class levels
Size, PC, NPC
Thorp, 1, 2
Hamlet, 3, 4
Village, 5, 6
Small Town, 7, 8
Large Town, 9, 10
Small City, 11, 12
Large City, 13, 14
Metropolis, 15, 16
I said that I use that as a starting point because I allow myself to make exceptions.
For each class, I would put 1 individual in the settlement at the maximum level. Then I would add 2 individuals at half the level (rounded down), etc. At each step, halve the level and double the number of individuals.
Then I add in a bunch more 1st-level commoners and warriors.
Finally, I add in special NPCs that might not occur with this algorithm, such as the 18th-level druid who lives at the edge of the thorp or the 15th-level monk who now runs a tavern in the small town.
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But going with the Superhero analogy Superman, the Green Lantern, Flash, etc are more powerful then most people and could pretty much squash 99% of anyone they meet without a second thought. At that point the balance comes in fighting other super powered people not normal everyday folks that make up the bulk of the population. If half the populace is super powered then it kind of looses all significance. Even in the DC Universe there's what maybe a couple of thousand supers in a world of billions?
Thats my point. I generally don't want a D&D/Pathfinder game to be a game of Supers. Instead of Supers being freak accidents, I have the level 20s be the Olympics Athletes and Albert Einsteins of D&D. They're the best of the best, but anyone with talent that's determined enough to put the effort could get to their league.
I dont really want to play Pathfinder as Paizo's Justice League. So they may have crazy powers, but they're hardly the sort of special snowflakes that would include the flash and superman.
Anyways, you have your official answers now.
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For Golarion specifically, my Level Demographics thread seems relevant...
James Jacobs has some great remarks in that thread as well.
The short answer is that it's going to depend on the setting. I think the way to go about it is to either use an exponential curve like Arikiel's (change the divide by two to divide by some other number to make higher levels more or less rare) or by assigning a CR to a typical month/year of getting by (though that method raises other questions).
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I once played in a 2nd ed campaign where we'd identified the level/social structure based on the priest spell list.
At level 9 you had Commune; that guy could talk directly to his god. He becomes the pope.
At level 5 you have the people who can lift curses, place Glyphs and generally deal with most problems in a region; he's the Bishop. Below that you go into village priest levels. Above 9 you get level 6 spells at 12 and 7 at 14 (and nothing beyond that); that's where the minor prophets (level 6 spells) and major prophets (7) go.
I actually liked this analogy the best since I as a GM don't mind the existance of 20th lvl NPC's in a game world I just don't like the idea that every major city has to have one otherwise most world-saving events would end with either them solving it or something having to happen to them to remove that option. The other up side to this is that it also kind of fits with the mechanics and verisimilitude of it all as even if this one religion has 20th lvl cleric that doesn't mean all of them will as they would need the organization and the know how to provide a single person with the resources to hit those levels. This is backed up when you look at things like settlement blocks and the qualities they can gain like religious site or academy which allow you to push the cap above the norm.
Also on the idea of not many 1st levels floating around and the way's they gain xp my thinking has always been that there is probably just 1 or 2 higher level people in any given situation that are doing most of that work while the rest are just filling out the grunt labor. Example might be like a farming family, the father may be a level 3 commoner but his 4-8 kids and wife are probably all around 1st doing most of the grunt work with him patching the floor boards and scaring of the nascent rat or 2 while periodically showing them the craft when it's convenient or safest for his family.
Outside of this the other thing I'm looking for is some information on class breakdown amongst a cities populous i.e. how many of what class will show up in given towns.
I guess I just had it bad with some GMs. Their world had guards that were all 15th level, anyone who had a name and spoke with us were usually 20-30+ in level. We got help from npcs that were like 60th level. The GM just felt like saying what level these people were, so that's how I know their level.
I don't know, he must have been on some crazy GM powertrip or something. This was in a campaign where we (the puny players) had to save the world.
You could check out the 'power levels' section on page 253 of the Inner Sea World Guide, for official (rough) guidelines on this sort of thing.
But, here's the gist:
The vast majority of people are "standard" (levels 1-5)
A significant number of a nation's movers and shakers should be "exceptional" (levels 6-10)
Each nation should have only a handful of "powerful" characters (levels 11-15)
"Legendary" characters of 16th level or higher should be exceptionally rare and should only appear as part of a specific campaign.
I dont really want to play Pathfinder as Paizo's Justice League. So they may have crazy powers, but they're hardly the sort of special snowflakes that would include the flash and superman.
Anyways, you have your official answers now.
