At What Point Does a "Metropolis Adventure" Cease to Function? [3.5]

[Amphetryon]

By the question in the title, I mean "at what approximate Level is a campaign set in a single very large metropolis no longer likely to challenge or entertain a given party, in your experience?" As a rider question to this, how would you, as a DM, go about extending the life of a metropolitan campaign?

NB: I have Cityscape, have read it, and am generally familiar with it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Probably around level ~8, when general balance starts to fall apart, and low-level humanoids stop being a major threat. When level-appropriate monsters start being outsiders, incredibly rare wildness monsters, and other stuff that doesn't belong in a city.

To compensate, play e6.

[Need_A_Life]

Depends on the power level of the city. A Tippyverse metropolis and an Eberron metropolis are two different beasts, for example. In one, the city guard is probably level 1 warriors and the incredibly skilled, battle-hardened veteran might be a level 3 fighter. In the other, shadesteel golems patrol the streets and no one bats an eye.

In the Tippyverse, simply being tricked into coming upon a crime scene while under a time limit might end up having you fight those four shadesteel golems (CR 11) trying to take you in for investigation, while in Eberron you can have, say, some agents of the Dreaming Dark launch devastating surprise attacks with manifested Quori back-up.
Neither would break my suspension of disbelief in the respective settings.

I'd point to Curse of the Crimson Throne as an excellent adventure path leading characters almost to level 20 while staying for the most side inside a city.

So the answer is: It ceases to function the moment there's no longer a credible threat around to challenge the players.

[Tim Proctor]

I love metropolis campaigns and I don't think that they ever have an expiration per say (granted the city is large enough to support it), something like a whole planet city is awesome Coruscant from Star Wars or Ravnica from Magic: the Gathering are great examples of settings that are great.

If the population is:
{table=head]Level | Percent | 2 million | 20 million
20 | 0.0001% | 2 | 20
19 | 0.0002% | 4 | 40
18 | 0.0004% | 8 | 80
17 | 0.0008% | 16 | 160
16 | 0.0016% | 32 | 320
15 | 0.0032% | 64 | 640
14 | 0.0064% | 128 | 1280
13 | 0.0128% | 256 | 2560
12 | 0.0256% | 512 | 2560
11 | 0.0512% | 1024 | 10240
10 | 0.1024% | 2048 | 20480
9 | 0.2048% | 4096 | 40960
8 | 0.4096% | 8192 | 81920
7 | 0.8192% | 16384 | 81920
6 | 1.6384% | 32768 | 327680
5 | 3.2768% | 65536 | 655360
4 | 6.5536% | 131072 | 1310720
3 | 13.1072% | 262144 | 2621440
2 | 26.2144% | 524288 | 5242880
1 | 52.4288% | 1048576 | 10485760
Total | 104.8575% | 2097150 | 20887020
[/table]

You end up with 104% but its close enough. You can extrapolate from there with the size of the metropolis but a level 20 is literally 1 in a million, you can keep going from there but a level 21 would be 1 in 2 million, 22 1 in 4 million, 23 1 in 8 million, etc. With say a billion people you'll end up with a large enough spectrum from a group to level from 1 all the way up to 20.

[Saidoro]

:smallconfused: Where are you getting those numbers from? Most reasonable settings assume that characters beyond sixth to tenth level are all but nonexistant, higher level characters shouldn't be nearly as prevalent as your table suggests.(Yes, I can see it's halving each level. That's not what I mean by where are you getting the numbers from.)

Side note: 1 billion is massively lowballed for a city planet. Several orders of magnitude lowballed.

[avr]

When teleport becomes freely available to the party and so going somewhere else becomes a standard action. Other factors may limit to lower than that, but at that point you definitely need to change or end the campaign concept.

[icefractal]

I think it could be fairly long lasting; the real limit is the metropolis in question. Once the PCs are beyond the influence of the city's government and population, there's at least a change in tone. Of course, you could at that point make them the rulers of said city and then threaten it, but that might count as a different type of campaign.

Teleport isn't an issue, IMO, as long as the city is important enough that the PCs want to keep returning to / staying in it. Once you reach "your own demiplane" levels, that reason has to be even better, although it's still not impossible.

[Tim Proctor]

:smallconfused: Where are you getting those numbers from? Most reasonable settings assume that characters beyond sixth to tenth level are all but nonexistant, higher level characters shouldn't be nearly as prevalent as your table suggests.(Yes, I can see it's halving each level. That's not what I mean by where are you getting the numbers from.)

