Each GM has to decide for themselves what sort of level distribution the world has.
I personally like a distribution that looks like this:
50% level 1
25% level 2
12.5% level 3
etc.If you work it all the way down, level 20 characters really are 1 in a million. It also puts the vast majority of the world in the 1-3 range, but still leaves room for some decently high level NPCs running around in larger kingdoms. But there should be plenty of room for low level heroics because the king's champion is busy.
I do that too, but I use CR, instead of levels.
50% CR 1 or less
25% CR 2
12.5% CR 3
That way, there is roughly a CR 20 creature for every 10 million entities of lesser power, and there are approximately 3 people out of every million capable of casting 9th-level spells (or using equivalent abilities), which seems about right to me.
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The biggest problem I have with half the population being CR 1 or less is that it basically says that most of the world is stuck with whatever they are at 18. You never improve, never get better at your job, and then you die of old age.
I prefer the idea of 18 yos growing and getting better, and it being the norm, not the exception. So I like my 'middle ground' to be higher than 1.
The biggest problem I have with half the population being CR 1 or less is that it basically says that most of the world is stuck with whatever they are at 18. You never improve, never get better at your job, and then you die of old age.
I prefer the idea of 18 yos growing and getting better, and it being the norm, not the exception. So I like my 'middle ground' to be higher than 1.
Makes perfect sense to me ... I just don't do it that way.
I'm in the "the vast majority of people are level 1 commoners" camp. Children might have the "young creature" template, perhaps, but most people do not gain levels.
The biggest problem I have with half the population being CR 1 or less is that it basically says that most of the world is stuck with whatever they are at 18. You never improve, never get better at your job, and then you die of old age.
I prefer the idea of 18 yos growing and getting better, and it being the norm, not the exception. So I like my 'middle ground' to be higher than 1.
Oh people grow and expand alright, it's just that averages dictate that when one goes higher, another one replaces his old spot just as he replaced someone higher than him. It's an abstracted rotational system you see.
However, getting to the higher echelons gets increasingly more difficult, making CR 20s rarer than CR 5s, which are in turn rarer than CR 1s. Therefore, you also have the skewed curve.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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The biggest problem I have with half the population being CR 1 or less is that it basically says that most of the world is stuck with whatever they are at 18. You never improve, never get better at your job, and then you die of old age.
I prefer the idea of 18 yos growing and getting better, and it being the norm, not the exception. So I like my 'middle ground' to be higher than 1.
I guess I'm more cynical about humanity than you are.
I don't see one out of a hundred people equal to Michael Jorden, Joe Montana, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Neil Peart, or Steven Hawking at their specialty. It's more like 1 in a million.
On the flip side I see tons of people who pick up some basic skills out of high school or college and never grow beyond that. That guy who has been working at Home Despot for the past 10 years and still can't tell you where to find the electrical tape is. Yeah him.
The biggest problem I have with half the population being CR 1 or less is that it basically says that most of the world is stuck with whatever they are at 18. You never improve, never get better at your job, and then you die of old age.
I prefer the idea of 18 yos growing and getting better, and it being the norm, not the exception. So I like my 'middle ground' to be higher than 1.
Oh people grow and expand alright, it's just that averages dictate that when one goes higher, another one replaces his old spot just as he replaced someone higher than him. It's an abstracted rotational system you see.
However, getting to the higher echelons gets increasingly more difficult, making CR 20s rarer than CR 5s, which are in turn rarer than CR 1s. Therefore, you also have the skewed curve.
So if I hit level 5, that means two people hit level 4, and 4 people hit level 3 and 8 people hit level 2 and 16 people are spontaneously created at level 1.
That's some exponential growth. Either that or we got a "There can be only one" druid 1st edition thing going on.
Also this isn't even a good example -- a human with 2 levels in commoner is still under CR 1. It takes 3 levels of adept to hit CR 1.
So if we stick to CR 1 for our 50% we still are moving away from level 1 rather quickly.
Also this all ignores the fact that the barmaid has less HP than the foot soldier (even with an extra level) and worse equipment/save throws/stats/etc.
Levels aren't everything, and neither is the CR.
The biggest problem I have with half the population being CR 1 or less is that it basically says that most of the world is stuck with whatever they are at 18. You never improve, never get better at your job, and then you die of old age.
I prefer the idea of 18 yos growing and getting better, and it being the norm, not the exception. So I like my 'middle ground' to be higher than 1.
I guess I'm more cynical about humanity than you are.
I don't see one out of a hundred people equal to Michael Jorden, Joe Montana, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Neil Peart, or Steven Hawking at their specialty. It's more like 1 in a million.
On the flip side I see tons of people who pick up some basic skills out of high school or college and never grow beyond that. That guy who has been working at Home Despot for the past 10 years and still can't tell you where to find the electrical tape is. Yeah him.
I don't see level 5 being those people either. It isn't simply levels people -- it's levels, feat choices, skill choices and good luck.
After all I think we can all agree that having a level in rogue, wizard, monk, and bard on one character isn't the same power level as a character that has 4 levels in one class, this is especially true once you factor in feat choices and basic stats.
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Good point Abraham.
I'm a computer programmer, but I've done customer service, tech support, construction, and even some creative writing (one minor university level publishing).
Someone that has a level in expert, two levels in commoner, one in warrior, and 3 in Fighter is someone that moved around a lot in their life. They aren't really good at anything they do. But, they've got a wide breadth of knowledge and skills. They're better at what they do than a fourth level fighter, but they're way worse than a 9th level fighter. In fact, in a straight up fight, the 9th would take the other guy apart. The breadth guy would be able to go into a lot more situations and be useful outside of combat though. In fact, I see the guy with breadth as the grizzled old veteran guy who never got above sergeant in the army, but he's dang good at teaching raw recruits, and he usually get's more out of them. Breadth of knowledge making him a better teacher, but not as good a warrior.
