I'm given to understand that there's a difference between being a member of an organization and having a certain organization's prestige class. The majority of a given organization will be made up of people too low level to have that prestige class; traits, feats, and archetypes can be used to signify their membership & affiliation.
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I've always felt a disconnect between NPC levels in Pathfinder as well. (A disconnect in game realism & breaking verisimilitude)
The design decision -- making 12th level the end-point for most high level NPCs -- was made so that Pathfinder didn't turn into FR, where every published NPC in the campaign setting's history, even the 1st level commoners, is probably at least 15th level. It's problematic in FR that one can't walk two blocks in any town or twenty miles in the wilderness without bumping into a 20th level character. Paizo didn't want that.
That aside, I think it's poor design to lose 8/20ths of your playable mechanics in the fear that too many NPCs will get too high level, thus allowing too much high-magic to change the world and disallowing much low level play.
But my real problem is the one of XP progression. It makes no sense to me that that Commoners, Experts and Aristocrats don't level up more often and that leaders, defenders and advisers in towns are so (relatively) low level when it's so easy to gain XP enough to level up more often.
In my own game the NPCs are higher level.
Creative Director
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The NPCs "leveling up" solution is simple.
It's only PCs who earn XP and thus gain levels in that manner. The only time NPCs should use that mechanic is if they're things like cohorts that a player controls, or long-term NPC allies who adventure with the PCs.
Every other NPC should level up when the GM wants them to. That not only explains why Razmir hasn't hit level 20 yet, but also explains why there aren't a lot of high level commoners who accidentally hit higher levels by just living to an old age.
I've always felt a disconnect between NPC levels in Pathfinder as well. (A disconnect in game realism & breaking verisimilitude)
The design decision -- making 12th level the end-point for most high level NPCs -- was made so that Pathfinder didn't turn into FR, where every published NPC in the campaign setting's history, even the 1st level commoners, is probably at least 15th level. It's problematic in FR that one can't walk two blocks in any town or twenty miles in the wilderness without bumping into a 20th level character. Paizo didn't want that.
That aside, I think it's poor design to lose 8/20ths of your playable mechanics in the fear that too many NPCs will get too high level, thus allowing too much high-magic to change the world and disallowing much low level play.
But my real problem is the one of XP progression. It makes no sense to me that that Commoners, Experts and Aristocrats don't level up more often and that leaders, defenders and advisers in towns are so (relatively) low level when it's so easy to gain XP enough to level up more often.
In my own game the NPCs are higher level.
It's definitely better than the alternative - the aforementioned Forgotten Realms setting, where low level play sometimes makes no sense because the place is lousy with high-level NPCs who should be able and willing to do the job themselves - but I do sometimes feel like important NPCs are kind of oddly low in level. I get the player characters are supposed to be special, but when even dedicated and accomplished NPC adventurers are like level 11-12 and the average adventure path sees the PCs getting stronger than that by the 4th book, it strikes me as a little off.
I think it first started to really stand out to me in... I forget which book it was, but it was the one that listed a lot of the most famous and powerful magic users in Golarion. Let me be clear, I'm glad Golarion isn't filled with Elminsters, but I think the only spellcasters higher than 15th level were all evil and basically designed to be end bosses for campaigns.
Pc's are always able to advance as far as they want, and it doesn't stop me from making higher level foes when appropriate, but it gives me a base-line to work off of for general mooks and common folk, as well as leader types.
Ties it into the metaphysical-river of souls lore too. And is all just back-end stuff in my head that the players never even see.
I will have to reference some rules from the Dnd 3.5 DMG, so bare with me. But the 3.5 DMG had rules to help you stat out settlements and figuring out how many NPCs of high level there were. But the abridged version is that for every X level NPC, there would be 2 NPCs at half that level, and 4 of a quarter level.
So if your city had a 16th level Wizard, there would be also be two 8th level and four 4th level and eight 2nd level and sixteen 1st level NPCs.
Now while the rules DID NOT say this, it would be reasonable to assume the opposite was also true. So for every two 1st level NPCs there would be a 2nd level NPC, so on and so fourth.
THIS has some crazy implications though, since that means that for every sixteen 1st level NPCs there are eight 2nd level NPCs, four 4th level NPCs, two 8th level NPCs, and one 16th level NPCs. This is ONLY 31 individuals. Considering that most settlements have a population larger than that the world should be populated by A LOT of high level NPCs. But than you run in to the "Forgotten Realms" problem where the world is populated by high level NPCs.
There is something that many people forget though, so called Monsters are ALSO NPCs. Yes the World has a population in the millions (if not Billions), but that population also includes Dragons (who have a high level/CR), Magical Creatures, Bandit Chiefs, Outsiders, and other high level creatures.
So yes, there ARE a lot of high level NPCs in the world. Most of them happen to be 'monsters' though.
From an old post
The rules were in DMG2:
normal people = X
Level 1 people = X / 10
Level 2 people = Level 1 people / 2
Level 3 people = Level 2 people / 2
Level 4 people = Level 3 people / 2
Level 5 people = Level 4 people / 2
and so on.
Further posts has class distributions, and 2nd edition frequencies.
/cevah