Way too many Epic Level Spellcasters

[jasamcarl]

Few! For a while there I thought I was crazy ... I still do, but I see that I am not alone

I apologize in advance if this post/rant is too long.
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mmu1 has hit the nail on the head with the observation that all folks with the right "aptitude" are trained for magic. Of course, in the rules, the right "aptitude" means an Int of 10+.

Of course the Thayvians are practical (as well as efficient, cruel and sadistic), so they would never bother to train anyone who could never learn more than cantrips until 4th level. So, Int 12 it is for the "aptitude" bit.

For world building and "fluff" bits you have to use the rules that you have, or the system starts to break down. Not in the course of a single dungeon delve of course, but over the course of a major campaign it seriously becomes a problem. How do you justify the number of skill points that is required to do what societies need to do (build bridges, roads, collect taxes, etc) when the rules do not support it? What do you do when the rules (as given) do not lead to the logical conclusions that the campaign settings claim is the end result?

If you set the PCs free in such a world, without considering this first, the man behind the curtain becomes apparent when you are forced to reign them in. Of course, you could choose to not reign them in, but then they turn the campaign world on its ear when the holes in the system become apparent. This would happen all the time if more DMs understood what would happen to a small, local economy that the PCs just drop the proverbial Dragon's Horde onto. The price of gold goes through the floor, hyper-inflation, a rush of liquid capital that spreads ripples throughout the kingdom, etc. etc.

In the PHB or DMG they never said "Ok, here are the rules for you, and here are the rules for everyone else", did they? A simple House Rule, like "Everyone who has an Int of 10+ has a 10% chance of having the 'aptitude' for Magic, and all PCs are assumed to be in this 10%". That keeps things more managable from a societies' level, but its a House Rule, and we are discussing the Core Rules here.

hong: I have always enjoyed your little quotes (and thanks to your strange sense of humor, I still don't know if you are Austrian or Australian), but I have to disagree with you here. The rules in the published adventures and and campaign settings make it very clear that NPCs follow all the same rules that PCs do. Otherwise, how would a DM be able to play them? The belief that PCs are "special" is fluff text, just like the bit about Harrowdale's drought of Wizardly talent. It is not represented in the rules.

Can anyone find something that shows I am wrong here? The DMG preaches a concept of there being a very limited number of "high level" folks, but how can you justify there being 90% 1st level NPC folks in a world of Orcs and Goblins. Just by the numbers the human race is toast. Why haven't they been over-run by Beholders and Mind-Flayer, etc ad nauseum?

I think that this is a chance to explain why. The humans have never been overrun because their agriculture allows them to feed anough people that a large number of them reach Epic Levels. Adjust the FR to fit.

Well, the wife is calling me to bed. I love all you guys, but this is more important. Cheers.

Irda Ranger

Uh...no...the published modules make it clear that any npc that character actually FIGHT follow the same rules as the pcs in order to create a balanced encounter FOR THE PCS.

I would also like you to make a clear case of how the rules 'break down' if they do not support the fluff. The rules are there to provide an enjoyable experience for the pcs, not dicatate the minutia of a world which the PCs will never freakin encounter!!!

This thread is pretty pointless....i'm with mmu

 

[hong]

hong: I have always enjoyed your little quotes (and thanks to your strange sense of humor, I still don't know if you are Austrian or Australian), but I have to disagree with you here. The rules in the published adventures and and campaign settings make it very clear that NPCs follow all the same rules that PCs do.

The very existence of "NPC classes" puts paid to that assumption.

Can anyone find something that shows I am wrong here?

No, but then noone can find anything that shows what you assume has any more applicability than your own campaign.

 

[Terraism]

The very existence of "NPC classes" puts paid to that assumption.



No, but then noone can find anything that shows what you assume has any more applicability than your own campaign.

Of course, yet again we see the d20 system break down when it comes to having skill at something without necessarily being a fighter...