The breadth guy would be able to go into a lot more situations and be useful outside of combat though. In fact, I see the guy with breadth as the grizzled old veteran guy who never got above sergeant in the army, but he's dang good at teaching raw recruits, and he usually get's more out of them. Breadth of knowledge making him a better teacher, but not as good a warrior.
"Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach." ?
^_^
Basically.
Not to insult anyone in the armed forces, but even to me, it's insane to take your top 50 guys out of the field and set them teaching people for a year. When they need down time and to recuperate, sure, but you don't take out a huge number. Especially not to teach raw recruits. You just need to get the newbies competent, and assess what they're good at. For that, you need someone who can teach them to wipe their own behind and blow their nose by themselves. You don't need the guy who knows 14 martial arts, how to disassemble and rebuild over 100 firearms, and can track foxes by their spoor.
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Also being good at something doesn't mean you are good at teaching someone that thing or teaching anything for that matter.
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Also being good at something doesn't mean you are good at teaching someone that thing or teaching anything for that matter.
It is often exactly that the people who are best at something are the worst at teaching it. Those who are the best had some innate ability or talent that let them get good at it. They tend to get frustrated real fast at people who just don't get it or don't try as hard.
Also +1 to what mdt said.
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"Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach." ?^_^
Completely off-topic, but you made me think of it. :)
Completely off-topic, but you made me think of it. :)
"Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach." ?^_^
If you think about it, that snarky quotation makes no sense. Who would want to learn to do something from someone that can't do it in the first place?
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If you think about it, that snarky quotation makes no sense. Who would want to learn to do something from someone that can't do it in the first place?Completely off-topic, but you made me think of it. :)
"Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach." ?^_^
It really references that those who are good at things tend to go do those things. Those who are not as good tend to end up teaching. Often they are the better teachers too. So it works out.
I thought I'd point out that humans are considered to have reached adulthood at the age of 15 in D&D. Congratulations, you're an adult. But all PCs classes require additional years of training. For example, the average age of a 1st level human with a PC class is:
17.5 (Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer)
18.5 (Bard, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger)
22 (Cleric, Druid, Monk, Wizard)
These guys are considered adults at the age of 15, and in your typical dangerous fantasy world, you probably grow up mentally a hell of a lot faster than people you meet today. You could be married with kids at the age of 18, easily.
In all cases, the average time beyond common skills and adulthood is about 3 years. In the case of clerics, druids, monks, and wizards, a 1st level character has typically spent nearly a decade past age of adulthood to achieve these talents, and in some case exceeds this amount (taking upwards to age 27).
So I don't really buy into this idea that 1st level means you just got out of highschool, or are somehow incredibly green, or essentially young whippersnappers, etc.
Likewise, the rate at which experience is gained generally means that unless the powers that be are passing out a hypothetical truckload of experience points for just roleplaying around town, most people aren't going to be subjected to the type of experiences to cause them to gain levels quickly, or even slowly in most cases.
For example, if you have 50 soldiers who are 1st level warriors who all fight 50 other warriors of equal skill, the survivors would gain 135 XP. It would take them about 10 encounters against other 1st level soldiers, plus them surviving all 10 of those encounters, to become 2nd level soldiers without plot-based handouts, and that's assuming the fast experience progression. It would then take them roughly another 14 of such battles before they reached 3rd level.
Meanwhile the guy in town hammering horseshoes? Well, sure he might gain some plot-based XP now and then, but it's probably not very valid to say he should be getting nearly as much XP as the soldier who is actively gaining XP in combat. He could remain a 1st level commoner or expert for the rest of his days, being perfectly mundane, support his family, and die happily as an old man at 1st or 2nd level at best.
I'd definitely consider Ravingdork's progressively rarer breakdown of NPCs as being a highly accurate estimate of how average levels should work. As you gain levels, the difficulty of gaining additional levels rises (requiring more and more experience), so doing similar things repeatedly generally has less and less benefit. In the case of the 50 soldiers vs 50 soldiers example, it's likely that quite a few of those soldiers won't pull through that fight, so you end up with a smaller than 50 portion that actually earns XP. Rinsing and repeating, and really the veterans who have survived lots of fights are the guys who finally make it to 2nd or maybe even 3rd level after surviving a lot of battles.
Of course, this is one of the things that greatly separates higher level individuals from lower level ones. A 6th level PC is significantly rare compared to most people. An individual who has been conditioned by conflict and has pulled through time and time again, resulting in a hardened breed that breaks the mold.
For example, if you have 50 soldiers who are 1st level warriors who all fight 50 other warriors of equal skill, the survivors would gain 135 XP. It would take them about 10 encounters against other 1st level soldiers, plus them surviving all 10 of those encounters, to become 2nd level soldiers without plot-based handouts, and that's assuming the fast experience progression. It would then take them roughly another 14 of such battles before they reached 3rd level.
This is more of a question for anyone, it was just your comment that got me thinking about this.
How would someone calculate the half-life of a soldier in said army and then could you use this information to determine how many soldiers are needed to have a level 6 character?
As I read Ashiel's comment, my chemistry came trickling back to me. However I'm having a hard time writing, reading up on half-life, and trying to make a spreadsheet to handle this. I took a good sleeping pill and I know what I want, I just can't figure out how to make it happen.
Did anything I say make any sense?
If you think about it, that snarky quotation makes no sense. Who would want to learn to do something from someone that can't do it in the first place?I've always thought it was a snarky way of insulting teachers.
I'm sure it is, which is probably why I dislike it.
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Most people's expectations aren't calibrated.
On the other hand, there's another explanation for the level 10 mayor.
I've read the Calibrating your Expectations article many times. and yes, level 6 is when you start leaving the realms of realistic human capabilities.
But if I'm not going to be constraining the players to that, I'm also not going to constrain the NPCs to that.
My army of Orcs? they aren't level 1s. A professional Orc army will have many level 5 and 6 soldiers. War Heroes will often be level 10 or higher, and they'll have done things like beaten a troll at fisticuffs, or be capable of feats chinese heroes in The Three Kingdoms are capable of.
