Class Levels to Populace Ratio

[Sponson]

I had an interesting discussion come up the other day. I had read the post where a standard DnD world should never really have anyone who has major pain, disease, or addiction due to the sheer number of clerics and the effectiveness of cleric spells. I had brought this up with my group, and they deny that it would ever happen due to Gods or whatever. That's not the point.

They deny that many high level wizards exist (and by high I mean level 9, where they get access to teleport (cue tippyverse)), and therefore teleporting vast armies would be impossible because such a thing just doesn't happen (no other logic given). So my question: is there a source where we can get a sense of how many wizards/clerics/bards/druids of x level would exist in thorps, villages, towns, cities... etc.?

[mattie_p]

You probably want the DMG, pages 137-139, on town building and highest level locals. It is not open game content, and not part of the SRD, so I can't post directly.

[Morithias]

You probably want the DMG, pages 137-139, on town building and highest level locals. It is not open game content, and not part of the SRD, so I can't post directly.

I thought under copyright law you could post small parts of the book, just not all of it. Citation or whatever.

Oh well, maybe I need to refresh myself on the rules of the forum.

[Rejakor]

Also keep in mind the numbers in the DMG (which have, from memory, very few magic users per capita) are actually relatively high fantasy - a metropolis has multiple level 10+ arcane magic users.

And even then it's hard to find someone that can repair ability damage, much less drain.

If you go low fantasy, i.e. shift it all down a notch and quarter the spellcasters, finding a dude who can cast cloudkill is as rare as finding James Bond in real life.

[danzibr]

[...]

Yeah, in the DMG. Interesting, by the way.

But really, it does come down to the DM. In some campaigns level 10+ people are a dime a dozen. Like, all the town guards at level 10 fighters. But sometimes a level 10 could be a ruler of a city.

[nedz]

It is entirely setting dependant.

In a high magic/level setting (e.g. tippyverse) then disease would only occur as enemy action. Actually it's hard to see how disease can exist naturally in this type of world due to herd immunity.

In a low magic/level setting disease would be much more devastating.

[Axier]

Its shockingly easy to have a low amount of spellcasters. It is REALLY all up to the DM, as stated. But lets think averages by style.

No magic, no brainer.

Low magic should be something like the occasional low level bard that performs "magic tricks". Then there would be druids and witches in the wilds. Any wizard would be making a brave new foray into arcane understudies, and would likely have started off as a sorcerer. Magic would feel mysterious and different to the every day. Magical items would be lost relics, or god made items given rarely to a chosen few. A simple magical sword would be a massive improvement to a warrior. Almost every "common" magical item would be more like some kind of rare artifact.

Mid-Magic would have more low-level, non-full casters in existance. Most would never hit past 6th level. Magical items are employed, but rarely. People don't sell these things in stores yet, but people would see them sometimes. Bards would be the talk of the town. Magic would be tought, likely regulated. Most governments would be wary of spellcasters, as most of them would not be world leaders. Too few powerhouses for Global Tippy, but there might develop a sort of Magocracy.


High-Magic: Dont play a fighter. Its pointless now that everyone is some kind of magical everything. At this point, EVERYONE has some kind of magical power... Period. Every commoner has magical training or hidden talent, or both... Hell, most people are at least experts, because commoner jobs are done by magic. Welcome Tippyverse.

[ThiagoMartell]

Also keep in mind the numbers in the DMG (which have, from memory, very few magic users per capita) are actually relatively high fantasy - a metropolis has multiple level 10+ arcane magic users.

And even then it's hard to find someone that can repair ability damage, much less drain.

If you go low fantasy, i.e. shift it all down a notch and quarter the spellcasters, finding a dude who can cast cloudkill is as rare as finding James Bond in real life.

Metropolises should be ridiculously rare (if they exist at all) in low fantasy games, anyway.

