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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7152218" data-attributes="member: 71699">We had a good discussion in a thread about how many adventurers there are in people's D&D worlds. From that I'd like to propose the following simplified rule of thumb.About 1/100 people have tier 1 character class-equivalence, with an order of magnitude fewer per tier above that. An Intelligence (Investigation) ability check DC 5*Tier can discover the whereabouts of such an NPC so long as they are not taking steps to avoid being found; add 5 to that DC if the search is conducted in a settlement with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. Triple the tier counts and subtract 5 from the DC if the region is on a war footing. Monster Manual stat blocks such as the Mage represent such NPCs in abstract, and are usually sufficient to run them: adding more detail using their character class where required. Their Hit Dice indicates their tier.What are the goals here?<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Fast to use without needing a spreadsheet or a table</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Consistent, so it helps sustain a credible game world (Tolkien's principle)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Passes the test of roughly yielding the D&D baseline world (Faerun)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Flexible, so it accommodates DMs without their needing to constantly break from it</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Accurate, rather than precise: it guides, rather than dictates</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Gives a quick and consistent DC for when PCs want to find an NPC (e.g. for training)</li> </ol>So if my town has 6700 inhabitants I know immediately that there could be about 67 tier 1 NPCs and 6-7 tier 2, and probably no more than 1 tier 3. If my PCs need to find that one tier 3, they'll have a DC 20 check to make. It's nearly impossible to find an Epic level NPC in such a town. If I decided to allow my PCs to try to track one down, that would be a DC of 30.</blockquote>

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