What stops them from going extinct?

[Lucy_Valentine]

Sissyl wrote:

* In general, advancing in levels is the best thing you can do WHATEVER your goal is, if you want to reach there.

Thus, there would likely be MORE very high level characters than upper-mid-level ones.

What if becoming powerful and famous is a problem? You get good, and then you get famous, and then people seek you out in order to kill you because you're worth a lot of XP and you've got good loot? "Seeking out XP and loot" is pretty much what adventurers do, so... there's a problem there.

Without monsters, there would be really few high level people. Because to get to high level you have to seek out other dangerous people and murder them. Kind of like Highlander. Whoever wins, there are fewer Highlanders afterwards.

This in turn gives us a reason for all those wizards/deities to be creating monsters. Monsters are an essential component of civilisation. Without them, the Highlanders just murder entire towns for the XP. It's not (just) the chaotic evil monster-themed deities making monsters (though they probably do for lols). The lawful civilisation-loving ones do it too, in order to keep everything going.

[Loren Pechtel]

GM Rednal wrote:

I like the way Frog God Games' Borderland Provinces handled things. Areas around settlements are generally "low risk" areas - which have weaker encounters - because they're regularly patrolled and even fairly tough low-level monsters are in for a world of hurt against a prepared group of soldiers. The further you get from civilized areas, the nastier things become. The random encounter tables account for Low, Medium, High, and Extreme risk regions, and overall, it works out rather well.

While I haven't seen that book that's how I envision things. The midrange stuff you're talking about gets hunted and killed if it gets too close to civilization but there is enough wild lands that exterminating a pest isn't practical.

The high level stuff is generally intelligent enough to know not to draw the ire of civilized lands unless it's sure it can dominate them.

[UnArcaneElection]

thejeff wrote:

Eltacolibre wrote:

Pretty much take the gaming aspect out and there are too many risky factors when you go adventuring. The random encounter tables should usually be good enough example on how quickly hunting low cr monsters can become a nightmare in the wrong circumstances.

Or like stated above...need conflict all the time and sometimes...it just doesn't happen.

It takes an awful lot of goblins and wolves to get to 15th level.

Could be worse -- you could have to level up by hunting boars for 2 XP apiece for 21 hours each day.