Demographics - percentages of NPCs with PC classes

[Weirdo]

I was fiddling with a settlement generation system based on the one in the 3.5 DMG.

Method:

1) Roll for the highest-level NPC of each class, applying the settlement size modifier to the roll

2) Generate lower-level NPCs based on the principle NPCs(level) = 2*NPCs(level+2)

3) The remaining population is then distributed among 1st level NPC classes, with most being commoners.

I noticed two things:

1) The percentage of individuals of PC classes drops off sharply as settlement size increases.

2) The percentages of individuals of PC classes becomes more similar, even if the random generation of these classes is weighted to favour certain classes.

For example, using my personal numbers about 1.5% of the population were fighters and .26% were cavaliers in a settlement of 130 people (about 7 fighters to the cavalier), while .11% were fighters and .04% were cavaliers in a settlement of 37,500 (2.75 fighters to the cavalier).

One explanation/rationalization I can see for these observations is that:

1) People in a smaller settlement are exposed to more external dangers and are thus more likely to develop special skills in the form of PC class levels.

2) People in larger settlements have access to a wider variety of specialized training and thus are more able to receive training in a less common discipline.

Does this make sense, or does the system need fixing? Any other comments on this situation or on demographics in general would be welcome.

[Halfling Barbarian]

Don't forget that there is going to be a greater variation in pc class levels in the larger community as well, with much of the lowest ranking 'soldiers' only ever gaining NPC class levels since that amount of training would simply be more efficient. It is an argument in quality vs. quantity and opportunity vs. resources on hand.

[Weirdo]

I think I can see that. What you're saying is that in a larger city, you'd need to be more exceptionally talented in order to draw attention and get special training? So while a strong (Str 14) lad or lass in a small settlement of 130 might be taken under the sheriff's wing and trained as a fighter, in a settlement of 10,000 that same youth would probably just be funneled through the militia as a warrior, with only the highly exceptional (Str 16+) militia members warranting elite training?

[Mattrex]

Also consider that in a small community of 100 people, you only need to have a single paladin--say, someone wintering during a pilgrimage or protecting an important local shrine--to have the "percentage of paladins" be 1%.

In a metropolis with 500,000 people, you'd need 5,000 paladins to achieve the same percentage; depending on the setting, there might not be 5,000 paladins on the entire continent.

It's easier to explain why there might be a couple members of any given PC class in a small community than to figure out how or why there are twenty thousand fighters in a single city.

[EWHM]

You're MUCH more likely to have 'seen the elephant' in some frontier hamlet than you are in the big city. But notice that the big cities draw in almost all the really high levels---excepting the druids and rangers who have a special rule on hamlets. Weirdo has a point too---in a small village you can't be anonymous---if you've got talent it's more likely to be wrung out of you.

[Weirdo]

EWHM wrote:

But notice that the big cities draw in almost all the really high levels---excepting the druids and rangers who have a special rule on hamlets.

Yeah, I figure that's partly because the people of real talent tend to eventually migrate to larger settlements in order to make their fortunes.

Mattrex wrote:

Also consider that in a small community of 100 people, you only need to have a single paladin--say, someone wintering during a pilgrimage or protecting an important local shrine--to have the "percentage of paladins" be 1%.

Not exactly. You'd need to have a single paladin in every community of 100 in order for the percentage of paladins in that type of community to be 1% - or else you need a community with 2 paladins for every town without.

Mattrex wrote:

It's easier to explain why there might be a couple members of any given PC class in a small community than to figure out how or why there are twenty thousand fighters in a single city.

Fighter College?

Your general point is well made, however.

[Mark Hoover]

What exactly is a "Fighter College" anyway? Wouldn't that just be a colliseum...or a rowdy bar? Actually, that's a good name for a tavern: "Hey, I'll meet you all for a drink later at the Fighter's College on Thieve's Way"

I just always wanted to know - in a settlement where perhapst the highest casting level is 6, meaning you've got a roughly 12th level wizard in a Large Town, how many OTHER wizards would there be?

