Population by Level

[Hieronymous Rex]

For a given population, how many of each character level exist in it? For the sake of simplicity, assume that the population is entirely human and there is no immortality.

I assume that there is a reasonable baseline percentage for each level (perhaps this is a Normal Distribution situation; I couldn't say). What changes between a 20 level spread and a 6 level spread?

Before I am told to RTFM:

the population density overall has little relevance to the number or level of powerful characters
in a region. Indeed, some of the harshest environments have only highly leveled characters in them.
The deeper you go into Moil or the Banemires, the less likely you are to run into a humanoid, and the more
likely any humanoid you do meet is to be a total badass. So I’m sorry, there isn’t a simple rubric to determine
the highest level character in a region or the level spread of said characters (indeed, Necromancers persist
notably longer when they become more powerful and the level distribution is a reverse bell-curve with a local
minimum at 6th level). It would be nice to say that there was, but that just isn’t so.

I'm not interested in a precise calculation taking environmental factors into account, or of regional figures. It is not unreasonable to have an approximation of how many 6th level characters there are

[Username17]

The bit in the Tomes was actually a rebuttal and dismissal of the "official" demographics numbers - which are batshit insane and posit more high level characters per capita the more expansion classes you allow in your game.

Beyond that, the number of sixth level characters in your campaign world depends on what world is your campaign world. In Birthright there is a fixed and known number of characters who can get to 6th level. In Forgotten Realms there is a character of 6th level or higher in every dot on the map.

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

Okay, so you are rejecting the population and level charts on 135-139 of the 3.5 DMG as nonsensical / useless.

That leaves us with starting over, and we have several options for our basic assumptions:

• Bright Lights, Big Numbers. Most of the high-level movers and shakers congregate in large population centers. There's an argument that modern real world influence works something like this, and it's one of the assumptions behind those DMG charts; but we're probably throwing those charts out because this sort of thing doesn't line up with much of the D&D source material and strains credibility. If the big city is home to a council of 15th level wizards, then the 3rd level PCs in the watch are only going to be dealing with minor threats to the city.
• Hidden Ones. In this setup, high-level individuals stay hidden from the masses. They can be hermits, or they can be disguised as ordinary individuals. There is all sort of fantasy precedent for this, from Obi-Wan Kenobi's intro on Tatooine, to Myimoto Musashi dwelling in a cave. Also it can make for decent adventure hooks from "find out where Achillies is hiding so that we can recruit him to go invade Troy" to "quest to the mountaintop to ask the Undying Wizard to lend us the Tome of Prophecy in our hour of need".
• High-level is as High-level does. In this setup each high level individual has their own motivations and the overall pattern is essentially random. Gandalf wanders the land rooting out evils and pipeweed, while Aragorn can be anywhere. However Elrond and Galadriel maintain their own well-known strongholds. That supposedly minor necromancer hiding in the woods in the prequel is actually the endboss of the 2nd age. This setup isn't terribly good for world consistency, as it is essentially deciding "we have no starting assumptions, just wing it" but it does let MCs pull some nice dramatic surprises in individual campaigns.
• The Secret City. In this setup, once characters in the gameworld get to be a certain level, they are invited into Olympus / K'un Lun / Atlantis / Galt's Gulch / Avengers Mansion / Valhalla / Sigil / El Dorado / Avalon / Tír na nÓg. As that list shows, there's a metric craptonne of precedent for this in the source material, and it gibes very well with the idea of "tiers" for the game - when PCs reach Nth level, the game changes and they go to a new place to have new adventures. However it suffers from the same issues that "tiers" do: PCs who were the pinnacle of badassery are now just the new guys in paradise; out-of-tier threats call for complex explanations (while we probably want a number of out-of-tier threats around the edges of the tier); and we're assuming that free-willed PCs will actually accept the invitation.
• The JRPG solution Wherever you go, by the time you get there, most of the major players are all around your level - even people who were massively higher or massively lower level than you when you met them on the road four sessions ago. This is great for setting the challenge difficulty of a game and requires no upfront decisions about general world building, but it is highly likely to strain credibility and consistency.
• Rising to the challenge In this setup, you find more high level characters in more dangerous areas. Either the high level characters are drawn there for the challenge, or the populace lives in a near-constant state of "level-up or die" game world selection. Whichever, you find only low level characters in peaceful fertile farmland, but higher level characters in areas of open warfare and frequent monster attacks. This setup is great for having an open game world where PCs can travel anywhere and yet have the players have a reasonable estimate of the risk/reward balance they are courting for each locale.
• Remnants of a fallen greatness. In this setup, there used to be a great many more higher level individuals in the game world than there are now, and then the Empire fell / the Plague came / the War happened so there are very few or none. In this setup, PCs seek the leavings of the prior age while NPCs seek to claim the title / mantle / lineage of the fallen heroes badasses.