[killianh]

I think the book cityscape gets into town and city composition a bit more, and might have the info you're looking for

[Arcanist]

High-Magic: Don't play a straight fighter. Its pointless now that everyone is some kind of magical everything. At this point, EVERYONE has some kind of magical power... Period. Every commoner has magical training or hidden talent, or both... Hell, most people are at least experts, because commoner jobs are done by magic. Welcome Tippyverse.

Fix'd. Seriously, in a High Magic setting it is still acceptable to play a fighter... just not a straight 1-20 fighter (but this is never optimal regardless). You can still play a Gish that mostly relies on his weaponry to see him through the day

Thank you General Matick (and your shield... and your magic missile and it's ability to slay even the darkest of enemies)

[Kelb_Panthera]

By using the population of the average metropolis (62,500, the average between the 25000 min and the 100000 min for a planar metropolis as described by ELH) It would appear that there's only 1 person in every 15625 people that is a wizard of 17-20th level, and consequently might be able to cast teleportation circle; which is the basis of tippyverse, not regular teleportation; if you use the community modifiers in ELH. You get the same figure for sorcerers and the same number of slightly higher level clerics and druids.

If you use the community modifiers in the DMG there's only as many casters capable of starting the tippyverse as the DM says there are, since the random determination tables can't produce one, unless TP circle appears on a domain list that I'm forgetting, in which case it's 1 in 31250.

Since you'd get twice that number of characters at half that level the average metropolis has 1 mid-level (~7-11) caster per 3906.25 people.

Unfortunately these figures completely ignore the existence of about half a dozen arcane and divine caster classes that appear outside the PHB.

I haven't actually done the numbers for mundane classes. It didn't seem as important.

[Rejakor]

Metropolises should be ridiculously rare (if they exist at all) in low fantasy games, anyway.

History would like to say 'oh god, that's so incredibly wrong'.

But it can't, because it is a meta academic discipline, and not a communicatable entity.

Historically there have been much, much bigger cities than DnD 'metropolises' all over the world for periods of history that roleplayers insist 'couldn't have happened'.

Population density is most closely linked to climate and arability factors than anything else. Cities of hundreds of thousands of people if not millions were definitely things that existed in history.

The roman empire would have had maybe 100 cities with 50,000+ population.

[Morph Bark]

I always went by the Leadership rules for this.

1 level 2 per 10 level 1s.
1 level 3 per 2 level 2s.
1 level 4 per 2 level 3s.
1 level 5 per 2 level 4s.
Etc.

1/10th of level 1s would have levels in PC classes. 1/2 of level 2s and above would have levels in PC classes.

Above level 6 it'd likely become an entirely different ballgame though.

[ThiagoMartell]

History would like to say 'oh god, that's so incredibly wrong'.

But it can't, because it is a meta academic discipline, and not a communicatable entity.

Maybe you thought that was funny.
Myself, I tend to think veiled insults are not only boring, but rude as well.

Historically there have been much, much bigger cities than DnD 'metropolises' all over the world for periods of history that roleplayers insist 'couldn't have happened'.

And so what?

Population density is most closely linked to climate and arability factors than anything else. Cities of hundreds of thousands of people if not millions were definitely things that existed in history.

I don't see how that is relevant.

The roman empire would have had maybe 100 cities with 50,000+ population.

And since when is D&D supposed to be based on the Roman empire? Why are you bringing this up?
D&D is based on mostly rural communities with most terrain being unoccupied. I don't think your history books addresses fantasy (if they do, then they are not really good books, are they?) but when it comes to D&D and low fantasy, that's what you should expect. If you check the DMG in the sections where it discusses demographics and low fantasy, I believe you will see what I mean.
Of course, instead you could just check your history books and keep throwing veiled insults at me. Your choice.

[Kelb_Panthera]

History would like to say 'oh god, that's so incredibly wrong'.

But it can't, because it is a meta academic discipline, and not a communicatable entity.

Historically there have been much, much bigger cities than DnD 'metropolises' all over the world for periods of history that roleplayers insist 'couldn't have happened'.