Ok I get what you're saying. I disagree but I get it. It just doesn't make sense to me for every town to have it's own level 20. To me having high levels be common makes the low levels feel completely useless and high levels loose all significance or meaning. As for official answers who cares? While it's nice that my notions roughly line up with the official view I think official views are overrated. It's your game. Make of it what you want.
But, here's the gist:
The vast majority of people are "standard" (levels 1-5)
A significant number of a nation's movers and shakers should be "exceptional" (levels 6-10)
Each nation should have only a handful of "powerful" characters (levels 11-15)
"Legendary" characters of 16th level or higher should be exceptionally rare and should only appear as part of a specific campaign.
This sounds about right to me. :)
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If I was a 20th level wizard why would I live on the prime material with all you muggles?
If I was a 20th level wizard why would I live on the prime material with all you muggles?In my opinion, the game is over as soon as a character can get a scroll of Planeshift or whatever, and choose to go to heaven.
Heaven? How droll. I'm going to the city of brass.
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The following posts at thealexandrian.net might be of interest to provide context here:
1st Level = Adult Professional Nearly 9 in 10
2nd Level = Experienced Professional 10000 / 100000
3rd Level = Talented Professional 1000 / 100000
4th Level = Talented and Experienced Professional 100 / 100000
5th Level = Rare, Exceptional Professional 10 / 100000
6th Level = Peak Human 1 / 100000
And that works great for an e6 game; thats roughly where actual human limits are. D&D goes far past that in power level. That's why it models characters who can teleport to hell, and attack the devil while hes sleeping, and win.
If you're not playing e6, you need to scale up your numbers to match your level cap, bringing the game world to the same powerscale your game takes place in.
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Why? You ruin your game by adding more high level people in my opinion. I hate that crap.
I think you ruin the game by having high level people be practically nonexistent. I hate all that special snowflake overpowered compared to everyone else crap.
I have a lot of trouble visualizing what a world like that would look like.
It looks like a world inhabited by player characters. A bit like the pathfinder society. Now assume all the NPCs live in the same world, and they have levels too.
All but the highest CR monsters aren't a threat to even small villages. An ancient red dragon is, at worst, cause to interrupt a few of the local elites.
That would be a village with 1000 people. Thats alot of people for a village.
The town militia can handle demonic invasions.
Assuming a small number of weak demons, sure. Not a chance the town militia can handle 300 babau, for example; but about as well as they could handle an organized military of 300 competent soldiers with no leaders or heroes with them attacking the town.
If necessary the thousands of 20th level characters in the kingdom can be called up to take on a mad god or similar problem.
Hmm. In theory, yes, that could happen. Assuming the kingdom has 1024000 people, they have approximately 1000 level 20 NPCs. Not all of them would be willing to help, but some would. So yes.
On the other hand, all the evil high level characters will cause all sorts of problems.
There are enough evil characters to go around, of all levels. Lots of potential enemies for the players, just like there are lots of other people handling lots of other enemies.
Daily life changes drastically, since so many people have spells. Diseases go away. Most work does as well. You probably don't even need to grow food.
The majority of the population won't have spells, but many people can afford to have them cast. People do work, because people still want stuff. There's just less mindless grunt work. You could buy all your food from someone who can create food via magic, and it would sustain you, but people don't always want to eat the same crap, and not everyone could afford the feast spells on a regular basis.
What do low level PCs do? What conceivable threat could be around that someone hasn't crushed already? They know all these high level people. They're related to some of them. Why are they trying to deal with anything dangerous without help?
They might be able to get help sometimes, sure. That help might tell them they want to be paid, or they want the treasure, or whatever. Many of those high level characters still only have levels in commoner. They aren't very good at fighting. Just because there are lots of high level NPCs, doesn't mean there are more Good-Aligned High Level NPCs than Neutral or Evil ones. At low levels, they're likely taking jobs from higher level characters to handle problems they don't consider important enough for them to handle them.
The world has a more urban feel, for sure, and for many of the problems, you're not going to some smelly dungeon somewhere, you're dealing with the thieves' guild and the mages' guild and the black market that's kidnapping people and selling their organs off, which is run by a beholder or something.
The entire campaign could take place within a single metropolis if the players didn't want to travel.
Its a world where the threats aren't all distant monsters coming in from the outside, the threats are mostly the other people who are in this world that want it to be a different way than you want, and are possibly willing to murder a mess of people to get it.
In my worlds, the PCs stay near the powerscale the game takes place in by expanding their operation. At the start, they may be promising newbies in a small village, where the tough experienced folks are 3-4th level. By the time they reach that level they're moving out into bigger towns and dealing with problems in the local area and the people they're looking up to are in the high single digits.
By the time they're in the low teens, they're dealing with kings and their elites, people in the mid-teen levels. By the high teens they're some of the most powerful people around and they're dealing with world-level threats.
