Level 20 commoners?

[painandgreed]

Except that you don't gain XP for crafting, working, nor gaining wealth. So we're back to Commoners who are not earnign much XP.

You gain XP for completing challenges. Crafting, working, and gaining wealth all involve a challenge. Money being just a rough yardstick to measure the challenge.

I notice a lot of people think that commoners would be the craftsmen and other skilled workers of the world. I always though that's what experts were for. I picture commoners as farmers and unskilled laborers. If that's not the case, what exactly are experts?

Crafts and Professions are still class skills for the Commoner. They could, and probably do, pick one and max it out as much as possible. While "Experts have a vast range of skills." and could do so with several just as a Rogue could, but being an expert doesn't give them any advantage over a commoner in the one or two skills that they could max out. So while they probably had humbler backgrounds, there are lots of them and the few with ability, ambition, and opportunity could take any craft or profession to excellence. on the average, most of your skilled craftsmen might be experts but that doesn't prevent Commoners from entering into it when they have the ability. If that character is only interested in increasing that one skill, then they could do that with the commoner class and no real reason to change classes into expert or anything else which might have greater training costs and times.

 

[Fingol]

Look at commoners as folks who don't have a lot of opportunities in life-- I don't use Adepts but this is how I see the NPC classes

Commoners are folks like shopgirls and farmers who never leave home-- heck slaves too

---snip---

5th + These are the skilled and repected farmers -- compotent at what they do (skill 12+ ) able to perform master level works under pressure

Nice description!
I still have a couple of reservations though;
1) Where do NPCs get xp from to go up levels? I think as stated elsewhere in the thread you only get xp from potentially fatal challenges overcome. If they do gain xp by fighting then that would lead me to conclude that they would gain levels that are more martially orientated.
2) To get from level 19 to level 20 he needs to kill 3 or 4 people (other commoners?)/ creatures of an appropriately high CR. He is not just the anonymous commoner fighting on a battle field in one of the lords peasant army regiments anymore. He is out there protecting his lord from dragons, enemy spell casters etc...He can not do this if the only levels he took were commoner, because as stated a commoner's levels are no where near his ability to handle CR ratings like those of other classes. Heck the whole NPC class group suffers from this. At some point they don't earn xp anymore from the CRs they can defeat as the xp award table is only level and CR dependent.

I keep on concluding that a level 20th commoner somehow is breaking all the rules. Am I wrong?

 

[Fingol]

You gain XP for completing challenges. Crafting, working, and gaining wealth all involve a challenge. Money being just a rough yardstick to measure the challenge.

I don't think thats right;
imagine my group on monday nights complaining about the dungeon they are in being a bit too tough...All it would take would be one bright spark to comment that they can earn xp crafting ....

Which page of the DMG does it link crafting checks to CR ratings?

 

[Deadguy]

I don't think thats right;
imagine my group on monday nights complaining about the dungeon they are in being a bit too tough...All it would take would be one bright spark to comment that they can earn xp crafting ....

Which page of the DMG does it link crafting checks to CR ratings?

Just interceding here, I don't think that the DMG really spells out what constitutes a challenge. It has advice for defeating monsters (and traps) but it still leaves it in the DM's court as to what constitutes a challenge. If he wants to award XP for skill usage, that's his prerogative.

More generally, we know essentially nothing about how NPCs advance - the rules are there for PCs - other than that they presumeably do advance. But how much and how fast: that's a DM decision again.

 

[Fingol]

Just interceding here, I don't think that the DMG really spells out what constitutes a challenge. It has advice for defeating monsters (and traps) but it still leaves it in the DM's court as to what constitutes a challenge. If he wants to award XP for skill usage, that's his prerogative.

More generally, we know essentially nothing about how NPCs advance - the rules are there for PCs - other than that they presumeably do advance. But how much and how fast: that's a DM decision again.

Hmm; "NPCs gain experience points the same way that PCs do." pg 107 DMG (hope I did not horribly quote it out of context.)

But as an idea that NPCs can gain experience in other ways than PCs I'd buy into that. What still frustrates me than though is if NPCs get it from crafting etc...(non combat activities) why do they gain Hit Points and levels? Why not just give a more experienced commoner appropriate skill points but otherwise leave their 'level' alone. If you're gonna be arbitrary you might as well try to have the end result 'make sense'?

 

[painandgreed]

I don't think thats right;
imagine my group on monday nights complaining about the dungeon they are in being a bit too tough...All it would take would be one bright spark to comment that they can earn xp crafting ....

Ya, so?

If they're so unhappy with dungeons to be willing to sit around and make arrows, maybe that should tell you something. I don't mean anything about your ability as a DM but the game is about having fun. If they'd rather have their characters craft stuff rather than hack up monsters, what's the problem? I can only think back to a Traveller game I started and was teaching the players the rules. We did some trading to help explain spaceships, FTL travel and the social make up of the Imperium. Thinking they were getting a little bored just rolling dice on trade tables buying and selling commodities while paying upkeep on their ship, I was all ready to get one with an adventure. When I sugested it they literally said "Screw that! We're making money." If that's what they wanted to do, why railroad them into something else.