 

[Ketjak]

Encounter CRs, XP, & NPCs

Encounters do not have to be combat based. Do not make that assumption, and instead check out the section in the DMG. Hence, non-combat NPCs don't have to face combat encounters to earn XP, and they can face encounters appropriate to their "party level" without once drawing blood.

NPCs follow the same rules as PCs do. NPC classes exist to provide color to the world and to highlight the power level of PC classes. The design team found a very good way to make PCs heros without creating a different set of rules governing "normals." Straight 3D6 rolls, for example, generate a wide variety of normals - and all the rules are the same for those probably low-stat characters as they are for the relatively high-stat PCs.

Keep it simple, right?

- Ket

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm afraid I haven't the time to investigate the DMG with a fine toothed comb, but does the DMG etc suggest that every single person has rolled attributes?

I'd suggest from what we see in the MM that the expectation is that the rank and file have a basic 10 (or 11?) in each attribute, modified by racial adjustments. There is room for exceptional examples with higher or lower attributes (e.g. PC's, special NPC's, special monsters) but the vast majority just have the standard.

If this is the case, and the DMG expects that you don't roll attributes for everyone in a nation, your problem pretty much disappears. Magical "aptitude" could be a factor of "being special enough to have rolled attributes"+ INT 11+ or whatever.

I would think this is a more logical way of handling the situation than assuming that everyone gets 3d6 per attribute and that there are thus hundreds of thousands of high level NPC's

Cheers

 

[Desdichado]

Of course, yet again we see the d20 system break down when it comes to having skill at something without necessarily being a fighter...

Hey, that's not true of the d20 system. Have you checked out d20 Modern? You can be skilled in all kinds of things in that game. It is, however, true of D&D -- and I imagine always will be. Since that is true, and that's not a logical basis for world-building, trying to create a world based on the rules that is logically consistent will be pretty darned difficult. You get all kinds of logical absurdities, wherein the only blacksmith's who are really good at smithing are those that go kill orcs one weekend a month, so they can level up and take skill points in craft (smithing) or something like that.

Also, the rules are constructed as a framework for PCs and PC adventures. Sure, some consistency "around the world" is nice, but by applying PC rules to the whole world and trying to make it make sense, you're taking the rules out of the context in which they were written. These conclusions are not only fairly silly, but they're impossible to arrive at if you understand this clearly (and I think the world-building chapter in the DMG makes this implied point fairly well: although I haven't read that in probably two years now, so I don't recall the details.)

 

[Ketjak]

Um, what sort of comb?

I'm afraid I haven't the time to investigate the DMG with a fine toothed comb, but does the DMG etc suggest that every single person has rolled attributes?

The CR and experience system is so central to progression in the game that I'd hardly think a fine-toothed comb is necessary to understand it. I happen to be traveling sans DMG, so someone else will have to quote it. It's right there, though, so take a couple of minutes to read about non-combat experience awards. Who knows, XP awards for something other than slaying monsters might open new vistas of gaming to you.

I'd suggest from what we see in the MM that the expectation is that the rank and file have a basic 10 (or 11?) in each attribute, modified by racial adjustments. There is room for exceptional examples with higher or lower attributes (e.g. PC's, special NPC's, special monsters) but the vast majority just have the standard.

Interestingly enough, the MM (which I do have with me for OW planning) doesn't mention whether the stats listed are average, standard, or exceptional.

The MM2 spells out what is implied by the PHB's reincarnation and polymorph spells, though - "these abilities are average..." The vast majority do not "just have the standard." In aggregate their statistics average those values. In other words, for every 18 in the general population there's a 3; for every 14 a 7; for every 11, a 10.

If this is the case,

It isn't.

and the DMG expects that you don't roll attributes for everyone in a nation,

It does not assume you roll ability scores for everyone in a nation. I believe it assumes only noteworthy folks will be rolled, or that the standard stat distribution (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 IIRC) will be used for exceptional folks. When I want a few NPCs with color, though, I'll roll 3d6 and arrange as needed for the profession.

your problem pretty much disappears. Magical "aptitude" could be a factor of "being special enough to have rolled attributes"+ INT 11+ or whatever.

