The Common Commoner

ph0rk · Aug 12, 2004

mmadsen said:
I think it's quite a leap to go from "adventurers wandering the countryside have a 10% chance of an encounter" to "monsters attack farms twice daily." Even if a monster attack only had a 1% chance of killing one person, monsters would kill seven people per year. Real raids, which you'd expect to kill multiple people, would wipe out a 1,000-person community in a few months.

Any town like that would have a pallisade, never mind the fact that the local lord (if they have one, some royal troops if they don't, or insert other government military force here) would come and kick the crap out of the monsters. Why? Dead villagers don't pay taxes.

Besides, most small hamlets are surrounded by farmland, what is the encounter table for cultivated farmland?

jmucchiello · Aug 12, 2004

Kamikaze Midget said:
It takes effort to get spells...these aren't free gifts from the gods, these are the reward for a pious supplication. On his "day off", he simply doesn't spend the effort to prepare his spells. Most priests perform mass only once a week, after all.

Actually most Priests perform mass once a day, traditionally they would do it even more often. But that's a religious tangent we don't really need.

True, most people will at some point...those two spells are for emergencies like that. But I'd say it's probably much more efficient and exhausting to heal the militia than it is to bother usually with the commoners...which is why a lot of commoners, at some point, join the militia and gain some XP. It's got a health plan, after all.

You are overlooking how powerful Cure Minor Wounds is when used on commoners with d4 hit points. The 2nd level cleric has access to 2 CLW and 4 CmW. A CmW spell will stabilize someone who is dying. Thus the cleric could hit the guy run over by a horse with CmW and use normal healing to bring him back up to normal health. In a pinch, he can stabilize 6 wounded people till morning.

Also, this priest needs an 11 Wis to cast 1st level spells. Wouldn't a good percentage of 2nd level priest have a slightly higher Wis? Some of these thrope and hamlets have a 2nd level priest with a 12 Wis and thus he can do 3 CLWs a day.

Most nights, at dusk, you either heal those who are near death from the nearest goblin attack, or you preside over their funeral and cast bless on the corpse (no need for goblins AND undead...).

At the risk of a major tangent, why are you burying that corpse? Incinerate it so the next time some uppity necromancer comes to town, old farmer jones the zombie doesn't climb out of his grave and help the necromancer. I mean, no corpses, no zombies, no skeletons, no ghouls/ghasts.

Besides, bless doesn't do what you are thinking it does. It's not an abjuration, it's an enchantment: "Bless fills your allies with courage. Each ally gains a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls and on saving throws against fear effects. Bless counters and dispels bane." You need a 7th level priest to hallow the cemetary every year to avoid undead rising.

Evilhalfling · Aug 12, 2004

One thing that has'nt been addressed in this thread is the concept of XP for problem solving and meeting goals. If this was awarded to NPC's in regular amounts, then you are looking at level inflation, espcially compared to the amount of money they would have on hand. With this sort of system you could easily assume that most teenagers are first level, young adults are 2nd level and that established community members and craftsman are 3rd level at least. Most of thier wealth would be tied up in property - simple house 1000 gp, grand house 5000 gp, peasents would never own their own property but I am not sure about your mideval craftsman or merchant.
Having most adults be 3rd level means that the danger from raiders is significantly less. A 3rd lvl famer can kill one goblin, but not 3. Most likely he would be wounded, but survive, or fight long enough so his family could escape.

This assumption works well for campaigns that start at 3rd level, as many do, according to the last poll I saw here.
If you are going stricly by the DMG demographics then this probably does happen in small towns but not in villages. Which dosen't make a lot of sense.

As for spell pricing the fact that adventures are heavily overcharged for healing services and the like is one of my base assumptions. Healing would never be free, just as doctor visits aren't free. An injured peasent must deciced if the injury is worth paying for the medical help, and with a lawful priest you probably have to have an appointment, and are charged a higher fee for emergency services. However the fees have to be within reason - say 1 just over a weeks pay for a 1st level spell - 1 gp.
Most of the clerics in th hamlets of my world are either agriculture clerics or the temple of light (3 gods of good share a temple)

jmucchiello · Aug 12, 2004

BelenUmeria said:
Dude, channeling divine energy is exhausting!

Right, because after casting a spell, or channeling energy the cleric is exhausted (-6 str/dex). Er, no, maybe fatigued (-2 str/dex), er no again. He has a penalty to his next action. Er, no, none whatsoever.

Otherwise, the god would grant the person an infinite number of spells.

By the magic system, he just can hold any more spells in his head.

And you are discounting the fact that a cleric will have other things to do durning the day than heal. She will have to prepare sermons, hear confessions, travel to outlying farms, teach, create scrolls or potions to help in times of need, study, pray etc.

Confessions: I don't think so.
Sermons: Do the chaotic gods' priests have regular periodic (predictible) masses?
Create Scrolls: Why does a priest have this feat?
Create Potions: He's 2nd level, he can't have that feat.

I've always wanted to create a book of what does a lay priest do all day. But I haven't had the time. Each priesthood would prioritize "typical" priestly duties in unique ways.

GlassJaw · Aug 12, 2004

create water is broken

I posted this in the low-magic thread but I'll repost it here since I think it's more applicable to this thread:

If you assume that there is a low ratio of number of casters to the general populace, even in a high-magic world, then many of the "survival" spells discussed previously will have an unbelievable social impact, nevermind the economy of health of the people.

