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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default On Commoner Mortality

    On good old Earth, humans don’t have a single natural predator. The Monster Manuals, on the other hand, add a startling number. It’s a common adage that an adventurer has a great salary, but a terrible retirement plan. On the other hand, Joe Commoner isn’t without his fair share of danger, from massive Phase Spiders literally popping out of nowhere to hunt, to random fanatics with the Death Devotion feat who think the world needs a few more wights, to entire societies (Drow, Aboleth, Mind Flayer) filled with people smarter than you and constantly working towards your own society’s destruction.

    So what are the most frequent/deadly types of danger your typical commoner may need to survive? What sort of lifespan should be expected? How justified is it when three characters in a party all have the tragic background of “my village was destroyed when I was a child”? How do these things differ depending on your campaign setting – specifically, between Greyhawk, Faerûn, and Eberron?

    Please assume a setting that runs as described in the Dungeon Master’s guide and/or a typical adventure module, not a Tippyverse.
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    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    I would expect the commoner mortality rate to be pretty high in more rural areas although less so in urban areas. Probably I would say no more than 50 years would be the life expectancy of a regular commoner in your average village.

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    In my homebrew campaign world, such monster attacks are very rare. Most commoners go their whole life without seeing a griffon or a ghost. Monster attacks are the sort of thing that the PC's get hired to investigate. This, combined with the relatively easy access to magical healing, means that even in rural areas the average lifespan is pretty close to that in reality.

    That said, I believe in letting players define their characters as much as possible, and so if three of them say their villages were attacked, then I'll just say something about statistical clustering and move on.
    Last edited by Bakkan; 2017-05-22 at 12:59 AM.

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Quote Originally Posted by Red Regent View Post
    On good old Earth, humans don’t have a single natural predator. The Monster Manuals, on the other hand, add a startling number. It’s a common adage that an adventurer has a great salary, but a terrible retirement plan. On the other hand, Joe Commoner isn’t without his fair share of danger, from massive Phase Spiders literally popping out of nowhere to hunt, to random fanatics with the Death Devotion feat who think the world needs a few more wights, to entire societies (Drow, Aboleth, Mind Flayer) filled with people smarter than you and constantly working towards your own society’s destruction.

    So what are the most frequent/deadly types of danger your typical commoner may need to survive? What sort of lifespan should be expected? How justified is it when three characters in a party all have the tragic background of “my village was destroyed when I was a child”? How do these things differ depending on your campaign setting – specifically, between Greyhawk, Faerûn, and Eberron?

    Please assume a setting that runs as described in the Dungeon Master’s guide and/or a typical adventure module, not a Tippyverse.
    For the record, the setting described in the DMG evolves naturally into the Tippyverse without fiat-based limitations imposed from without. Anyway, presuming said limitations exist (let's say the gods command all high-level casters to spend 95% of their time staring at the wall or something), life as a commoner in a D&D reality is actually much less dangerous than it was in actual pre-industrial Earth, because healing magic exists.

    Wounds are largely minor setbacks, any injury that doesn't result in outright loss of a limb is fixed by a quick trip to the local divine caster. Many common sources of acute death, such as childbirth or skull fractures simply cease to exist. Disease is also eminently curable, though it may require a trek to a slightly larger town. Chronic diseases are pretty much eliminated - you can kiss cancer goodbye - and even acute diseases that cause epidemics are quickly isolated and possibly exterminated completely. Smallpox, which used to kill a disgustingly high percentage of all humans, is largely a non-factor in D&D worlds.

    Natural predators may be more dangerous, and include monsters that are considerably more intelligent, and this no doubt increases commoner mortality via violence by a significant margin, but it is still almost certainly an order of magnitude less than the mortality reduction caused by the near elimination of disease, especially when you consider that any predator that becomes overly aggressive and kills too often will be subject to the same kind of man-eater hunts that were used on leopards, lions, and tigers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Depends on how you build your world.

    In my campaign world there are 4 sections of note (capital city, lesser cities, borders, colonies).
    Capital City: Nobody is born here. Some die trying to get access. Once inside there is almost no risk of death by monster. Murder is a more common cause of death.

    Lesser Cities: Lower than normal death by monster rates. A monster might attack a city once a decade. Individual commoner chance of death: 1% chance per decade? Early onset old age is a more common cause of death.