I dont use the full 1-20 range generally speaking, we usually don't pass 14-15. But if the players can hit those ranges, so can the NPCs. The Captain of the Guard, the kindof scary one? He's Bruce Willis' character in RED, but medieval.
That Bartender might have a level or two in bard, and maybe a level or two in rogue.
Are these people who meet real-world expectations? No, EVERYONE is better than their real-world counterparts.
If I'm constraining NPCs to 'calibrating your expectations' IE populating the world with regular people instead of super-people, then the players will be informed that we're playing E6. Maybe even E5.
I need a world I can put my players in. Sure, they may be competent, but if they are as godly powerful as some would have them, then what reason do they have to not just take what they want from the NPCs.
And also: How can I make a campaign that isnt focused on monsters?
Oh yeah, I like to run Urban D&D Games, so fighting other characters with classes is more common than fighting Monsters from the Bestiary. And I dont feel like just watching them slaughter city after city. lol.
So you do need to calibrate your expectations, to understand what sorts of things a level 5 character can do, but that doesn't mean that the people in your setting need to be constrained by the realistic limits of real life. Why should it?
You can Calibrate your world, as well. I Calibrate the world to match the players characters.
>As usual, the contents of this post are the products of IMNSHO.
If you expect your NPCs to be between levels 1-5, keep in mind what that means, and keep in mind how people will react to the supernatural. And to Monsters. And to your Level 8 PC.
In My world not everyone will shit themself if the typical MM Minotaur walks into town. The Captain of the guard can probably take him in a one on one.
Maybe a Minotaur runs the bar. He's tough, but no tougher than a soldier with a couple years under his belt.
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dragons can fly
Ahem. This part is quite possible. Even with the small-ish wingspans.
You see. Most life on earth, is mostly carbon and water. Dragons are mostly Methane Gas. So that Huge Creature likely weighs like 150 lbs. And therefore, the wings can lift it.
The Methane Gas also explains where the fire comes from, and the smell of brimstone...
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But if the players can hit those ranges, so can the NPCs. The Captain of the Guard, the kindof scary one? He's Bruce Willis' character in RED, but medieval.
I did this, and it worked really well. When the PCs rolled into the town around which the campaign was based at first level, they got shanghaied into a job by the Captain of the Guard, who wasn't taking any of their crap and shut them down fast when they tried to use their little tricks on her. Trying to charm a 10th-level fighter with Spellbreaker is unwise, especially when she's now AoO'd you to the ground (pulled and nonlethal, of course) and is giving you noogies.
A year and a half later in realtime, and many levels later, they were still intimidated by that character, despite being powerful enough by then to actually challenge her. In fact, it was when one of the PCs challenged her to a friendly duel and managed to land a couple of hits on her that they knew they'd really made it as respected warriors. She still won, but she had enough of a local reputation that even landing the hits got the character bought drinks by the entire guard corps. :D
And she could exist without breaking the sense of the setting. She was a 10th-level fighter because she'd been a mercenary captain before she settled down and made an arrangement with the town's lord. The town guard were her Leadership followers. Her second was her cohort. She was powerful enough to be a reasonable threat to wandering adventurers, and she could train the guard corps properly because of her experience. She didn't deal with these external threats herself because (a) she considered herself semi-retired and had no intention of getting killed, and (b) if she left town, she figured the place would fall apart without her.
A year and a half later, she'd gained a level or two due to background action happening in the setting, but the PCs had gained a hell of a lot more ground. Ultimately, she was a really good barometer for PC-badassery and she never overshadowed the work the PCs did themselves. So I don't have a problem with using high-level NPCs intelligently and effectively. It worked for me.
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I think Ashiel's example is interesting, but consider what a challenge represents. You get exp for triggering a trap. You get exp for beating an opponent where there is a real risk.
To become 2nd level a commoner must face, 15 CR1/3, 5 CR1 or 4 CR2 Challenges.
What might that represent? A boar is CR2. You wouldn't be hunting it alone, but say you went out hunting 1 time a week with 10 people. You'd make 2nd level in a year.
If you are a city guard and "defeat" 1 drunk a night at CR1/3 with your 3 other guardsmen. You make level 2 in 2 months, probably more as you wouldn't work every day, but even at 1 per week thats only just over a year.
Those are "hard" experience awards, ie not off the cuff or allotted exps. You may consider defeating someone in a competition of wits worthy of a similar exp award. The guy hammering out horse shoes however isn't going to get much, unless he's the drunk the guards are arresting and sometimes gets the better of the other commoner before the guard arrive...
Most challenges that "ordinary" folk face don't get very hard however, so to reach higher levels it becomes more difficult.
To become 5th level a commoner must face, 112 CR1/3, 38 CR1 or 25 CR2 Challenges. To become 10th level a commoner must face, 778 CR1/3, 263 CR1 or 175 CR2 Challenges.
For 5th level, the guard and his 3 fellow guardsmen need to defeat about 450 drunks of CR1/3. At 1 per week, thats 9 years, so by no means impossible.
For 5th level the boar hunter will have been on over 250 successfull hunts. If he could only hunt for 6 months of the year, 1 time per week, that would take about 10 years in a party of 10. Again by no means impossible.
This assumes however that you want to apply the game mechanics of PC's to the world as a whole. Most NPC's fill a role in an adventure, and will be statted out appropriately...
However when you assume NPC's are not optimised for combat, should normally be NPC classes, have a diminished stat array and have poor saves (a level 5 warrior still only has a +1 will save...) even a relatively high levels, PC's far outshine NPC's.
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Ahem. This part is quite possible. Even with the small-ish wingspans.
You see. Most life on earth, is mostly carbon and water. Dragons are mostly Methane Gas. So that Huge Creature likely weighs like 150 lbs. And therefore, the wings can lift it.
The Methane Gas also explains where the fire comes from, and the smell of brimstone...
This sounds vaguely familiar.
