So how do we stat up commoners?

[Cheesepie]

Who stats up commoners in 3.5?

DMs with incredibly severe OCD.

 

[Xyl]

Most people in the world are 1st level minions. NPCs who interact with the players have only the stats that matter for that NPC, at exactly the value that is dramatically convenient.

 

[Celebrim]

According to the previews I'd seen, ordinary members of the city watch and orc soldiers are like level 9 minion soldiers.

Based on that, I'm thinking that human commoners are at least level 6 minions.

The 4e game world is one were ordinary people are capable of handling the foes that threaten them - an army of level 9 minion soldiers has some pretty serious skills - but because they are all glass cannons without plot protection, they leave the dangerous stuff to the PCs.

 

[mattdm]

Most people in the world are 1st level minions.

Nah, they're just people. No one is a "minion" except for narrative convenience in a combat encounter.

3E and even more 3.5 give you tools for building an entire clockwork universe which you can bounce players through to make a story. 4E seems to assume that you'll have a story primarily, and gives you tools to model how players interact in that story.

I've seen several people comment that 4E seems tailor-made to be a computer game, and there's probably some truth to that, but in 3.5, who but a computer has time to have full class stats for every being in the universe?