NPC Advancement

[Phlebas]

It makes a difference when it comes to social interactions. For instance, you might want to know the magic item shopkeeper's Diplomacy score for when PCs want to make deals with them.

If he's about 5th level, reasonable cha, +10 Diplomacy.

honestly, does it really make that much difference whether its 8 or 12?

simple rule of thumb

untrained / non-class skill +0
class skill / low level or not relevant to profession +5
class skill / used regularly +10
class skill / mid - high level +15
expert / high level +20
or use Random NPC generator

 

[Phlebas]

20 years old: 2nd level
30 years old: 3rd level
40 years old: 4th level
50 years old: 5th level
60 years old: 6th level
70 years old: 7th level

that makes statting random encounters easy (Yoink)

just an aside - does that mean most elves you meet are 10th level plus? Pointy eared fairies just got scarier...

works for other races reasonably well if you just adjust the starting point

 

[The_Gneech]

I dunno, I think the best method is "make them the level you think they should be." Unless the characters engage in rolling dice against them, the stats don't matter anyway and the players will never know what level the NPCs are.

Certainly the characters don't.

-The Gneech

 

[howandwhy99]

If the NPCs are with the PCs, they get a fair share of the experience.

If they are outside the party they are the level I want them to be. I've never been asked to justify why an NPC seemed to have shot through the levels and I don't expect it to happen.

The pretty well defines how I do things.

An NPC with the party take half the XP of a PC.

When the NPCs are not with the party and they return after years of in-game time, then I make them whatever level and class is appropriate for what happened in the meantime.

 

[Roman]

Thank you, lots of interesting suggestions!

To answer the question why I wanted some kind of approximate formula in the first place was for instances, where the NPC is important, but I don't have a preferred outcome in my mind as to where to take the story, so I am uncertain and ambivalent as to what level to peg the specific NPC at.