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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5533844" data-attributes="member: 2067">The town generation rules help give you a baseline: 99% of the world is a Commoner 1. A Commoner 1 represents a "normal person." A Warrior 1 represents a "trained combatant" (probably the equivalent of militia members). Aristocrats, Experts, and Adepts are trained specialists in more esoteric things, but they're normal people with some specialized training, too. The XP region of the NPC guidelines in the DMG talks about NPCs gaining XP for the same things PC's do (namely, killing). This mentions that NPCs in dangerous areas might have enough XP to push them up to level 2 or 3, but not really beyond that -- they live pretty safe lives, in comparison to the PC's. They also mention that the "normal human ability scores" are all 10's and 11's.So in 3e, the far end of the "normal power curve" is a Level 3 Warrior with a 10 strength. Maybe that's a D&D-equivalent special ops member, or marine, or a well-scarred hireling or henchperson.The thick end of that power curve, where most of humanity lies, is right there at the bottom, with nearly everyone being a Level 1 Commoner. Which means a skill bonus maximum of about +5, if they're highly specialized and not interested in a diversity of skills (which would be a little silly for an NPC, but whatever). They can accomplish DC 15 things on a Take 10, which means, as a baseline, that they're capable of doing some basic tasks, and can even have a chance to do some pretty cool things once in a while. So if a first level PC fighter has a skill bonus of +9 (skill ranks + ability score modifiers + a possible feat), they're already very impressive at what they do. They can accomplish DC 19 things on a Take 10, and in a level or two, DC 20 things. Most NPC sailors would be Commoner 1 sailors with a Profession (Sailor) bonus of maybe +2. They'd have other skills to round out their point total (such as Perception, or maybe Diplomacy, or anything). If the NPC were especially invested in being a sailor (like, they wanted to be captain, or at least first mate), they might dump all their points into it and be +5, best sailor on the ship. A PC fighter who got a +2 bonus in Profession (Sailor), even just from a Wisdom bonus rolling untrained, would be as competent a sailor as most other crew members, and so could reasonably be a Pirate Captain. If they wanted to also be the best sailor on board (certainly not required for a dude in charge), they would want to bump it up to +5 or so. I don't know where they would find Full Plate Armor and Exotic Weapons that were rust-proof and buoyant on the high seas, though, so I'm not sure why any character who wanted to spend their life there would be a Fighter. Better as a Ranger (Hook's croc as an animal companion!), or a Barbarian (drunken rage!) or a Rogue (skullduggery!), or even a Swashbuckler (aha!), Marshal (a great leader!), Scout (for darting about the ship), Hexblade (a cursed pirate!), or Warblade (a daring fighter!). But that's really a quibble. Anyone can be a Pirate Captain in D&D without too much effort. The bar for entry is really low. It is set for Commoners.  That remains true with most other things you can imagine. Even the strongest and wisest kings in the world, who have scored constant victories over the enemy in armed conflict, are probably only 3rd level Aristocrats. A first level Paladin can rival their Diplomacy. Not that a PC is likely to pick up Skill Focus (diplomacy), but y'never know. "Blackbeard" might be modeled as an Aristocrat 1/Warrior 2. That's enough to "fight like a demon" in comparison to a Commoner 1 (which is what most sailors are). The rub is that Fighters and Paladins and Rangers and Rogues and all those other PC-classed characters are rare. They're rare because those classes represent fantasy heroes (and villains and rivals and other Narratively Significant People) and not normal folk.Of course, even a 20th level Marshal/Dread Pirate has problems, given that while he is likely the person with the highest Profession(Sailor) rank in the world, he could still roll a 1 on his check, while his friend the Wizard can just Control Weather for the storm to stop instead of needing to roll a skill check to get past it.I'd like the best sailor in the world to be able to bypass a storm as easily as that, honestly, but D&D's divide between Spellscaster and Warrior stops me short, since it says "No, only Wizards get to automagically make stuff happen, your best bet, if you want to be a great pirate king, is to be friends with a wizard who can help you do things like sail."</blockquote>

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