Civilizations... cities, towns, villages along with alliances? I thought this was self evidentt enough that I didnt have to state it. Yes a lone or even small group of non-adventurers will be decimated by deadly encounters... but then so would a lone adventurer or small party of adventurers.
Exactly what isnt addressed?
So, for a party of 4 5th level adventurers, a deadly encounter with Orcs could be an Orog and a dozen orcs (about 500xp over deadly threshold of 4.4k). That mob of a baker's dozen orcs is a double deadly for 12 level 2 PCs, much less a dozen town guards. If you give the town guards a veteran to lead them (tougher than the Orog), it's still 20 guards and a veteran to match up to the xp budget of the baker's dozen of orcs. So, this is a losing proposition for civilization.
To further this point, the group of orcs that can furnish 3 of those 13 orc encounters a day is massive. Your patrolling more than 40 orcs a day, more like over 200 orcs on patrol (because it defies possibility that the orcs are only sending out patrols that happen to catch PC parties in their territory), and, even given the send out half of their number daily on patrol, that's a mob of 400 orcs, with orogs, warchiefs, and Eye's mixed in. This isn't even borrowing what should be there in Volo's more advanced orc templates. If that mob goes WAAAAUGH!!!, towns can't stand, and small cities are going to at least be heavily raided before fend them off.
Yet, this mob of orcs is in one place to provide sufficiently powerful encounters for a group of beginning Tier II heroes for a day or three. If I continue to populate my world this way, civilization will not be able to stand, or will be pushed back into heavily fortified stronghold cities, which then invites other worldbuilding questions. The idea of pushing 3 deadly a day on adventurers distorts even a passing attempt to justify the world that exists to support it.
That's what's not addressed -- that actual point about world building. Handwaiving "But civilization, duh" doesn't cut it.
No i'm not... If they know large groups of non adventurers spell doom for them... without extenuating circumstances... why wouldnt they avoid them?
Seems addressed to me...
But, as above, they don't spell doom. Sure, there's the ever cited '200 archers can kill a dragon easy', but that's the single enemy issue -- those aren't the threat. It's the 'can 200 archers kill 2000 orcs?' Because that's the comparison you need to look at. The bad guys don't just come in singleton units, most come in mobs. As above, a deadly encounter for 4 5th level heroes is 1 clay golem or 2 flesh golems. Not too much trouble for 4 heros with magic and magical weapons, but impossible for normal troops to defeat (due to being immune to their weapons). Or lycanthropes, a few werewolves can wreak havoc on a town with near impunity. These are the deadly monster unit groups that challenge 5th level PCs and yet non-adventurers are almost entirely helpless against. They're also things that often appear in town based adventures. If I'm scaling my world to be deadly to the exceptionally, where, exactly, do the normals fit in? And the answer isn't 'cities' because there's no justification for cities even existing in a world of 10th level heros fighting deadly encounter units of orcs (that's 30, btw). That orc encounter is trivial for the heroes absent serious environmental challenges, but 30 orcs will do for most town militas.
Now im starting to think you dont really have a point.
I was hoping you'd catch on, but you seem insistent on handwaiving my points away. What you're so close to getting is that I can't have the safe woods AND provide dangerous, deadly encounter units. Which means anywhere there are such woods, I can't use the suggestion of 3 a day. And, as above, such dangerous woods can't be near a village or small town without causing trouble, which goes right back into my worldbuilding point -- if I want both kinds of woods and I want the 3 a day solution, my worldbuilding must be heavily distorted so that all of the adventure is far, far away from the civilization. Or I only have fortress strongholds for towns. Either way, to do 3 a day as an all the time solution requires significant worldbuilding adjustments.