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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9707379" data-attributes="member: 4937">Generally agreed, although it depends on the NPC.  A fourth level commoner or even a fourth level mercenary captain might and probably does have lower overall attribute scores and breadth to their skills than a typical PC.  The PC is special only in the way that the brightest kid in the class is special, and not that there isn't another kid in a different class as bright.  They are talented, but not uniquely so.  They are above normal heroic individuals, but at the same time, they mostly hyper-excel the average person as a warrior and dungeon delver.  They can't build furniture or appraise the value of cloth as well as some dweeb in town, and probably can't sense motive as well as that 80-year-old feeble matriarch. I do have a meta currency in my 3.X homebrew called 'Destiny Points' and while most NPCs don't have 'Destiny Points' some (typically BBEG's and other important figures) do.  It's sort of like 'Force Points' in WEG Star Wars.  Sure, most people don't have them but you will meet other people and even enemies that do.  The purpose of 'Destiny Points' is mostly that the 'Saving Throw' system can be overly random, so they serve the same sort of protection from things that bypass hitpoints as hitpoints serve from injury.  However, as my game transcript would prove, they don't stop PCs from dying if they get themselves in a bad spot too often.  I kill a PC about once every 20 sessions despite the metacurrency because like hit points, they can run out and aren't perfect protection anyway.I get what you are saying by a "normal" person in my campaign would be a 2nd level commoner with something like a 12,11,11,10,10,9 attribute array and feats like Skill Focus (Craft - Farming).  First level PCs start out with a ton of advantages in disposable wealth, raw potential, background and combat ability compared to "average" people.  But then, at some point so do the villains.</blockquote>

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