In my homebrew I randomly generated a stat block for a large town that included an academic quality - a wizard's tower and attached library. I made the whole town center on this private university of arcane study. But that got me thinking; wouldn't there then be students of the school or at least folk who cater to said students' needs in the town? So would this settlement then need a glut of arcanists in varying levels from 1st to 12th?

If so, how would that also make sense with the Insular quality I also rolled up and the megadungeon I had in the nearby wooded bogs? If I was a 12th level wizard, in a town with lots of wizards, wouldn't I have either gone myself or put together an a-team of the arcane to burn out the aberrations from the ruins that started gathering there 10 years ago? Especially if I had nothing else to do with the town being out in the wilds, cut off by mountains and forest from the rest of civilization?

[Weirdo]

Mark Hoover wrote:

What exactly is a "Fighter College" anyway? Wouldn't that just be a colliseum...or a rowdy bar? Actually, that's a good name for a tavern: "Hey, I'll meet you all for a drink later at the Fighter's College on Thieve's Way"

I'd expect it would be a little like a modern military university. You get a lot of physical conditioning, lessons in tactics (Profession Soldier and other useful skills), and introduction to military hierarchy and discipline, probably with whatever qualifies as a basic education in your country starting with literacy. Members of the fighter class always struck me as officer types who would be placed in command of the warriors. They could definitely still be self-taught or learn the same skills through informal mentoring, but a militaristic society probably will have some mechanisms to provide advanced military training and it doesn't have to be "become a squire to a knight."

Mark Hoover wrote:

I just always wanted to know - in a settlement where perhapst the highest casting level is 6, meaning you've got a roughly 12th level wizard in a Large Town, how many OTHER wizards would there be?

In my homebrew I randomly generated a stat block for a large town that included an academic quality - a wizard's tower and attached library. I made the whole town center on this private university of arcane study. But that got me thinking; wouldn't there then be students of the school or at least folk who cater to said students' needs in the town? So would this settlement then need a glut of arcanists in varying levels from 1st to 12th?

By the 3.5 DMG method, you'd have one 12th level, two 10th level, four 8th level, eight 6th level, sixteen 4th level, and thirty-two 2nd level wizards, for a total of 63 wizards. So yes, a fair number of colleagues. Which makes sense if it's an arcane university.

Your numbers are a bit off for a large town, though - normally those would only have 5th level spellcasting, so one 9th level, two 7th level, four 5th level, eight 3rd level, and 16 1st level wizards (31 total). Which is plenty for a town of no more than 5,000 people.

Mark Hoover wrote:

If so, how would that also make sense with the Insular quality I also rolled up and the megadungeon I had in the nearby wooded bogs? If I was a 12th level wizard, in a town with lots of wizards, wouldn't I have either gone myself or put together an a-team of the arcane to burn out the aberrations from the ruins that started gathering there 10 years ago? Especially if I had nothing else to do with the town being out in the wilds, cut off by mountains and forest from the rest of civilization?

Depends on the nature of the megadungeon. The higher level wizards might not care that it's there and trust their magical fortifications to protect their home. They might be concerned with the running of the university and not want to leave the their responsibilities behind in order to kill random monsters. They might see the aberrations as an interesting phenomenon that they'd like to study rather than destroy, in which case they might hassle adventurers who try to interfere with the ecosystem. If you have a fair number of wizards they'll probably keep each other interested - academic pursuits can chew up a lot of time.

However, I'm tweaking the levels of my NPCs down (and thus lowering the level of spellcasting available) exactly because I think that the current numbers produce a few too many high-level NPCs. 11th level and up is supposed to be "legendary," but based on the spellcasting levels every small city of 6,000 people has at least one legendary wizard and one legendary cleric around. I want to be able to hand-pick the legendary NPCs in my world, not randomly or automatically place them down according to a levels chart.

[BobJoeJim]

One key point is that it's hard to know what percentage of the population in a community (or in the total population at large) "should" have PC levels, unless you know the mechanics of how someone "becomes" a PC.