In college, several friends and I postulated that the myths about dragons originated with a few dinosaurs that had survived. Imagine some primitive humans using spears and torches to attack, say, a triceretops. The things eat plants, and I could see one being scared and belching up a belly full of methane when someone sticks a torch in it's face.
BOOM instant wash of flame over the attackers. Would look exactly like it had belched and breathed fire.
Also, it's worth noting that perhaps I wasn't clear. I never suggested that the there shouldn't be any high level NPCs, but that there should have been BETTER NPCs. I linked to the Alexandrian not because I was saying that everyone in the world should be 5th level and under, but to do exactly what it was meant to do - calibrate expectations.
I asked why is there so much wasted space. I mean, as others have pointed out, you could have easily written up a generic statblock such as "Professional" which could have encompassed most things. I mean, the same statistics for your average shopkeeper are likely ideal for your average bartender, if you just swap the type of Profession skill around. The NPC gallary already has notes like this, so that's not a problem.
My question was why did they waste space on this, when they could have presented more characters that made sense. I mean, your typical beggar by the gallery is commoner 1 / rogue 1, which isn't even much different than expert 1 / rogue 1 used for the prostitute.
They could have given a handful of low level NPCs that were appropriate, and then filled the rest of the stuff with adventuring material. Maybe built some exotic multiclass characters that would have been a bit of a hassle for a newbie to stat out but otherwise works great, who might fit a particular role exceptionally well.
I just think it gives the wrong impressions to those who really need a DM's Guide in the first place - those who aren't familiar with the game and haven't read the 3.x DMGs. The Alexandrian article points out that so many people when they begin with the system don't even understand the concept of levels or just how powerful something is (such as how silly it is to stat Aragorn out as a 20th level anything), only to see this confusion re-enforced by the NPC gallery.
I mean, a new GM who hasn't played long can quickly draw the following conclusions from the NPC gallery.
Etc, etc, etc. It's not that you can't use these stats for something else. I know you can. I mean, I'm a very strong supporter in the idea that most names and such are just semantics, and have often noted that it is the mechanics that matter, because it is the mechanics that facilitate the story. You could stat a "Samurai" out using the Barbarian class mechanically, despite them being two different archtypes. That's cool. But these NPCs just bug the hell out of me, probably because to actually get real use out of them in a believable way, you have to use them for something besides what they are presented as.
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On the topic of NPCs leveling and such, there's a large reason I support Ravingdork's interpretation of levels where you get progressively rarer as your levels rise. That reason is survival and risk versus reward.
For example, your average drunk is probably not armed with anything of value, so even if your average drunk was a 1st level warrior (and not an unruly commoner or expert) he still has a -1 CR for lacking appropriate gear (and chairs aren't appropriate gear), so your typical drunk is probably CR 1/4 or 100 XP. Then as noted, you probably have 2-4 guards coming to breakup any hostilities. Just by showing up, most civilized folks will probably calm down. If they have to detain the drunk, they might have earned maybe 25-50 XP. This is also assuming you don't drop the CR by another -1 because the drunk is inebriated due to being sickened (-2 to most everything) by his intoxicated state, which would give the guards a situational advantage, dropping his CR by another step. Now the drunk is worth 65 XP total, before dividing the XP.
So if 2 guards apprehended 1 unruly drunk per night, and each of those unruly drunks decided to fight it out instead of just submitting without challenge, they would each earn 32 XP per night. It would take them 62 and a half days before either of them leveled to 2nd level (based on the standard medium XP track) taking on drunks. And twice as long if it's a patrol of 4 guards. And this assumes they're living somewhere where they have to apprehend an angry combative drunk every single night, which is probably unlikely, as the moment guys with swords and armor show up to quell a fight, most people are going to stand down and submit.
As for the commoners, if all they do is hunt wild boar, then I imagine they might indeed be made out of a rougher stock than most. They're at least qualifying as an entirely hunter-gatherer people, but there is less dangerous game to be had as well. Seeing as a commoner isn't set up to do such a thing in either skills or statistics, most commoners are probably farming or practicing a trade and then buying their food. Those hunting folks are probably experts, with ranks in Survival. A 1st level Expert can take 10 and feed himself and 2 people with a survival check, without even bothering to hunt a boar.
Even then, hunting boar is really dangerous. You would need a team of several such hunter-gatherers to go out and hunt them, and you'd need to do it from a terrain advantage point, or else someone is likely going to be killed by your typical CR 2 boar (they have a +4 to hit, +6 on a charge, and deal 1d8+4 damage per hit), which again means the XP is going to be split between everyone participating. The more people you have hunting, the safer it is, but the slower anyone is going to level. Even then accidents happen...
Speaking of accidents, that's another big thing. The more times you are constantly putting yourself in danger, the more likely you won't live to see that next level. For example, even against the drunk, he could get a lucky swing in and kill a local guard with a barstool (improvised club). Since it would take about 2 months to get to 2nd level, there's a good chance that the drunk scores a natural 20 on some night and clobbers the guard with a barstool. Bam, 1d6 + Str * 1.5. Could even land a critical hit, though it's unlikely, but the guard could end up falling into negatives. If there are no healers within immediate reach, he may die. If he doesn't die, without the expense of a magical healer, he's probably down for a few days recovering from the concussion he got from that stool, which slows down his XP gains, as he's not apprehending some insane drunk on those days.
The faster you would gain XP, the more hazardous it tends to be. Most experts have 4-5 HP. A wild boar generally hits at +4, which means unless the person is also clad in some decent armor, you're taking 1d8+4 damage at a pretty high chance. One hit and you're down, and possibly dead if you can't get some good first aid immediately.
As I pointed out with the soldier example, if you have 50 soldiers vs 50 soldiers, there's probably a lot of casualties on both sides, and the survivors likely did so either by luck or through better teamwork and strategy. But they would need to go through about 10-22 (depending on XP progression) of such encounters before they hit 2nd level, which means by the time you have a 2nd level soldier, more than likely only a small handful of the original 50 remain. Now you have a 2nd level combat veteran. Humorously, his skill and experience mean that he is probably more likely to survive to 3rd level given the usual odds, but it will take him much longer to hit 3rd level because he needs more experience to grow that much.
