What is the "Base Level" of your Campaign?

[Piratecat]

The problem with so many 0 lvl commoners is that they don't model a realistic game world very well; mechanically everyone is incompetent at everything! Very few people are good cooks, good farmers, good craftsmen. . . that's why the 3e commoner class occurs, I think. A low-mid lvl commoner can be decent at a few things while still representing a vast power gulf between themselves and the PCs.

 

[diaglo]

The problem with so many 0 lvl commoners is that they don't model a realistic game world very well; mechanically everyone is incompetent at everything! Very few people are good cooks, good farmers, good craftsmen. . . that's why the 3e commoner class occurs, I think. A low-mid lvl commoner can be decent at a few things while still representing a vast power gulf between themselves and the PCs.

there's no problem with 0 lvl commoners.

i mean any idiot can boil water. esp when they are older than say... tween.

and those 0 lvl guys who are good at it.. have put their ranks there or ability scores are better there to show their good fortune.

just like the guy who walks outside and builds a fire. supposedly even untrained you can do some things. while others may be better at getting it started sooner or lasting longer or using less wood or etc...


i think the problem with most new edition commoner and ones in the DSG, WSG, OA and newer from 1edADnD on... are the exceptional guy. giving him more hps just or attack ability...

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

The base level for most NPCs is usually 2-4. The warrior-king of a city will likely be 10th level (Nifft's) aristocrat/something else (example: aris 5/outcast champion 5). A swordmaster in a large city or a trainer for aristocratic youth would be around 7th single-classed. Elves are fearful, capricious, malevolent beings of the dark woods; the base level for them is 6th, mostly Anima.

 

[Evilhalfling]

My campaign Base lvl is prolly 3rd
and non adventuring leaders tend to top out at 9th ( where you stop getting xp for cr 1)
the real problem with having everyone as 0 lvl commoners is not their skill in cooking but in opposed skills like dipolmacy, sense motive and spot at 0th level an NPC can have 4 rnk+ 3 ablility (no 0lvls have 18 and 16 is purty rare imc) + 3 focus = 8-10 ranks max. which means the 7th lvl PC who maxed a skill is better than all those people who have spent their lives devoted to it, and can out argue most proffesional diplomats ?

 

[Kapture]

And it occurred to me... the easiest way to reduce the availability of magic in your games is simply to assume that everyone in the campaign world is fairly low-level. That way there simply aren't as many people who can create powerful magic items or cast powerful spells.

Well, it's only the easiest way if you don't take the challenge ratings seriously, which I think is one of the handiest tools available in the game: although it doesn't make matching encounters to groups a perfect experience, it is a much better system than my guestimating used to be.

The levels of magic are built into DND the way it is enumerated in the core books. If you want to lower magic, you should lower XP progression by about the same ratio. Else you have to tinker with ELs, which I think is harder.

That said, magic levels and base levels of play are one of those salt to taste inconsequentialities. I use a 5th level base in my game, from Sean K. Ryenolds nifty little essay about NPC progression. I also personally dislike the old skool, Eb-Ironic "heros are the only special people in the world, except for villains" take on adventuring. Although it is very classic, very medieval, it sort of seems like it's handing everything to the PCs on a silver platter. Also, it's too hard to for me to suspend disbelief to the point that all the world ending threats haven't ended the world before the four guys represented at my table get to them. It's like the Justice League comics, where every world ending threat comes just in time for the League to handle it. Unless you want to bring in a guest star to do so. At a certain point, there's no world there, just gobs and gobs of story. And I like world building.

So, my "realistic" magic world has lots of people of moderate power, fewer people of low or higher power, and cosmic regions where PCs handle the few epic level threats that actually come along. And the PCs work within that framework, not outside of it.

Where do magic items come in? Well, like Eberron, I run a sort of Industrial Age magic, though many of my items are alchemical in nature. I do this mostly to keep my game in line with the CR system, but also because I like the baroque idea of fantastical technology. I do read fantasy and comics, after all. Quite a bit. But Eberron itself sort of voids the generality that you can make a low magic world with low level PCs: it also uses the Special PC assumption, but has altered the structure a little so that there is lots of low level magic. Go figure.

In the end, it's what you want. To an extent, it is also what the players want, and every player wants to play something cool, with cool abilities or cool stuff. There are no games without GMs, but there are very small games without players.

