Level demographics in "your" D&D 3.X

[enlightened]

A question for the OPs and others who keep their players at low levels: How do your players feel about never being able to reach the full potential of their characters as outlined by the PHB?

In my group, everyone is on the E6 bandwagon and everyone feels that high level characters sort of "don't make sense", as it were.

So for us, at least, it's not an issue.

When the average guy is a first level commoner or warrior, a 7th level character is like unto a God. From about that point onward, they are so much more powerful than normal people that it starts to strain my suspension of disbelief.

But the point of this thread was that I wanted to find out how other people looked at the situation because, like you said, the book does go up quite a bit higher.

 

[billd91]

I go by NPC age. I figure a fully trained by neophyte member of society is level 1, whatever class fits best. I then figure they gain a level about every 5 years on the average for a while and slow down after that. So your average 40 year old farmer is about 5th level, figuring he started as a 1st level commoner at 15.

 

[Noumenon]

At or above the PC's level: 2-5 per town (anyone interesting)
At the PC's level minus five: Everyone else (only matters for mook groups such as guards, monks, shop owners)

I like to have a lot of 9th-12th level characters because I can give them prestige classes to back up my character conception of them.

 

[Arkhandus]

Where would you put the average soldier on the battle field? 3rd level?

2nd or 3rd-level, yeah. The average soldier has decent training and little experience. A majority of combatants, however, will be 1st-level conscripts or green recruits. The survivors will go on to 2nd or 3rd-level as they make it through more battles and more training, but many aren't likely to make it that long.

So that brings the average (counting the conscripts who aren't really soldiers, just pressed into service) down to 1st-level.

The career soldiers or talented conscripts will go on to 4th-level or higher if they survive and get involved in many battles.

 

[Arkhandus]

I think more like Arkhandus than the others, but unlike him I have many epic NPCs in my campaign. This is probably because I DM a interplanar epic level campaign that's been running since 2nd ed.

The PCs are around 25th lvl. I have around 500 npcs, and I guess 15 are epic just in levels, but when it comes to ECL, many more are epic.

When it comes to who shapes the world or whether people are famous, level isn't that important. The PCs are legendary, but when it comes to NPCs, timing and politics can turn a relatively low level character into a mayor player, and some epic level characters keep a very low profile.

Wow. Cool. I never really got the chance to play or DM epic levels yet, besides one or two sessions of a 20th/21st-level game where the DM dropped it after we trounced a fleet of ships. Oh well.

Technically, my games do have several epic NPCs, but not hundreds.... My Rhunaria campaign has several epic and near-epic NPCs in it, some of whom the PCs have met, and a few dozen epic NPCs of the past with legendary status. My Aurelia setting has dozens of epic NPCs in the Prime Material and more in legends, but most live on the other planes, and I haven't gotten the chance to run a campaign in it yet.

And yeah, epic NPCs are sometimes just distant from other folk in the world, pursuing their own goals alone or on other planes. They might not even be well-known. I have epic NPCs that are busy leading their guild or pursuing their own research or ascension, and have no time for, or no interest in, the affairs of the rest of the world. PCs though, tend to grow famous because of their actions, even while still low to mid level.

 

[enlightened]

2nd or 3rd-level, yeah. The average soldier has decent training and little experience. A majority of combatants, however, will be 1st-level conscripts or green recruits. The survivors will go on to 2nd or 3rd-level as they make it through more battles and more training, but many aren't likely to make it that long.

So that brings the average (counting the conscripts who aren't really soldiers, just pressed into service) down to 1st-level.

The career soldiers or talented conscripts will go on to 4th-level or higher if they survive and get involved in many battles.

Say you have an army of 500 troops.

What percent of the troops would be of each level?

For example, 80% 1st, 15% 2nd, 4% 3rd, 1% 4th, etc. OR something?

 

[kitsune9]

Interesting assessments of people's demographics. Almost a way to tell how they would play a campaign if they hold true to the numbers. Here's my demographics on how I typicall run my campaigns. Mine tend to be a more powered.

1st-3rd level (Common) 75% of the population
4th-6th level (Professional) 20% of the population
7th-9th level (Elite) 4% of the population
10th-20th level (Master) <1% of the population
21st-25th level (Legendary) only a handful
26th-30th level (God-like) one or two individuals of the world

So when I think about this in terms of a city population, country population, etc. If I have a capital city and there's 21,000 people living there, about 210 people will be of 10th through 20th level which is accurate for how I run my campaigns--a lot of movers and shakers in just one city.

 

[taliesin15]

I tend to go with Kitsune's sense of levelling...

If you look at Generating Towns on pp.137-140 of the DMG, you'll notice that many villages and towns have NPCs of at least 5th level; I've used this as a handy guide for fleshing out a major continent, and as a result, oftentimes one of the higher level NPCs in an average village turns out to be an important craftsman in the community, usually a toolmaker/smith. Not that uncommon that this NPC is a Commoner of 7th-10th level, with many ranks in some kind of Craft.

Sprinkled throughout the western expanse of a major continent are a myriad of minor princes--often these are Aristocrats of 9th-15th level.

A number of more powerful Elves IMC are multi-classed Ftr/Wizard/Aristocrats