[D&D] Level 4 commoners

[Avoraciopoctules]

How does the D&D world change if you assume that most people are at least level 4? A blacksmith is a level 4 Expert. A career mercenary with half a year of training and experience in multiple battles is a level 4 Fighter. A student at the magic school is an Expert 2 / Wizard 2, and a graduate with a 2-year degree is a Wizard 5.

If farmers have 4 hit dice, then they don't have to worry about getting mauled by cats or goats quite as much. A pack of dogs is scary, but a similar number of guys with clubs is more so. There probably won't be much demand for expensive adventurers to exterminate the rats in people's cellars, meaning more jobs doing more exciting stuff.

Armies should matter more by PC mid-levels, but I get the feeling I might be overlooking some potential problems here. If you can mass a bunch of level 4 archers, it could trivialize a lot of challenges. More cheesily, if you can take a bunch of average tiny men and easily retrain them into low-level mages that can focus-fire Magic Missiles or SoD effects, even high-CR stuff could die to town militias.

Thoughts?

[OgreBattle]

do the orcs and kobolds also have class levels?

[Omegonthesane]

do the orcs and kobolds also have class levels?

Same question for all the other 1 HD "intelligent" races.

I would guess yes, for the ones that get their intelligence taken seriously, and no if you want to run the race as anthropomorphic pests at risk of offending everybody ever.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I figure most intelligent humanoid races would have the level 4 average. The big factor determining whether it gets pushed up or down would be how difficult it is to live in the area.

So if the orcs and kobolds have been pushed into the caves and wastelands nobody wants, they might have higher average levels, but lower population. A generic "orc warrior" could be level 5.

Of course, that potentially opens up another can of worms in that people start asking questions about why the mind flayers and ogres and bearded devils don't have class levels.

[Omegonthesane]

Of course, that potentially opens up another can of worms in that people start asking questions about why the mind flayers and ogres and bearded devils don't have class levels.

"They have more than 4 HD to begin with, and class levels are an abstraction I'm using to make peons not fear housecats."

[OgreBattle]

What if the cat is a level 4 rogue

[...You Lost Me]

What if the cat is a level 4 rogue

Game over.

[Dean]

Nah. Kobolds have 1/4th CR, Orcs have 1/2th. To keep the effects of their challenge ratings feeling the same you should make Kobolds have 2 levels and Orcs 3

[RobbyPants]

Armies should matter more by PC mid-levels, but I get the feeling I might be overlooking some potential problems here. If you can mass a bunch of level 4 archers, it could trivialize a lot of challenges. More cheesily, if you can take a bunch of average tiny men and easily retrain them into low-level mages that can focus-fire Magic Missiles or SoD effects, even high-CR stuff could die to town militias.

Most of what you said is spot-on, but I don't think this would change much for armies (assuming we're talking about NPC-classed warriors). The difference between a 1st and 4th level warrior is going to be 13.5 HP (+ 3x Con mod), +3 BAB, +1 on all the saves, and a feat.

So, by "mid level", they'll still likely get killed in one hit, they'll have a 15% point boost to hit (for pretty much the same low-level damage), and their saves will get a 5% point boost.

Basically, they'll go down almost as fast, but on-in-twenty more than normal will live through a big AoE spell. They can focus-fire on a single PC for lots of damage with enough of them, but you could do that with 1st level NPCs already. The only real difference here is the average expected damage will go up a bit due to more hits connecting. They'll be more deadly, but they won't be scaling well compared to the abilities and stats of mid-level PCs.


If you're talking about lots of 4th level PC-classed NPCs, then I'd say it's a different subject. The DM can always dick with the PCs by throwing them up against tons of NPCs of any level.

[nockermensch]

How does the D&D world change if you assume that most people are at least level 4? A blacksmith is a level 4 Expert. A career mercenary with half a year of training and experience in multiple battles is a level 4 Fighter. A student at the magic school is an Expert 2 / Wizard 2, and a graduate with a 2-year degree is a Wizard 5.

If farmers have 4 hit dice, then they don't have to worry about getting mauled by cats or goats quite as much. A pack of dogs is scary, but a similar number of guys with clubs is more so. There probably won't be much demand for expensive adventurers to exterminate the rats in people's cellars, meaning more jobs doing more exciting stuff.

Armies should matter more by PC mid-levels, but I get the feeling I might be overlooking some potential problems here. If you can mass a bunch of level 4 archers, it could trivialize a lot of challenges. More cheesily, if you can take a bunch of average tiny men and easily retrain them into low-level mages that can focus-fire Magic Missiles or SoD effects, even high-CR stuff could die to town militias.

Thoughts?

If most people have 4HD, from where come the 1-3HD followers you get from Leadership?

