Level demographics in the Hyborian Age

[Enlightened]

In your D20 games, how are the level demographics set up?

How rare are NPCs of the various classes and levels in your campaign?

What percentage of the population of, for example, Stygia is a 1st level commoner? How many 5th level barbarians are there in Cimmeria? What level is the average Gunderland pikeman on the field of battle?

etc. etc.

 

[The King]

You have many answers of this in the soucebook The Free Companies.

 

[Spectator]

You have many answers of this in the soucebook The Free Companies.

Uhh, he's probably asking because he does not have access to Free Companies.

So, I second his inquiry.

I would imagine in the harsher environments (eg: the barbarian lands there are a lot more 2-3rd level characters running around, than in Shem, per capita).

 

[VincentDarlage]

Here is what I use. I got it off of these boards a long time ago (around 2005), but I don't remember who originally posted it.

Standard Demographics

A NPC's level reflects his general competence:
1st - incompetent apprentice
3rd - average young adult professional
5th/6th - seasoned veteran
7th - master
9th - grand master
10th - hero
13th - legend
16th - earth-shaker
19th - myth

And a random encounter table might look like:
1-3 = 50%
4-6 = 25%
7-9 = 13%
10-12 = 6%
13-15 = 3%
16-18 = 2%
19-20 = 1%

So that makes it about a 2:1 ratio. Furthermore, approximately 45% of the population is 3rd level exactly.

I don't have 1st level guards running around in my games. Most are 3rd level. I use the first table more than I do the second table (I don't generally randomly roll up levels for NPCs; I decide how competent I think they are, then go from there).

I hope this helps.

 

[Enlightened]

And the breakdown of levels in any given population is:
1-3 = 50%
4-6 = 25%
7-9 = 13%
10-12 = 6%
13-15 = 3%
16-18 = 2%
19-20 = 1%

Interesting.

If that's working for you then great, but it seems like a LOT of high level people.

In a city of 10,000 people, there are going to be one hundred 19th level guys?

 

[VincentDarlage]

Well, use the first table MUCH more than I do the second table (I don't generally randomly roll up levels for NPCs; I decide how competent I think they are, then go from there).

Actually, I don't think I have ever used the second table, but do keep the highlighted portion in mind - so, no, there wouldn't be that many 19th-20th level people in a town of 100,000. (I also use the tables in the D&D DMG to determine the highest level in a given population, so a town of 100,000 might have a maximum of a 16th level sorcerer, regardless of the %s offered above. A hamlet of 100 people would not have 1 19th level person, because the highest level person is likely to be 6th level.

For me, the 1st table is much more useful.

Hence, my thinking is like this - say I want the characters to meet a weaponsmith, I need to ask, "is this weaponsmith considered a master weaponsmith (7th level), or is he a legend in his own time (13th level), or is he merely competent (3rd level)?

The % table, to me, is more for random encounters - who is the character likely to run across, and how often? PCs are more likely to run across a 19th level villain than most other people, thus the higher %.

Then again, I didn't devise the tables. I just found them useful. Since I never write up descriptions of NPCs beyond those that I need, I never used the % table to come up with the complete levels of a town.

 

[Enlightened]

You have many answers of this in the soucebook The Free Companies.

I have that book, but I don't see anything about level demographics.

What page is it?

 

[Enlightened]

For me personally, when I was running vanilla-D&D, I looked at levels like this:

1st level = Professional (90% or the population)
2nd level = elite (9% of the population)
3rd level = Master
4th level = long time master (generally the highest level that NPCs could achieve)
5th level = hero
6th level = long time hero (the highest level that anyone has ever achieved in history)
7th level and above = no one has ever been this high. The PCs will potentially be the first in the world.


However, the demographic assumptions seem to be different in the Hyborian Age.

 

[VincentDarlage]

I never looked at vanilla D&D that way (heck, in AD&D, a 9th level fighter was a "lord", and there were certainly lots of lords and rulers in the land). I don't know how you would come up with human challenges to players with that sort of table - once the PC's hit 10+ levels, they could dominate anyone in the world.