Using the example above, we'll assume there is a 5th-level cleric in a town of 400. He can cast create water 5 times per day. That's 50 gallons. A human (according to the DMG) needs a gallon of water per day. So the cleric creates enough water per day for 50 people, assuming he uses all of his 0-level spells to do it. He could even use his higher level spells and create enough for whole town!

The social effects of this are twofold:
1. The people will no longer need to rely on themselves for sustenance. They know it will be created for them. Populations would boom (at least in the short-term).

2. If there aren't enough clerics to go around, some people will go without. This would cause civil unrest and most likely rioting.

My point? Who cares. Even in a low-magic world, in which people run to avoid stuff like this, there can be major issues with even the most "minor" or spells. "Yeah, my world is low-magic, I only allow up to 2nd-level spells and casters are very rare. That way, magic won't have much affect on the world." Yeah, right. If that's the case, it will have MORE of an effect IMO since the people will know that there are those out there that can create water out of nothing. The clerics would probably rule the land. It would probably turn into some kind of Mad Max Beyond Waterdeep nonsense if you really wanted to do a social analysis.

Wombat · Aug 12, 2004

One other point we are not dealing with directly: where you live vs. where you travel.

Now, high level characters are primarily found in cities, but is the city environment so much more dangerous, stressful, and exciting that it brings about the XP the produces higher levels? Probably not. Many of the high level individuals may well have city "homes", but travel widely to gain the XP. This suggests that perhaps magical power might be more widely seen than simple population statistics show us.

Look at the published adventure out there -- most (just by quick glance at the FLGS stock) adventures take place out in the wilderlands far away from civilzation. The adventurers would pass through many small villages on the way to the adventure-proper. Perhaps they help out, perhaps they do not, but the people see them. Perhaps the feeling of the villagers towards the adventurers is hopeful, perhaps jealous, perhaps angry, perhaps they see a potential career move away from villages. And the amount of hard currency adventurers can dump on small villages (and would have to, for food if nothing else) could be quite staggering -- perhaps a few "entrepeneurs" in some of the more distant villages have set up "Adventurer Shoppes" to attract such individuals. That is pure speculation, however.

There is also the question of character levels, XP, and demographics. There have been some threads in the past arguing how quickly an average person raises in level with several different conclusions, but certainly common folks can, through simply living their lives, slowly rise in level. But why are there more high level Commoners in cities as opposed to villages? Again, are cities inherently more dangerous? This doesn't appear to be the case. Several of these Commoners in cities would be merchants, perhaps wandering merchants. Perhaps they get their XP while wandering from village to village with their wares. This would be fairly logical, as the road is a dangerous place.

But these wandering merchants are also interesting on an economic level -- do they only bring cheap merchandize to the villages? Or do they bring more wondrous items, hoping to sell one or two along the way (perhaps to those wandering adventurers?) and thus introduce the concept of more magic to the villages? This is pure speculation, but it is an interesting notion.

Just more food for thought

Arnwyn · Aug 12, 2004

jmucchiello said:
I've always wanted to create a book of what does a lay priest do all day. Each priesthood would prioritize "typical" priestly duties in unique ways.

Which is why I love my 2e FR Faiths & Avatars series of accessories. Devotes an entire section called "Day to Day Activities" for each and every deity of the Realms.

Already done for me.

jmucchiello · Aug 12, 2004

arnwyn said:
Which is why I love my 2e FR Faiths & Avatars series of accessories. Devotes an entire section called "Day to Day Activities" for each and every deity of the Realms.

Already done for me.

I wanted something a bit more toolkit-ish. Not everyone uses the FR deities. I also wanted the results to be a bit more than the 3-4 paragraphs found in the F&A (awesome 2e book). Things like: when founding a new temple to so-and-so, what materials are required when building it, what layout is used, are there days on which building should/should not occur? Extend these idiocracies to all aspects of the priest's life. The other cool thing in F&A, that I wish was address in a core book somewhere, is the titles for clerics of specific deities. Clerics of some deities would not call themselves priests.

ssostac1 · Aug 12, 2004

Here's a question: If so much of the population is as poor as this thread assumes, where the heck do all the critters get all their magic items and treasure from? Assuming you use the treasure tables in the DMG. Surely they get that kind of treasure by raiding normal towns. Are there that many adventurers that lose their stuff to the baddies?

mmadsen · Aug 12, 2004

ssostac1 said:
Here's a question: If so much of the population is as poor as this thread assumes, where the heck do all the critters get all their magic items and treasure from? Assuming you use the treasure tables in the DMG. Surely they get that kind of treasure by raiding normal towns. Are there that many adventurers that lose their stuff to the baddies?

I agree that random, small-potato monsters shouldn't have much in the way of treasure, but I see raiding monsters as equivalent to human bandits or raiders. Raiding doesn't build any wealth, but it's a good way to accumulate a lot of other people's wealth -- if you don't die in the process.

I see petty hobgoblin kings as analogous to big fish eating smaller fish, who eat smaller fish, who eat smaller fish, etc. Eventually, the big fish accumulate a lot of mercury -- and the goblin king accumulates a lot of gold.