Side note: 1 billion is massively lowballed for a city planet. Several orders of magnitude lowballed.

Regarding your side note, not even close. The
World Population Throughout History (http://worldhistorysite.com/population.html) when pre-agriculatural revolution was less than 400 million, meaning that in D&D terms with the numbers above there would be 400 level 20 people total in the whole world. So you gotta remember that the amount of ocean, the density of population, size of farm land, dedicated wilderness areas, etc. are all important aspects to consider. Also that wasn't an estimate it was an example.

Secondly on page 139 of the DMG, a Metropolis (25K+) has a community modifier of +12 and roll 4 times for Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter (1d8), Rogue with a 1d6 plus for the level. That means out of the 20 dice you're going to roll statistically you'll have 3+ level 20 actual class NPCs per 25k. If you have 400 million people in the world and 3:25,000 are lvl 20 then there are 5,333 level 20 people in the world (I prefer the 400). So my estimates were very very very conservative to the 'non-existent' vs. RAW approach. Basically the numbers come down to 1:75,000 people are lvl 20 according to the most liberal runnings of the DMG.

The point being is that metropolises can scale easily without getting redundant.

[Grod_The_Giant]

When teleport becomes freely available to the party and so going somewhere else becomes a standard action. Other factors may limit to lower than that, but at that point you definitely need to change or end the campaign concept.
You can also buy some horses and ride out the gate at level 1. Short of railroading, there's always an option to leave if you're not interested in the setting you're in; teleport doesn't change that. (Unless the entire point of the game is to get out of the city, in which case it ought to be teleport warded)

[Tim Proctor]

(Unless the entire point of the game is to get out of the city, in which case it ought to be teleport warded)

One of the best campaigns started out that way, basically it was The Warriors (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080120/) in D&D and we had to fight out way out of the city through different city states (in one massive urban environment), started level 1 ended level 10. However, the campaign didn't end, there were all sorts of issues with unifying all the city states that we travelled through. After a solidification phase and rallying the governors it became a Greco-Persian war issue where a conglomeration of metropolises was invading our metropolis and we had to head them off. Ended up level 16 or 18 and TPK at what would have been the battle of Thermopylae (which is ironic) but instead of 300 it was 5.

[JusticeZero]

Yeah, I doubt those numbers. Lots of people will go for the elite skills to be level 1 for various reasons - but those are elite skills, and most of them are going to be able to get by from day to day without doing any adventuring. Furthermore it leaves you with the "tiny fish" problem that your first several adventures literally need to be framed as "You're the only group pathetic enough to waste their time on this, but..."

[Amphetryon]

The "World Population Throughout History" link would be more relevant if we were a world composed of a single, globe-encompassing, metropolis, as Saidoro posited with "city planet."

[Saidoro]

Regarding your side note, not even close. The
World Population Throughout History (http://worldhistorysite.com/population.html) when pre-agriculatural revolution was less than 400 million, meaning that in D&D terms with the numbers above there would be 400 level 20 people total in the whole world. So you gotta remember that the amount of ocean, the density of population, size of farm land, dedicated wilderness areas, etc. are all important aspects to consider. Also that wasn't an estimate it was an example.
Let me put that another way: one billion is not a relevant number to this conversation. It is either obviously far too low if you are talkinging about a city-planet as I (apparantly incorrectly) assumed from earlier in your post or obviously far too high if we're talking about something more agrarian. It has no place here, I drew attention to it because it should not be.


Secondly on page 139 of the DMG, a Metropolis (25K+) has a community modifier of +12 and roll 4 times for Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter (1d8), Rogue with a 1d6 plus for the level. That means out of the 20 dice you're going to roll statistically you'll have 3+ level 20 actual class NPCs per 25k. If you have 400 million people in the world and 3:25,000 are lvl 20 then there are 5,333 level 20 people in the world (I prefer the 400). So my estimates were very very very conservative to the 'non-existent' vs. RAW approach. Basically the numbers come down to 1:75,000 people are lvl 20 according to the most liberal runnings of the DMG.

The point being is that metropolises can scale easily without getting redundant.
What are they doing in their spare time? Seriously, a single level 11 spellcaster can trivialize entire industries with spells like wall of iron or fabricate. Not to mention what they can do with magic items. How do you reconcile pre-industrial populations with easy access to purify food and drink, remove disease, plant growth...