Anyway, you asked. I answered. If you don't find my answer helpful, then don't use it - or make up your own, as you just did. Its really not worth the debate.

 

[Enlightened]

Anyway, you asked. I answered. If you don't find my answer helpful, then don't use it - or make up your own, as you just did. Its really not worth the debate.

I wasn't debating or saying you were wrong.

I was having a friendly discussion about a topic I enjoy

And your post was helpful. I want to see how everyone looks at the issue.

 

[Enlightened]

in AD&D, a 9th level fighter was a "lord", and there were certainly lots of lords and rulers in the land.

Ah, for BD&D and AD&D, my level assuptions are different.

What I posted above are the level assuptions I used in 3E.

For BD&D (Red box/Blue box) it would be more like:

1~3rd level = Professional (90%)

4~6th level = Elite (9%)

7~9th level = Master (generally the highest level NPCs can get) (1%)

10~12th level = Hero

 

[VincentDarlage]

My level assumptions have been the same from AD&D, 2e AD&D, 3.0 & 3.5 D&D, and Conan. I have had a lot of 10th - 20th level NPC villains; I never put a cap on NPCs. Probably since I have been reading REH (age 13 or so), I had a preference for human villains, with the occasional monster. I used more monsters prior to that.

 

[Enlightened]

I had a preference for human villains, with the occasional monster.

That's a habit I want to get into, too.

And to be honest, that's kind of why I started this thread. I know that if I'm going to get into that habit , I'm going to have to change my assumptions about level demographics. I wanted to see what everyone else is doing.

 

[Demetrio]

As a rough thing I envisage 75% of the adult population being levels 1 and 2 (on the basis that the rules seem to indicate that in various places and also that most folk won't gain too much experience points over their lives).

Levels 3 and 4 comprise maybe 20% and the remaining 5% are levels 5 and above. Only sorcerers will be above level 12 (our cap for pcs of any class is level 12).

 

[Clovenhoof]

My take on demographics is similar to Vincent's. I've got it written up somewhere but here's just what I can think of off the top of my head:

Level 0: child, Age <=14
Level 1: Apprentice, Age 15
Level 3: Journeyman / Professional, Age 18+
Level 5-6: Master (craftsman) / Officer (military/watch), Age ~27+
etc.

At least 90% of the population are Levels 1-6 (not counting children), most of the rest levels 7-10, which are already pretty notable people. Levels 11-20 are by no means reserved for PCs, but are pretty scarce nonetheless.

As a rule of thumb, a regular non-adventuring person may advance by an equivalent rate of about 1000XP/year, starting age 15. BUT the advancement may stop at any time, if the person in question is stuck in a treadmill and not trying out anything new. For most people, that will in fact be the case around level 3, when their professional training is complete.

 

[throrII]

I tend to use the following guidelines for Conan/3.5:

lvl 1: priest out of seminar, apprentice craftsman, warrior out of 'basic'

lvl 2: average priest, craftsman, warrior

lvl 3: head priest of small temple, expert craftsman, veteran warrior/sgt.

lvl 4-6: head priest of large temple, master craftsman, lieutenant/captain

lvl 7-9: generic captain of pirate vessal, generic high priest of city, generic general of army

lvl 10-15: regionally known PC or NPC (great swordsmith, powerful high priest, great swordsman, named (feared?) pirate, general. These NPC's are not generic, they are named/stated INDIVIDUALS.

lvl 16-18: Legendary PC or NPC, one of the best living in his profession, known or heard of throughout the continent.

lvl 19-20: Mythic PC or NPC. The best or one of the best in his profession that ever lived.


