GMs - What kind of NPC level demographics work best?

[Orius]

I put NPC levels and PC levels on a different curve. I'm just not interested in seeing commoners with more than 10 levels.

I think the 3e DMG demographics are too generous to NPC classes and to strict on PC classes. High level NPCs aren't common, but they are out there.

I like using only 2e World Builder Guide / DM's Option: High Level Campaign style demographics to give me an idea of what to expect in a region, as a guideline. Unlike the standard 50% breakdown, I vary the ratio according to class. I think I give commoners a 70 or 80% current level/next level ratio, while straight spellcasters are more like 40%.

Sounds a lot like some of my approaches. I kind of hybridized the 2e and 3e demographics to get a mix I liked, and like I said I adopted the 3.5 DMG's web enhancement numbers because they came out to about the same amounts that I'd already worked out.

 

[WayneLigon]

I like Eberron's model the best, I think. It saves me from explaining why the entire world isn't like Hogwarts, or why wizards haven't solved all man's ills, blah blah blah.

Most people are 1-2 level and that's the best they'll ever, ever be even with training. Your exceptional people, your up-and-comers are 3-4 level. Your best of the best be it city guardsmen or the local guildmaster Expert is 5-6 level. Beyond that you have, oh, three or four dozen people in the world beyond those levels.

Before 3E, I assumed most people were zero level. 'Experts' had one or two really good skills, just like sages. Your big and tough city guard captain, the leader of the theive's guild, etc might be 4-6th level. The captain of the king's guard might be 7-8 level. Most adventuring people in the world topped out at 10th - at 'name' level - and stayed there. I never much bought in to the DMG's demographics.

 

[Neil Bishop]

(snip) Most people are 1-2 level and that's the best they'll ever, ever be even with training. Your exceptional people, your up-and-comers are 3-4 level. Your best of the best be it city guardsmen or the local guildmaster Expert is 5-6 level. Beyond that you have, oh, three or four dozen people in the world beyond those levels. (snip)

This is the model I use too. I have a range of NPCs statted up at 1st, 2nd, 4th and 6th levels (I never use 3rd, 5th, 7th etc... because there is little real difference anyway). I never use the warrior class (I just don't like it, conceptually) but I do use the expert, aristocrat and fighter classes (a guard might be an expert or a mix of expert and fighter levels). I rarely use commoners because if the NPC is that much of a nebbish, why bother to stat them up?

 

[S'mon]

I like Eberron's model the best, I think. It saves me from explaining why the entire world isn't like Hogwarts, or why wizards haven't solved all man's ills, blah blah blah.

Most people are 1-2 level and that's the best they'll ever, ever be even with training. Your exceptional people, your up-and-comers are 3-4 level. Your best of the best be it city guardsmen or the local guildmaster Expert is 5-6 level. Beyond that you have, oh, three or four dozen people in the world beyond those levels.

Before 3E, I assumed most people were zero level. 'Experts' had one or two really good skills, just like sages. Your big and tough city guard captain, the leader of the theive's guild, etc might be 4-6th level. The captain of the king's guard might be 7-8 level. Most adventuring people in the world topped out at 10th - at 'name' level - and stayed there. I never much bought in to the DMG's demographics.

I'm thinking about compressing the scale in my next campaign so that experienced typical NPCs are around 3rd level; a squad of experienced soldiers might be 3rd level Fighters, but also cap at 10th as 'name level'. 11-20 would be treated as epic/quasi-deity territory. This would create less of a disparity in power and give a more stable setting, I think. A 5d6 fireball is less devastating when the men-at-arms have 24 hp each. A 10th level Fighter can't carve through an army of 3rd levellers the way he can through 1st levellers.

Edit: Also, I think the 3e 'sweet spot' is roughly 3rd through 8th, so this would emphasise those levels; I can start PCs at 2nd and play through to ca 10th in a setting specifically designed to accommodate that.

 

[haakon1]

What kind of levels do you give a city guard patrol? 1st level Warriors? 5th level Fighters?

In my campaign, the PC's are at a rural castle, along on a major river, facing the Yatil Mountains.

With the help of the PC's (3rd level Warrior thru 7th level Monk and Fighter themselves), the local troops have just defeated a small enemy commando force of werewolves (with PC class levels, typically about 2, as high as 9th for the leader) and orcs (straight up normal orcs, except for those who are gifted with lycanthropy.