When teleport becomes freely available to the party and so going somewhere else becomes a standard action. Other factors may limit to lower than that, but at that point you definitely need to change or end the campaign concept.
Honestly, teleport almost has less impact in city-based campaigns. Everything you're likely to need regularly is already close by, that's kind of the whole point of city living.

[Tim Proctor]

The "World Population Throughout History" link would be more relevant if we were a world composed of a single, globe-encompassing, metropolis, as Saidoro posited with "city planet."

I don't think as irrelevant and you might think. I think it has to do with feeding people and how much space has to be dedicated to farm lands. According to this guy (who I think is correct (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm) "A square mile of settled land (including requisite roads, villages and towns, as well as crops and pastureland) will support 180 people." and 57.5 million square miles of land on earth 10.35 billion, however that assumes its all the land is farmable without any massive deserts and such. England had on 35% arable land during the norman invasions so if the environment is like England 3.6 billion would be a maximum population (assuming it is at its maximum population). It really depends on the setting.

However, like I said it was an example not an estimate, it was to point out that in a large enough population even with a conservative lvl per population ratio there are plenty of people for the group to mess with at higher levels.


Let me put that another way: one billion is not a relevant number to this conversation. It is either obviously far too low if you are talkinging about a city-planet as I (apparantly incorrectly) assumed from earlier in your post or obviously far too high if we're talking about something more agrarian. It has no place here, I drew attention to it because it should not be.

I believe I answered this, it was an example that there are plenty of people for higher groups to mess with the higher the population.


What are they doing in their spare time? Seriously, a single level 11 spellcaster can trivialize entire industries with spells like wall of iron or fabricate. Not to mention what they can do with magic items. How do you reconcile pre-industrial populations with easy access to purify food and drink, remove disease, plant growth...
That is up to each DM, it could be a low magic society, it could be a high magic society. There are a lot of variables, but none of it changes my point that with a significant population there are plenty of higher level issues for groups to deal with.

Regarding Plant Growth "normal vegetation" is the key so it isn't farm land but natural vegetation and then farmers would still have to go by hand to pick it, even with all the overgrown weeds and crap. The purify food and drink will be the big issue but that just means a system of aqueducts like the Romans had and clerics dumping their lvl 0 spells in there every day. With a population this big you can't fix it is all with magic unless its a high-magic environment.

[Mystral]

I'd say a metropolis can challenge Adventurers up to high levels, possibly until 15 or more. It all comes down to always having some bigger fish, and perhaps reading the mob rules.

[Harrow]

Sigil can easily be used to take any group of adventurers from 1 to 20.

[rot42]

I think (I hope) it can be done all the way from first to twentieth level. I think the basic problem is one of power disparities. If your city is oppressed by the bony thumb of the lich king, how do our heroes have meaningful low level adventures without requiring the villain to ignore the Evil Overlord List (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList) (TVTropes link)? If your city is the charm empire and private plaything of a Spirit Naga, what happens in the second half of the campaign? If your setting is benevolently governed rather than run by the traditional dystopian dictatorship, why does the city rely on vigilante murder-hobos to root out the Dread Blossom Swarms and take down the Bouncing Botanist? Limiting geographic scope brings this problem to the fore and limits some solutions, but many of the solutions and approaches from a more traditional traveling campaign will apply.

In some sense, an urban setting has "high level" problems right from level one. Gather Information takes the place of scrying, walking down the street takes the place of teleporting, and plenty of low level monsters and adventurers can bring a third dimension to combat with a little help from a climb speed.

Story arcs help. The final overvillain did not squash those pesky low level adventurers because when they were low level they were busy championing the Kobold Independence Movement and releasing rats at the DMV (Department of Magical Vehicles) office. Corruption can explain enclaves of lower and higher power, a more extreme version of the modern disparity in funding between various police departments and allocated to investigating different crimes. The level-inappropriate guards would love to investigate your petty arson, just as soon as they figure out who is the root werewolf. The puppetmaster shadow government did not care when you broke out of the cell because a certain level of overt lawlessness can be used to justify their brutal crack downs. Key here is not handing out make-work ratcatcher missions.

The problem of "too many masterminds, not enough thralls" is more difficult with a limited geographic scope, but manageable. Sometimes the groups might be working together and sometimes clearing out a nest of vampires dominating a herd just opens up room for a cadre of illithids. The problems of "why does anybody live in a city under constant assault" and "what do all these monsters eat when they cannot get PC" I think can be handwaved to a certain extent to keep the game running; it is perhaps best not to consider too closely the metabolic requirements of a breath weapon in a world where energy is not conserved.

