Greetings!
Indeed, part of the "problem" if you will--for some, obviously, there is no "problem" whatsoever--then again, for others, there is some kind of story-telling, creative/mechanical dissonance between what is envisioned with our characters, *real world knowledge* and what the actual mechanics of the system translate to. YMMV.
Having said that, however, I have found some dissonance with it all, which led to some different campaign assumptions in my own world. Indeed, as I have been DMing for 25 years, my "own" characters gaining whatever benefits is largely irrelevant. I want npc's to run properly, and I want players to have characters that run properly, as reflected in their mechanics, from their character background.
For example, in my campaign, this problem led to me making a different assumption from the RAW. Legionnaires, to be specific. Long story short, when it comes to the level of proficiency, the particular feats, and the overall breadth of abilities I ended up with most professional legionnaire soldiers being 6th to 8th level.
The whole 1st level thing is just nonsense to me.
Why? Because from my own personal, real-world knowledge, as well as my knowledge as a historian, I know that professional soldiers--be they modern United States Marines, or Roman Legionnaires in 100 A.D.--can do, and know, far more than what is reflected mechanically by following the RAW, and the base campaign assumptions that the majority of soldiers are 1st level warriors or 1st level fighters.
A first-level fighter does not begin to possess the absolute requirements of what a professional soldier is expected and in fact, trained to do, and know--at 18 years of age.
I have known 18 year old Marines that were excellent marksmen--time after time, consistently, they could outshoot most people that have been shooting for their whole lives. They were also at the same time, highly skilled in martial arts; swimming; mountain climbing; survival; infiltration; riding horses; farming; or having vast knowledge of some academic topic; being expert dog-trainers; and to top it off, they were good at games, gambling, graceful and charming in ceremonies and public situations; often times they were very smooth with the ladies, as well;--and, some of them were damn fine guitar-players and singers as well. Oh, and some were also expert mechanics; expert motorcycle mechanics; bronc-riders and bull-riders as well, some of whom even had regional trophies and other awards for their skills as riders, shooters, and so on. Oh, yeah--and some were fluent in two or three other foreign languages as well. Some of these guys--even as 18 years old--were just amazing as to their awesome skills and knowledge.
In ancient Rome, the Roman legions often had young recruits that had some roughly similar abilities, in their context.
Both going to show that the RAW mechanically, doesn't necessarily accurately portray or reflect even what a *1st Level* character could necessarily look like. If that makes any sense?
All professional considerations aside, just some rough knowledge of society informs us that not all 18 year olds are the same. The RAW of course, tries to straight-jacket that process into a soup of absolute equality--but it isn't an accurate reflection of reality, or even close. Not that being a *perfect* reflection of reality is what is desired, after all--but even in a fantastic game, we enjoy having the elements correspond reasonably close to what we actually know works and behaves in the real world; so--
That leads to the next point. All 18-year olds do not have the same skills, or the same background, and the mechanics do not always allow those ideas to be expressed as elegantly and as realistically as some would prefer, in showing what that different background or different skill level actually looks like for the character in question.
I don't think most competent adults are accurately reflected as 1st to 3rd level characters, of anything. I think they are better served as somewhere between 6th and 12th level. However, that still leaves us with what to do with the levels beforehand, lower on the pecking order, so to speak. The solution is not always higher levels, because that connotates higher BAB, higher combat everything, as Irda Ranger points out so well. So, even for crafting player characters, or npc's, finding the right balanced formula is not always so easy to accomplish, though others have made some excellent suggestions, from Irda Ranger's background packages, to Maddman's bonus of +2 Skill Points per level, for all characters. There are options, after all, and it's always nice to discuss such creative problems, and various approaches to solutions.
Different solutions fit different themes, and also can react differently to the mechanical tool set, so there is always some need to carefully consider how such approaches address the problems, and how smoothly they do so, as well as for thoroughness, and accuracy, without hopefully being *unbalancing*
Just some thoughts.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
