Heroic Frequency

[Baron Opal]

Just how common are "adventuring parties" in your campaign. I consider these to be PC-equivalent groups that are having adventures in the same campaing as the PCs. They may be competitors, potential allies or enemies, or plot devices that inform the PCs if only by their absence. For example, the Company of the Golden Orchid, whom the party has heard about since they were first level, disappears in the Stonemight Mountains investigating two ancient temples.

I am guessing that with the apparent shift WotC is taking that the default assumption is that there are fairly few adventuring parties or adventuring capable people. There are a number of classes that I think are only applicable to adventurers and thus will be in particularly short supply.

Not that I think this is bad, per se, just worth noting.

Edit: Added the poll. I'm in the 100+ category myself.

 

[Graybeard]

In my hombrew world, there are lots of adventuring parties of varying levels. There is an established adventurers guild which all adventurers must belong. They control, to a certain extent, what ancient ruins can be explored by whom, etc. Recently, however, most of the adventuring parties have joined in a grand army to defeat a nearby country. Some will live, some not.

 

[shilsen]

IMC, there are lots of adventurers, but right now there's no real equivalent to the PCs since they are (at 13th lvl, this being an Eberron game) the most powerful and by far the most famous adventuring group in the world.

 

[Samnell]

The settlement demographics in the DMG work out to about 1% of the population having levels in a PC class in large and small settlements, with a bit of a bulge in mid-sized populations. About half of those are first level. That works for me, but I'm also very comfortable with the notion that in-game cultures have developed with magic and adventurers, so I probably show a bit more of that to my players than others might.

In my new Ptolus campaign, the PCs have spent a fair amount of time in the temple that sells healing right in the middle of the main adventurer hot spot. I've made a point to go beyond this and have at least one other party come in behind them or be there when they arrived. One group was three gnomes and a human fighter in full plate. The poor fighter bought it and needed raising. The poor gnomes lugged him for miles.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In campaigns I run, heroes aren't rare but adventurers are.

NPC heroes who hang out together usually share a common profession or, failing that, origin. (For instance, groups of hoodlums, cops or mercenaries as NPCs - hostile or not - are common, but a team consisting of a doctor, archaeologist, mercenary, mechanical genius and private detective are not particularly common.) I generally see actual adventurers are more "flexible" than other heroic characters.

Players sometimes get thrown for a loop when two groups of hostile NPCs cooperate; for instance, if the PCs are in a hostile country, and its military wants them dead, they might watch out for spies and not expect a bounty hunter to show up with a squad of soldiers that he's directing.

 

[Imp]

Parties of equal individuals with diverse classes are not common at all. More likely: small teams of people with similar classes who have a common line of work (a team of ranger-barbarian-barbarian/fighter that guards the forest border for example; a tag-team of rogues, one of whom's picked up some magic), or formidable person + lower-level underlings (a sailing ship's crew is a common instance). These are typical groupings of people that may be working as rivals to the PCs on a given undertaking.

 

[Lanefan]

I never assume the PCs are the only adventuring crew in town...unless it's a pretty small town.

I do, however, assume the PCs are among the most successful of adventuring groups in the long haul...but they're still not theonly ones, and there's always a bigger fish.

Lanefan

 

[Rabelais]

In my campaign, they are the only Adventurers. Any other adventurers are invariably referred to in the Past tense, and are usually used as "Don't let this happen to you" examples

 

[Harmon]

I always figured that there were lots of adventurers and a few rock solid groups that are known.

So you might have a bunch of adventurers meet and decide to head off for the loot in the lost old temple out in the dark woods, but the band breaks up soon after. Most of these people are in it for the money, few trusting the other completely.

PCs groups (sticking together through it all) are not so common. The Company of the Sparrow and the Riders of the Axe are few and far between, even harder to find because they believe in fighting the good fight to defeat evil.

Guilds and such are meant to further skills, and continue knowledge. Wizards guilds being the biggest official guilds (the thieves guild is by far the largest), and fighter- learning how to hone a sword arm take practice. Churches make up the whole of the Monks and the Clerics training grounds. Rangers and Sorcerers don't have guilds because they gain their training and skills elsewhere.

I think that there are less then one tenth of a percent adventurers in the world, and only about ten percent of them make a serious honest living at it.

 

[Lanefan]

I think that there are less then one tenth of a percent adventurers in the world, and only about ten percent of them make a serious honest living at it.

While another 20% make a serious dishonest living at it.

Lanefan