Which page of the DMG does it link crafting checks to CR ratings?

It's ad hoc since D&D doesn't have a decent experience point system for anything other than hack and slash games (IMHO). I did signify this with "I explain this..." and "I give out..." which would indicate that it is not exactly word for word rules for such. If you want a line of rules you could always go with DMG, p.40: "Sometimes you may want to estimate expereince point awards for actions that normally don't result in an XP award under the standard system." There is a much larger explaination of this and why in the "Fantasy World Economics" thread which is pretty far back by now I'm afraid. It is primarily used for NPCs but I run both NPCs and PCs by the same set of rules so if they wanted to sit around and craft, they could. I see no reason why rolling dice to kill and orc is any more impressive than rolling dice to create a masterwork item.

 

[painandgreed]

What still frustrates me than though is if NPCs get it from crafting etc...(non combat activities) why do they gain Hit Points and levels? Why not just give a more experienced commoner appropriate skill points but otherwise leave their 'level' alone. If you're gonna be arbitrary you might as well try to have the end result 'make sense'?

Heh, he. You're playing the wrong game if you want results that 'make sense'. Why do PCs gain HP and levels the way they do? Why do their skills go up when they didn't use any of them? Why does my wizard's spell casting ability get better when he kills orcs with a crossbow?

 

[Silveras]

Hmm; "NPCs gain experience points the same way that PCs do." pg 107 DMG (hope I did not horribly quote it out of context.)

But as an idea that NPCs can gain experience in other ways than PCs I'd buy into that. What still frustrates me than though is if NPCs get it from crafting etc...(non combat activities) why do they gain Hit Points and levels? Why not just give a more experienced commoner appropriate skill points but otherwise leave their 'level' alone. If you're gonna be arbitrary you might as well try to have the end result 'make sense'?

Actually, painandgreed is simply failing to connect some of the dots in how he is making his point.

The "challenge" is surviving (and maybe even advancing a little) in a quasi-medieval society. The means of overcoming this challenge is by employing skills to earn a living.

Instead of slaying monsters, the Blacksmith manages to make enough money to feed his children. <DING !>1 CR 5 challenge overcome.

This just happens to be exactly what Sean K. Reynolds was saying in the afore-mentioned article on his web site; that Commoners, Experts, etc., advance by facing approximately 1 CR1 challenge per month in the course of their lives. Making rent payments on the shop, saving some of the crop from locusts, etc., is the type of challenge they face.


Now... as to how appropriate Level 20 Commoners are...
it depends a lot on how you perceive the scale of power in your world. In a world where 10th level PC-class characters have become the movers and shakers, most Commoners will (and probably should) be level 5 or lower. And so also will most Experts, Aristocrats, etc. As a corollary, note that this is where 1st & 2nd Edition "drew the line"; from here, NPCs able to cast higher-level spells become harder to find (leading to fewer Raise Dead/ Resurrection/ True Resurrection casters being around).

In a world where PC-class characters of levels 15-20 are the movers and shakers, instead (and thus more common), NPC-class characters of levels 6-12 are more appropriate. (This is approximately the standard for 3E DnD.)

In a world where heroes do not become more than "just another adventurer, a wanna-be hero" until they reach Epic rules use (21+), NPC-classed characters up to level 20 make sense.

 

[Sado]

I don't think thats right;
imagine my group on monday nights complaining about the dungeon they are in being a bit too tough...All it would take would be one bright spark to comment that they can earn xp crafting ....

Which page of the DMG does it link crafting checks to CR ratings?

WARNING-THREADJACK ALERT

Hmm, it would make sense to find some way to advance based on what skills you used, then. We don't want someone who has sat around for years knitting socks to be able to go out and kick butt.

How would that be implemented? Something like in Morrowind, where the more you use a skill the better that skill gets, and when you raise enough skills you go up a level (if I remember right that's how it worked).

I had a similar mechanic in a homebrew system I wrote up once, but it was VERY bare-bones, more suited to a gamebook like Lone Wolf or Fighting Fantasy than a real rpg.

 

[Fingol]

Ya, so?

If they're so unhappy with dungeons to be willing to sit around and make arrows, maybe that should tell you something. I don't mean anything about your ability as a DM but the game is about having fun. If they'd rather have their characters craft stuff rather than hack up monsters, what's the problem? ---snip---.

1) its less fun than a tough dungeon
2) its would quickly become the prefered method to bypass anything tough
3) there would be hours spend argueing about the rules that governed it
4) there would be an expectation that as it did not involve any physical danger the players would not need to play it out. "So I need to make x checks to get a level? Can we say I did that so we can get on with the adventure (and back to the treasure)?