Greetings!
Mark: Indeed, I got your e-mail. It's good to hear from you! I wrote you just this evening as a matter of fact! I'll write you again on the morrow!
Volaran:
Posted By Volaran
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Quote:
"Here's a question I've pondered while looking through your threads previously though. What is it like being a low level character in your world? Most of what I've seen and heard was a view from the top. What are beginnings like?"
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End Quote.
Hmmm...good insight Volaran!
Indeed, I suppose I have created my campaign assuming epic levels rather than avoiding them. Let me think...indeed, I believe that I make the founding premise that 1st level "anything" doesn't really cut it, to be honest. That doesn't mean that there aren't any 1st level whatevers existing through the campaign, for of course, they are there in great number--everyone who is 8th, 12th, 20th, and even 50th level all began, at some point in time, as a 1st level character.
Now, having said that, when I look over the skill ranks and abilities of a 1st level character, whether they are a commoner, expert, fighter, cleric, wizard, and so on, I just don't accept the popular assumption that 90% or what not of a population are 1st level, or certainly no higher than 3rd. It seems to me that for anyone to be any good at living in such a harsh, magic-filled, violent world, let alone be actually decent at a real profession, one doesn't reach that point until somewhere between 4th-8th level. Now, before you bite your cigar my friend,
--by this I don't mean *necessarily* a character that seeks to max out one skill at every level disregarding virtually everything else, for indeed, the system's base assumptions provide for such sufficiently. However, it isn't merely when I think of a fairly seasoned, professional character, but I cannot simulate a highly educated, highly skilled knight for example at 1st level--the skill ranks just don't allow it. A point of reference to Snoweel's remarks, is that for example, when I build a typical Vallorean Legionnaire, say, a young farm boy fresh off the farm, and a skilled hunter, who has joined the Legions at the age of 18, and has been serving for two years. So now, at the age of 20, I see this young legionnaire being likely to have *these* feats, *these minimum skill ranks of competency, usually in the 2-5 range in a group of skills beyond swimming and climbing* and *this* general level of professional effectiveness simulating a young legionnaire who has roughly 10 years of experience hunting, farming, and living self-sufficiently, and has spent the last two years of his life training constantly in the best army on the western continent, as well as surviving two six-month campaigns in the field against a variety of evil humanoid enemies. Ok, when I add it all up, the "avaerage" legionnaire comes out at somewhere between 6th and 8th level, with the younger more rawer soldiers being about 4th level.
Now, a question might be asked, "Well, why can't a 1st level warrior or even a 1st level fighter be the standard soldier of the empire?" With that, we get into a tangent premise on my part, but a related one. That premise is this, essentially: It doesn't seem to me that with the magical elements in the game, the demons, the beasts, the hordes of monsters, the magic everywhere, that anyone would be able to do much of anything at 1st level. In truth, if a kingdom did have a host of 1st level warriors, half of them would die in the first year, while the other half changed and became 6th level fighters!
I just don't see 1st level characters essentially representing realistic characters that can survive in the stereotypical world as typified by a basic thorough application of the rules and most of their assumptions. In some ways, there are a host of other assumptions that contradict a few of the assumptions for example the population guages in the Dungeon Master's Guide.
Well, it is then from these two related assumptions that if a kingdom, a society, where to survive and prosper, they wouldn't be entrusting that security and progress to 1st level people. Thus, the people would really be greater level than that, as a matter of course. I don't see trained, adult characters being 1st level. Especially inexperienced, untrained, uneducated teenagers, sure. But given a year or two as a trained adult, and they should be in the 3rd-5th level range with ease.
Ok, I think I'm being laborious. I apologize. What does all this mean though? It means that recruits, apprentices, and basicly trained people--whether a beer girl at the tavern, a young scribe at the library, or a young recruit in the city watch, is about 4th level. Most adults busy doing a profession of some kind, again, whether a merchant or a legionnaire, are probably in the 7th-10th level range. experienced officers, well-seasoned merchants, and so on, can expect to be in the 12th-16th level range, with lords, really experienced masters, and so on, being 16th-25th level or so. Great kings, mighty lords, champions, renowned craftsmen, would of course be approximately 26th level and higher.
Ok, I think I detailed that well enough.
In my campaigns, most people seem to advance pretty quickly from 1st level to 4th level before things seem to taper off a bit, so I think that low level characters have a wild time. It is a magical, highly dangerous world, and the only way to survive it is to get out of the cellar, so to speak.
Characters of below 4th level, in that sense, either die, or move on up, because there isn't much use in society at any level for someone who, somehow for example, wanted to "stay 2nd level." They are either learning, growing, and making dynamic progress, or they starve or become a beggar for example. Let's say there was someone who was a 3rd level fighter, and he never wanted to advance beyond that. Such a character would be seen as an idiot, like Gomer Pyle, lacking in the essentials to serve in the legions, he would probably be scratching out some kind of existence as a low-paid caravan guard, or grow old as a low-wage night watchman paid to guard warehouses at night down by the docks, or maybe a fetch-boy on some arm-pit frontier outpost that is in the sticks somewhere off the beaten path and can't afford to hire real soldiers to protect them, so they get the retarded, the senile, the incompetent, the maladjusted, the druggies, alcoholics, or just the lazy and ambitionless; those shiftless bits of flotsam that seek to wallow in utter mediocrity, just getting by with the bare minimum of effort and responsibility.
Thus, young characters are in demand, but they have to keep moving, and get with the program to establish themselves with any kind of real ability to survive. There is a high turnover rate, and a high attrition rate in many professions and lines of work, so there is always a demand for more talent. Young characters have to keep up with the pace, with the dangers of the world, or even the rigors of the big city may roll over them. The wheels and caravans of industry and trade cannot wait while some 2nd level character hems and haws, so to speak, you know?
In truth though, looking at it from a young, low-level character's vantage point in my campaigns, well, there aren't dragons around every corner, but evil humanoids are a fairly regular occurrence. Wizard terrorists being hunted and blown out of some fortified tower in the wealthy port district of the big city isn't an uncommon sight. Folk can often see a grim witch hunter dragging a young woman to the stake to burn her alive, for she has been found guilty of fornicating with demons. Now, perhaps as a young farm boy, you may, or may not, realise with certainty that your neighbor's cows died from a plague given to them by evil sprites serving the demon that has seduced the young girl. Or that Mr. Branneck, over the river there, last week went berzerk and killed his wife and four children with a pitchfork after catching his wife in the arms of that handsome wandering riverboat labourer, that, naturally, disappeared the next day after being discovered with the young wife. Indeed, the demon likes to take the form of a handsome stranger...
It's a rugged life that a young character enters the world in, and if they are lucky, they can either live a long, hard life, working away dilligently; a long life of heroism and glory; or a short, violent life being stomped into the mud and devoured.
Snoweel, I believe that you wanted the same question answered, so I hope this works.
So, what do you guys think?
How's that sound for the early lives of young, low-level characters?
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
PS--Ulrick, there you are! Hey, e-mail me! You really need to get into a high-level campaign!
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