    Border Cities: These are your typical D&D cities settled near a monster filled wilderness. However they also have a large garrison. Expect several monster attacks per year, but only one breach per decade. 5% chance of death per decade?

    Colonies: Villages of people settling inside monster infested lands and too far away to call for help. No NPC remains a commoner and lives through a decade.

    So 0%, 1%, 5%, and 100% death rate (due to monsters) per decade for Commoners.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2017-05-22 at 05:04 AM.

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Quote Originally Posted by Red Regent View Post
    So what are the most frequent/deadly types of danger your typical commoner may need to survive?
    What matters most is the one they don't have to face: infant mortality. Thanks to Cure Minor Wounds (an orison!) no one dies in childbirth. Thanks to Remove Disease there are no plagues. Thanks to Plant Growth there are no famines. Consequently all those monsters are required to keep the population in check.

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    I don't say all monsters target humans exclusively. There are other creatures out there in the woods. Goblins target other creatures other then humans. Elves patrol the woods serves to keep it safe for elves, but humans to by proxy. Animals have learned that humans are a dangerous creature to stir up, much like bees or hornets. In the end I think it equals out to a normal mortality rate to the past.

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    In a D&D world the same thing will limit life span that limited it on earth during the middle ages, disease. To hire someone to cast Remove Disease cost 150 gp. and the average commoner earns 1 sp. per day. That is more than four years wages!

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Sure theres more monsters that want to nosh you or sacrifice your virgin daughters and of course Smaug who is hiding in a mountain where for some reason people chose to build a river town next to him ?

    On the flip side you have very easy access to healing and raise dead spells which cost a cleric no more then a prayer so even one gold coin is pure profit making prices very reasonable to any class. Lets not forget those living saints who do it for free .

    If you are Joe commoner who has a steady income and lives close to a temple ,saving up a nest egg to fund an adventuring party to rescue your virgin daughter from that once in a blue moon kidnap , I expect a pretty long and healthy life.

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    MindFlayer

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    Quote Originally Posted by Red Regent View Post
    On good old Earth, humans don’t have a single natural predator.
    *citation needed*

    Here's an article about everything on good old Earth that eats humans.

    We've got rid of most predators from the places where we live: that doesn't stop polar bears, crocodiles, alligators and tigers from finding us tasty.
    Last edited by JustIgnoreMe; 2017-05-22 at 07:29 AM.

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Quote Originally Posted by Nupo View Post
    In a D&D world the same thing will limit life span that limited it on earth during the middle ages, disease. To hire someone to cast Remove Disease cost 150 gp. and the average commoner earns 1 sp. per day. That is more than four years wages!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pugwampy View Post
    On the flip side you have very easy access to healing and raise dead spells which cost a cleric no more then a prayer so even one gold coin is pure profit making prices very reasonable to any class. Lets not forget those living saints who do it for free .
    Raise Dead has a 5,000 gp component cost, so definitely not free. This also enforces a limit on how many can be brought back this way by even the most charitable. It is also a 5th level spell, and I don't think many rural areas(the likely targets of random monster attacks) are exactly littered with level 9+ Clerics. Also, clerics don't have all the spell slots on the world, so there is a limit. Plus, RP-wise, spells are a blessing from their deity, so not exactly something most would give away cheaply.

    Mechanics-wise, there is the standard hireling cost assumed.
    If you are Joe commoner who has a steady income and lives close to a temple ,saving up a nest egg to fund an adventuring party to rescue your virgin daughter from that once in a blue moon kidnap , I expect a pretty long and healthy life.
    As previously mentioned, commoners make 1 sp a day. That's about 36.5 gp a year, which is definitely not enough to afford much, even if living expenses were 0.
    Last edited by Pyromancer999; 2017-05-22 at 09:23 AM.

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Quote Originally Posted by Godskook View Post
    Interesting bit of fantasy there, but I guess this is a game set in a fantasy world. I wonder if the person that put that together has ever put together an actual family budget. There were a ton of expenses that were left out. That thread also makes a lot of bold assumptions, the biggest of which is assuming that if someone has skills, he or she will be able to make an appropriate amount of money relative to those skills. I know a lot of people with college degrees that are working at minimum wage jobs. I expect in any world, fantasy or not, similar situations would also exist.

