Level one...hero or schlub?

[howandwhy99]

School is over. You've finished your apprenticeship, but are not yet a master.

The game starts with the initial performance of the class. So not a needs-to-be-trained schlub or a novice in training, but not a hero or superhero either.

However, you can become a hero and even a superhero, if you work at it.

 

[Kzach]

All of these things combine to make PC's unheroic regardless of their level. No matter what they do, they are still treated by the NPC's as Schlubs and still rate in comparison to the NPC's as Schlubs. I don't care how many kobold minions you can slaughter, if back in town there are hundreds of NPC's that could do the job better, you're still a Schlub.

Unless I'm using a pre-fab world, I always try to express to my players that 99% of the population are schlubs (using 4e analogy, minions). I try to do this through description as much as possible so that anyone with training and decent gear tends to stand out and that unless PC's make efforts NOT to stand out, they will be noticed wherever they go simply due to them being a cut-above. The way they walk, the confidence that can only come from skill and training, how they approach people and situations, the way they speak, are all obvious clues that tell the average Joe that you're anything but average.

And of course, this works for powerful NPC's as well. It's not usually difficult to notice who you need to be aware of in a crowded room, again unless the person is taking pains not to be noticed.

 

[Lanefan]

a) I detest NPC's with stat arrays that are so uber that they are far beyond what the PC's could ever hope to have.
b) I detest it when effectively every NPC in the game world is built to an elite or better stat array so that 14 is effectively average and a PC legitimately must feel inferior if he has an attribute at 10.
c) I detest when the BBEG has a room full of unnamed minions who are all each 10th level fighters who apparantly have nothing better to do but wait to be killed solely because the PC's are supposed to be 16th level at this point in the game.
d) I detest NPC's that are leveled up to high level simply to be uber. Like, every king is a 20th level character, every local mayor or constable is 10th level, and every city worthy of the title has at least a dozen characters of 9th level or higher.
e) I hate demographics that are dependent solely on gamist concerns. The most common is that every temple has a priest capable of casting raise dead, but town guards or merchants who are much higher level than any of the monsters that supposedly threaten the town are another egregious offender.

a) agreed.
b) agreed.
c) the rationale is, of course, that the BBEG has been training these guys for years and-or they've gained their levels by raiding the countryside and generally being bad guys...or they're just mercenaries and the BBEG pays 'em really well! I've no problem with this one provided they're 10th level regardless of whether the PCs are 5th level or 15th level when they meet 'em.
d) I'll disagree here. Consider this: right now your PCs are out in the field gettin' it done, and in a few years they'll be 10th, 15th, 20th level. Then they'll retire from adventuring...and in 25 years what will they be? Yep, those very same stay-at-home high-levels you say you don't like. In other words, the stay-at-home high-level nobles and clerics and wizards of today are just yesterday's field adventurers enjoying a well-earned retirement.
e) agreed, particularly re towns that are quite capable of doing it themselves but get the PCs to do it anyway...unless, of course, the town's motive is to get the PCs killed... >cackle<

Lan-"there's always a bigger fish, only sometimes it doesn't look like a fish"-efan

 

[S'mon]

If a setting has independent city states (like medieval Italy) then they should have some pretty Bad Ass City Guard, IMO. Usually a 'Save the City of Greyhawk!' type adventure should be Paragon Tier, IMO. 1st level PCs save villages.

 

[Mallus]

I prefer my characters to be average Joe. They are heroes because they do what must be done, not because they are somehow better than other people. They might be in a little better shape - you don't generally go from couch potato to the caves of chaos overnight - but generally, they represent the average person with a bit more ambition and fortitude.

Do you mean that literally? Like a D&D character with no more than [14,13,11,11,11,11] for their stats?

Not to sound like I criticizing preferences, but I just don't get the "Joe Everyman PC" meme I've seen knocking around over the past few years. I've always seen D&D, and most other RPG's, for that matter, as adventure fiction simulators. Adventure fiction protagonists are seldom average human (or non) specimens.

Death of a Salesman is about an Everyman.

John Carter of Mars is not.

 

[Celebrim]

a) agreed.
b) agreed.

Agreement is good.

c) the rationale is, of course, that the BBEG has been training these guys for years and-or they've gained their levels by raiding the countryside and generally being bad guys...

Yes, but to me, that rational does not explain the minions being more than about 4th level. You don't get to 10th level in the lifetime of a mortal by training at arms and riding around occassionally killing commonners that resist tax collection.

...or they're just mercenaries and the BBEG pays 'em really well!

Which again begs the question what is the genesis of 10th level characters in your campaign world. If these are 10th level mercs, then they've had adventures every bit as impressive and world shaping as those that the PC's had reaching 10th level. Maybe it was stretched out over a slightly longer period of time, but these would certainly not be nameless mooks. These would be individuals whose blades had each slaughtered the forces of good in the hundreds. They would be names uttered only in scared whispers. Prayers would be made for deliverance from each of them in temples across wide swaths of the campaign world, and these individuals would rightly think that thier larger than life lives earned them more than being ordinary if well paid guards. They'd want dominion and authority that corresponded to their outsized, supersized, superheroic abilitiy. They'd want palaces and haram girls and all the stuff and benefits that would go with their extraordinary pay.

And this also raises the issue of just how many high level characters a campaign world can support, given that as far as I am able to tell, the only really efficient way to gain experience is to engage things in mortal combat. Each high level character represents the death of hundreds of foes. A small army of high level characters represents the denuding of the countryside of life. If you did a computer simulation where you filled the world with 1st level characters and set them to fight each other, it would become quite clear quickly that either the population has to crash or few can reach high level.