Even higher level adventurers are progressively rarer because most of them die in the process. The life of an adventurer is generally a short one, which is why in most settings adventurers adventure for a while, and then retire early once they've made their fortune. Usually with a few stories about their friend who didn't make it home.
Or they could have taken an arrow to the knee. Whatever works. :P
City State of the Invincible Overlord/The Wilderlands of High Adventure has always been similar, with beggars and such being able to kick the butts of first level adventurers. It seems weird at first, but upon running it I found it made for a much more exciting game. Your first level adventurers are bungling hicks come to the big city to make a name for themselves, and until they have some experience under their belt they are woefully outclassed by everything they meet, and are taken advantage of by everyone they meet.
It might make a little more sense if you imagine an old west/frontier setting instead of a typical high fantasy setting. In old west movies, your cavalry soldiers were conscripts from "back east", which was synonymous in most movies with "lame". They were only effective en masse, and mostly they hid out in their forts. The bandits held the towns in terror, with everyone, including the sherriff, afraid of standing up to them. The barmaid was handy during a barfight smashing people over the head with improvised weapons. And the bandits ultimately got defeated by the local drunk, who decided to get sober for once in his life, who was often also the local homeless guy.
In the above scenario, the NPC galleries work pretty well. The bandits are more terrifying than the ineffectual soldiers. The local drunkard is the most bad@ss of the bunch, and if the NPC's can sober him up recruit him to their cause, they have a real chance of standing up against the bandits. The barmaid, too, will provide help when she can do it without drawing attention to herself. All we're missing from the NPC gallery is the prostitute with a heart of gold. The best movie example, oddly enough, is Blazing Saddles, which plays upon all the cliches in the same movie.
At what level should you reasonably be able to actively hunt grizzly bears with a knife? I don't mean that you have a chance to win. I mean that you seek it out with regular success and you show off your success with bear bacon?
In a world filled with dangerous things, I don't see why those who are supposed to be combatants can't gain some levels with the ones who have survived more battles being rarer but also having some higher levels.
Some things are hard to represent in a level-based system that tries to incorporate skills that scale. The system is really set up for PCs but the NPCs need to have a way to fit the same mold.
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This sounds vaguely familiar.Interesting. Never heard of it.
It is the single reason for my love of fantasy.
Actually, I also wanted to discuss the purpose of community for most humanoids in D&D/Pathfinder. Everyone knows the world is pretty dangerous in your typical fantasy setting. So how do people survive in your typical fantasy world? Numbers.
Think about it. Given enough numbers, some local guards can destroy an iron golem in a round flat. Just takes a flask of acid per guard. How about a chimera getting ornery and stealing your cattle? People drive it away by raining ranged-death down on it in the form of slingshots, arrows, crossbow bolts, alchemical goods, and rocks if need be.
You don't have to be high level to survive in a fantasy world in most cases because of strength in numbers. That's why you have walled villages, communities, and so forth. It's the places outside of those community hubs. The darkness between those points of light which is where you usually have to worry about the dangers of the world.
There are those who continue to survive and actively deal with those problems. Those are the ones who are gaining levels.
I want to mention a few things about the Alexandrian Article that need to be brought up. It is meant to show you what the numbers actually mean. He says this clearly when he says
Providing a useful resource for those who want a deeper understanding of what the numbers really mean. If a character has a skill bonus of +15, how talented are they? If they have a Strength of 14 how strong are they? And so forth.
That's the thesis. It's not to show that the world consists of level 5 and below characters. It's to show that you don't need a bunch of level 20s to simulate what you are trying to achieve. The system can handle that better if you know what the numbers mean.
He also gives Einstein an 18 Intelligence. Drop the name "Einstein" and just make him a sage. Would all sages have an 18 Intelligence to start with in DnD? Heck, even in Pathfinder if they weren't Elite, they would most likely start with a 15 (13 +Racial bonus). That changes his values. That's not much, but if we stuck with DnD instead of going to Pathfinder the difference is greater. In DnD, his bonus would be +12 instead of +15. He is still brilliant but he isn't the same level of brilliance. The author skewed the argument by placing unrealistic values on the character's stats to make a point.
The same goes for the master crafter. Why is he as smart as Einstein? As an Expert, he could put ranks into several craft skills and knowledge skills. How is he not a super hero when at level 5, his skills look like this:
Str 10, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 19, Wis 10, Cha 10
Base Atk +3; CMB +3; CMD 13
Feats Skill Focus: Craft (Ships), Skill Focus: Craft (Weapons), Skill Focus: Knowledge (Arcana), Skill Focus: Knowledge (Local)
Skills Craft (Blacksmith) +10, Craft (Sculpture) +10, Craft (Ships) +13, Craft (Weapons) +13, Knowledge (Arcana) +15, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +12, Knowledge (Engineering) +12, Knowledge (History) +12, Knowledge (Local) +15, Knowledge (Nature) +12, Knowledge (Planes) +9, Knowledge (Religion) +9
And he still knows 4 additional languages on top of all that! Note that I didn't give him any gear or helpers, which would increase those numbers. I didn't give him any dump stats either. I used 10 point buy because that was the lowest available in Hero Lab. It allowed me to start as a human with an 18 Intelligence if I used the racial mod. I could do nothing else though. I didn't even make him an old man. That would give him 5 more skill points. If I lower Wisdom and Charisma just a little, that would give him 5 more points and another language! How is he not a super hero at level 5?
A crafter doesn't just make things. A master would be able to create things faster as well. That's where the higher numbers come into play.
The problem is that you have looked at maximum instead of the overall character. Not even Einstein was an expert in 10 fields of study.
