Quote Originally Posted by Threadnaught View Post
Level 5 is calculated to be the peak of Human ability, anything rated at CR5 is (assuming a nonbroken CR system) a serious threat to most games' villages. Anything below that is more manageable, but still a threat.
Just a nit-pick, but levels really don't correspond all that well to regular human ability. After all many boxers could land more than four hits in six seconds successfully, that would require that they be around mid-high levels. Olympic Strength folks could easily lift weights that would put them in the mid-low twenties for strength (unattainable at level 5 without items for a human).

It's a model, just because you could theoretically model most humans conceptually at level 5, doesn't mean that level 5 is the peak of human ability. That varies completely from setting to setting. In FR it's common to see guards in small towns at level five or six, and those in big cities at as high as thirteen or fourteen. In Eberron there are very few non-PC characters over level 6 and that's actually a design choice.

The problem is that D&D is a model, designed for fun gameplay, not designed for presenting an accurate picture of humanity, so one is remiss to say, "the highest level for normal human ability is five, since to model many human abilities you would need much higher levels than five.