Golarion and how Adventurer level characters, equipment etc. affect it

[Rabbit24]

Been lurking for a few days now, (Hi, I'm brand new, nice to meetcha! :) ) and a few of these threads have got me wondering, how many adventurer class people are there in the setting? Like, speaking as a person who only bought the 2e core and bestiary 2 days ago and only played 1e with a short pickup game in collage, reading through the feats and spells and equipment and such, it reads like Golarion should be a weird/awesome thing full of cool anachronisms. (Haven't gotten to the setting chapter yet, so if it is that please tell my so I can have a big ol' grin on my face. :) )

Equipment and weapons are also seemingly world-changing if taken as read.
An example, a basic crossbow in Golarion has a sustained 20 bpm (bolt per minute) fire rate, enough power to punch through plate armor, the ability to be augmented by runes to make it more powerful and also gain overt magical effects. A crossbow armed Hobgoblin company (1 low grade officer, 1 NCO, 6 enlisted), even with their general distaste for magic, would be equipped with weapons that are comparable to an early to mid 20th century bolt action rifle outside their much lower amount of ammunition carried by each soldier. The size of the company speaks of a military tradition that builds itself on organized, drilled small-unit tactics rather than the ad-hoc militaries of the medieval age (time period dependant. :) ). Bows are even crazier.

Am I speaking sense? Is this taken into account by the setting or am I supposed to just not think about it? Am I just overthinking things?

Thanks for any responses, glad to be apart of the community.

[Evilgm]

You're just overthinking things. There are aspects of the game that won't make sense in the real world, because it's a game and sometimes fun and balance come before reality.

And if you think how crossbows work is crazy, I'd avoid the Magic chapter- people in the setting can shoot fire out of their hands or heal grievous wounds with a chant!

[Rabbit24]

(I'm feeling major de ja vu, I feel like I've posted this before, weird.)

One of the things that got me to post this was reading a thread here about guns in 2e. Many posters were going on about realism and "Oh, guns worked like this in the IRL time period" etc. and I'm like, you've already got what might as well be bolt action and assault rifle analogues in-setting, that are useful enough that many soldiers arm themselves with them, and they can be magic.The only way guns would be in any way competitive in-setting is if they could truly stand alongside Golarion crossbows and bows, and a muzzle-loader just isn't gonna do that if your going for "realism".

And I played 3.5, I'm a veteran of the Magic Wars. :)

Also, Just to reiterate my first question, is there any info on exactly how many "Adventurer Level" people are roaming around Golarion, I've read other threads that have put the number of high levels at 100 (though that feels too small to me for a world with any decent population.).

And I like overthinking. :)

[Cyouni]

I suppose the question is what's considered "high level".

Deadmanwalking did an analysis during 1e that might help, and I see no real reason it should have changed.

Numerically, in 1e a metropolis was ~25k people and up. Absalom, likely the biggest city, has a population of ~300k. Quite a few of the big Chelaxian cities (Westcrown, Egorian) are around 100k, as is Oppara (capital of Taldor).

[Tremaine]

Rabbit24 wrote:

Been lurking for a few days now, (Hi, I'm brand new, nice to meetcha! :) ) and a few of these threads have got me wondering, how many adventurer class people are there in the setting? Like, speaking as a person who only bought the 2e core and bestiary 2 days ago and only played 1e with a short pickup game in collage, reading through the feats and spells and equipment and such, it reads like Golarion should be a weird/awesome thing full of cool anachronisms. (Haven't gotten to the setting chapter yet, so if it is that please tell my so I can have a big ol' grin on my face. :) )

Equipment and weapons are also seemingly world-changing if taken as read.
An example, a basic crossbow in Golarion has a sustained 20 bpm (bolt per minute) fire rate, enough power to punch through plate armor, the ability to be augmented by runes to make it more powerful and also gain overt magical effects. A crossbow armed Hobgoblin company (1 low grade officer, 1 NCO, 6 enlisted), even with their general distaste for magic, would be equipped with weapons that are comparable to an early to mid 20th century bolt action rifle outside their much lower amount of ammunition carried by each soldier. The size of the company speaks of a military tradition that builds itself on organized, drilled small-unit tactics rather than the ad-hoc militaries of the medieval age (time period dependant. :) ). Bows are even crazier.

Am I speaking sense? Is this taken into account by the setting or am I supposed to just not think about it? Am I just overthinking things?

Thanks for any responses, glad to be apart of the community.

. For a setting that takes that and runs with it, read the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. Golarion doesn't, it sticks closer to traditional fantasy tropes.

[Deadmanwalking]

Cyouni wrote:

I suppose the question is what's considered "high level".

Deadmanwalking did an analysis during 1e that might help, and I see no real reason it should have changed.

Numerically, in 1e a metropolis was ~25k people and up. Absalom, likely the biggest city, has a population of ~300k. Quite a few of the big Chelaxian cities (Westcrown, Egorian) are around 100k, as is Oppara (capital of Taldor).

Yep. This.

And I think Golarion, frankly, treats how high level characters in the numbers Golarion has them (which are small per capita) affect the world pretty reasonably. Most high level characters who want to rule a country do so, for example.