NPC levels by job title: Most leveled NPCs are not adventurers.

[johnbragg]

Premise 1: Adventurers are pretty rare, and don't have the best life expectancy.

Premise 2: The DMG lists of high-level NPCs in various sized towns.

Remembering back to 2E and maybe 1E, XP didn't always entitle you to level. Druids had to fight an existing archdruid. On the other hand, there were Tomes and Librams that would bump you up a level in your class.

Solution: All or most of those high-level NPCs didn't get to that level by dungeoncrawling, they got those levels "ex officio."

Real world religions have ceremonies that bring a new member into the congregation, and ceremonies that bring a new priest into the priesthood. In religious terms, these ceremonies have real effects--the soul is reborn, sins are forgiven, the candidate gains the powers of a priest.

In D&D terms, wouldn't that translate into automatically gaining a level?
The 3rd level Cantor of the Church of St Cuthbert in Hommlett is promoted to Master of Bells in the CStC in Verbobonc, and at his ceremony of office he bumps up to 4th or 5th level. Likewise, his apprentice in Hommlett, a 1st level Novitiate, is invested as Cantor and bumps up to 3rd level.

This works very well for churches, well for wizard guilds, okay for city guards and armies, not terribly well for thieves' guilds.

TLDR: Most NPC levels are powered by a society, not by the individual's XP.

[Another_Poet]

I think it's a cool idea. For fighter-types, the equivalent could be seeking out a fabled master and apprenticing with them, going through difficult training. For rogues, it could be part of a "test" before joining a thieves' guild, with an objective of stealing some fabled item or (more realistic) it could be killing the previous leader of the thieves' guild.

Alternately, it might not be as important for non-magic types. Bear in mind that 1st/2nd ed also had different XP progressions for different classes. Wizards had to earn more XP to level than fighters or thieves did.

If a Wizard has to go through a special ritual initiation to reach a certain level (no matter how much XP they get) but a fighter can just slay monsters (gain XP), then it's easier to level as a fighter than as a wizard, which stays true to that early mechanic (which was intended to help balance powerful magical characters).

I don't know that re-introducing that inequity would be popular in today's games, but if it's hard to imagine special level-raising "achievements" for non-casters, I'm just saying there's kind of a reason for it.

[TheStranger]

Remember, you get XP for overcoming challenges. There's nothing that says all challenges are of an "adventuring" nature.

Convince the miller's daughter to go up in the hayloft with you? XP.

Complete your apprenticeship? XP.

Clear the back 40 and put in a crop of beets? XP.

Borrow some money and open a successful cheese shop? XP.

Teach your children a useful trade? XP.

Get elected alderman? XP.

Save your money and retire early? XP.

Etc.

Think about all the day-to-day challenges you deal with, at school, at work, socially, whatever. NPCs get XP for all of those things. High-level NPCs are like self-made entrepreneurs - they've aced all of those challenges and gone looking for more. They're successful in life, and they've taken risks to get there. Your average commoner isn't high level, because he hasn't stretched himself the same way. He's stayed in his comfort zone and lived a happy, low-level life.

[johnbragg]

Remember, you get XP for overcoming challenges. There's nothing that says all challenges are of an "adventuring" nature.
......
Think about all the day-to-day challenges you deal with, at school, at work, socially, whatever. NPCs get XP for all of those things. High-level NPCs are like self-made entrepreneurs - they've aced all of those challenges and gone looking for more. They're successful in life, and they've taken risks to get there. Your average commoner isn't high level, because he hasn't stretched himself the same way. He's stayed in his comfort zone and lived a happy, low-level life.

I don't know that there's enough of that XP around to get past 3-4 levels. At least not at the rates that most D&D settings assume for NPCs by population.

Your idea that NPCs get XP for doing stuff is important, but I think it combines well with the idea that XP is not the only way to level. Otherwise, you either hit an E6 campaign setting, if you peg the NPC XP rate low, or a Tippyverse setting if you set it high.,


I don't know that re-introducing that inequity would be popular in today's games, but if it's hard to imagine special level-raising "achievements" for non-casters, I'm just saying there's kind of a reason for it.

I don't see it so much as an achievement, as an effect of the job. Based on town size, let's say that the senior cleric gets bumped to Level 10, the captain of the guard gets bumped to level 10 as well. A "Level 10 town" has enough of a wizard population to support a guild, and the head of the guild gets bumped to 10.

But if they somehow lose their positions, they go back to their "normal" level, adjusted by whatever XP they earned since then.

[Veklim]

If you were to have it that the levels are lost with the position, then shouldn't we be looking at templates instead of actual levels..? The thought is intriguing, temporary templates of office which simulate a number of levels and/or specific traits and abilities. This could actiually work in favour of entire plots, imagine an intelligent aristocrat who manages to get two, three, or maybe more appointments to different positions, with each of the templates assumed.... This is perhaps a side issue, I do very much like the premise.

[johnbragg]

If you were to have it that the levels are lost with the position, then shouldn't we be looking at templates instead of actual levels..? The thought is intriguing, temporary templates of office which simulate a number of levels and/or specific traits and abilities. This could actiually work in favour of entire plots, imagine an intelligent aristocrat who manages to get two, three, or maybe more appointments to different positions, with each of the templates assumed.... This is perhaps a side issue, I do very much like the premise.

You could probably do it through templates. But I was thinking of it as working more like a magic item, even though there's no physical object.

There's a ceremony of office, like a king's coronation or a presidential inauguration or a priests' ordination or a baptism or a marriage. In a magical world, these ceremonies have actual ~physical effects.

Starting with something basic and high-level. The new king's coronation ceremony is complete. He now has the magical power to geas sworn knights of the kingdom, subject to the limitations of the kingdom's laws.

If the king somehow stops being king--he breaks one of the fundamental laws of the kingdom and is judged unworthy by a council of royal officers--he loses that power.

Scale that down a bit, or a lot, and look at the Town Priest of a 5000 person town. He gets a bump up in cleric levels to level 5, letting him cast Cure Disease and Dispel Magic, and the ability to lead the congregation in rituals of social magic that bind and protect the town to some degree from demons and devils and ghosties and creepy crawlies of various kinds.

The Sheriff of the town gets invested with his authority by the king or the duke or the town council or whoever. That bumps him up to Fighter 5, say.

The basic idea is:

Take the famous wedding text from TV and movies:
"And now, by the power invested in me by the State of Vandalia..."
The basic idea is that, in a magical world, that is not just a formula of words, but is in fact a real thing. Actual power has been invested by the society in this individual, to help accomplish certain goals for the society.


This could actiually work in favour of entire plots, imagine an intelligent aristocrat who manages to get two, three, or maybe more appointments to different positions, with each of the templates assumed....

I would expect that you would only hold one office at a time, but maybe not. Your Rasputin-like aristocrat would move up the ranks of officeholders, though, worming himself into a position of great authority and closeness to the king, where he can control the king. An aristocrat would work his way up, position by position, to Court Wizard, which would give him the ability to control and manipulate the king and the rest of the court. But his spellcasting is mostly or entirely based on his office, not his own independent (XP-based) abilities.

The idea isn't that the High PRiest or the Court Wizard or the Supreme Warlord is a monster in melee or magical combat, it's that they can cast the utility spells/have the ranks in Knowledge: Tactics and Strategy/etc to do their jobs. They'd be pretty poorly optimized for combat, actually. Which fits story-wize, as they didn't get to Level X by murderhoboing their way through the Hobbesian jungle of dungeons and wilderness the way the PCs did.