    I still say (even with some creative accounting) the average commoner would not have access to third level spells. Rich merchants, yes, the average commoner no.

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    EvilClericGuy

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Quote Originally Posted by Godskook View Post
    This always bothered me as it assumes: no taxes or payments to any local lord, a year round growing season allowing income every week all year, and ignores the time/cost/risk involved during the process of transporting the produce grown to a market to be sold (and that's being generous and assuming he dumps his entire stock on a single buyer and doesn't have to spend any time selling his food)

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Quote Originally Posted by Chronikoce View Post
    This always bothered me as it assumes: no taxes or payments to any local lord, a year round growing season allowing income every week all year, and ignores the time/cost/risk involved during the process of transporting the produce grown to a market to be sold (and that's being generous and assuming he dumps his entire stock on a single buyer and doesn't have to spend any time selling his food)
    An adventurer with those skill bonuses on a craft skill is assumed able to walk into town as a total stranger and NET that much per week. He has all those expenses and extra time requirements and DOES NOT get as good a return as a local in any sane economy. Those incomes are the AFTER whatever nets. That's how they are listed.

    The PHB is rules for adventurers, and an adventurer makes 8.5 GP a week if he shows up and wants to work for one week with the same skills as a no ability bonus level 1 commoner. The commoner WILL do better because he's a reliable long term worker, rather than one small step up from a day laborer.

    Unskilled is what you pay a 12 year old to babysit your infant or a grandmother to watch the fire and make sure it doesn't burn the house down while you are working, it has nothing to do with an actual skilled worker (and for that matter craft is usable untrained, so it has nothing to do with someone who's responsible and reliable enough to work in a smithy even if they have no actual training as a smith).
    Last edited by Doug Lampert; 2017-05-22 at 10:59 AM.

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    EvilClericGuy

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Quote Originally Posted by Doug Lampert View Post
    An adventurer with those skill bonuses on a craft skill is assumed able to walk into town as a total stranger and NET that much per week.
    This still entirely ignores a year round growing season and that distance (and difficulty) from farm to market can vary greatly by region.

    It also ignores any downtime/damage due to storms, illness, animal attacks, etc. Then there is the ability of a market to actual purchase the crops grown with cash as opposed to bartering for goods. Depending on the region and the world it may be more likely that goods are bartered for goods and services and only a portion of the profits are payed for with actual cash.

    I've also never seen a justification for why a divine spellcasters would choose to ignore the spellcasting services charge as outlined in the rules (sure some examples may exist that hand out casting for free but those should be the exception since rules exist for buying spellcasting) which means every single orison costs 5gp and the costs only go up from there.

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    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post

    Colonies: Villages of people settling inside monster infested lands and too far away to call for help. No NPC remains a commoner and lives through a decade.

    So 0%, 1%, 5%, and 100% death rate (due to monsters) per decade for Commoners.
    Who grows all the food in your setting if the farmers can barely make through a decade? I'm not being snarky, here, I'm genuinely curious about the mechanics of your setting.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nupo View Post
    Interesting bit of fantasy there, but I guess this is a game set in a fantasy world. I wonder if the person that put that together has ever put together an actual family budget. There were a ton of expenses that were left out. That thread also makes a lot of bold assumptions, the biggest of which is assuming that if someone has skills, he or she will be able to make an appropriate amount of money relative to those skills. I know a lot of people with college degrees that are working at minimum wage jobs. I expect in any world, fantasy or not, similar situations would also exist.

    I still say (even with some creative accounting) the average commoner would not have access to third level spells. Rich merchants, yes, the average commoner no.
    It's mainly just a refutation of the standard assumed hireling costs - 1sp/day for an untrained hireling[1], 1sp/day for "poor" meals[2], and taxes/tithes of up to 20%[3] are three numbers that really shouldn't coexist.

    That the DMG tries to justify it[4] somehow just calls attention to it and makes it worse, really.

    The only way I can see to make everything go together is the good old AD&D 1E explanation:
    Quote Originally Posted by 1E PHB p.35
    Your character will most probably be adventuring in an area where money is plentiful. Think of the situation as similar to Alaskan boom towns during the gold rush days, when eggs sold for one dollar each and mining tools sold for $20, $50, and $100 or more! Costs in the adventuring area are distorted because of the law of supply and demand-the supply of coin is high, while supplies of equipment for adventurers are in great demand.
    In other words, literal goldrush prices.