[hogarth]

That leaves us with starting over, and we have several options for our basic assumptions:

My personal preference isn't exactly in your list (although it shares aspects with "Hidden Ones", "High-Level Is As High-Level Does" and maybe "Rising to the Challenge" and "Remnants of Whatever", depending):

• Where does an 800 lb. gorilla sleep? High level (or even mid-level) PCs and NPCs are vanishingly rare, and they live wherever they want and do whatever they want because they're complete bad-asses compared to all of the usual peons in the world. Some might choose to take over a nation to rule and some might choose to live alone in the Forest of Ghosts where no man dares to tread (because they ain't afraid of no ghosts).

[Josh_Kablack]

Where does an 800 lb. gorilla sleep?

That is in fact, what I meant by "high-level is as high-level does", but your name for it is way better.

[mean_liar]

Okay, so you are rejecting the population and level charts on 135-139 of the 3.5 DMG as nonsensical / useless.

That leaves us with starting over, and we have several options for our basic assumptions:

I normalized the chart such that it creates a number of spellcasters, non-spellcasters, non-commoner NPC classes and Commoners by level, and then just use that as a metric.

[DSMatticus]

Here's a combination of a system I use and changes I will probably make to it the next time it comes up.

1) People higher than level 6 do not show up in by-level population distributions. Ever. These people do not follow the standard rules, because they go where they want, when they want, and do whatever they want. Choose whatever number you like for this. The higher this number, the more 'powerful' your world is.

2) Generate by-level population distributions only for stable, civilized areas. The order of druids that camp out in the woods and lull the angry forest spirit to sleep every season do not have a standard by-level population distribution, because they are not a functioning unit of society. They're a bunch of people in the woods with a specific goal that requires a certain amount of power and they all have to have that.

3) Come up with any mechanism you like for generating that by-level population distribution, but it must be by level, not by class. This is critical. I tend to do the leadership table in reverse. The level 1's divided by 10 is the level 2's. The level 2's divided by 2 is the level 3's. Repeat until level 6 (or whatever number you chose in step 1), and then stop. Except, I do this in reverse from a target number (I have 400 people - how many are level 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1?) This is sort of tedious to do by hand, so I wrote a small java program that does it. Define your own function, use flat percentages, it doesn't really matter.

What you should end up with is the ability to generate cities and the like that make sense, where all the inhabitants are a reasonable level (tweak your cap number from step 1 or your distribution function from step 3 until you have something you like - I know mine needs tweaking). And then it's up to you, as the DM, to put high-level PC's where they belong. And for non-traditional social units, it's up to you to define their members.

[Hieronymous Rex]

My original idea was that character levels are comparable to degrees of education: many people with some schooling, a smaller number with higher education, and a tiny number of top experts; by analogy, number of characters by level would create a triangle, with the highest level on top with the smallest percentage of the population.

Tell me if this is way off:

Given a population of 55, the level breakdown would be as shown.
[b]Level.....Members[/b] 1............24 2............16 3............8 4............4 5............2 6............1[/td][/tr]

[Ikeren]

Way off. That gives every small town (population 100) a pair of people equipped to tangle with giants and manticores and some weaker demons.

[sabs]

Level | Members
1 | 1000
2 | 200
3 | 100
4 | 40
5 | 10
6 | 2

Is much more likely a distribution.

[DSMatticus]

Yeah, Ikeren's right, that's sort of off, Hieronymous. You need to inflate the lower levels or else you end up with really badass dudes really fast. You seem to be going by exponents of 2 (except for the first one?). Example fix: div by 10 for the level 1 -> level 2 transition (otherwise, div by 2).

55 is then... (I rounded up in all cases).
1...44
2...5
3...3
4...2
5...1

We still have a level 5, but it's also worth noting, Ikeren, that the people generated this way are probably mostly NPC classes, and the useless ones too, like commoner or expert. That level 5 (6 for his) probably has a 90% chance of being a commoner, and an 70-80% chance on top of that of being a commoner/expert, and therefore being ownt by anything giant-like or manticore-like. If you use 90% npc classes, then only 1-in-10 100-man villages has an honest to god chance of fielding a single useful person against a giant or manticore.

[Hieronymous Rex]

Way off. That gives every small town (population 100) a pair of people equipped to tangle with giants and manticores and some weaker demons.

Then again, there could be a limit on character level in the region based on population: for instance, levels only normalize in major cities. Something like L2 doesn't appear until you find a group of 10, L3 until 100, L4 until 1,000, etc..

As I recall, 1% of the U.S. population has a PhD, yet not every hundred people will have one PhD: they tend to concentrate in richer (and therefore usually higher population) areas.

[Ikeren]

Yeah, NPC clases matter, but you still don't want to run around with a lot of 10th level experts in a city of 1000. Partly because it stretches reasonableness, and partly because it'd be a pain in the arse when the players decide to attack a random commoner.

