I say 17 since that's the lowest level you can cast level 9 spells (though some classes don't get them till 18). I would guess fewer than 100 or so.
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Way more than that.
I did a demographics thread a long time ago based on the PF1 Settlement Rules, that matches up pretty well with Paizo's published stuff and indicates that it's something like 1 per 100,000 people.
Of course, without a population for Golarion, that's not useful directly, but the population seems to be in the tens of millions even for the Inner Sea area.
For more direct measures there's numbers of published NPCs of that level which is actually more than you might think. Several national rulers are around that level as are a wide selection of other NPCs. 100 is probably quite a low estimate even for the Inner Sea area, never mind the whole world.
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But does PF2 have the same distribution as PF1?
Given that high level characters are less powerful than in PF1 an argument could be made that the numbers have shifted substantially. To pick numbers out of my posterior, a PF2 L20 is arguably about as powerful as a PF1 L12 or so. So maybe there are now as many L20s as there were L12's
I realize that "less powerful" argument primarily applies to spellcasters. But even non spell casters are relatively less powerful than the twinked out monstrosities that were possible in late PF1 with enough system mastery.
Note - Hopefully this won't move into an argument as to how much less powerful PF2 are than late optimized PF1. My point (which I think most would agree with) is that they ARE less powerful. The amount doesn't really matter all that much.
The meaning of level as it pertains to the game world hasn't changed at all. Pretty much every creature that was CR X in PF1 is now level X in PF2, adventures that happen at level X still happen at level X, and basically everything the world design side of the game has ever cared about level for functions in the same way it always has.
Creative Director
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This isn't a number that I'm interested in officially pinning down, since the number needs to be "Enough high level NPCs so that we can continue to publish Adventure Paths without worrying we're going to run out of high-level NPC slots," further complicated by the fact that if you don't run an AP for your table, those high level NPCs don't really need to exist in your game anyway.
The general distribution I worked up for the 1st edition World Guide remains the same in 2nd edition, in any event.
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"There exist guidelines for how powerful most rulers and heroes and city guards are in the Inner Sea region. The vast majority of humanity are 'standard,' ranging in level from 1st to 5th—most with NPC classes like commoner, expert, or warrior (it’s uncommon for a character with only NPC class levels to be above 5th level). A significant number of a nation’s movers and shakers, along with other leaders, heroes, and notables, are 'exceptional,' ranging in level from 6th to 10th. 'Powerful' characters, ranging in level from 11th to 15th, are quite rare—typically only a handful of such powerful characters should exist in most nations, and they should be leaders or specially trained troops most often designed to serve as allies or enemies for use in an adventure. Finally, 'legendary' characters of 16th or higher level should be exceptionally rare, and when they appear should only do so as part of a specific campaign—all legendary characters should be supported with significant histories and flavor."
But in PF 2nd edition, most NPCs won't follow the exact rules that PCs do, so I assume more NPC-class esque characters are a collection of features that are appropriate. A non-adventuring wizard is most a Human Scholar, with some wizard features, and expert Arcana, some skill feats, some spell casting, but not neccesarily character level hit points, or full wizard features. An most people are a collection of appropriate skill proficiencies and some related skill feats they learned the long way, not the brutal sudden burst of genius and improvement that PCs experience.
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Creative Director
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"There exist guidelines for how powerful most rulers and heroes and city guards are in the Inner Sea region. The vast majority of humanity are 'standard,' ranging in level from 1st to 5th—most with NPC classes like commoner, expert, or warrior (it’s uncommon for a character with only NPC class levels to be above 5th level). A significant number of a nation’s movers and shakers, along with other leaders, heroes, and notables, are 'exceptional,' ranging in level from 6th to 10th. 'Powerful' characters, ranging in level from 11th to 15th, are quite rare—typically only a handful of such powerful characters should exist in most nations, and they should be leaders or specially trained troops most often designed to serve as allies or enemies for use in an adventure. Finally, 'legendary' characters of 16th or higher level should be exceptionally rare, and when they appear should only do so as part of a specific campaign—all legendary characters should be supported with significant histories and flavor."But in PF 2nd edition, most NPCs won't follow the exact rules that PCs do, so I assume more NPC-class esque characters are a collection of features that are appropriate. A non-adventuring wizard is most a Human Scholar, with some wizard features, and expert Arcana, some skill feats, some spell casting, but not neccesarily character level hit points, or full wizard features. An most people are a collection of appropriate skill proficiencies and some related skill feats they learned the long way, not the brutal sudden burst of genius and improvement that PCs experience.