When using Castle's &Crusades, I use the following:

1HD human: average person/craftsman/man-at-arms

lvl 1-3: average Cleric, trained Fighter, Knight errant, Wizard just out of school

lvl 4-6: "low level leader level", head priest of individual temple, lieutenant/captain of guard, baron of small fief, experienced Wizard. These people are usully the best in a town.

lvl 7-9: "high level leader level", captain of the guard, high priest of a city, duke/count of large fief. Usually the best in a city/region.


lvl 10-12: Name level. Lord, High Wizard, High Priest of a diety. These people are known throughout the land and are the best of their class in the region/kingdom

lvl 13+: These people may or may not exist. These are legendary warriors, mythic wizards, or clerics of unheard of power from their diety. Those from the past are now the Stuff of Legends. If alive, they are in the top in the world of their class. If evil NPC's, these people threaten whole kingdoms.

 

[Jhil]

For most fantasy worlds, I tend to think of level demographics in exponential terms.

IE. For every level 20, there are 2 level 19, 4 level 18, 8 level 17, 16 level 16s and so on.

So if you build a full reverse level demographic list, it would be something like:

20th 1
19th 2
18th 4
17th 8
16th 16
15th 32
14th 64
13th 128
12th 256
11th 512
10th 1024
9th 2048
8th 4096
7th 8192
6th 16384
5th 32768
4th 65536
3rd 131072
2nd 262144
1st 524288
Total Population 1048575

So you get a level 20 for every million of population, and a handful of level 17-19.

If you do percentages, a level 6-7 is about 1 in 100, and the odds go down from there. I could build a spreadsheet of the details if anybody cared.

I also viewed that unless there's an exception, you won't find something far outside the norms. So if you're doing a random village of 100, then you'll have some folks who have served on a campaign, and the blacksmith might be 6-7 level, but it would be a big random for the blacksmith to be 9th, and he wouldn't be more than that. If he was that good, he'd be somewhere else.

You can create a reverse table too which looks like:

max Level Population
1 1
2 3
3 7
4 15
5 31
6 63
7 127
8 255
9 511
10 1023
11 2047
12 4095
13 8191
14 16383
15 32767
16 65535
17 131071
18 262143
19 524287
20 1048575

This would say at a population of 8,191, we'd expect a level 13 is the cap, and you can just double your way down to get the rest.

Like all population numbers it tends to be crude, and wants for tweaking for anything that's really campaign meaningful, but it serves as a good rule of thumb when I think about these things.

 

[The King]

You have many answers of this in the soucebook The Free Companies.

I have that book, but I don't see anything about level demographics.

What page is it?

Sure, but you have there the average levels of the armies which is an excellent starting point to work with.

Anyway why does it bring you to know there are say 100 19th-level people in a city of 10'000 or even 100'000 inhabitants?

 

[Violetsaber]

Speaking as someone without the Free Companies book, I base my demographics off the quote from (I believe) the core book, stating that there are extremely few level 12 characters in Hyboria. Then, looking at the NPC's created for use in the many other books, it's fairly easy to notice that even powerful kings and legendary generals average around level 9-12.

Because of this, I make most random opponents level 3, which works well for my oft-outnumbered level 5 pirate players. On the other hand, I'm not afraid to include characters at or above level 12, simply because Hyboria is a land of extremes. Conan meets or fights rediculously powerful creatures in almost every story, so there is a precident for occasionally running into characters and monsters who are quite powerful. I don't have the players FIGHT these characters yet, but I make them aware that they have a long way to go, and a goal to strive for.

Long story short, peasents and commoners are level 1-2. Most opponents and allies range from levels 3-5. Challenging opponents who are legendary in thier own countries would be around levels 6-8. Generals and Lords known throughout Hyboria are around 9-12. Characters above that are extremely rare - I believe I only run two of them, and they are both level 20 epic characters known throughout the world.

Just my suggestions.

 

[kintire]

it is worth noting, of course, that in a system of hereditary positions a senior noble like a king or duke will not necessarily be very high level. That's one of my reservations about the Noble class. A first level character whose deceased father was the king is the king.

While we might hope it wouldn't the same often applies to generals and commanders...