The tower guards were 1st level Warriors, with 2nd-3rd level Warrior sergeants (one became a PC for a new player), a 5th level Fighter captain (IIRC), a few 2nd level PC classed characters and a Adept, and a 3-4 level Aristocrat lord. Since it's a frontier area, there was also a large militia in the various hamlets of the manor. For this, I followed the 3e DMG on levels and classes, ignoring PC classes -- so in the hamlet where the first battle took place, the leaders were a 4th level Expert (stat'd to be fisherman who can fight) and 5th level Commoner (stat'd to be a farmer), a few of the troops were Experts with light crossbows and daggers, and most of the troops were Commoner 1 with a spear and two javelins (that is, equipped as Irish kerns). The hamlet militia pretty much destroyed an orc force of about equal size, because they had early warning and were able to both pepper the orcs with missile weapons and set against a charge. Once the werewolves entered the fray, they ran for it, and only the timely arrival of PC's on horseback let most of them escape.

BTW, I highly recommend Medieval II Total War, to learn about medieval troops and because it's an amazingly good game. Equal to, if not greater than Temple of Elemental Evil -- and that's Greyhawk 3e, what could be better (working at all on Windows XP, like it claims it does, would be nice for TOEE).

 

[haakon1]

Well, yes - but for combat-oriented NPCs, what does it mean to be a "powerful" sorceror - 4th? 8th? 16th? Is an "obviously tough" guardsman a 2nd level Warrior or an 8th level Fighter?

IMC (a 3.5 campaign), a "powerful" Sorcerer is 5th-6th level. Anyone who can cast Fireball, or anything close, is seriously feared.

An "obviously tough" guardsman would likely be a 3rd level Warrior.

Above 5-6th level, PC's have usually accumulated enough excited adventures and weird tales that they are well-known. That can be a problem -- recently, the PCs were recognized, based on a song that's sung about a dual one had with an undead.

By "name level", 9th level plus, PC's are a national asset, and their enemies like to keep tabs on their whereabouts.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Here are some notes I dug up from an earlier Wilderlands campaign (I was using the NG boxed set):

Wilderlands NPCs for 1-20 Scale
1-8 : as written
9-11 : 9
12-14: 10
15-17: 11
18-20: 12
21-23: 13
24-26: 14
27-29: 15
30-32: 16
33-35: 17
36-38: 18
39-41: 19

I also used a 15 miles per hex scale, rather than the 5 miles per hex scale (which was a mistake, originally, but one they stuck with).

Tactical Scale = 5 feet/hex
Village Scale = 100 feet/hex
Wilderness Scale = 0.5 miles per hex
Campaign Map Scale = 15 miles/hex

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I actually like the DMG's demographic suggestions. It gives me just the right mix for a mostly mundane world where adventuring and being heroes is rare, but not exclusively PC territory. It helps them gain mentors and trainers, there are people to turn to (and finding those people makes a good excuse for a quest!), but they are pretty rare. It gives the PC's an excuse to go from podunk farms at level 1 to great metropoli by level 20 (only to have to go back out to those podunk farms to slay the herd of terrasques that is stampeding or whatever).

I liked the 3E demographics chart also, but I begin to wonder - what are these high level NPCs doing in the city? Likewise, it wasn't exactly uncommon for me to use high level classed NPCs instead of monsters - but how did they get there levels, and what are they doing all the time? It especially gets problematic when I use them more like "mooks" - equal level NPCs that block the work for the BBEG - I use them as a guard, but does this even make sense? If you had the choice between working as a guard for a BBEG and to sell items from your NPC wealth and buy a nice house, why wouldn't you prefer that? it might be a bit easier for good NPCs that might have an altruistic motivation, but the good guys are usually not that important...

I haven't found a really satisfying approach yet, particularly because I find it hard to ignore the notion that levels stand for training and experience of NPCs and come from similar stuff that the PCs do...

 

[S'mon]

Here are some notes I dug up from an earlier Wilderlands campaign (I was using the NG boxed set):

Wilderlands NPCs for 1-20 Scale
1-8 : as written
9-11 : 9
12-14: 10
15-17: 11
18-20: 12
21-23: 13
24-26: 14
27-29: 15
30-32: 16
33-35: 17
36-38: 18
39-41: 19

I also used a 15 miles per hex scale, rather than the 5 miles per hex scale (which was a mistake, originally, but one they stuck with).

Tactical Scale = 5 feet/hex
Village Scale = 100 feet/hex
Wilderness Scale = 0.5 miles per hex
Campaign Map Scale = 15 miles/hex

Weird - this:

1-8 : as written
9-11 : 9
12-14: 10
15-17: 11
18-20: 12

is exactly what I did converting the NG boxed set to C&C for my current game!

I'm using 15 miles/hex etc also.

 

[Delta]

.. is exactly what I did converting the NG boxed set to C&C for my current game!

It's also exceedingly close to what the Rules Cyclopedia (p. 293) presented for converting Basic D&D -> Advanced D&D.