    ...In case you wonder, yes, the 1sp/day price is straight out of the 1E DMG - bearers and torchbearers cost that much. A "merchant's meal" is also 1sp, but that's not exactly what you're linkboy is getting (which is presumably cheap enough that your thousands-of-gold-pieces PCs don't need to know the prices - their rations are bought for 50sp a week!).

    This is a case where the added detail just makes older ad-hoc prices look really weird.


    [1] PHB p.132: "The amount shown is the typical daily wage for laborers, porters, cooks, maids, and other menial workers." (The DMG p.105 also includes barristers in this price class, and mercenaries and valets/lackeys both sit at 2sp/day - between trained and untrained price classes.)

    [2] PHB p.131: "Poor meals might be composed of bread, baked turnips, onions, and water." (PHB p.129 gives bread as being 2cp/loaf - turnips and onions aren't even in the Arms & Equipment Guide, however.)

    [3] DMG p.140: "Taxes paid to the queen, the emperor, or the local baroness might consume as much as one-fifth of a character’s wealth[.]" (The same page also gives tithes as being 10%, of course, but those are called out as optional except in tyrannic theocracies. 20% is also given as an upper limit on taxes.)

    [4] DMG p.139:
    The economic system in the D&D game is based on the silver piece (sp). A common laborer earns 1 sp a day. That’s just enough to allow his family to survive, assuming that this income is supplemented with food his family grows to eat, homemade clothing, and a reliance on self-sufficiency for most tasks (personal grooming, health, animal tending, and so on).

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    It depends on the logistics of your world, and the distributions of levels. In my own, it's roughly what you'd expect from real-life, because the larger amount of things that could hunt down people are compensated for by the survivors being tougher and more experienced. Children get XP for helping their parents fend off threats, until they're somewhere in the 9-11 range by they set off on their own. Since more people are high enough level to make magic items, enchanted equipment to take care of some of the more common problems is more readily available (i.e, Ghost Touch Clubs for 'in case of Shadows'). Even in case of emergency, somebody probably knows enough to get a Sending out

    Meanwhile, if you use the DMG guidelines for populations, incredibly high. Wights and Zombies kill much of the population in one touch, so most rural places are one unlucky night away from being an undead-infested ghost town. Traditional methods of defence (high walls and similar fortifications) offer no defence against things that can move through walls, climb over them, burrow under them, or fly above them, while still being strong enough to get you. All of which exist in plentiful amounts in DnD. Since their's so much danger, you'd expect that populations would need to become very clustered, so as to easily defend each other. The typical 'rural community', as we know it, can't exist in a stable configuration normally.

    Quote Originally Posted by Beowulf DW View Post
    Who grows all the food in your setting if the farmers can barely make through a decade? I'm not being snarky, here, I'm genuinely curious about the mechanics of your setting.
    Well, two possible solutions I can see:
    1. Farming isn't done by people who live too far away to get help. After all, too far to get help is also too far to practically sell one's goods on a regular basis (or buy things you need).
    2. Even if it was in 'colonies', note the quoted text says 'remains a commoner'. Like my above points, frequent run-ins with monsters means that those that live in those kinds of areas would level up, presumably taking non-commoner levels to survive.
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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    My world is broken into different regions. Cities surrounded by smaller towns out to rural edges. These are all protected from years of concerted effort to eradicate dangers. Adventurers would have little work in these regions unless they want to engage in intrigue, politics, or solving normal crimes.

    Then as you move further away there are Frontier regions as you describe where life is a constant struggle against the beasts that haven't been eradicated. This is where adventures occur. These towns are also supported by caravans and supplies from the cities as it is too dangerous for a lone family to be off farming on their own.
    Last edited by Chronikoce; 2017-05-22 at 12:39 PM.

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    A lot of people seem to think that mortality would be reduced by the presence of the Remove Disease spell, but even given the optimistic levels of salary listed in the linked thread, an entire family can barely afford the 150 GP price of a single casting each year - a family of four productive members.

    Furthermore, according to the DMG community tables, a lot of settlements simply aren't going to have a fifth level cleric (and definitely not an eighth level adept) capable of casting the spell. It's impossible in Thorps and Hamlets, which make up 30% of all settlements, and unlikely in Villages and Small Towns, which make up another 40%.