Here is another thing that the author mentions that is ignored or waved away by readers:
Does this mean you should never throw a 10th level blacksmith into your campaign? Nope. D&D is all about mythic fantasy, after all. But when you do decide to throw a 10th level blacksmith into the mix, consider the fact that this guy will be amazing. He will be producing things that no blacksmith in the real world has ever dreamed of making.
I bolded a very important part of that last paragraph. DnD/Pathfinder isn't supposed to be the real world. It's a fantasy world. It mimics some things but it isn't meant to mimic everything.
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Just as an aside, there was a thread that someone started for homebrew NPC's.
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/houseRules/nPCGallery
It never got much traffic, but in light of the interest generated by this thread as to how NPC's should look it might be worth reviewing or posting on...
As for hunting boar, it would be a dangerous business, but there are traps, hunting dogs, boar spears, missile weapons... Also it depends who the other 9 people you are hunting with are. Perhaps only one is an expert, the hunter and trapper, perhaps one is an aristocrate on a horse, perhaps level 3. It doesn't diminish the exp the commoner gets.
But we are back to the real world arguments. I see where you are comming from with the NPC's in the book.
Why would a burglar be a rogue level 2? Why not simply an expert. Especially when a King remains an Aristocrate for 16 levels?
Finally how do prestige classes fit in to the mix? They are much less prolific in Pathfinder, but in 3.5 most organisations had prestige classes you needed to be 6th level or higher to qualify for. This meant that most knightly orders etc were level 7 plus. This still applies to anyone who can legitamately call themselves an assassin... (level 6+) Although an expert with half the levels could probably do the job very well.
It may be something as simple as a breakdown in level vs CR. If you look at the stats, the foot soldier would clearly drop the barmaid in a fight. If you look at anything deeper than just the level/cr, then your answer is there..and there is not much that can be done about it, because it shows up with monsters as well. The levels of commoner or what have you are there simply to give the NPC the skills they would have at that job. A commoner or warrior or expert are not designed to be equal to a PC class of the same level..a 2nd level classed PC would have a decent chance of beating them both at once, despite being out "leveled".
As far as the begger example..I look at that as a useful NPC vs a faceless begger. I can seat of the pants a "common" begger..but this one may work for the local thieves guild for a few coins a week..maybe he was a failed thief himself. The fact he has a chance of springing up and shiving a PC in the back makes him at least useful. The fact that he has one level in commoner does little to make him "better" than anything but a 1st level PC, barely..
Just as an aside, there was a thread that someone started for homebrew NPC's.
It never got much traffic, but in light of the interest generated by this thread as to how NPC's should look it might be worth reviewing or posting on...
Completely forgot I was working on that a while back (got caught up with other projects).
The same goes for the master crafter. Why is he as smart as Einstein? As an Expert, he could put ranks into several craft skills and knowledge skills. How is he not a super hero when at level 5, his skills look like this:
Str 10, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 19, Wis 10, Cha 10
Base Atk +3; CMB +3; CMD 13
Feats Skill Focus: Craft (Ships), Skill Focus: Craft (Weapons), Skill Focus: Knowledge (Arcana), Skill Focus: Knowledge (Local)
Skills Craft (Blacksmith) +10, Craft (Sculpture) +10, Craft (Ships) +13, Craft (Weapons) +13, Knowledge...
Well I think he was suggesting that Einstein was a bit rarer than most, and probably was on the high end of the 4d6 or even 3d6 methods. All that aside, he was showing that even if Einstein happened to be the most brilliant mind in human history, he was probably no more than 5th level. He definitely wasn't 20th level, and I have my doubts that even 5th level was needed to stat him up. A good Intelligence, class skill, a rank or two, skill focus, taking 20, etc. You could hit a DC 30 (impossible) at first level with this kind of overspecialization, while being pretty poor at most other things.
See, humans in D&D get bonus languages due to high Intelligence. Our real world counterparts probably don't, unless they are in an area where multiple languages are frequently spoken. Einstein spoke both English and German, but in D&D terms probably ran out of bonus languages appropriate to this reality. Or maybe he only had a 14 Intelligence and did it at 2nd level, since you can still hit DC 30 without an 18 Int (+2 Int, +5 skill, +3 skill focus, take 20 = 30).
What would we consider a master craftsman? Someone who could make Masterwork items regularly might be a good start. To do so, we need to have a crafter who can hit DC 20 regularly. We can do that with a commoner at 1st level. If you wanted to make him the most badass armsmith (wider array of proficiency that blacksmithing), we might make him an Expert instead.
Master Armsmith, CR 1/3 (135 XP)
Female Human Expert 1
Init +0, Senses Perception +0
======================================
AC 10, touch 10, flat-fooed 10
Hp 4 (1d8)
Fort +0, Ref +0, Will +2
======================================
Melee fire poker (club) +1 (1d6 plus 1d3 fire)
Ranged fire poker (club) +1 (1d6 plus 1d3 fire)
======================================
Str 12, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 9
Base Atk +0, CMB +1, CMD 11
Feats - Skill Focus (Weaponsmith), Skill Focus (Armorsmith)
Skills - Appraise +5, Craft (Blacksmithing) +7, Craft (Weaponsmith) +10, Craft (Armorsmithing) +10, Craft (Fletching) +5, Craft (Leatherworking) +5, Diplomacy +3, Sense Motive +4
Gear - Mwk tools (blacksmithing), mwk tools (weaponsmithing), mwk tools (armorsmithing), mwk tools (fletching), mwk tools (leatherworking)
Boon Will craft a single masterwork item for the cost of the materials.
Voila. A master armsmith. She can take 10 any day of the week and craft masterwork weapons and masterwork armor, and has a professional level of excellence in a few other things, as well as being a competent appraiser and being good at negotiating. She truly is an impressive individual when compared to your typical horseshoe making village blacksmith, who is probably a commoner, and might have Endurance instead of Skill Focus, given his rural background or some such. Why is she so good at it? Well she got an early start. She was the apprentice to her father, Jorlan "Thunderhammer" Yarlg (who is now a 2nd level commoner/expert) most of her life, and was well learned. By the time she came of age as an adult, she has excelled far beyond what most country smiths could achieve having to split their attention between their study and other duties.
