David Fryer wrote: Did I ever tell you about the time I met Johnny Cash? It was back in 1995 and I was living in Montgomery, Alabama. I used to go and put flowers on the grave of Hank Williams Sr. once a week, because I promised my Grandma that I would just before she passed away. One day I was there and this big black pickup pulled up and out stepped Hank Williams Jr. and Johnny Cash. They were doing a benefit show together that night and had stopped in to pay their respects. I tried to slip off before they saw me, but it didn't work and they stopped to talk to me. Then they invited me to lunch! So where does Hank Williams Jr. and Johnny Cash take a person to lunch? Pizza Hut! It was awesome. Can I touch you?
Most NPCs don't have heroic levels because they don't have the motivation to adventure. They do what they can to survive, and their training and life experiences accrue them levels. Or do PCs never gain experience for their non-combat successes? Tim,the soldier on leave, who's barely in his mid twenties is as likely to hit the deck when he hears a robber shoot into the air as is Clark, the barkeep who's in his late fifties. Bob the farmer has a family back home he values way more than the orcs attacking the next town over, those orcs are "someone else's problem" Similarly, the monsters with class levels shown in the bestiary represent the lowliest threat the PCs would normally face. Of course there is an orc woman with commoner levels tending to the babies back home, of course there is an orc barbarian 4 leading the village back home and of course there is an orc warrior 1/expert 2 being his right hand man. The world isn't a collection of clones. Everyone has varying levels of skill and experience. It's just rare for an NPC to gain enough experience to keep leveling once the next level is almost twice the amount of experience he has gathered in 30 years of being alive. A world where everyone is a 1st level commoner is a much stranger world, actually. As for mechanically? A third level adept doesn't stand much of a chance against a first level wizard...It's the point of NPC classes. It gives the NPCs skills and some amount of combat ability without outshining the PCs. A first level bard is much more interesting than a third level aristocrat. And let's not forget that NPCs use 3 point buy for their ability scores and never gain full hit dice... By level 2, players outshine most level 4 NPCs all across the board. |