How does a starting character look like? If I make a druid, it's a Druid 1/Commoner 3? (Druid 2/Commoner 2 at "2nd lvl"?)

One related idea I considered (sadly this one came by the time I can't get my group together anymore) is to give everybody a "0th level humanoid HD". This is what you'd get simply for being a human/elf/goblin.

I never got to complete the write-up for this, but the idea was to remove the commoner class, that I find offensive, and substitute the vast majority of "extras" that populate the world as untrained 0-HD people. Trained people (the PCs and named NPCs) would get their class HDs built over the 0th lvl humanoid HDs (in the practice, gaining +1d8 hit points and some skill points/permanent class skills to put on background stuff).

[Voss]

Armies should matter more by PC mid-levels, but I get the feeling I might be overlooking some potential problems here. If you can mass a bunch of level 4 archers, it could trivialize a lot of challenges. More cheesily, if you can take a bunch of average tiny men and easily retrain them into low-level mages that can focus-fire Magic Missiles or SoD effects, even high-CR stuff could die to town militias.

Eh. What it mostly means is those spells become effectively worthless. If everyone has a minimum of 4 HD, who gives a shit about magic missile? Even actually effective spells like sleep and color spray are nerfed into the ground.

If all you want to do is double or treble hit points at low levels, just do that. Tossing extra hit dice/levels at people throws a lot of the math off. Skills and saves are affected, among other things, though you don't mention that at all.

[RobbyPants]

Eh. What it mostly means is those spells become effectively worthless. If everyone has a minimum of 4 HD, who gives a shit about magic missile?

He doesn't mean Magic Missile against the low-level NPCs. He means getting dozens or more NPCs to spam MM against the PCs.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Of course, that potentially opens up another can of worms in that people start asking questions about why the mind flayers and ogres and bearded devils don't have class levels.

"They have more than 4 HD to begin with, and class levels are an abstraction I'm using to make peons not fear housecats."

Yeah, it's probably best just to go with that.

Eh. What it mostly means is those spells become effectively worthless. If everyone has a minimum of 4 HD, who gives a shit about magic missile?

He doesn't mean Magic Missile against the low-level NPCs. He means getting dozens or more NPCs to spam MM against the PCs.

Or a 10th level PC hiring dozens of wizard interns to spam Magic Missile at the big dragon. Or getting a druid circle to cast Entangle on an enemy group 40 times.

Or even coming to grips with the fact that if pretty much anyone can pledge their soul to a god and have 1 in 4 of their levels be Cleric, magic healing should be a post-scarcity resource that people can just give away.

If most people have 4HD, from where come the 1-3HD followers you get from Leadership?

How does a starting character look like? If I make a druid, it's a Druid 1/Commoner 3? (Druid 2/Commoner 2 at "2nd lvl"?)

Hmm. Attack dogs? Little house fairies that fix people's shoes? Skeletons with enough tattered memories of someone's soul that they approximate a mortal skillset, but not as well as the real thing?

I'd start PCs at levels 6-8 generally. You are a Wizard School graduate who's seen some action and picked up enough magic stuff to get an asymmetric power boost. On that note, I'd probably have to ditch existing character wealth if I didn't a proliferation of wands among the proletariat to destabilize things more.

[Emerald]

I generally do things that way in my games: most adult professionals have 4-6 levels based on age and area of focus, with your apprentice craftsmen, green recruits, temple novices, street rats, kids whose farms got burned down by the bad guys so they picked up a sword for the very first time to seek revenge, and similar being levels 1-3 based on their degree of youth and inexperience. I also tend not to use NPC classes much; there is no warrior, aristocrat, or commoner class--just the expert, who steals the aristocrat's d8 HD and proficiencies--and anyone with levels in expert, adept, or magewright can retrain one level of that every time they gain a level in an associated PC class. The monstrous races all get a few levels in NPC classes or a few extra RHD, as appropriate to their society.

Armies have a bunch more low-level casters in them, but extra AoE/control offense on one side is countered by extra conjuration/buff defenses, and both sides have basically equal access to charmed/summoned/animated minions and companions of various sorts (plenty of people are high enough level for good animal companions/Wild Cohorts, special mounts, Undead Leadership, etc.). The fact that everyone has more feats and class features to play with given those extra 2-5 levels above the baseline makes fights more interesting, since individual troops can be more specialized--the difference between an archer and a pikeman isn't just "warrior 1 with a bow" vs. "warrior 1 with a spear"--and the prevalence of PC classes means large-scale support works better. Overall, armies have the same place in the world and the same threat level relative to the PCs, it's just the exact capabilities and the exact level when the PCs stop caring about armies that changes a bit.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Interesting. How do you handle character wealth for PCs vs. NPCs, Emerald?