    If your town doesn't have this caster, you'll need to brave the road for a trip to a larger settlement. A large town has, at most, three clerics of fifth level or higher and one adept of eighth level or higher healing over 2000 people. This leaves them very busy, and if a plague hits large numbers of people at once, they will not be able to heal everyone, even if they spend most of their time sleeping to recover spells.

    The DMG rules for random community generation are not perfect, of course, but I'm trying to follow the stated setting as closely as posssible.

    On another note, thanks for all the input. This has been very helpful.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Necroticplague View Post
    Well, two possible solutions I can see:
    1. Farming isn't done by people who live too far away to get help. After all, too far to get help is also too far to practically sell one's goods on a regular basis (or buy things you need).
    2. Even if it was in 'colonies', note the quoted text says 'remains a commoner'. Like my above points, frequent run-ins with monsters means that those that live in those kinds of areas would level up, presumably taking non-commoner levels to survive.
    An excellent point, and it actually reminds me of a peculiarity of humanity's place in our world's food chain. I remember reading a bit of conjecture that, although there are many creatures that are more than happy to eat humans when they find them, they are mostly located in areas where humans have not traditionally chosen to live in large numbers (various extreme environments and isolated locales). This is because the predators that live in places where humans like to live have all either been killed, or scared into submission (hence why many animals avoid humans as a rule).

    Once our species perfected the tools and techniques to hunt, there suddenly was nothing on this planet that we couldn't kill. As an example, look at the various wolf hunts that occurred all the way into the early modern period in Europe. Wolf attacks periodically became a major problem until the humans in the area went off to drive out or kill the wolves, which caused the wolves that survived to learn to fear humans and to avoid them.

    This same principle could apply to the creatures of D&D and Pathfinder: Many humans are weak and make for easy prey, but make enough of a nuisance out of yourself, and they will kill you. Indeed, the standard monster hunt quest may unwittingly have been inspired by our species history of hunting down the predators that try to kill us.
    Quote Originally Posted by Flickerdart View Post
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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Hmmm. That's probably how "heroes" start out.
    A dire bear or young dragon or necromancer been preying too rapaciously on an area. A team forms to take it out

    Oooh. That's a good campaign start:
    A town watchman, an itinerant priest, a wizard apprentice out on fieldwork, and a thief sentenced to community service, all in same town, get rid of a monster nest that's gotten too dangerous and has let beasts even wander into the town proper.
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    Player: I'll use a classic ploy. "Help! Guards! He's having a seizure!"
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    Player: I'm very convincing.
    DM: And there are no guards.
    Player: But there's masonry.
    DM: It's not even animate, let alone sentient.
    Player: That's ok. I'll take the penalty.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Beowulf DW View Post
    An excellent point, and it actually reminds me of a peculiarity of humanity's place in our world's food chain. I remember reading a bit of conjecture that, although there are many creatures that are more than happy to eat humans when they find them, they are mostly located in areas where humans have not traditionally chosen to live in large numbers (various extreme environments and isolated locales). This is because the predators that live in places where humans like to live have all either been killed, or scared into submission (hence why many animals avoid humans as a rule).

    Once our species perfected the tools and techniques to hunt, there suddenly was nothing on this planet that we couldn't kill. As an example, look at the various wolf hunts that occurred all the way into the early modern period in Europe. Wolf attacks periodically became a major problem until the humans in the area went off to drive out or kill the wolves, which caused the wolves that survived to learn to fear humans and to avoid them.

    This same principle could apply to the creatures of D&D and Pathfinder: Many humans are weak and make for easy prey, but make enough of a nuisance out of yourself, and they will kill you. Indeed, the standard monster hunt quest may unwittingly have been inspired by our species history of hunting down the predators that try to kill us.
    Somewhat problem with adding this analogy to the world of DnD is that reality gives us the crown of being the sapients with greatest manipulative abilities. That's what can make us threatening. However, in DnD, you can hardly throw a stone without hitting something that's also a sapient manipulator, and well as generally malevolent. Our ability to bring trouble comes from communication abilities (which some similar sapients also do), and ability to manipulate things with hands. Plenty of DnD classic nasties have both of these, and other abilities besides (wights, for example, have both+darkvision, negative levels, and indefatigueability)
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    Quote Originally Posted by Red Regent View Post
    A lot of people seem to think that mortality would be reduced by the presence of the Remove Disease spell, but even given the optimistic levels of salary listed in the linked thread, an entire family can barely afford the 150 GP price of a single casting each year - a family of four productive members.