 

[Ibram]

The level mechanic is a somewhat clunky one, so I've never bothered defining most of the population. (like there are X% comoners X% experts)

most of the people my players encounter have PC levles (guards are fighteres, thugs are figuter/rogues or barbarian/rogues)

I've always seen 0 level as representing children (age <+ 10) (not even worth defining in my book)
1st - 2nd usualy represents early teens (apprenticships)
3rd -4th is late teens early twenties (journyman)
5th-6th is the average level for most young adults, and is the most commonly encountered level.
7th-8th are older adults and the upper rung of a villiage (the best blacksmith in backwater town)
9th-10th is about as high as you can get in a lifetime free of "excitement". This is also where most battle worn soldiers, well travled merchants, and the most skilled X in the kingdom lie.
11th-12th exceptional individuals; like a powerful warlord, a knight whos virtue is known in all the kingdoms of the Heartlands.
13th-14th those who reach this level are often remembered for generations afterwords. A swordsmith whos weapons are sought by kings, a general becomes an emperor.
15th-16th only a handful every few centuries reach this level of skill and power; these are the founders and destroyers of entire nations.
17th+ as with lower levels the scale breaks down at this level, but anyone who has reached this point would probably be remembered for over a thousand years.

 

[ptolemy18]

The levels of magic are built into DND the way it is enumerated in the core books. If you want to lower magic, you should lower XP progression by about the same ratio. Else you have to tinker with ELs, which I think is harder......In the end, it's what you want. To an extent, it is also what the players want, and every player wants to play something cool, with cool abilities or cool stuff. There are no games without GMs, but there are very small games without players.

I don't see why you'd have to tinker with ELs to run a campaign where most NPCs are low-level. I never said the *player characters* were under any special restrictions. They can be as cool as they want to be!

I'm just running the world on the assumption that, for whatever reason, most NPCs stay low-level. Either for lack of talent, lack of discipliine, bad luck, fate, different career choices ("I stopped studying magic so I could concentrate on raising my kids" ), or whateve reasons.

For one example... what's one good reason why NPC clerics and wizards would stay low-level...? Maybe because they spend their XP ("life power") on making low-level magic items, so they never make it to the really high levels. Of course, according to the "rules", NPCs aren't supposed to gain XP in the same way as players anyway, but obviously they gain XP in some NPC fashion or they'd all be 1st level.

Jason

 

[the Jester]

And it occurred to me... the easiest way to reduce the availability of magic in your games is simply to assume that everyone in the campaign world is fairly low-level. That way there simply aren't as many people who can create powerful magic items or cast powerful spells.

This is exactly what I do. I have a list of all the epic npcs in the world, and it's pretty short considering how big my world is. In general, the pcs in my epic game know all the movers and shakers at this point. If you aren't near one of them- well, your average village might have a 3rd-level cleric, druid, wizard or whatever in it. I just detailed a fairly good-sized island imc with nobody (of a PH race) over about 6th or 7th level on it.

 

[dren]

The overall average level, counting both PCs and NPCs - 5th. Lots of people are really good at non-martial specialized tasks (cooks, scholars, artists, etc), otherwise how could a seemingly pseudo-medieval society function? Adventuers average level, is probably 6th or 7th...but most of those are not in towns or cities, they are in the forests, wastelands, mountains, deserts trying to defeat the great evil (or attempt to steal their hordes) to enable the others living safe, boring but functional lives. The average adventurer level in town or in armies is 3rd, as they don't have the resources or capacity to travel to the most dangerous and exotic places.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I've used the PC rules plus the DMG statistics and the DCs for many tasks and they gibe pretty well with my own gut opinion which is that "functional professional" is around 4th-5th level. This is the typical professional grade level and IMC occurs in the late 20's. Since 1st level characters are just barely adults that means it takes about 3-4 years per level for humans depending on that 1st level age.

This means that old people are higher level, though younger folks with fewer attribute penalties can outperform them in some situations. Somebody who's 75 is probably 15th level. By the same token, an NPC who reaches 20th level tends to die before going epic.

Elves, being chaotic and flighty, tend to not stick with things long enough to learn it correctly the first time around while dwarves spend so much time ensuring they have mastered something that it takes far, far longer for them than humans. I've got nothin' for halflings & gnomes.