Now in a D&D setting, a grand master might indeed be a 10th level legendary armsmith, who lives atop the highest mountain on the hill, and will only speak to those who bring him three troll fangs, a grizzly bear pelt, and three pounds of tobacco; and even then only if the owl that watched you approach hoots three times when you arrive. Then, and only then, will he listen to your request. Once per decade, he takes on an apprentice to live in solitude with him, and teaches them everything, from how to collect the raw ore, to how to get the color of the metal just perfect, to the very moment that you apply the careful blend of powdered carbon, mithral, and quartz crystals into the steel to produce a blade that seems to have magical qualities. He forges bits of his own spirit into his weapons, and some are reported to have magical properties such as eternally chilly blades or brands that never cool after quenching.
This guy? That mythical guy? Freakin' 10th level Adept (or maybe a 10th level expert with the Master Craftsman feat) who has taken the Craft Magical Arms & Armor feat. He is not some dirt-farmer turned blacksmith. He is extraordinary, ultra-powerful, and a master of the art beyond mortal comprehension. Masterwork full plate? Pshaw, it is amaturish compared to his technique! Which was the last village that you past that the blacksmith could forge weapons made of the coldest steel that would erupt into flames, or a sword that could listen, learn, or even speak!? Not some backwater village, that's for sure!
She can't regularly make masterwork materials she is not a master anything.
She can't regularly make masterwork materials she is not a master anything.
Create Masterwork Items: You can make a masterwork item: a weapon, suit of armor, shield, or tool that conveys a bonus on its use through its exceptional craftsmanship. To create a masterwork item, you create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item. The masterwork component has its own price (300 gp for a weapon or 150 gp for a suit of armor or a shield, see Equipment for the price of other masterwork tools) and a Craft DC of 20. Once both the standard component and the masterwork component are completed, the masterwork item is finished. The cost you pay for the masterwork component is one-third of the given amount, just as it is for the cost in raw materials.
She can take 10 and craft masterwork weapons and armor. And she can make any weapon or armor she pleases, as full plate is DC 19, and exotic weapons are DC 20. The only outside source that she uses to improve her ability is her masterwork tools (+2 circumstance bonus), which she herself can craft (knowing a little about actual blacksmithing, your own set of tools are usually the first thing you create), or could have purchased. She is definitely capable of producing masterwork quality products on demand as long as she's not denied her tools, and if you want to argue about tools, then it's just asinine.
"Oh yeah, well, he's not so great 'cause he has to use nice tools. What a failure carpenter you are, using that rotating saw instead of a hand saw!" <- is really stupid.
Ashiel, just because something can be done by people up to level 5, does not mean that anyone beyond that is automatically a super hero. Oh, and you can't Take 20 on Knowledge checks. It's a single check so no Taking 20. You can Take 10. Craft checks too. If you are good enough that you can Take 20 (and it is possible), you are better off just Taking 10 anyway.
You didn't really address why a DnD/Pathfinder non-super hero is an expert in 10 skills (possibly 12 if he takes 2 traits). You only assumed that these masters can do a single task. Einstein could not only be a master with Physics but also with Basketweaving, Shipbuilding, Engineering, The Planes, Cobbling, Sculpting, Stone Masonry, Weapon Smithing, and know 10 languages (or more)! Quantity and Quality.
The simple fact is that d20 can only approximate some aspects of the world but when you start to look at other things, it fails. Level based systems are good for some things and not for others. Strangely enough, this is also covered in the article, but is often overlooked by readers.
As for Paizo's stance (the one that matter the most on what NPCs should look like in their own games) (GMG):
The following table presents more than 80 NPCs common to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The majority are not meant to be challenges in direct combat against groups of seasoned adventurers, but rather represent generic statistics to serve in any of a party's myriad less adventurous interactions. Should the GM need to know what the Appraise skill is of an average shopkeep or just how capable a sailor actually is at the wheel of a ship, these statistics offer a baseline for a wide variety of everyday characters. That's not to say that a host of dangerous encounters can't arise from these characters. Just as a group of monster-fighting gladiators or military troops prove lethal, so too could a torch-bearing mob of farmers and craftsmen turn deadly. Many of these NPCs also hold the potential to take on far greater roles in a campaign, as there's nothing stopping a GM from making a lethal bounty hunter or a notorious pirate captain the main villain of an entire series of adventures. Alternatively, this chapter might also serve as a shopping list of NPCs characters might employ as hirelings, henchmen, even temporary PCs should they find themselves in a pinch. Ultimately, these characters provide GMs with increased tools and options, remove the need for ad hoc statistics generation and many other game interruptions, and free GMs to focus their time and creativity on the most exciting parts of their games: their own adventures.
You can't just ignore what they wrote and claim it's wrong. It's their game and their standards. Now for your own game, you can do what you want (I know I do). But that doesn't mean that your opinion overrides the developers'.
Also, Paizo says this about the NPCs (GMG):
This chapter provides statistics for all manner of travelers and shopkeeps, guardsmen and drunkards, princesses and high priests, and dozens of other fantasy world residents. Yet, absent are characters such as explorers, mountain climbers, armada admirals, dragon riders, and countless other NPCs a party might encounter in the course of their adventures. The reasons for this are twofold: First, no list of characters could hope to satisfy all the occupants of every GM's imagination, and thus only a sampling of those that appear most often in Pathfinder RPG adventures appear here.
Again, it looks like Paizo has said that these are the most common NPCs found in their adventures.
Run things your way but don't assume that your way is the default. Some of us do just fine running things similar to how the developers run things.
