Adventurer Rarity?

[Necrosnoop110]

Sometimes people talk about the power level of a game world and the creatures in it, such as in the case of "vanilla" D&D, as if everyone and their brother can easily gain powerful class levels. Let's take a real world analog: Olympic athletes. What percentage of the population of the earth has what it takes to compete at the Olympic level of athleticism? 1% ... 5% .... 10% Whatever, the case it may be, it has to be a small percentage of the total population.

Now let's turn back to class levels ... what percentage of the game world has what it takes to adventurers and earn high levels in a specific class, let alone a prestige class. I've always assumed that, similar to Olympic athletes, it was/would be crazy rare for most game worlds and certainly super rare for basic vanilla D&D. I like because it not only seems reasonable to me it also places the PCs in an elite category and I'm personally very fond of a "PCs as Heroes" game.

What are you thoughts on the concept of adventurer rarity? Rare? Common? How should it be? How would it be? What are the major impacts of a game world where adventurers with powerful class levels are rare?  Common? In between?   

Peace,
Necro 

     

[X-Codes]

If you go strictly by the random city/town generation tables in the DMG, probably less than 1%, with higher proportions in rural areas and lower in urban areas.  I think it notes in the DMG that in a typical world, there are just as many people living in Villages and smaller communities as there are living in Towns and larger communities.

[Maat Mons]

A very rough approximation based on how the DMG says to generate towns is that twice the level means half as common.  Taking that as a guide and 20th level as a maximum, this is what I get. 

Level    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Percent of    Population    27.8 13.9 9.27 6.95 5.56 4.63 3.97 3.47 3.09 2.78 2.53 2.32 2.14 1.99 1.85 1.74 1.64 1.54 1.46 1.39

Percentile 27.8 41.69 50.96 57.91 63.47 68.1 72.07 75.54 78.63 81.41 83.94 86.25 88.39 90.38 92.23 93.97 95.6 97.15 98.61 100

[SneeR]

Maat, is the percentile column "percent of adventurers that are in this level or lower?"

[X-Codes]

Maat, is the percentile column "percent of adventurers that are in this level or lower?"

All people, I think.  Not just adventurers.  Adventurers (what I'm calling "PC-classed characters") are much rarer.  Also, I think he missed the glut of 1st-level commoners present in most societies.

[SneeR]

Maat, is the percentile column "percent of adventurers that are in this level or lower?"

All people, I think.  Not just adventurers.  Adventurers (what I'm calling "PC-classed characters") are much rarer.  Also, I think he missed the glut of 1st-level commoners present in most societies.

That's why I'm led to believe that it is adventurers only.
If it were all people, you'd see a huge chunk of the population as level 1 and 2.

[X-Codes]

Maat, is the percentile column "percent of adventurers that are in this level or lower?"

All people, I think.  Not just adventurers.  Adventurers (what I'm calling "PC-classed characters") are much rarer.  Also, I think he missed the glut of 1st-level commoners present in most societies.

That's why I'm led to believe that it is adventurers only.
If it were all people, you'd see a huge chunk of the population as level 1 and 2.

Not even level 2.

Also, that would make sense.  That'd be the proper setup for PC-classed people, then.

[Maat Mons]

Maat, is the percentile column "percent of adventurers that are in this level or lower?"

I'm sorry.  I should have clarified.  It's out of people with levels in PC classes.  A metropolis is more than 93% 1st-level people with NPC classes. 

[ImperatorK]

Note that in RL humans have it quite easy and safe. People have food, shelters, help, they don't kill each other that often and they're safe from predators.
In a D&D world a human or elf has to somehow survive. Villages are attacked by monsters or bandits on a regular basis. Traveling is dangerous, but often needed to get by (by selling your merchandise in a city or trade between cities). People aren't even safe in the towns as there are assassins, thugs, gangs, evil organizations and cults, monsters that disguise themselves, etc.
I really am not surprised that a D&D world can have an unusually high % of higher level population. It's dangerous.

[Sinfire Titan]

Note that in RL humans have it quite easy and safe. People have food, shelters, help, they don't kill each other that often and they're safe from predators.
In a D&D world a human or elf has to somehow survive. Villages are attacked by monsters or bandits on a regular basis. Traveling is dangerous, but often needed to get by (by selling your merchandise in a city or trade between cities). People aren't even safe in the towns as there are assassins, thugs, gangs, evil organizations and cults, monsters that disguise themselves, etc.
I really am not surprised that a D&D world can have an unusually high % of higher level population. It's dangerous.

Except the game assumes that there are high level characters who have NPC classes only. At some point, a Commoner stops being a Commoner and starts being a legend, but the rules have nothing governing this change outside of multiclassing.

And multiclassing from Commoner into something else means the something else is forever weaker despite the Commoner's personal experiences.



IMO, the NPC classes should be 5 levels long and have the Blackguard level trade-in ability.

[oslecamo]

IMO, the NPC classes should be 5 levels long and have the Blackguard level trade-in ability.

I slightly disagree. The game could well use stuff like faceless royal guards, great blacksmiths and court mages. They gained their abilities trough extensive training, but since they never actualy got out there adventuring (or they did go adventuring/to war, but they're devoid of  spirit anyway), they're dull and just know a few tricks if that, but have the numbers to actualy suport/hinder a PC if they are in groups.

I've actualy been tinkering with that idea for some time.

As for high-level commoners, those are good-for-nothings that get even better at being good-for-nothing. We all know they're out there.