[Voss]

Eh. What it mostly means is those spells become effectively worthless. If everyone has a minimum of 4 HD, who gives a shit about magic missile?

He doesn't mean Magic Missile against the low-level NPCs. He means getting dozens or more NPCs to spam MM against the PCs.

Ok, that is still shit. Even if you assume they are level 4 adepts (or wizards, or whatever) rather than expert 2/caster 2, it is still just an autohit crossbow.
Grease still fucks half the part on an ongoing basis, and they don't need extra levels to do that.

[OgreBattle]

So are 12 year olds at class level 1 or 2 then?

[Avoraciopoctules]

He doesn't mean Magic Missile against the low-level NPCs. He means getting dozens or more NPCs to spam MM against the PCs.

Ok, that is still shit. Even if you assume they are level 4 adepts (or wizards, or whatever) rather than expert 2/caster 2, it is still just an autohit crossbow.
Grease still fucks half the part on an ongoing basis, and they don't need extra levels to do that.

Sure, Voss. There's a lot of low-end magic that could be more significant than basic evocations when mages can be hired in double-digit numbers.

Maybe 2 or 3 times now, I've tried to consider what the campaign setting would look like if every moving army had dozens of mages on hand to cast Rope Tricks the soldiers camped in. Every time, I cringe at all the interesting PC gambits that could disable and strongly consider dropping it from the allowed spells list.

So are 12 year olds at class level 1 or 2 then?

Yeah, probably.

[OgreBattle]

People can go hunting by punching blackbears to unconsciousness. That's pretty cool.

[Koumei]

And biting cobras to death becomes a fairly everyday occurrance.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I'm going to call both of those features, not bugs. People in D&D land should be pretty hardcore if they are the dominant species.

[Koumei]

Well, you know why we're the dominant species in this world?

The fact that there are three growth rates for populations: stuff-like-bears (slow curve up and levelling out at a certain point), stuff-like-locusts (spikes up and down), and humans (constantly goes up with no apparent limit). The last category contains only us.

Or you could just say "guns/vast amounts of toxins we spread".

I mean, we don't punch bears out. The way we stay in control is by outnumbering bears so much and living in such horrible environments that no bear wants to come near us.

Except for Siberia where they sometimes visit and sit outside cafes because they want apples/cheezburger.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I suppose it might be a problem if you want to go for less of a JRPG "some kids get attacked by a pack of wolves and club them all into unconsciousness with their wooden practice weapons" feel.

Then again, Owlbears are supposed to be on par with a dedicated Fighter 4, so it's not as if you can't have reasonably threatening wildlife without giving it special powers. And in a world where the Runic Volcano periodically spawns nigh-mindless fire goblins that attack everything that isn't their mana flavor, I'd expect bears and snakes to be a bit more threatening too.

[Emerald]

Interesting. How do you handle character wealth for PCs vs. NPCs, Emerald?

PCs get normal WBL for their actual level, but a bunch of that goes to non-adventuring-relevant expenses; I assume a standard of living and social scene that's more Renaissance-y than Medieval, so part of a 6th-level PC's WBL of 13,000 gp might go towards things like a fancy house (5K), a bunch of hirelings/employees (3K will buy them for a long time), and so forth. Given plenty of downtime for Profession, crafting, and such, illegitimate profits from intrigue-based adventures, and so forth, they catch up to expected WBL soon enough as far as adventuring gear is concerned. It's a solution that's admittedly part gentleman's agreement and part happy accident due to having players who would rather have PCs with good reputations, a safe home base in a city, a source of income on the side, etc. than PCs who are the usual shady CE murderhobos. If I were to have a party of murderhobos in such a setting, or if I were to try to do the same level scheme in the usual "the average NPC is a dirt-covered Medieval farmer" setting, I'd probably just rule that the PCs get WBL for ECL-3 for adventuring purposes.

As for the level of 12 year olds, kids/preteens would be 0th-1st level, not that I've ever actually needed to stat any up. For a modern analogy, a kid in elementary school is level 0, a middle schooler is level 1, a high schooler level 2, and a college student level 3, plus or minus 1 for things like a rich guy's kid coasting through college (-1) or a high schooler with an internship taking college classes (+1). I've run one game in this setting where the PCs decided to start at level 2, and having a noticeable difference between an apprentice wizard or farmer with his dad's sword and the city watch's abjurers and soldiers instead of having experienced folks and newbs at the same level was a nice change.

[Avoraciopoctules]

How many (useful while adventuring) 4th level hirelings would this hypothetical 6th level group have?
What kind of personal resources would the hirelings have?