NPCs still have levels, as do all creatures, so it still works the same. You can, of course, build NPCs as if they were PCs if you want. but regardless of if you do it that way or build them as monsters, the breakdown remains the same.
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But does PF2 have the same distribution as PF1?
Given that high level characters are less powerful than in PF1 an argument could be made that the numbers have shifted substantially. To pick numbers out of my posterior, a PF2 L20 is arguably about as powerful as a PF1 L12 or so. So maybe there are now as many L20s as there were L12's
I realize that "less powerful" argument primarily applies to spellcasters. But even non spell casters are relatively less powerful than the twinked out monstrosities that were possible in late PF1 with enough system mastery.
Note - Hopefully this won't move into an argument as to how much less powerful PF2 are than late optimized PF1. My point (which I think most would agree with) is that they ARE less powerful. The amount doesn't really matter all that much.
The problem with this argument is that power is relative. While a level 20 PF2 character may be weaker than a level 20 PF1 character, it's about the same strength as a level 20 PF2 monster.
The entire power scale changed, so the relative power of everything stayed about the same.
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But does PF2 have the same distribution as PF1?
Given that high level characters are less powerful than in PF1 an argument could be made that the numbers have shifted substantially. To pick numbers out of my posterior, a PF2 L20 is arguably about as powerful as a PF1 L12 or so. So maybe there are now as many L20s as there were L12's
For the record, and not to get into a big debate, I think this is factually wrong. Really optimized level 20s are no longer vastly more powerful than other level 20s, but I think that at the same level of optimization, level actually matters a lot more. A 20th level character is much more likely to kill four 16th level ones in PF2 than they ever were in PF1.
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For the record, and not to get into a big debate, I think this is factually wrong. Really optimized level 20s are no longer vastly more powerful than other level 20s, but I think that at the same level of optimization, level actually matters a lot more. A 20th level character is much more likely to kill four 16th level ones in PF2 than they ever were in PF1.But does PF2 have the same distribution as PF1?
Given that high level characters are less powerful than in PF1 an argument could be made that the numbers have shifted substantially. To pick numbers out of my posterior, a PF2 L20 is arguably about as powerful as a PF1 L12 or so. So maybe there are now as many L20s as there were L12's
You may well be right. I was thinking more along the lines of a level 20 wizard or druid vs a city or an army of low level fighters.
But it's moot at this point. James Jacobs rather definitively addressed my point :-). The level distribution is the same in PF2 as PF1. I'm not stupid enough to argue the point with him :-):-):-)
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Creative Director
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It should go without saying, but the distribution of levels in a world of your own design is 100% up to you. When folks ask questions like that here in a Golarion or Lost Omens folder, I assume they're not asking for "generalzied" what-if questions, but canonical answers that we assume and use for printed and published products.
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Has anything about the levels of high-level characters changed now that some 9th level spells are 10th level instead? For instance, wish?
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There are precisely 1 million.
How many of them live on Sarusan is entirely up to the GM.
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Creative Director
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Has anything about the levels of high-level characters changed now that some 9th level spells are 10th level instead? For instance, wish?
Not really. Since we have that "band" of levels go from 16th to 20th and don't really bother on a level by level breakdown, it's kinda irrelevant. There are enough to fuel whatever high-level stories we want to create.