That doesn't follow, and what's being quoted is not rules-based, it's flavor text. Anyone can interpret flavor text however they wish, and they're welcome to do so. I'm not trying to make this a rules discussion at all, but trying to divine the meaning of flavor text is kind of silly - it means whatever the DM wants it to mean in her campaign.

I would think this is a more logical way of handling the situation than assuming that everyone gets 3d6 per attribute and that there are thus hundreds of thousands of high level NPC's

That does not follow, either. If everyone in a population has a 3d6 roll for each attribute (which individually they do), that does not imply everyone will live to be high level. Only the folks who get enough "appropriate" encounters before they die make it to high level, whether they use 3d6 or 4d6 drop the low or whatever method to generate stats.

The members of the population with above-average stats stand the best chance of rising in level; those with other stats will tend to stay at the level it's easy to reach then stay the same as they fail at more difficult tasks and stop earning XP for less-difficult tasks, or earn them more slowly. An 80-yo 7th-level expert probably has lower stats than an 80-yo 20th level expert in the same career, or supplemented normal life experiences with adventuring (that person is "more courageous" or "more driven" in flavor text terms), or simply lived in busier area and faced more challenges at work.

Again, that's just a function of the CR experience system. Whether or not the CR system is a good one is a different discussion.

Cheers

Ook!

- Ketjak

 

[Desdichado]

Umm, you're not answering the question he's asking. However, I defy you to find anywhere (and I know you can't, because you already said you don't have the DMG with you) anywhere that it says the average scores are not to be used for rank and file NPCs. Nowhere does it say anywhere that you each individual is a "rolled" individual, in fact, I think it's pretty clear that only "special" individuals like PCs and counterpart NPCs are rolled. Rank and file most certainly are not.

 

[LGodamus]

Umm, you're not answering the question he's asking. However, I defy you to find anywhere (and I know you can't, because you already said you don't have the DMG with you) anywhere that it says the average scores are not to be used for rank and file NPCs. Nowhere does it say anywhere that you each individual is a "rolled" individual, in fact, I think it's pretty clear that only "special" individuals like PCs and counterpart NPCs are rolled. Rank and file most certainly are not.

Right , Preach on Brother.......in other words I am with you on this one JD

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

Irda Ranger---
Its a pretty fair assumption that these folks are spread out over the age-curve fairly regularly.

Nope, it isn't. As per the UN 2000 estimates at this http://www.un.org/popin/data.html website. Click on the Population Division table on the left. Scroll down to page 25. It shows:

World Population
1-14: 30.0%
15-59: 60.0%
60+: 10.0%

And even that number is skewed since it also includes all of the developed countries. Let's look at a third world country that's a little more reasonable:

Afghanistan
1-14: 43.5%
15-59: 51.8%
60+: 4.7%

Every underdeveloped country has statistics like this. I would even propose that most of the population in the 15-59 range is lopsided towards the 15 range.

Remember, these figures are for us in the year 2000, with all of our scientific advances and "progress".

Thay is going to be a lot worse.
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Also, the PHB supports this view:

PG. 93, PHB---
The maximum ages on Table 6-5: Aging Effects are for player characters. Most people in the world die from pestilence, accidents, infections, or violence before achieving the venerable age range.

The average age of death in most third world countries is about 40-50 years. (In the year 2000) What do you think it would be in Thay?
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FR--
"All Thayan children are examined for magical aptitude at an early age. Those who show signs of potential are removed from their parents and subjected to ever more rigorous schooling in the arcane arts..."

Is it possible that magical aptitude is another handy-dandy way of saying "Elite" as per the DMG? If we replaced "magical aptitude" with "fighting prowess", would you assume that everyone with 10+ in their physical stats would qualify for advanced training and then become a Fighter? (I would be more inclined to think that everyone would be trained in a militia/army, then only a few would ever rise above 1st level Warrior.)
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Honestly, I think you just took a bit of flavor text and went nutty with it.