Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM_Blake" data-source="post: 4146399" data-attributes="member: 57267">Here's another thing to consider.Starting with 3e, leveling became much easier. If anyone recalls the olden days of yore where a fighter needed 2,000 xp to get to level 2, and each orc he killed was worth 15xp, he would have had to solo-kill 134 orcs to get to 2nd level. But in 3e, that number comes down to 26 orcs. Meaning it is 5x easier to level in 3e than it was in 2e.I took this to mean that NPCs would also be somewhat higher level.Consider that a fresh new recruit joins the city guard. Swing shift, patrolling with a crew of other guardsmen, vigilantly looking out for criminal activity, as well as breaking up bar fights, questioning suspcious people, etc.A couple dozen encounters later he will be level 2. Those encounters might be breaking up brawls, or simply interrogating somoene lurkin in a dark alley late at night. This fresh-faced recruit could be a level 2 watchman within a busy week, or a slow month. Level 3 won't take much longer. Level 4 is probably doable within 1 year from the day he enlisted.And his veteran sergeant who has been in the city watch for 25 years, is probably 10th level or higher.Looking at how easily 3e characters could level gave me some insight to adjust NPCs in my world.Now we go to 4e, where level 30 is the new level 20 soft-cap. Does it still take just as long (which is not very long at all) to go up each level, or is leveling even faster so we can hit 30 levels in the time it used to take to reach 20th in 3e?Either way, following this logic, your average town/hammlet/village isn't really defended by level 1 NPCs and heroes. Sure, the young defenders start at level 1, but the veterans are significantly stronger.This is probably even more true in PoL, where these isolated villages face nearly constant danger from the shadow realm. In 3e Forgotten Realms, a farm village might fend off the occasional wandering troll, or a rare incursion by some goblins or orcs, maybe a sheep-stealing griffon from time to time. The village militia are only infrequently called upon to protect the village. With infrequent encounters, leveling is slow - even if it only takes a dozen encounters to gain a level, if it takes 2 years to have those dozen encounters, it will take 2 years for new defenders to reach level 2.But in 4e PoL, it's reasonable to assume village militia may be called upon to protect the village daily, or nearly daily, or at least weekly. Those defenders will level faster and attain higher level in a reasonable time.I don't personally see a conflict with having a village of 100 or so poplation sporting a minute-man type militia consisting of a few long-time veterans around 10th level or so, most of the militia being mid-range semi-veterans in the 4-9 range, and a handful of new members in the 1-3 range.</blockquote>

Verification