Population density is most closely linked to climate and arability factors than anything else. Cities of hundreds of thousands of people if not millions were definitely things that existed in history.

The roman empire would have had maybe 100 cities with 50,000+ population.

According to the same tables that I used to determine the figures I gave above, the DMG says that metropolises should make up 1% of all settlements. ELH agrees, planar metropolises being listed as only appearing at DM discretion.

Whatever history does or doesn't say doesn't really matter much.

You are, of course, free to change this for your table if you're the DM, but in that case you're talking about your table rather than the game as it's written. How it's done at your table isn't really relative to the discussion at hand.

[Ashtagon]

Metropolises should be ridiculously rare (if they exist at all) in low fantasy games, anyway.

Just like IRL, eh?

[Firechanter]

I'm not so enthusiastic about the DMG tables, a lot of the stuff just doesn't make sense.

Personally, for my games, I use the following method:
Jobs are organized in tiers. All non-PC classes earn 1, 2 or 3XP per day, depending on job complexity. Everything else goes from there.
NPCs with PC classes earn 3-5XP per day, unless they go "adventuring".

[ThiagoMartell]

Just like IRL, eh?

Ashtagon, my friend. I don't understand your point. The DMG lists clearly the number of expected metropolises. Why do you think the ratio of metropolises in real life has any bearing on that? What do you think dismissing my comment with such an offhanded comment adds to the discussion? Did you even notice we are discussing how it relates to D&D, it being in the 3.5 forums and all, and not some kind of geopolitical study? You usually make useful additions to discussions so I'm guessing I must be missing something. Pray tell - what is it?

I'm not so enthusiastic about the DMG tables, a lot of the stuff just doesn't make sense.

Every time I've seen this pointed out, it was someone misreading those guidelines, actually. They are perfectly consistent internally.

[mattie_p]

On the subject of NPC levels in a community, the 3.0 DMG had an additional table based on surrounding terrain/environment to increase the levels of NPCs in the city, but I haven't seen it in 3.5. Any ideas on why they dumped that?

[Wise Green Bean]

I'm not so enthusiastic about the DMG tables, a lot of the stuff just doesn't make sense.

Personally, for my games, I use the following method:
Jobs are organized in tiers. All non-PC classes earn 1, 2 or 3XP per day, depending on job complexity. Everything else goes from there.
NPCs with PC classes earn 3-5XP per day, unless they go "adventuring".

That's kind of fast compared to what I always figured. Lot of high level characters would be running around...For the guys doing 3XP a day jobs, you're level 2 in like a year, level 3 in another 3 years...everybody middle aged would be like level 5 or 6. As in, they could take on a bear solo. Even assuming shorter life spans in those times(DnD rules totally don't, but whatever), everyone would be a badass and I don't see how a level 1 party could really get started without being overshadowed by every farmer they run into.

[ThiagoMartell]

That's kind of fast compared to what I always figured. Lot of high level characters would be running around...For the guys doing 3XP a day jobs, you're level 2 in like a year, level 3 in another 3 years...everybody middle aged would be like level 5 or 6. As in, they could take on a bear solo. Even assuming shorter life spans in those times(DnD rules totally don't, but whatever), everyone would be a badass and I don't see how a level 1 party could really get started without being overshadowed by every farmer they run into.

d20 Modern has some guidelines for "mundane" leveling up. You could use that.

[Firechanter]

That's kind of fast compared to what I always figured. Lot of high level characters would be running around...For the guys doing 3XP a day jobs, you're level 2 in like a year, level 3 in another 3 years...everybody middle aged would be like level 5 or 6.

Yup. Exactly how I handle it. Most of the populace in my homebrew setting is on levels 3-6. PCs typically start on level 3 or 4.

A populace where 90% have to feel mortally threatened every time a common housecat hisses just doesn't quite cut it for me.

[Morph Bark]

To those saying metropolises aren't rare: how many of you live in a place that would count as a metropolis in DnD? I assume all of you.