    Furthermore, according to the DMG community tables, a lot of settlements simply aren't going to have a fifth level cleric (and definitely not an eighth level adept) capable of casting the spell. It's impossible in Thorps and Hamlets, which make up 30% of all settlements, and unlikely in Villages and Small Towns, which make up another 40%.

    If your town doesn't have this caster, you'll need to brave the road for a trip to a larger settlement. A large town has, at most, three clerics of fifth level or higher and one adept of eighth level or higher healing over 2000 people. This leaves them very busy, and if a plague hits large numbers of people at once, they will not be able to heal everyone, even if they spend most of their time sleeping to recover spells.

    The DMG rules for random community generation are not perfect, of course, but I'm trying to follow the stated setting as closely as posssible.

    On another note, thanks for all the input. This has been very helpful.
    A correction: 5% of thorps/hamlets have a +10 modifier to the level of the highest-level Druid and Ranger, so level 1d6+7 or 8 for Druids and 1d3+7 or 8 for Rangers.

    That's a level 8-13 Druid and level 8-11 Ranger - and the Druid being level 9+ (5/6th chance) means that there's also two more level 5+ Druids.
    Also, 11th-level Rangers can cast Remove Disease if they've got 16 Wis - unfortunately unlikely here, since the random NPC Rangers (DMG p.121) have a starting score of 12 Wis and don't get a +2 Periapt of Wisdom until level 14.

    That's just a technicality, though - they're so uncommon (and so expensive!) that you're really just better off going to a Village (pop 401+, 1/6th chance of 5th-level Cleric), Small Town (pop 901+, 1/3rd chance), or Large Town (2,001+, 5/6th chance - 1/6th chance of having three!). Do note that in the Small Town you could also buy a Scroll of Cure Disease, but it costs more than double the spellcasting service (375gp vs. 150gp!). You'd better hope for charity!


    For as much as spellcasting is world-warping, the density of classed NPCs isn't really large enough to make a noticeable dent against big stuff. Except in the really big cities, but even then they're helpless to help the greater masses unless they start mass-producing expensive Wands of Remove Disease or something.


    Fortunately, disease is unlikely to kill too many commoners - the only core diseases that cause Con damage are Demon Fever (caused by Night Hags, unlikely), Slimy Doom (no mentioned disease vector beyond "touching a victim of Slimy Doom"), Mummy Rot (again, unlikely) and Filth Fever.
    Filth Fever is probably the most likely one for Commoners to die from - it's an injury disease spread by dire rats and filth in general - but it's also just DC12 for 1d3 DEX/1d3 CON, so you've got a 33% chance of not being badly hurt at all and will survive for probably ten days on average - and that's ten days to make two 45% rolls in a row.

    Slimy Doom is probably the one most likely cause a deadly plague, though - it's got some Ebola-like aspects to it, and is really nasty. It's just somewhat unlikely to show up in the first place, I feel? Like, the one that you'll probably see mass outbreaks of the most is Blinding Sickness, since it spreads through tainted water, but it paralyzes and blinds you rather than actively killing you.

    ...Once you go outside Core things change up a bit - Deathsong in the Book of Vile Darkness is particularly rough, killing a commoner in three days - but since most of the diseases out there are focused on monsters rather than, y'know, actual ones? Yeah, D&D is surprisingly lenient on commoners here. There aren't even stats for the flu, let alone leprosy or tuberculosis or ebola.

    And, of course, most of these plagues are most likely to occur in highly populated areas, like cities - the places that are most equipped to handle them (the unlikely max-level-casters Metropolis has 472 daily castings of Remove Disease!)

  26. - Top - End - #26
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    One could see notable kings and rulers commissioning traps or schemas or suchlike of remove disease or purify food and drink; the latter put into wells of their region.
    The duties of a mayor might be every morning, at the break of dawn, activating the device to cleanse the settlement's water for the day.

    Expensive but comparable to building cathedrals, or commissioning gilded reliquaries or suchlike.

    As magic items don't seem to degrade, these cleanwater stones/buckets would slowly acrete in towns.

