Mercule
Adventurer
And monks. So, there goes the leather armor and shields. Also, the "i". I guess it's either the "s" or your kitchen.
D&D 5E How many adventurers are in your world?
Kabouter Games
Explorer
My world has few "true" adventurers. There are many sell-swords and common mercenaries, pirates, and such. There are many people with skills represented by adventuring class levels. How they're represented, and how high are the levels they hold, is dependent on the locale; rural places have much lower-level NPCs than large cities, as a general world-design rule. But it's important for me to remember that, for example, while the village priest has the powers of a 7th-level Cleric he's never been in a dungeon in his life and would shudder to think of it.
The militia commander/guard captain might be a mid-level Fighter, though it's just as likely he's no fighter at all and instead has political connections. His sergeant, however, is definitely a mid-level Fighter, and has earned his Fighter levels the hard way. Again, he's never been in a dungeon in his life, and wouldn't for love nor money. He's earned all his XP in battle. Which is why he's a 50-year-old human who's still 5th to 7th level even though he's "...been in uniform one way or t'other since I'uz nowt but a lad."
Priests vary by location, as do arcane magic-users. Village priests are highly unlikely to be able to cast spells at will, though they can access rituals which have the effect of beneficial spells of healing and restoration and the like. A high priest in a major city is likely to be the equivalent of an Archbishop in the real-world medieval Catholic church, a person of immense political and temporal power but no adventuring-class levels. Adventuring priests are incredibly rare, as those devout enough to truly manifest their god's power as miracles tend to prefer lives of prayer and pious contemplation, and those with the drive to smite foes adventure as Paladins. But they do exist. They are usually "deployed" to adventuring groups for specific tasks. Same with Monks.
Wizards are highly organized. Education is largely accomplished by wizards. Even the most rural village has a hedge wizard who is the local schoolmaster. Her task is to identify those children with magical ability and ship them off to bigger, more challenging schools in the larger cities. Non-magical children are taught the three Rs and sent back to their parents. Non-magical scholars are also identified and sent on to higher schooling, usually resulting in bureaucratic jobs in government or guild. Adventuring wizards are also rare indeed, given the society in which they develop, and are also usually "deployed" to adventuring groups for specific tasks. There are a few who choose to endure the rough life, though they are usually held in suspicion by more settled, "normal" Wizards.
Sorcerers and Wild Mages are exclusively adventurers, even NPC mentors of PCs; in my world they're arcane magic-users without the benefit of formal schooling. The Mage's Guild discourages them, preferring to bring them in and teach them "proper" magic use. Those who refuse are held in contempt by the Guild. Though not as common as schooled Wizards, they're around. Warlocks are forbidden, on pain of immediate arrest, trial, and execution (there's history there involving a war and massive loss of life), so they're also exclusively adventurers. Life is interesting for Warlocks. Nobody's actually seen one themselves, but their brother's wife's cousin saw one a few weeks ago in an ale-house, that sort of thing. That's how rare they are.
All Bards are adventurers, though not all musicians/entertainers are Bards, if you get my meaning. Bards command a following at higher levels; they're always "on tour." There will never be two Bards in the same room without a fight breaking out.
In the same way, not all thieves and assassins have Rogue adventuring levels. Some do, but most do not. In fact, those with Rogue levels do best to hide them. Those with the Assassin archetype will never reveal it, as they are held in suspicion if not outright contempt even by their fellow criminals.
I can't put a demographic percentage on PHB-class "adventurers" in my world, but I can say, "precious few." There are no organizations or guilds of adventurers, though each group tends to name itself. The names tend to be as juvenile as garage bands.
PCs also have nemeses, in exactly the same way that Indiana Jones had René Belloq and Lara Croft had Alex West. It makes life more interesting for the PCs.
The militia commander/guard captain might be a mid-level Fighter, though it's just as likely he's no fighter at all and instead has political connections. His sergeant, however, is definitely a mid-level Fighter, and has earned his Fighter levels the hard way. Again, he's never been in a dungeon in his life, and wouldn't for love nor money. He's earned all his XP in battle. Which is why he's a 50-year-old human who's still 5th to 7th level even though he's "...been in uniform one way or t'other since I'uz nowt but a lad."