While I actually enjoy the Alexandrian article quite a bit - I like reading about how people interpret the rules of the games to mesh with certain aspects of reality, it's neat - The problem I'm seeing in Ashiel's initial post is that the assumption is that the designers of the game subscribe to the same conceptual power scale described in the article themselves. While the Article presents a workable paradigm, it is not (if most books are anything to go by) the one most designers use to create their worlds. Calibrating your Expectations presents an interesting and consistent take on the rules... But at the end of the day, that take is not necessarily at all relevant to how Pathfinder's various supplements are designed, and so measuring the NPC Gallery by that yardstick is not terribly fair.
"Oh yeah, well, he's not so great 'cause he has to use nice tools. What a failure carpenter you are, using that rotating saw instead of a hand saw!" <- is really stupid.
(This is all tongue-in-cheek)
Here's some alternate ways to cut wood:
url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Toa3R92UXRM]Mythbusters[/url]
Alternate ways to drive nails:
Slingshot
A real man doesn't need to resort to silly tools like "hammers and saws!" This is Pathfinder where he have Gunslingers and Monks!
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"Oh yeah, well, he's not so great 'cause he has to use nice tools. What a failure carpenter you are, using that rotating saw instead of a hand saw!" <- is really stupid.(This is all tongue-in-cheek)
Here's some alternate ways to cut wood:
url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Toa3R92UXRM]Mythbusters[/url]
Alternate ways to drive nails:
SlingshotA real man doesn't need to resort to silly tools like "hammers and saws!" This is Pathfinder where he have Gunslingers and Monks!
I do believe this is where AM BARBARIAN should show up and lecture us all about cutting wood by biting it and driving all nails with his lance.
You didn't really address why a DnD/Pathfinder non-super hero is an expert in 10 skills (possibly 12 if he takes 2 traits). You only assumed that these masters can do a single task. Einstein could not only be a master with Physics but also with Basketweaving, Shipbuilding, Engineering, The Planes, Cobbling, Sculpting, Stone Masonry, Weapon Smithing, and know 10 languages (or more)! Quantity and Quality.
And yet if you're statting him up as a GM, you just shrug, accept that it is a class-based system, and throw his skill points into to other things that you didn't choose to be class skills. For example, Einstein was a janitor for a while, so maybe you picked only Craft and Knowledge skills to be his class skills, but didn't put ranks into those skills, so he has a few 1 ranks scattered about in random places giving him a +1 to those things, or even a +0, in cases where he had a penalty (some accounts of Einstein suggest he may have a low Wisdom).
The simple fact is that d20 can only approximate some aspects of the world but when you start to look at other things, it fails. Level based systems are good for some things and not for others. Strangely enough, this is also covered in the article, but is often overlooked by readers.
Which has little to do with overall capability.
Again, it looks like Paizo has said that these are the most common NPCs found in their adventures.
I'd accept this if it wasn't blatantly and demonstratively false. Popping open my copy of Rise of the Runelords #1, the enemies are all 1st level. Every NPC it mentions is only 1st level, with the exception of a 7th level commoner who is described to be inordinately large, meaty, and skilled at fistfights, and a ranger/monk who is special enough to warrant his own stat-block and portrait.
Meanwhile, in Kingmaker, I see CR 1/3 warrior 1 bandits, a CR 1/2 ranger 1, a shopkeeper with no levels given, a bunch of CR 1/3 warrior 1 guards led by a fighter 3, etc, etc, etc.
I can repeat this observation with CotCT, where the guards are 1st level warriors, and only exceptional individuals like the old bastard, the talented swordsman, and so forth are of exceptional ability.
What you mean in the first part of an AP when things are low level then the enemies are also low level? That for a party of that level the descriptions are accurate for the time?
I was looking for that linked thread but could not find it.
What you mean in the first part of an AP when things are low level then the enemies are also low level? That for a party of that level the descriptions are accurate for the time?
Are you suggesting that all the NPCs in the world scale to the level of the PCs? As in the typical bartender is actually a 1st or 2nd level commoner up and until the PCs gain levels, eventually giving rise to the expert 4 / warrior 1 "typical barkeeper" that is in the GMG?
If all the NPCs scale up, what is the point of having the PCs level at all? I mean, in those adventures I cited, the PCs are interacting with normal people. In later adventures, the normal people are mostly glossed over or just don't matter much except for plot related purposes.
What you are suggesting is a Skyrim style leveling system where your enemies always scale to match you. If you're 1st level, you meet 1st level bandits, and if you're level 50 then it seems you can't help but be tripping over Bandit Chiefs, and even more powerful bandits, wielding demonic arrows against you with enchanted bows because you wandered into the abandoned mine where they were hiding out from the local authorities...
Um, I don't think that is how it's expected to work. But if it does work like you seem to be suggesting, I guess that if your party of PCs meets the 7th level burly fistfighting meatwagon of a commoner again at 5th level, he must assuredly by this point by a 12th level burly bear-riding commoner and his two daughters who are 5th level commoners / 1st level rogues, because of the change in the PC's level and the overall level of the adventure Well...that's just silly.
Not at all -- I'm that for the level they were at the time the guy was exactly what he was suggested as.
Of course once the players are around level 7 he's going to seem much less to their new perspective than he did when they were level 1.
For the time and at the level the party was during that part of the game the description was accurate.
Also the game system itself has changed between RotRL and CoT -- after all it went from OGL 3.5 to Pathfinder. Similar but different beasts and the APs themselves have evolved over that time too.
Besides I don't see how having seen these things in the AP's somehow makes it false that what was presented in the GMG is the common NPCs of the game -- after all what you have shown so far matches up with much of what is in the GMG.
I don't see how you can claim its 'false' when what you are presenting lines up well with what they have given as common.
I am thinking of running military units this way in my campaigns. I plan on stating up military units this way if I have time. green soldiers with no experience units are level one. If they have expirence and training the soldiers will level up if they are a veteran unit. Espically seasoned soldiers may be level 3. If I was making a unit of cavaliers for last wall I would probably include a standard bearer as one so tehy get the bonus on charge attacks. One of npcs guards the gates is only level one but is a half elf with a really high perception score. If you don't like the given npcs stop complaining and start building your own and have fun with your group.