What are levels equivalent to?

[Pyon]

Hey, first time poster slightly new D&Der yo everyone.

I had a question about what levels are equivalent to. I remember seeing someone saying that past 9th level you were past the human limits. So what does that mean for the levels under it and above it? Would a level 1 character be the weakest soldier in an army and an 8th level character a master monk dude?

Cheers, and hope to be a good part of the community!

[Kelb_Panthera]

This is an area that's more than a little hazy, really.

It's accepted by some, but not all, that rl human record setters and historical figures, the highest level humans that have ever lived, can nearly always be described as 6th level or lower.

More relevantly, the overwhelming majority of people in a typical D&D world, according to the DMG demographics tables, are first level and less than 1% are spellcasters or mid level and higher characters of any stripe(IIRC).

Make of that what you will.

Edit: right, newb.

Low level 1-6, mid 7-11, high 12-16, pre-epic 17+

At least that's how I define them.

[Psyren]

It depends a lot on setting too. "Soldier in an army" in FR is usually going to be much higher than the same in Eberron, especially if he is an officer of some kind. Hell, half the innkeepers and shopkeepers are retired adventurers themselves. FR I get the feeling was partially constructed specifically to counter the kind of players who go around trying to get 5-finger discounts everywhere.

[Rijan_Sai]

This is an area that's more than a little hazy, really.

It's accepted by some, but not all, that rl human record setters and historical figures, the highest level humans that have ever lived, can nearly always be described as 6th level or lower.

This (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2) is basically what s/he's talking about.

It's a good article, and quite informative. It's not perfect, and calls itself out right from the start, but overall gives a very good viewpoint on what "low-level play" looks like.

[Flickerdart]

The weakest character in an army will be level 1, but a level 1 isn't necessarily the weakest character - a sergeant might be a 1st level fighter, with 1st level warriors (corporals) and 1st level commoners (peasant levy) under him.

The Alexandrian article (and the "Gandalf was a 5th level magic user" article that came before it) makes sense, but there isn't a lot of official word on where power levels fall. One of the few hints we have is legend lore (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/legendLore.htm) which states:


Legend lore brings to your mind legends about an important person...As a rule of thumb, characters who are 11th level and higher are “legendary”...

Thus, we know that 11th+ level characters are important and legendary.

We also have some tables (such as in Detect Magic) that quantify tiers of power more or less consistently: 1-6 is "low", 7-12 is "moderate", and 13-20 is "high." Metafaculty has a similar breakdown (1-5, 6-11, 12-20). So we can surmise that even though you have to be 11+ to be legendary, there exists a tier between "regular adventurer" and "legendary adventurer" falling somewhere in that 5-11 bracket. Thus, your question about the monk can be answered pretty definitively - yes, you are a "master monk dude," but you are not so important that other people are likely to have heard of you.