Priests vary by location, as do arcane magic-users. Village priests are highly unlikely to be able to cast spells at will, though they can access rituals which have the effect of beneficial spells of healing and restoration and the like. A high priest in a major city is likely to be the equivalent of an Archbishop in the real-world medieval Catholic church, a person of immense political and temporal power but no adventuring-class levels. Adventuring priests are incredibly rare, as those devout enough to truly manifest their god's power as miracles tend to prefer lives of prayer and pious contemplation, and those with the drive to smite foes adventure as Paladins. But they do exist. They are usually "deployed" to adventuring groups for specific tasks. Same with Monks.
Wizards are highly organized. Education is largely accomplished by wizards. Even the most rural village has a hedge wizard who is the local schoolmaster. Her task is to identify those children with magical ability and ship them off to bigger, more challenging schools in the larger cities. Non-magical children are taught the three Rs and sent back to their parents. Non-magical scholars are also identified and sent on to higher schooling, usually resulting in bureaucratic jobs in government or guild. Adventuring wizards are also rare indeed, given the society in which they develop, and are also usually "deployed" to adventuring groups for specific tasks. There are a few who choose to endure the rough life, though they are usually held in suspicion by more settled, "normal" Wizards.
Sorcerers and Wild Mages are exclusively adventurers, even NPC mentors of PCs; in my world they're arcane magic-users without the benefit of formal schooling. The Mage's Guild discourages them, preferring to bring them in and teach them "proper" magic use. Those who refuse are held in contempt by the Guild. Though not as common as schooled Wizards, they're around. Warlocks are forbidden, on pain of immediate arrest, trial, and execution (there's history there involving a war and massive loss of life), so they're also exclusively adventurers. Life is interesting for Warlocks. Nobody's actually seen one themselves, but their brother's wife's cousin saw one a few weeks ago in an ale-house, that sort of thing. That's how rare they are.
All Bards are adventurers, though not all musicians/entertainers are Bards, if you get my meaning. Bards command a following at higher levels; they're always "on tour." There will never be two Bards in the same room without a fight breaking out.
In the same way, not all thieves and assassins have Rogue adventuring levels. Some do, but most do not. In fact, those with Rogue levels do best to hide them. Those with the Assassin archetype will never reveal it, as they are held in suspicion if not outright contempt even by their fellow criminals.
I can't put a demographic percentage on PHB-class "adventurers" in my world, but I can say, "precious few." There are no organizations or guilds of adventurers, though each group tends to name itself. The names tend to be as juvenile as garage bands.
PCs also have nemeses, in exactly the same way that Indiana Jones had René Belloq and Lara Croft had Alex West. It makes life more interesting for the PCs.
L
lowkey13
Guest
*Deleted by user*
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
For both these and Assassins at higher levels you had to take out whoever was above you in order to gain the new level.
There's only one bi-i-i-ig glaring hole in that rule that is never addressed in the core books (no idea if a Dragon article covered it or not):
What if nobody's left above you?
Say you're a 12th-level Assassin, all set to bump into 13th except you need to find an existing 13th-level Assassin to kill in order to advance...and because all the 13th-level Assassins happen to have died of other causes there aren't any. Then what do you do? Are you arbitrarily stuck at 12th forever (which the letter of the rule would suggest)?
Even worse is an Assassin trying to advance to 15th; of which there in fact CAN be only one according to the rule. If that one 15th-level Assassin dies of old age or other natural causes, what then? Do all the 14th's have to get into a round-robin Assassin-off to see who takes over (thus leaving no 14th-level Assassins; they're all dead except the one who gets to 15th)? Dumb rule.
I did away with this rule for anyone but Assassins probably before I even started DMing; Assassins still have to kill to advance beyond 12th or so (but here's the clause that's missing from the 1e rules) or prove that a vacancy exists. I cap them at 15th but there can be more than one 15th-Assassin out there. Next campaign I'll probably ditch this idea completely.
Lan-"the RAW also completely assumes these classes operate in tight guilds and makes no allowance for freelancers; another mistake"-efan
Kabouter Games
Explorer
Not cool, man. NOT COOL.
I didn't need to know that! Now I'm going to be looking over my shoulder all the time.
THANKS OBAMA.