    Ditto healing traps in temples...
    Thinking about how relics and miraculous images work in the real world and oftentimes they have one sticking a hand through a little hole... Perfect trap triggering form.

    It would only take a couple clerics getting together to build a trap of true resurrection to have a place become a great metropolis based off the defeat of death.

    Townships would sponsor a person 1/decade to take bits of bone from their untimely dead to this sanctuary and chuck them into the trap...

    This would be a particularly good move in worlds where gods need belief to live.
    The amount of gratitude and trust this would cause would propel whatever God sponsored this Resurrection trap to Greater Deity status.

    And again this doesn't need to happen all the time. But once every elven generation would mean these things would acrete in the world.
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    Player: I'll use a classic ploy. "Help! Guards! He's having a seizure!"
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    SolithKnightGuy

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Quote Originally Posted by Necroticplague View Post
    Somewhat problem with adding this analogy to the world of DnD is that reality gives us the crown of being the sapients with greatest manipulative abilities. That's what can make us threatening. However, in DnD, you can hardly throw a stone without hitting something that's also a sapient manipulator, and well as generally malevolent. Our ability to bring trouble comes from communication abilities (which some similar sapients also do), and ability to manipulate things with hands. Plenty of DnD classic nasties have both of these, and other abilities besides (wights, for example, have both+darkvision, negative levels, and indefatigueability)
    True, but even then, humans tend to be rather clever relative to the other races, considering the implications of starting ages for the classes. It takes an elf more than a century to become a wizard, but a human can manage that in a fraction of the time. Humans are fast on the uptake.
    Quote Originally Posted by Flickerdart View Post
    Fortunately, a Monk 1/Warblade 19 uses Iron Heart Surge to end the Monk character class, and the day is saved.

  28. - Top - End - #28
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    NecromancerGuy

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Quote Originally Posted by Beowulf DW View Post
    Who grows all the food in your setting if the farmers can barely make through a decade? I'm not being snarky, here, I'm genuinely curious about the mechanics of your setting.
    In the colonies? Fighters, Clerics, Rogues, Experts, Adepts, the lucky Warrior, Rangers, Wizards, Sorcerors, ...

    Basically the farmer's primary job becomes "Fight to farm" and thus they are better described as militia that farms than as farmers than are part of the militia. The good news is that some monsters can be eaten and thus those attacks can supplement what can be harvested.

    The leaders of the Empire noticed that highly lethal environments bring out some secret ingredient needed for the magic item economy. When someone gains enough renown in the colonies they are invited to the capital.


    In the capital? All food is imported from the other cities. If there are any commoners that gain entrance, they are no longer farming.

    In the other cities? Commoners (only a 1%-5% chance of death per decade from the forced/freeman labor).
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2017-05-22 at 04:19 PM.

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    GreenSorcererElf

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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    Once you hit city size there are enough high level NPCs that only an army with an equal number of high level NPCs, a thousand year old dragon, or a loose high level fiend can threaten it.

    Most of the "maneating" monsters are restricted in living space. Many undead are powerless in or just don't like the sunlight, and thus stay in their ruins or underground. Aboleths live in underground waterways. Mind Flayers live underground. And on and on. Furthermore, there's something in dnd we don't have in real life: cattle-tier humanoids. That is, kobolds and goblins which are fully functioning humanoid races which grow twice as fast as humans (6 years for kobolds), and hey look they often live underground as well. So the maneating monsters mostly live underground and have easy access to less well developed cultures of food sources that grow faster than the more well defended surface dwelling humans. These two problems could be seen as sorting themselves out: the humans (and dwarves and elves) aren't overrun because goblin and kobold populations are kept down by predation.
    Last edited by Fizban; 2017-05-22 at 07:11 PM.
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    Default Re: On Commoner Mortality

    "Most people in the world at large die from pestilence, accidents, infections, or violence before getting to venerable age. - Player's Handbook,
    page 109


    Don't get too caught up in external enemies that you forget internal enemies. Quite a large number of people might die from fighting duels and the like. A critical whack over the head with a bottle in a pub brawl could lead to death. Falling from a tree/ladder/roof could lead to death. Being arrested and executed could lead to death, or you could die in prison due to hunger and disease. Freezing weather. Drought. Starvation.

    There are plenty of ways to kill commoners that don't require tentacles and claws.

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