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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 5315309" data-attributes="member: 14159">I like the 3.x idea of commoners-with-levels for above-average skill levels.Levels are how competent/experienced a character is overall.  A high-level commoner is highly competent with what he does, even if it's not adventuring-related.  A 7th level commoner could be a legendary farmer but only as useful in a fight as a 1st or 2nd level PC, a 5th level adept could be a master alchemist & expert sage even if he was only as useful in combat as a 2nd or 3rd level Cleric or Druid.Now, a 1st level Commoner could be a passable journeyman in a trade with 4 ranks, a +1 or maybe even +2 from ability score, and a Skill Focus feat (and maybe another boosting feat if Human).  +8 or +9 to a skill is piddly to mighty adventurers, but it can still do the everyday tasks of a profession just "Taking 10".  A 3rd level commoner could even get a synergy bonus, a couple more ranks, and another feat which might be in something related and easily get over +10 and be easily able to masterwork items and could fairly be called a "master" of their trade.  There is little need for even mid-level NPC classes to fairly depict even the overwhelming majority of NPC's.  The whole "0 level" concept never made sense to me, the idea that the only way to gain levels is in combat-related, adventuring-oriented styles of training (i.e. classes) and that a brand new PC who has never actually clashed swords with an orc or cast a spell in battle is more worldly (i.e. experienced/levelled) than a master alchemist or swordsmith who has been practicing for decades.  Secondary Skills, for a similar reason, also didn't make sense.  If you didn't start with one (which were randomly rolled anyway), you couldn't learn it.  You might have been an armorer or a fisherman or sailor before you began adventuring, but there was no learning any of that after that first dungeon crawl, even if you spend most of your later adventures after 1st level in a seaside fishing village based out of an old smithy.</blockquote>

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