The PCs and probably at least some of team monster are going to need some incentive to keep collatoral damage down. A pitched EL 15 battle can lay waste to the surrounding blocks and slaughter onlookers just by existing; the "get the civilians out of the way / to safety" game gets played out very quickly, but can make for one or two memorable encounters. Heavily reinforced mansion lairs are a boon to the local economy and can reproduce some of the feeling of descending the layers of the Abyss. I like refluffing to introduce planar enemies, but giving demons a reason to take up residence in your city would also work.

It may be worth noting that I intend for the PCs in my current urban game to engage in destructive testing on the setting, which gives me an extra degree of freedom. High level threats can move in without needing ever to co-exist with the city as it was at the beginning of play.


Korg (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195049) cast Dimension Door
Walk Down the Street
Trans(location)
Level: Sor/Wiz 0
Components: S, M
Casting Time: a few minutes
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous
Grab your coat and get your hat, leave your worries on the doorstep as you saunter jauntily down the sunny side of the street. This spell need not be used on a city street; the name of the spell merely hints at the typical wizard's attitude towards mundane movement.
Material Component: a cool glass of lemonade to refresh you on your travels

[Firechanter]

I'll chime in a bit about NPC level distribution. Well let me start by saying that I don't believe that 90% of the population should need to fear death by evisceration at the claws of a common housecat. So I don't buy into all that "Everyone is a Commoner-1" rubbish.

In my games - which tend to have a Tippyverse-flavour to them, but not as extreme - level 1 is maybe a 16-year old youth after their first year of training. By the time they have completed their professional training, most people are level 3. During the course of their careers, the typical non-adventurer, non-combatant will rise to level 6 or higher before they retire.

PCs also begin play at level 3-4, for that matter.

Higher level characters with PC classes, including spellcasters are still rare, but only in the way that engineers, doctors and professors are rare in our world. They may constitute only a fraction of a percent, but they do add up.

[Greenish]

Depends on the power level of the city. A Tippyverse metropolis and an Eberron metropolis are two different beasts, for example. In one, the city guard is probably level 1 warriors and the incredibly skilled, battle-hardened veteran might be a level 3 fighter. In the other, shadesteel golems patrol the streets and no one bats an eye.Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration of how low level Eberron is. In Sharn, the City of Towers, for example, a typical Redcloak soldier is statted as Warrior 7/Fighter 2 (or Warrior 7/Barbarian 2).

A 3rd level fighter is given as a typical Watch sergeant.

[nedz]

I'm going to ignore the population debate because it's not relevant. At high levels the city and it's population are just terrain and fauna.

You could run a guild structured game where political control of the city is the goal, rival guild members could be quite high level. You could have a Gotham City type game with high level arch villains. You could run a game where there is some external threat to the city from invaders through to Godzilla. You could even mix all of these elements, and more, together. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

[supermonkeyjoe]

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration of how low level Eberron is. In Sharn, the City of Towers, for example, a typical Redcloak soldier is statted as Warrior 7/Fighter 2 (or Warrior 7/Barbarian 2).

A 3rd level fighter is given as a typical Watch sergeant.

Those are both examples of elite soldiers though, the redcloaks are pretty much SAS/Spetznas/Delta force, they are 40 of the most elite soldiers in Breland's army.

The general level breakdown of the sharn watch is Guard-1 Sergeant-3 Captain-5, no-one seems to have told the watch that Eberron isn't using E6 rules :smalltongue:

Yes, this does prove an issue one the PCs start hitting the level 7+ but at that point any crimes they committed would most likely be beyond the city watch's jurisdiction.

[Greenish]

Those are both examples of elite soldiers though, the redcloaks are pretty much SAS/Spetznas/Delta force, they are 40 of the most elite soldiers in Breland's army.Well, yes, but I was responding to the idea that "the incredibly skilled, battle-hardened veteran might be a level 3 fighter" in Eberron. The Redcloaks are elite, yes, but those are still unnamed mooks.


Yes, this does prove an issue one the PCs start hitting the level 7+ but at that point any crimes they committed would most likely be beyond the city watch's jurisdiction.Yeah, and the PC skillmonkey could get them acquitted from capital treason and regicide by a few decent Profession (Barrister) rolls. :smalltongue:

[Zero grim]

Remember a metropolis is almost certain to contain epic level commoners, who will have massive amounts of wealth to work with, a true metropolis would be challenging up to any level, remember DMG 2 has rules for hiring any level of character, a think a guild leader is willing to pay 400g a day for a level 20 wizard/cleric/bunny rabbit with templates to defend him or to stop the players.

and of course this is just assuming if you want to fight all the way to level 20, if you plan for investigation and more subtle plots that aren't solved by a charging power attack or a fireball then you can keep the adventure going as far as you want.