This raises the issue of just how effective training can be. If the PC's decide to take two years off for training, work and study, how many levels can they gain if any? The answer better be close to zero if the idea of having adventures is to make sense at all.

d) I'll disagree here. Consider this: right now your PCs are out in the field gettin' it done, and in a few years they'll be 10th, 15th, 20th level. Then they'll retire from adventuring...and in 25 years what will they be? Yep, those very same stay-at-home high-levels you say you don't like. In other words, the stay-at-home high-level nobles and clerics and wizards of today are just yesterday's field adventurers enjoying a well-earned retirement.

Well, see the above argument against the existance of large numbers of people with the same sort of career as the PC's. I mean, how many people can save the town from a once in a decade tragedy each year? How much undiscovered treasure is there out there if we must assume that people discover as much as the PC's do several times as year? How many dungeons permeate the environment? Are there really 20 or 30 times as many dungeons on your map as get explored by the PC's? Where do they all come from? Is there some sort of seed that grows into a 200 year old dungeon in a few years time? Did each of those high level characters dispatch as many high level characters during their careers as the PC's dispatched? But now we are imagining an ecosystem that makes no sense whatsoever, since its all predators. Each PC must kill more than 4 characters of his own level in order to advance a level (and the ratio was MUCH MUCH worse in orlder editions). There's just no way to have a pyramid that extends up very high because the amount of violence required to get to high level implies the deaths of millions of 1st level characters. The only way to get it to extend much above 1st level is to assume that you can get roughly to level X by training. But if you can get to 20th level by training and 1st level is indeed a schlob, then why not get to level X via a training montage before going adventuring?

Finally, I've gotten characters up to high level and 'retired' them to be lords and leaders of the campaign world. However, I've played the 'retired adventurer who is now a lord' game as well, and it doesn't work like you describe. When your serfs are endangered, you go get the armor out of the closet and you go kill some orcs. Sure, you probably take along some henchmen and mercs so that they get some experience from watching you do most of the work, but you NEVER EVER spend good gold to hire a bunch of 1st level characters whom you don't even know to solve a problem you could more easily solve yourself without breaking a sweat. Sometimes you have to send the henchmen and retainers out alone if you are very busy with something and you are confident through scrying or whatever that the challenges are within their abilities, but adventurers don't end up existing as part of your economy. Nor do you allow strangers to plunder dungeons in your land and rob the riches thereof. You make every effort to find every dungeon, research every legend, and track down every cave and abandoned ruin so that if there is anything down there worth utilizing, you do so. Any large building that becomes abandoned upon someones death without a clear heir becomes the property of the king, and as explored and razed if necessary. You make sure everyone in the kingdom knows that if they stumble on something of archaelogical significance, that they are to report it immediately to someone in your chain of command for a nice reward and you deal harshly with peasants who seeking their own fortune go digging around in the Dungeon of Xyzzy the Mad.

In otherwords, the world filled with retired adventurers doesn't look like the stock D&D world, unless you assume that the good guys are absolutely as stupid and lazy as the archvillains of action movies. And when you see a world filled with retired high level adventurers (FR I'm looking squarely at you) that claims to work just like stock D&D, then you know its a silly gamist world where the demographics just work by DM fiat in order to create the gamist world where the PC's are forever some NPC's errand boys that the creator enjoyed.

 

[S'mon]

Thankfully, in 4e NPCs don't have PC Class Levels, or Experience Points, so Celebrim's objections don't arise.
Even in 3e though, I don't recall the PCs killing a lot of equal or higher level NPCs. In my Barakus campaign they got to 9th level without ever killing more than half a dozen non-monster NPCs. They cleared out most of the Barakus dungeon but did not have a huge effect on the local 'ecosystem'.

 

[Celebrim]

Thankfully, in 4e NPCs don't have PC Class Levels, or Experience Points, so Celebrim's objections don't arise.

4e is explicitly gamist. It doesn't even attempt to make sense, nor does it bother to claim that some coherent set of rules apply to NPCs. So yes, objections like these don't apply. A whole new set of objections could be raised though, but in the interest of not edition warring, I won't raise them.

Even in 3e though, I don't recall the PCs killing a lot of equal or higher level NPCs. In my Barakus campaign they got to 9th level without ever killing more than half a dozen non-monster NPCs. They cleared out most of the Barakus dungeon but did not have a huge effect on the local 'ecosystem'.

Which suggests entirely different problems with the ecosystem, like 'Why aren't dragons extinct?', and 'Just what do creatures in a dungeon eat?', and 'How is it that well known dungeons rumored to be filled with well known treasure that even low level characters can remove weren't plundered centuries ago?'

 

[S'mon]

Which suggests entirely different problems with the ecosystem, like 'Why aren't dragons extinct?', and 'Just what do creatures in a dungeon eat?', and 'How is it that well known dungeons rumored to be filled with well known treasure that even low level characters can remove weren't plundered centuries ago?'

1. The PCs fought dragons 3 times during the campaign. Result: 1-2 in favour of the dragons. The PCs managed to kill a wyrmling black dragon, but were twice defeated when they tried to take on a young adult red.

2. Most of the dungeon critters hunted outside the dungeon. The upper dungeon levels were filled with 'squatters' and little treasure. Only the lowest levels had 'original' unlooted crypts, golem guards & such.

3. The campaign demographics were such that 4th level PCs were mid-level adventurers and 7th were high level.

 

[S'mon]

4e is explicitly gamist. It doesn't even attempt to make sense, nor does it bother to claim that some coherent set of rules apply to NPCs.

It just uses "more powerful NPCs are more powerful". Actually 4e has a much shallower power gradient than previous editions, and NPCs are much more limited than PCs, so it's not hard to explain why the 6th level Soldier City Guard haven't looted every dungeon. Although personally I make most NPCs minions too; you don't send your minion-10 guards to loot the Newbie Dungeon because lots would die, for little gain.