The rules as written say that a level 1 human fighter will be between 16 and 21 years old. They do NOT say what he was when he was 15. Was he a level 1 warrior (or even commoner), who somehow got "better" by gaining new abilities and morphing into a fighter, without actually gaining any XP in the process? Or was he a "level 0 fighter" before-hand? If the latter, what is a level 0 character?

If the answers to those questions are that it matters how you're trained, then perhaps some of the explanations above make sense for explaining the higher PC percentages in smaller communities, but then again I would personally think that a strong young city lad being trained from a young age to be in the city militia would make one MORE likely to end up as a fighter than a strong young village lad who's more likely to become an expert (if he apprentices as a smith) or even just a commoner farmer who happens to be really good at lifting heavy bales of hay.

Perhaps the most reasonable option would be to say that the class you gain your first level in is more likely to be a PC class if you have "heroic" attributes, and more likely to be an NPC class if you have "normal" attributes. However this would lead to an expectation of an equal percentage of people having PC levels in all communities.

If you apprentice yourself to a wizard and have INT 18, you're likely to end up as a wizard. If you only have INT 12, it might leave you as an adept instead. Not necessarily guaranteed either way, at 18 maybe you have a 90% chance of getting the PC level and a 10% chance of NPC, while at 12 you're 20%/80% in favor of the NPC level. A table that lists your percentage chance of ending up as a PC/NPC based on your total attribute modifiers might be a really interesting way to house-rule more organic class mixes in a community.

[Alzrius]

Weirdo wrote:

I was fiddling with a settlement generation system based on the one in the 3.5 DMG.

** spoiler omitted **
I noticed two things:

1) The percentage of individuals of PC classes drops off sharply as settlement size increases.

I once did some similar math, albeit using only the eleven core classes, to try and determine the general spellcasting population in a given area (and from there, used another essay as a reference point to try and calculate the number of spells in an "average" campaign world).

It gets very number-crunch-intensive in the middle, but you can find it over here.

Fun fact: using these numbers, in an average campaign world 96.20% of the population can't cast spells, 2.85% can cast divine spells, and only 0.95% can cast arcane spells. Make of that what you will. ;)

[Mark Hoover]

Great heroes aren't born; they're made. I have to be honest - I've never bothered much with demographics.

You could have a village in my world where you have a coven of witches and they've amassed a horde of thieves and experts of varying levels or you could have a city full of low level rubes (commoners and aristocrats).

The PCs are made of sterner stuff, regardless of levels. When goblins invade the town, it's the PCs that fight them. When more of them infest an old dungeon outside the walls, is it the great 12th level wizard that's called on to obliterate them? No, it's the PCs...

[Kimera757]

Weirdo wrote:

I was fiddling with a settlement generation system based on the one in the 3.5 DMG.

I noticed two things:

1) The percentage of individuals of PC classes drops off sharply as settlement size increases.

2) The percentages of individuals of PC classes becomes more similar, even if the random generation of these classes is weighted to favour certain classes.

For example, using my personal numbers about 1.5% of the population were fighters and .26% were cavaliers in a settlement of 130 people (about 7 fighters to the cavalier), while .11% were fighters and .04% were cavaliers in a settlement of 37,500 (2.75 fighters to the cavalier).

One explanation/rationalization I can see for these observations is that:

1) People in a smaller settlement are exposed to more external dangers and are thus more likely to develop special skills in the form of PC class levels.

2) People in larger settlements have access to a wider variety of specialized training and thus are more able to receive training in a less common discipline.

Does this make sense, or does the system need fixing? Any other comments on this situation or on demographics in general would be welcome.

I think that does make sense, but you have some other modifiers to deal with.

1) Culture. Some cultures would gravitate toward some classes (including probably rare classes), while some would avoid certain classes. If we had fantasy counterpart cultures much like Earth, I suspect paladins would only be common in Europe-equivalent, and possibly Japan (if you see sohei as Japanese paladins). Rangers, or any class that's good at mounted archery, might be very common for the "Huns" but extremely rare for Western Europeans.

2) Race. Pretty much as culture, but even more so. Also note that some races are generally pretty bad at certain roles. (Dwarves make pretty bad rogues, and most dwarf rogues are probably locksmiths/trapsmiths/explorers rather than "typical" thieves. Dwarves who do heists might be fairly common, but dwarven pickpockets would be extremely rare.)

And sometimes lots of a race take a certain class, even if it's not that sensible. Nearly every drow female in D&D seems to be a cleric, even though some will have low Wisdom. (There must be at least one drow female out there with 8 Wisdom!) I think no version of D&D has more than 5% of the population having PC class levels (NPCs in 4e would be minions or "heroes", with the latter effectively being PC classes), but if 50% of the drow population have a PC class, you have something weird going on.

So I think you need to add modifiers, at least for rare classes, for cultures. More to the point, these modifiers should be scalable, as you can't always predict what demographics you might need ahead of time.

[Weirdo]

Kimera, I agree in general that different types of societies will need slightly different demographics. In fact I wrote two different methods for stats of relatively developed areas of a late-middle-ages country and monster-ridden frontiers. The latter has more PC classes in general, and the PC classes tend to favour the innate or self-taught classes over those with extensive training (for example, fewer wizards, lots of sorcerers).

However, you can add a lot of cultural and racial flavour with archetypes. An asian-based culture might not have as many cavaliers, but they will have samurai (a cavalier variant). There's a trapsmith archetype for your dwarven rogues. And combat styles are pretty flexible - fighters, cavaliers, paladins, druids, oracles, and monks can all be good at mounted archery in addition to rangers, with the right variants or feats. So while class is a good way to add cultural flavour, I think a lot of it can be taken care of other mechanics or by minor fudging to the demographics system, like rolling 2d4 instead of d6 for your highest-level drow cleric. (I'm not sure if that's you mean by scalable modifiers.)

Mark Hoover wrote:

Great heroes aren't born; they're made. I have to be honest - I've never bothered much with demographics.

You could have a village in my world where you have a coven of witches and they've amassed a horde of thieves and experts of varying levels or you could have a city full of low level rubes (commoners and aristocrats).

That works, but I like to have at least a rough system to let me know what to expect from a "typical" settlement of a particular size, and so I have something to work with if I need an unexpected settlement for the next session and don't want to say "they're all NPC classes, except for the 5th-level cleric you were looking for."

I don't really want or expect to generate "great heroes" randomly which is why I've tweaked the numbers to generate more low-to-mid level characters. But there should be at least a few people other than the PCs who had some talent that was polished by experience, and a general demographics system works well for defining how common these people are.

Alzrius wrote:

Fun fact: using these numbers, in an average campaign world 96.20% of the population can't cast spells, 2.85% can cast divine spells, and only 0.95% can cast arcane spells. Make of that what you will. ;)

The 3.5 DMG authors thought that wizards and sorcerers were cooler if they were rarer? Also there are more CRB divine casters than arcane (Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Adept vs Sorcerer, Wizard, Bard).

BobJoeJim wrote:

Perhaps the most reasonable option would be to say that the class you gain your first level in is more likely to be a PC class if you have "heroic" attributes, and more likely to be an NPC class if you have "normal" attributes. However this would lead to an expectation of an equal percentage of people having PC levels in all communities.

If you apprentice yourself to a wizard and have INT 18, you're likely to end up as a wizard. If you only have INT 12, it might leave you as an adept instead. Not necessarily guaranteed either way, at 18 maybe you have a 90% chance of getting the PC level and a 10% chance of NPC, while at 12 you're 20%/80% in favor of the NPC level. A table that lists your percentage chance of ending up as a PC/NPC based on your total attribute modifiers might be a really interesting way to house-rule more organic class mixes in a community.