And remember, as the players level they may defeat some of the city but that just means the greater power realise the players are a threat and send their mooks (which are much harder) against them.

P.S My last big metropolis was patrolled by fire drakes and had some iron golems at the bank, they seemed to keep things in line)

[ahenobarbi]

Never. You just have to make/pick a metropolis that can handle high level characters.

[johnbragg]

I think (I hope) it can be done all the way from first to twentieth level. I think the basic problem is one of power disparities. If your city is oppressed by the bony thumb of the lich king, how do our heroes have meaningful low level adventures without requiring the villain to ignore the Evil Overlord List (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList) (TVTropes link)?

Evil lich king actually solves some of the problems. Lich king doesn't care about the quality of administration. He just cares that the proper amount of sacrifice is delivered on the proper dates (full moon/new moon/ equinox-and-solstice / anniversary of his ascension) and that no one get any ideas about challenging the Lich King. What happens in the slums (which, to the Lich King, is pretty much the entire city) is mostly beneath his notice. [/quote]



Story arcs help. The final overvillain did not squash those pesky low level adventurers because...

...because there are always plucky low-level do-gooders running around. They usually get themselves killed off, or corrupted into the power structure.


when they were low level they were busy championing the Kobold Independence Movement and releasing rats at the DMV (Department of Magical Vehicles) office.

And now they're muscle for Grizzlik, Supreme Red Dragon of Koboldtown.


Corruption can explain enclaves of lower and higher power, a more extreme version of the modern disparity in funding between various police departments and allocated to investigating different crimes.

Or a city like modern-day Karachi, so corrupt and inefficient that the city government has little to no control over vast swaths of the city. Flavored with the fact that, if a sector of the city gets out of hand, the Lich King just might emerge with a handful of major minions and carry out some "urban renewal", laying waste to that sector and Disintegrating the rubble.


The level-inappropriate guards would love to investigate your petty arson, just as soon as they figure out who is the root werewolf. The puppetmaster shadow government did not care when you broke out of the cell because a certain level of overt lawlessness can be used to justify their brutal crack downs. Key here is not handing out make-work ratcatcher missions.

The problem of "too many masterminds, not enough thralls" is more difficult with a limited geographic scope, but manageable.

Everybody thinks they're a mastermind. Half of the mastermind think they're really undercover resistance fighters working against the tyranny of the Lich King. But everyone's pretty much a thrall, if not a thrall of a thrall of a thrall (the Supreme Red Dragon of Koboldtown, who pays his tribute to a local wizard faction, which is secretly controlled by a vampire, who is the spawn of a vampire king, whose coffin is in the palace of the Lich King.)



Sometimes the groups might be working together and sometimes clearing out a nest of vampires dominating a herd just opens up room for a cadre of illithids.

Which is the whole reason the illithids and a few ambitious vampires set in motion the plan to have heroes wipe out the vampire-lord...


The problems of "why does anybody live in a city under constant assault"

Most people put up with the conditions they were born into. It's not like these citybred folks would know which end of a bull to milk anyway.


The PCs and probably at least some of team monster are going to need some incentive to keep collatoral damage down. A pitched EL 15 battle can lay waste to the surrounding blocks and slaughter onlookers just by existing;

Oh that's easy--if a battle gets too big and too destructive, you're infringing on the Lich King's prerogative to level sectors of his city. So if you blow up/burn down more than a couple of buildings, the epic-level smackdown is coming in 3-18 rounds, applied equally to the innocent, the guilty and those in-between foolish enough to be in the vicinity.

[Psyren]

I'm going to throw my hat in with the earlier posts and say the top end of such a campaign would be the 6-8 range. Beyond that you should probably start dungeon delving, plane-hopping, dragonslaying, or some other activity that takes you out into the wilderness.

[rot42]

stuff

You seem to have misconstrued my post - I am arguing that it is possible to have interesting adventures in a city at any level without maxing out the setting, that many things that at first appear to be problems or limitations can be turned into strengths, and that deciding to run an urban game does not constrain you to an overly small set of interesting challenges.
Counterfactual (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_conditional)
:smallconfused: