GuardianLurker said:
I think I should correct a small misconception, due primarily to my poor choice of words.
The "mortality rates" I quote are actually "advancement rates", and list the fraction of people at each level that advance to the next level.
Sounds good. Actually, the 2 years per level thing is also unsatisfactory - I included it because it makes a good compromise between the gritty crowd and the SHARK crowd. I'm working on my own advancement rate still, but don't have anything usable yet (my Theralis campaign isn't standard D&D, and so also isn't usable).
And a few questions:
What's the rational behind the "rarity numbers", the micro-urb ratio, and the major urb breakdown?
Rarity numbers: I divided 10 points among each attribute for each class, by priority. For example, a barbarian prioritized STR with 5 points, DEX 2 points, CON 2 points, and WIS 1 point. Practically EVERYONE put some priority in DEX, so DEX 16+ people tend to split between all of the classes; INT 16+ characters, on the other hand, tend to only be bards, rogues and wizards (and mostly wizards).
The rarity modifier out to the right was just my best guess for "useful to society/encouraged to develop". For example, for berserkers I multiplied their values by 10%, because they aren't very common, but if we were to develop values for a savage society, that would change to 200%.
Clerics, fighters and rogues are all either valued, or strongly encouraged in urban environments, so I gave them 200%. Barbarians and monks are both rare in civilized areas (one is savage, the other is "isolated monasteries"), so I gave them 10%. Druids and rangers were not quite as rare, but are also isolated/wilderness types, so I gave them 50%. Paladins require not only the attributes, but the character for their role, so I gave them 50%. I left bards, sorcerers and wizards alone.
To calculate how many of each, I took the second chart (the "results"), treated each of the numbers under an attribute as a proportion (under INT, there are 2 bards per 3 rogues per 7 wizards, for example) and solved for the population with an INT 16+ and two other attributes at 12+.
Microurb ratio: That's a rough guess, and a rule of thumb that has generally worked for me once I started calculating excess profits and taxes (I assume that excess money tends to go towards supporting larger centers in a hub fashion - it takes at least 5 small urban centers to produce sufficient excess to support a larger one).
Uh, that wasn't real clear, let me try it this way: The smallest urban centers act primarily as filters for the rural food supply; they shave some off, and pass the rest on. This is the distribution network and the artery to the cities. And actually, looking at it, I think I messed up. Towns are more efficient, and so can have (IMHO) smaller ratios... although I could drop it to 3 cities instead of 6, and put the rest into "smaller".
Major urb breakdown: For the first city, I divided that by 5 (30,000); for each city after that, I divided the first population by the city's ranking (x1/2, x1/3, x1/4, etc.). The rationale was simple - that's how cities tend to organize themselves in the real world. Corporations (in dollars) also tend to follow that ranking, with the second richest corporation in a given field having half the resources of the richest and so on.
Population centers tend to drop off below the city level, however, and cease following the pattern.
What's the underlying formula/calculation for your pop chart, and your urbanization chart?
To calculate pop, I made a column of ages, from 1 year to 110 years. Each year, I multiplied (round down) the previous year by some number. For 1-13, that was 0.995. For 13-71, that was 0.951 (49 deaths per 1,000). For 72-110, it was based on the likelihood of rolling for death on 70+2d20. My age 1 population was 32,390 in order to result in a total population of one million people.
Then for each level, I added up the population for the ages that are typically at that level. There will be some variance, but it will tend to balance itself out.
Urbanization: 15% of the population was how I got 150,000 urbanites.
Also, you are aware that at LV 3, the max skill rank is 6, yes? Or does your max skill a total bonus, and not just ranks?
Skill bonus, not just ranks.
Ranks: 6
Skill Focus: +2
Synergy: +2
And your urbanization ratio - what era is that based on? US 1865 farmer/consumer ratio was about 4:1, which would correspond to an urbanization of 20% (if I understand things correctly).
It's based on an "typical" 10%, upped very slightly to account for
plant growth (that is, the land is as fertile as it can be, but they still don't have modern farming techniques or machinery). However, it is not based on ANY historical period, so far as I know, other than S. John Ross' France demographics.
I'll be posting the spreadsheet I used sometime tonight - I need to clean it up so it's readable
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