[Hieronymous Rex]

What would be a reasonable value, then?

I'm ignoring NPC classes because I don't think that they should exist; my reference to PhDs was trying to delineate "The Highest Level", which I'm treating as 6.

[DSMatticus]

Without NPC classes, nobody's just a 'farmer' or just a 'blacksmith.' Which is a liiittle strange. You sort of need them to fill out the meat of the world without also handing out class features that make no sense for a farmer.

By highest level as 6, do you mean we're talking about an E6 world, or do you just mean the highest level you want to see generated in a population is 6?

Either way, let's see...
L...#
1...3125
2...625
3...125
4...25
5...5
6...1

That's a fairly simple one. "For every 5 people of level X-1, there is one person of level X." Or "div by 5," iteratively. The only time you see a level 6 is in populations of 3700 or higher. Level 4's, 5's, and 6's make up ALMOST 1% of that population, but still don't show up unless you have a certain number of little people. And level 4-6 can be equated fairly reasonably to PhD level people in their respective fields, even if that field is dung-farming.

That so does not extend well into high-levels though, because it takes like 19,000,000,000,000 people to get a single level 20.

[RadiantPhoenix]

People who haven't taken levels in a 'real' class (where 'real' is defined as 'does not exist solely to suck') only have their racial hit dice; most PC races have 1 HD which gets replaced by a level when they get that far.

What demographics you should use depends on what sort of world you want.

If you want most villages to live in fear of a single ogre, you need to make sure your demographics don't expect more than a handful of trained soldiers or hunters in a group of 500 people.

If you don't want a party of 3rd level PCs to be able to raid hamlets for loot, you should make sure that a typical group of 81 people has more than four level 3 characters, or else make sure that group doesn't have anything of value at all.

[DSMatticus]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with level 3 PC's raiding hamlets for loot. There is undoubtably a baron who is going to come along and say, "peasants! Where are my taxes?" And then he's going to be like, "oh dear, they're impaled on spikes and what not." And then he's going to say, "well, let's rummage through their houses for survivors (and my damn taxes)..." and then he's going to be like, "the ruffians! They've taken everything!"

Meanwhile, the PC's have several wagons full of stuff that is covered in blood and looks like it was looted from a bunch of peasant's homes.There is possibly smoke on the horizon from their carnage. And they're trying to sell that stuff. Even if they succeed in selling all of that hamlet's loot, that's going to draw attention said baron can use to find them, and he's going to have them hanged if he catches them. And if they can't offload it because no merchant trusts them (and who would, with that sort of collection of goods), then eventually they're just going to have to abandon it because it's slowing them down and the baron is looking for it and is going to kill whoever he finds with it.

Replace 'baron' with 'baron's lackey,' which is probably more level appropriate in this case. But either way, this isn't a problem - this is a D&D adventure for evil a-holes, and you can run it and it will run well, and if your PC's are clever they'll make some cash and some enemies. Standard D&D stuff.

[Username17]

I think that demographics of high level people has to be to some degree inversely proportional to the actual population of an area. That is to say that a high population area has to have less high level people per person than a low population area. This is because of the essential episodic nature of the game combined with the requirement for personal heroism. That is to say that if you are in a tiny village with 50 people in it, you need to be able to buy healing potions from the local herbalist, and the manticore needs to be a threat that the PCs can beat up. If you are in a large medieval city of like 30,000 people, you need to be able to buy healing potions from a local alchemist and the manticore needs to be a threat that the PCs can beat up.

The number of people the players interact with and the power level of the opposition doesn't really change when you're in tiny villages or major metropolises. The number of people in the area is basically just a background. Like one of those painted planet scapes from Star Trek: Next Gen. Whether you see a vast jungle and presume that the twenty actors you're dealing with are the whole of civilization or you see a vast cityscape that is presumably full of teeming hives of humanoids, you're still only dealing with those twenty actors.

It doesn't have to be so tilted that there are literally more wizards in small hamlets than there are in big cities, but since a bunch of the high level archetypes live alone in towers they make themselves, that might literally be true.

-Username17

[Winnah]

I'm a fan of 0 level characters. Saves the trouble of statting out a blacksmith or merchant unless they also happen to have abilities like an adventurer.

[tzor]

Personally, I think before you can talk about the distribution of high level people in a given population you need to first determine the highest level person (for each class) in a given population and then work the distribution from there.

High level characters will "live" in a given location for the same reason why Bank Robbers rob banks; because that is where the money is! Generally speaking high populations support high level characters very nicely. On the other hand, so do "gold rush" towns where adventurers are still running into town with more gold coins than they know what to do. You see it's not general population that determines the highest level that can be supported but the percentage of wealthy who can generally afford the potions and the spells (We have a request for another raise dead your grace) and the magic items and even the occasional student looking to advance their level.

