Just how good *IS* level X?

[Snoweel]

It seems there's quite a divide in opinions between what constitutes 'low' level, 'mid' level and 'high' level.

And as we all know, where there's a difference of opinion, there's interesting-but-polite debate.

I'd like to invite you (yes you) to give your opinion as to the relative power levels of some fictional fantasy characters. I'm assuming we're using the language of the 30 level span of D&D 4e but if you flat-out refuse to discuss 4e then please indicate the edition to which you're referring.

The characters to be ranked (feel free to give a range of levels if you prefer):

Typical peasant

Typical guardsman

Typical guard captain

Typical knight (or equivalent)

King Arthur

Merlin

Elric of Melnibone

Bilbo

Frodo

Samwise

Gandalf

Sauron

Saruman

Aragorn

The Witch-King of Angmar

Boromir

Legolas

Gimli

Galadriel

Conan

Feel free to include any other favourite fantasy charcaters. It would be helpful if the rest of us knew who they were but I guess the more obscure they are the more geek points you get.

 

[dystmesis]

Gandalf was only a 5th level magic user

 

[Snoweel]

I think according to canon, Gandalf was neither human nor had class levels.

Of course, the LotR universe is considerably low-magic compared to D&D settings.

I would personally represent Gandalf as an Immortal NPC of level 15+ depending on the level of the PCs.

 

[Relique du Madde]

What about Harry Potter?

 

[Mercurius]

I'm a bit confused. Are you asking people to give levels (and classes?) to those characters? The first, and obvious, difficulty is that many of those characters had a range (e.g. King Arthur). But I'll try...

Typical peasant - 0

Typical guardsman - 1-2

Typical guard captain - low heroic

Typical knight (or equivalent) - mid heroic

King Arthur - 1 to about 20

Lancelot - upper paragon to low epic

Merlin - upper epic

Elric of Melnibone - paragon to epic

Bilbo - mid-heroic

Frodo - upper heroic

Samwise - low-to-mid heroic

Gandalf - the problem with translating Gandalf to D&D is that Middle-Earth is comparatively low magic so that, as one poster said, he looks like a 5th level wizard. But if we translated the whole idiom into a D&D-ized version of Middle-Earth, his "avatar" for he is a demi-god level immortal) is probably mid-epic as "The Grey," high epic as "The White."

Sauron - equivalent to a lesser god, at least 33

Saruman - high epic.

Aragorn - high paragon/low epic.

The Witch-King of Angmar - high epic.

Boromir - low-to-mid paragon.

Legolas - mid paragon.

Gimli - low-to-mid paragon.

Galadriel - high epic.

Conan - he's another one, like Arthur, that started at 1st level and was 20+ by his King Conan days.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm assuming 3.0 as my edition. Some of these I'd prefer to use homebrew classes to describe, but that would just be confusing. Some of these come from story worlds where magic works very differently than default D&D and to really capture the feel you'd need customized spell lists (typically long range widely influential magic is easier, but flashy rules of reality breaking magic like flight, teleportation, etc. are harder).

Typical peasant: 2nd level commoner

Typical guardsman: 1st level fighter

Typical guard captain: 5th level, mixed class depending on locale.

Typical knight (or equivalent): 5th level fighter

King Arthur: 14th level Paladin

Merlin: 17th level wizard

Elric of Melnibone: Not familiar enough with the canon.

Bilbo: (end of his adventuring career) 3rd level aristocrat/7th level rogue

Frodo: (end of his adventuring career) 3rd level aristocrat/5th level fighter

Samwise: (end of his adventuring career) 2nd level commoner/8th level fighter

Gandalf the Grey: 10th level wizard/10th level Paladin/2nd level Ranger (Istari, essentially incarnated angel)

Sauron: 30th level wizard (Fallen Ainur)

Saruman: 16th level wizard/4th level bard (Istari, essentially incarnated angel)

Aragorn: (end of his adventuring career) 5th level ranger/10th level paladin

The Witch-King of Angmar: 10th level fighter/5th level wizard (wraith)

Boromir: 10th level fighter

Legolas: 10th level fighter

Gimli: 10th level fighter

Galadriel: 17th level wizard/4th level druid

Conan (height of his adventuring career): 15th level barbarian/5th level rogue

I have a great deal of respect for the 'Gandalf was a 5th level Wizard' theory, because its very easy to make stories from fantasy literature work on that model. By that model, you could easily divide any of the above numbers in half or even to one third, and you could make the stories work just fine with the smaller numbers. And above all, I respect that theory because it emphasis's that the fun comes early and often and that you don't need arbitrarily big numbers to have epic level play. Indeed, I tend to think that big numbers and massive power often gets in the way of truly interesting epic play, because well, you just teleport Frodo to mount doom and telekinesis the ring into the fire and that's your story.

The one problem I have with the theory is that it doesn't work very well in actual play. This is because level advancement is so relatively easy in every edition of D&D, that the PC's quickly outstrip the power of even the most famous NPC's if 'Gandalf is a 5th level Wizard', at which point the game starts to get abit silly. In actual play, Gandalf needs to be about the highest level you expect PC's to obtain, else the PC's too easily get to be 'more powerful than Gandalf'. Likewise, in actual play, assuming virtually everyone is a 0th level fighter or 0th level commoner, ends up in a world where the PC's can pretty much abuse NPC's at will with no fear of consequence.

 

[S'mon]

Typical peasant - minion 2

Typical guardsman - soldier 3 to minion 9

Typical guard captain - soldier 5 to minion 14

Typical knight (or equivalent) - soldier 5

King Arthur - soldier 11-20

Merlin - controller 18

Elric of Melnibone - soldier 21-25

Bilbo - lurker 5

Frodo - lurker 3-7

Samwise - lurker 3-7

Gandalf - artillery 21-23

Sauron - elite brute 25

Saruman - controller 22

Aragorn - skirmisher 14-16

The Witch-King of Angmar - brute 18

Boromir - soldier 13

Legolas - artillery 13-14

Gimli - soldier 13-14

Galadriel - controller 18

Conan - elite skirmisher 8-18

 

[Snoweel]

Interesting take, S'mon. I like the way you think.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm too "tired" to do fiction character but here's the typical ones.

Typical peasant - minion 2

Typical guardsman - elite soldier 1, soldier 4, minion 8

Typical guard captain - solo brute 1, elite soldier 2, soldier 6, minion 11

Typical knight (or equivalent) - solo brute 3, elite soldier 4, soldier 8, minion 13

Basically anyone who is not known to be a combat master (main character who can fight very well) can't past level 8 without being a minion.

 

[Celebrim]

Bilbo - lurker 5

Frodo - lurker 3-7

Samwise - lurker 3-7...

Surely these are PC's?