Thing is, while even in the modern day a fraction of the communities are counted as a metropolis (under the real life definition, not the DnD definition), they simply house a far greater part of the population. That 1% of communities is a metropolis is a pretty okay estimate (I'd think it slightly higher, but definitely not over 7%), but they'd likely hold roughly half the total population.

Of course, when you're thinking about an average DnD setting as a Tippyverse, then of course your figures will be heavily skewed in the opposite direction.


More on topic: could we assume NPCs to gain 1 XP for every 5 gp they earn? That's the rough conversion rate for xp:gp, so I'm wondering if it's a good rough estimate for many NPCs. (Considering most low-paying jobs are Commoner jobs anyway, we thus wouldn't have to worry about a large amount of high-level Commoners. Instead, there'd be high-level Experts, Adepts, Warriors and Magewrights, topped off with Aristocrats.)

[Firechanter]

More on topic: could we assume NPCs to gain 1 XP for every 5 gp they earn? That's the rough conversion rate for xp:gp

I don't know, that correlation never occured to me. Where did you get that number? Just going by the treasure tables, the correlation is much closer to 1:1 for low to mid levels.
But let's see, what happens if we try this 5:1 rate:
That way, strictly by RAW, a level 1 Professional (i.e. 4 Profession ranks + Skill Focus) would earn about 8GP per week, 400GP per year, so it would take him 5 years to get to level 2.

Here as well, I fiddled with the economic system for my setting, adopting a Generic Economic System based on actual historical medieval price lists and other data, without going overboard on the detail. The good news for the PCs is that Full Plate went down significantly, to just 4-550GP for a full set. ;)

[Arcanist]

Just like IRL, eh?

If you believe that our modern society, with a pretty firm grasp on Science, would be considered "low magic" compared a medieval society is... just down right weird in my opinion...

" ny sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from Science."
-Clark's 3rd Law

For more on this trope, please feel free to look into the Eberron campaign setting!

[Agent 451]

Here as well, I fiddled with the economic system for my setting, adopting a Generic Economic System based on actual historical medieval price lists and other data, without going overboard on the detail. The good news for the PCs is that Full Plate went down significantly, to just 4-550GP for a full set. ;)

I don't suppose you have a copy of this that you could share on Google Docs? I'd be quite interested in seeing it if you do.

[Yora]

I like to make it 80% at 1st level and the rest being exponentially distributed from 2nd to 10th.

[lunar2]

using the standard 5gp - 1xp conversion rate, a first level expert (i don't actually use commoner for anything) with 4 ranks in craft or profession, skill focus, and an intelligence or wisdom modifier of +1 has a total modifier of 8. he takes ten on his weekly skill check, making 9 gp a week, for 1.8 exp. dnd rules are, of course, always round down, so he makes 1 exp per week. it therefore takes him 19 years to reach level 2, and 38 years after that to reach level 3, making him 72 years old when he reaches level 3 (if he's human). and, of course, wasn't it the dmg that said most NPCs never make it past level 3? so this definitely fits with the statements made about that. of course, adding a single assistant or apprentice to aid him bumps him up to 2xp per week, so that it takes just 9 years to reach level 2, and 18 years to reach level 3. he still likely won't make it to level 4, though.

note that the math here is estimated a bit, but it's close enough to work. the problem, of course, comes with the fact, that elves, dwarves, and gnomes should probably always get to much higher levels in their lifetime, simply because they live so much longer.

[Morithias]

note that the math here is estimated a bit, but it's close enough to work. the problem, of course, comes with the fact, that elves, dwarves, and gnomes should probably always get to much higher levels in their lifetime, simply because they live so much longer.

That is a problem, considering the DMG doesn't difference on races in the population. 90% of humans are level 1 commoners, 90% of elves are level one commoners.

[nedz]

I like to make it 80% at 1st level and the rest being exponentially distributed from 2nd to 10th.

It should probably be a gaussian distribution.