Ironically such a high level NPC may drain the pool of mid level NPCS because he drains the population pool that gives the mid level NPCS their reason to stay in the location. Some may seek training, but then leave immediately afterwards. Others may leave because the higher level NPC has mostof the market locked up.

Thus you probably won't see a pyramid of levels in a given location. You might see one person of level X, another two of level X-2, a few more of level X-5 who are basically studying under the ones of level X-2.

More importantly, a strong demand for one class is going to reduce the levels in the other classes. If there is a big demand for clerical raising of the dead, demand on the wizards will be less, and the cleric might have a major incentive to keep the high level thieves in check. The fighter might be an exception, becuase he is both a sink and a source - one doesn't always have to live in an area to tax it, but living next to either a high level cleric or wizard can derive unique benefits - the same ones adventurers and nobles want and desire.

I'm pretty sure you could work up a good easy to use matrix for this, based on a simple goss domestic product, either comming from population or plunder. So it's really not about population at all, but a whole lot of gold coins.

[Hieronymous Rex]

I'm feel satisfied with these values, which should be correct in a sufficiently large sample size (perhaps a large city, or entire state), in an E6 world. My original (perhaps faulty) concept is represented visually on the left.

.................%, exact.............................%, approximate...Appears At
.....0..........4.761904761904762...........4..........................Metropolis
....00.........9.523809523809524...........9..........................City
...000........14.285714285714285.........14.........................Town
..0000.......19.047619047619047.........19.........................Village
.00000......23.809523809523807.........25.........................Outpost/Hamlet
000000.....28.57142857142857...........29.........................Isolated Dwelling/Camp

"Appears At" indicates the smallest settlement that this level of character will appear at; for smaller groups... I'm not sure. DSMatticus gave a system, but I'm don't know if it applies to what I'm posting here. Perhaps a different column of percentages for each settlement size. Note that I'm using these settlement sizes:

Settlement......................Population
Isolated Dwelling/Camp..10
Outpost/Hamlet..............100
Village...... ......................1,000
Town ..............................10,000
City.......... ......................100,000
Metropolis.......................1,000,000

[Novembermike]

The vast majority of characters are going to be NPCs with no stats. As an adventurer you can kill them out of hand with little to no chance of direct reprisal. The only characters the players need to worry about are people in their level range who are probably important to the story, so they should already be statted out.

Anything else needs a gut check based on the setting. If the players need to find a high level cleric in the fantasy equivalent of the vatican they'll probably be fine despite the fact that it's the size of a village. If they're trying to find an experienced ranger in a civilized metropolis, they're probably not going to have much luck.

[koz]

Novembermike, you seem to be a stoic advocate of GM fiat as a form of resolution. This has a problem: if your GM is incompetent or shitty, which frankly, most are, your system falls apart. This is why we want exact maths and exact numbers - not platitudes and guesswork - to be the guide for what happens how in our systems.

[Almaz]

The vast majority of characters are going to be NPCs with no stats. As an adventurer you can kill them out of hand with little to no chance of direct reprisal. The only characters the players need to worry about are people in their level range who are probably important to the story, so they should already be statted out.

Anything else needs a gut check based on the setting. If the players need to find a high level cleric in the fantasy equivalent of the vatican they'll probably be fine despite the fact that it's the size of a village. If they're trying to find an experienced ranger in a civilized metropolis, they're probably not going to have much luck.

So you're saying the King's Wardens cannot possibly have ranger levels in spite of their entire profession being maintaining and observing the wilderness, like, you know, what rangers do, just because they happen to have a townhouse in a civilized location, and that every religion necessarily produces a high level cleric. Righto then.

And this is why people think "gut checks" aren't necessarily good ideas.

[Novembermike]

Novembermike, you seem to be a stoic advocate of GM fiat as a form of resolution. This has a problem: if your GM is incompetent or shitty, which frankly, most are, your system falls apart. This is why we want exact maths and exact numbers - not platitudes and guesswork - to be the guide for what happens how in our systems.

Somebody should build the world. That can be the DM, that can be a third party, it can even be a collaborative effort by all the players. Having a world that's actually built by a human rather than a computer doesn't imply DM fiat, though. Any basic setting information should be determined by the DM. He can use guides, and there are some that are much better than the DMG, but the basic setting should have an arbiter that isn't a pair of dice.

So you're saying the King's Wardens cannot possibly have ranger levels in spite of their entire profession being maintaining and observing the wilderness, like, you know, what rangers do, just because they happen to have a townhouse in a civilized location, and that every religion necessarily produces a high level cleric. Righto then.

And this is why people think "gut checks" aren't necessarily good ideas.

That's your gut check. If you were the DM, then the party would find a Ranger.