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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 464390" data-attributes="member: 4937">Khorod: We are mostly on the same page.  I think you are struggling unnecessarily with a few things though."So its not unreasonable to assume that they can be KO'd without having to run through all hit points."That's fine, but this is another instance of having two sets of mechanics, one for PC's and one for NPC's.  I've never liked that, and anyway your reasoning seems pretty flimsy.  It is also another case of needing an arbitrary assumption to keep unexpected results of another arbitrary assumption from ruining your game world.It is also not a necessary assumption, as I'll point out below."Sure, they got levels, but not everything about what they have and what they can do is described by the mechanics."Well, ideally this is not true."In an attempt to fix it I use d10's for opposed rolls."This helps fix what is admittedly always been one of the D&D systems biggest weaknesses, but just makes worse the biggest weakness of the D20 system at high levels - the insignificance of the random result compared to the large bonus."Of course, this does retain some feeling of *what*? Its not a perfect explanation, but then, try arguing that all npc's are 1st level. That doesn't make sense to me. You can't have experienced, compentent farmers or master smiths that way without making them ex-adventurers or rules-exceptions."I agree on all counts.   Let me try to remove the 'feeling of *what*'.  If you assume that NPC's can obtain levels/experience without adventuring or killing things (a necessary assumption in my opinion), but you assume that they gain levels fairly slowly, then it is not necessary to drag out a bunch of extra rules to obtain the sort of balance between realism and heroism I've been talking about, or the balance between experience and natural ability that you so rightly brought up.Suppose that the average commoner can reach 5th level if he lives long enough.  The key part being 'if he lives long enough'.  If he is 5th level by ordinary means, then if he is also say 65 and suffering from typical medieval nutrition and hygene, then it is safe to say that his health is no longer what it used to be.  So what that he has base 5d20 h.p., +2 BAB, and 2 feats.  If his physical stats have been reduced by aging to say 6's, then he has 5d20-10 h.p. (average 2.5), +0 attack bonus, and a -2 penalty to AC and initiative.  If you carefully select the rate of advancement, older commoners may be more experienced, but they aren't necessarily better combatants.   And middle aged 2nd and 3rd level commoners might be reasonable matches for a 1st level PC class, but won't be clearly superior (and will probably be clearly inferior in some respects).  However, if you let the average commoner (or any other NPC for that matter) hit 5th level at middle age, then all bets are off.</blockquote>

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