While that would be a very realistic system, it would take a pretty complicated generation system to:

1) Roll ability scores for every NPC in a settlement
2) Assess the strength of those ability scores and determine PC vs NPC class
3) Randomly determine exact class based on ability scores
4) Determine level

[BobJoeJim]

Yes, when you find realism and simplicity to both be appealing, you encounter quite a few dilemmas like that. As a simulationist at heart, who is also extremely lazy, I know the conundrum well. It wouldn't necessarily be that hard to write a program to generate the above, though, for as large of a community as you want. I'll think about the coding, and see whether my laziness or my desire for realism wins out ;)

[EWHM]

Bob,
You can fudge this a bit---and I do---by making NPC members of PC classes built on more points on the average than members of NPC classes.

Also, I sometimes allow NPC class members to upgrade one or more of their NPC levels to the most closely analogous PC class level (this is especially true when they are to be taken over by a player, but sometimes just 'seeing the elephant' is enough).
So, a level-2 warrior who distinguishes himself in a war might find himself a level-2 fighter/level-1 warrior at the end of it, or perhaps even a level-3 fighter. Having that mechanic also helps with the question---where the devil do the members of pc classes come from---obviously they transition from a commoner/aristocrat/something around some age right?

[BobJoeJim]

EWHM wrote:

Bob,

You can fudge this a bit---and I do---by making NPC members of PC classes built on more points on the average than members of NPC classes.

Also, I sometimes allow NPC class members to upgrade one or more of their NPC levels to the most closely analogous PC class level (this is especially true when they are to be taken over by a player, but sometimes just 'seeing the elephant' is enough).
So, a level-2 warrior who distinguishes himself in a war might find himself a level-2 fighter/level-1 warrior at the end of it, or perhaps even a level-3 fighter. Having that mechanic also helps with the question---where the devil do the members of pc classes come from---obviously they transition from a commoner/aristocrat/something around some age right?

Is that obvious? You could just as easily ask "where do warriors come from?" A starting level 1 fighter has ZERO experience, and so does a level 1 warrior. The types of actions that would, by logic, allow a warrior to improve into a fighter, don't do so by RAW. They just turn him into a level 1 warrior with some XP, and eventually into a level 2 warrior. But what was he BEFORE he was a level 1 warrior with zero XP? He wasn't born with that class level was he? So that goes back to my question from before about the hypothetical "level zero". Is there such a thing?

If we aren't going to follow RAW, though, and I don't think we have to if we don't want to, especially with NPCs and background things that are not a part of gameplay, but rather a way to make the setting deeper and more realistic, then your mechanic is very nice.

[EWHM]

Bob---there's basically no RAW for what class people can choose. Simulationist-leaning GMs basically have to scrape something up that's 'good enough' to help the players suspend disbelief. Not infrequently also, the more architect-inclined players will ask me of a village they're passing through if they spot any significant 'local talent'---which is to say members of NPC classes who might be good enough to make it in a bigger league.
You can say that most people are born commoners, but it's a bit stickier than 1st/2nd edition that actually had zero-level npcs.

[Weirdo]

I think that's definitely a case in which we can fudge RAW. It's fun and makes sense for the cleric or druid to help a particularly wise adept to reach a deeper faith, or for the bard to take a charismatic young musician (expert) under their wing.

Recently found myself needing to stat up apprentices, and I'm using NPC classes with the expectation that they'll just switch to the level 1 PC class when they complete their training (generally no earlier than when they reach the minimum age to start as their class). Really young children too young for apprenticeships, or just entering the same, are commoners. People without talent or extensive training stay commoners or stop at an NPC class.

It's either that or invent 0-level rules for apprentices.

BobJoeJim wrote:

Yes, when you find realism and simplicity to both be appealing, you encounter quite a few dilemmas like that. As a simulationist at heart, who is also extremely lazy, I know the conundrum well. It wouldn't necessarily be that hard to write a program to generate the above, though, for as large of a community as you want. I'll think about the coding, and see whether my laziness or my desire for realism wins out ;)

Probably wouldn't be too hard, but given that I already spent quite a few hours writing a program to perform a slightly more complicated version of the 3.5 settlement generator, adding a demographic calculator function, tweaking the system to give better demographics, I don't feel like making a new one from scratch.

If you end up making one, I'd love to hear how it works.