In my world the threats they're dealing with would be similar, but they wouldn't have to keep going to new places if they didn't want to; they would just be good enough to deal with the bigger threats in the area they're already in. Their level would likely roughly indicate some of their status in society. The King himself may only be a 2nd level character, if he's very young, but he's likely descended from and surrounded by high level characters, and he may be tutored by a 20th level wizard who was friends with his father.
By the high teens they're some of the most powerful people in the world, and they're capable of dealing with the "world-level threats", which have been popping up all along, and have been way outside the PCs paygrade to deal with. Perhaps while the players are level 7, a demonic invasion is causing problems in a neighboring country. That countries heroes are defending it, and they eventually drive them out (or maybe they don't, depending on the size of hte country and the size of the demon army.)
What the PCs are dealing with isn't the only thing going on in the world. The world is a dangerous place, and power plays are being made everywhere, and evil people are doing evil things all over the place, and good people are trying to stop them all over the place.
The PCs aren't the only adventurers, and at the beginning of the game (level 1), they aren't even really that special. Like, they finished highschool instead of dropping out to work in a flower shop.
I'm not going to take the time to math it out, but I would say a decent chunk of the population, and I would say the average 18 year old warrior would likely be level 2, some maybe level 3, but thats neither here nor there.
Pathfinder disagrees with you. They are statted out as level 1 warriors and CR 1/3, the same CR as a squirrel.
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I'm not going to take the time to math it out, but I would say a decent chunk of the population, and I would say the average 18 year old warrior would likely be level 2, some maybe level 3, but thats neither here nor there.Pathfinder disagrees with you. They are statted out as level 1 warriors and CR 1/3, the same CR as a squirrel.
yes they have level 1 warriors, but there is nothing that actually says that's what the average trained 18 year old warrior is.
I know in the adventure paths that they just level everything with the party instead of forming any kind of believable ecosystem.
I'm not going to take the time to math it out, but I would say a decent chunk of the population, and I would say the average 18 year old warrior would likely be level 2, some maybe level 3, but thats neither here nor there.Pathfinder disagrees with you. They are statted out as level 1 warriors and CR 1/3, the same CR as a squirrel.yes they have level 1 warriors, but there is nothing that actually says that's what the average trained 18 year old warrior is.
I know in the adventure paths that they just level everything with the party instead of forming any kind of believable ecosystem.
It doesn't say probably because it's up to the GM what ages they are, and they're not going to just out right state how old a type of NPC is.
In the flavor text they're supposed to survive what could kill the common man, and these guys have a good strength score with a base of +1. You can probably use this as a base line for the average warrior.
2nd and 3rd level shouldn't be rare at all for an NPC who is employed for a good portion of their life. Maybe the town drunk and and village fool and the extraordinarily lazy have little chance of surpassing 1st level, but a busy smith or merchant would during their life time. It is not so great an accomplishment to gain an extra hit die and a few skill points.
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I'm not going to take the time to math it out, but I would say a decent chunk of the population, and I would say the average 18 year old warrior would likely be level 2, some maybe level 3, but thats neither here nor there.This doesn't actually answer my post.
How many people can kill 30 armed, armored and trained 18 year olds?
How many people can kill 30 people who can kill 30 armed, armored and trained 18 year olds?
Don't answer in terms of PF NPCs. How many people do you think should be capable of this in a fantasy world city, say the size of 16th century Paris?
Using my population numbers, and saying the average 18 year old armed guy is a 2nd level warrior (the 1st level one would be a newbie apprentice, aged 13-15), he's a CR 1/2. 30 of them is just short of a CR 9. 30 times that is just a bit more than a CR 18.
[These numbers were wrong]
Seems reasonable to me.
Note, I think 2nd or 3rd level isn't for a good portion of their life, but more, the first couple years of experience.
[Corrected Numbers Below]
Roughly 4.6% of the total population can kill the 30 CR 1/2 warriors. CR 9 or higher (Level 10 or higher)
Roughly 0.2% of the total population can take down 30 CR 9s (CR 18+ = Level 19 or 20).
One interesting way of answering this is assigning a CR to an uneventful year of various lifestyles. You can also use the properties of the XP table to guess at what it'd take to get from level 0 to 1 (half what it takes to get from 2 to 3).
So if city life is CR 1 per year, that's 400 xp per year. If you guess that an average NPC would be 13 before they experience that level of hardship:
13: level 0
17: level 1
22: level 2
30: level 3
40: level 4
55: level 5
75: level 6
105: level 7
145: level 8
Of course, you'd have to alter those assumptions for different places and times (not every year is uneventful), and this raises questions about the longer lived races, but nothing that can't be answered.