Why assume that NPCs will always attempt to advance in levels? Are all NPC's considered "adventurers"? Look around the local neighborhood - are your friends and neighbors steadily gaining levels? Or do they sort of plateau an remain at a certain level?
In this case, the harsh nature of the pictish wilderness would cause the advance or die progression. You cant, on one hand say that only 4th level and above Picts would hunt, raid or war.... after all, how did they _get_ to 4th level in the first place if they were locked in thier huts ?
As for the local neighborhood, if life was like the D20 system, I would of been forced to slay large numbers of people in order to gain my PhD. Fortunately, the cops were never able to pin those bodies to me.
For whatever reason, you could easily justify a large number of 1st to 3rd level villagers that never advance beyond that stage ... one of the advantages for the Picts seems to be their great numbers -- that means there has to be somebody at home keeping the hearth fires burning.
The commoners would moslty be 1, 2nd level. This discussion mainly is in regards to the fighting picts.
Question: Do your players know right from the get go what level the enemies are they are facing? Doesn't sort of sap the fun from the encounter? Reduce it to just crunching numbers?
They dont know jack. Heh. Heh. Heh. I should also point out that the conditions I set are for the "system" at equilibrium. It is quite possible that if the players gain enough notoriety, the picts will respond outside the conditions I have set (I do have a written case for this, but dont want to say in public).
I'm very curious as I tend to play a little more loose and cinematic with the encounters...
I dont want to imply what I am doing is the best or even better way. Its simply the philosphy I use. The nature of the level progression means it gets harder and harder to be higher level. In this case, the numbers of higher level people decline. This being the case, most of the picts are going to be 1st level. To me, it doesnt matter if the players are 1st or 20th level; the basic nature of the pictish wildernes dictates that most of the picts are 1st level. [*]. Just because the players are high level doesnt mean all the picts magically become higher level. That is just silly, IMHO.
Now just because most Picts are 1st level does not imply there is no challenge in the Pictish wilderness for higher level players. In Conan the critical hits -> massive damage and large numbers can overwhelm the toughest players. Furthermore, notorious players will elicit an appropriate response from the picts involving high level Picts.
Mad Dog
[*] It may be that I shoudl start the Pict level progression at 2nd, rather than 1st, to simulate the harsh nature of the wilderness.