GreenTengu
Adventurer
To be fair, none of the ways in which they attempted to restrict level gaining beyond experience points made any sense whatsoever.
The Fighter or Rogue had to determine if they had slaughtered enough people and picked up enough gold pieces to qualify for additional training? Since when do you give veterans additional training in the things they have been practicing in the field? Haven't all these fights they have been in and locks they have picked been in and of themselves opportunities in order to refine their skills and techniques? What exactly is that trainer going to be showing them in 1d6 weeks time that is going to be more relevant for honing these skills more than field experience was? And if these techniques existed, why weren't they part of the initial training instead of requiring someone to go out and stab lots of living things and pick up lots of gold before going over them?
I suppose it makes marginally more sense for clerics, but only marginally so-- I mean the cleric is supposedly in touch with their god while casting their spells and during the sleep/meditation they need to do in order to regain their spells, so... why do they need to report to a higher level priest for additional training? Wouldn't their god naturally favor them for doing their work and spreading their influence and be a far better guide than any high priest?
Really, the whole additional training seems to work only for Wizards who are indeed picking up tangibly new things while leveling-- and even then, it is really just the learning new spells part, their spell slots and toughness seem like they should just increase naturally.
Yes, the additional Druid and Assassin requirements were all the more goofy, no doubt.
The mistake perhaps was really writing these things into the book as standard required systems for play rather than examples of optional systems that DMs could implement if they felt the players were gaining levels too easily and too arbitrarily. But, I think the initial concept was that there would be a strict standardized ruleset and all characters people generated existed as population of a single world and could be ported from game to game with assurances that nothing too wonky was happening in any particular one much akin to Adventurer's League... it was probably only later that the idea that every group should be encouraged to throw out as much of the rules as are interfering with fun and really do whatever they want with only their imagination limiting them came more into favor.
I might be wrong, but looking through the rulebooks of the various editions that is the impression I got. Less and less "these are the rules, FOLLOW THEM" and more "yeah, here is how we do it-- the DM should do whatever he likes" going from edition to edition.
sleypy
Explorer
I don't setup campaigns to have the party as destined for greatness, or uniquely special. There are many adventures in my worlds. Adventurers face challenges and seize opportunities; that is what makes them special.
I suppose that It be more accurate to say that the party is not an adventuring party, but a venturing party. Anticlimatic I know; I've always had a pension for High Fantasy with a mundane scope.
I suppose that It be more accurate to say that the party is not an adventuring party, but a venturing party. Anticlimatic I know; I've always had a pension for High Fantasy with a mundane scope.
Flexor the Mighty!
18/100 Strength!
Oh I don't know, combat soldiers train all the time. Bring in outside trainers for special ops guys etc.
OB1
Jedi Master
With 5e I use the Tier system as a basic guide.
Tier 1 - Thousands qualify here, primarily soldiers, spies, scouts, law enforcement, guides, organized crime bosses and such. Most of these will never reach Tier 2 because they either died trying or gave up before they could be. There may be some true adventurers in this group, out on their own looking for fortune and glory, but most people have never met one.
Tier 2 - A few dozen, tops. Powerful warrior kings and their magical advisors. Heads of a church or magician's college. Druids responsible for an entire forest. etc. Most of these don't reach Tier 3 because their responsibilities have grown to a level that keep them from anything dangerous.
Tier 3 - A handful, if any, and likely older and as a result of some great cataclysm a generation ago.
Tier 4 - None known, though legends persist of those great and powerful figures, songs are sung of them, plays revolve around their exploits.
Tier 1 - Thousands qualify here, primarily soldiers, spies, scouts, law enforcement, guides, organized crime bosses and such. Most of these will never reach Tier 2 because they either died trying or gave up before they could be. There may be some true adventurers in this group, out on their own looking for fortune and glory, but most people have never met one.
Tier 2 - A few dozen, tops. Powerful warrior kings and their magical advisors. Heads of a church or magician's college. Druids responsible for an entire forest. etc. Most of these don't reach Tier 3 because their responsibilities have grown to a level that keep them from anything dangerous.
Tier 3 - A handful, if any, and likely older and as a result of some great cataclysm a generation ago.
Tier 4 - None known, though legends persist of those great and powerful figures, songs are sung of them, plays revolve around their exploits.
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