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Lord_Gareth
2007-09-26, 08:15 PM
His Majesty King Rolin the Second sits at his throne, looking boredly at his advisor speaking on taxes and profits and spending - he didn't have the head for this math, that's why he had the advisor. Rolin tried to be a good king, but one had to have limits. After his eighth yawn, the smartly-dressed elf opened his mouth to give a sarcastic remark -

When he is cut of by the mighty crash of the doors being thrown open. Standing at them, holding a hoe confidently, stands a peasant man, slightly dirty, with brown hair and brown eyes, rags clean and posture proud. The royal guards move to intercept him, but he knocks them out with hoe blows and speaks in a mighty voice, booming with authority.

"Your Royal Majesty, I am Kalvik, your humble subject. With my blood and sweat, I have farmed every inch of your land from your palace gardens to the icy wastes of Thelvon. Your realm blossoms with wheat and corn, flowers with the apple orchards my hands have tended, and your people grow fat and lazy under your very nose through my doing. WITNESS THE BOUNTY OF THE EARTH!"

Amazed, the king watches as wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of goods are carted into the throne room, and then into other rooms, by peasants with smiles on their faces. After the last - and thousandth - has been carted in, Kalvik speaks once more.

"Your taxes, Royal Majesty. I hope you find them to your satisfaction."

Kalvik turns and leaves the throne room, and the king notices, for the first time, the endless fields of wheat growing around his castle. And as the farmer leaves, the peasants chant.

"Corn Lord, Corn Lord, Corn Lord!"

How do peasants hit epic? Farmers and the like gain experience differently than adventurerers - they gain it by growing crops, mending shoes, getting into tavern brawls - doing general peasant things. So what must a peasant do to break that threshold and get into level 21? Kalvik the Corn Lord is one example - whom I will post the stats for later. This thread is for those with other ideas, and the inevitable haters that arrive.

Come forth in all of your glory - for the Corn Lord awaits.

[EDIT] Crap, WRONG FORUM! Can someone move this to the Gaming (D20) forum?

Mewtarthio
2007-09-26, 10:35 PM
It's quite simple: They don't. To be honest, I think having a Commoner get past third level is stretching it. As for other NPC classes, it's not really necessary to get them above fifth level, and tenth is just ridiculous. The only possible exception would be an immortal race, and said race would have to actually favor Commoners somehow (otherwise, they'd get slaughtered for being too powerful), and in that case a tenth-level Commoner is nothing special (though normally RHD would be used for such creatures).

The reason is twofold: first, that experience comes from overcoming challenges. Adventurers get experience quickly because they face really nasty challenges. A commoner's typical challenge is selling his wheat for a good price; an adventurer's typical challenge is killing large monsters hellbent on killing him. Commoners collect a small handful of XP over long periods of time, and once they hit third level, there's nothing challenging enough to give them any significant progress to level four. Other NPC classes can get a bit higher, since there's more out there that can challenge them (Warriors get to fight occasionally, and Experts can always go to the local fair and try to get the best invention), but they still shouldn't go very far on that alone.

The second reason is that PC classes represent people who go through great lengths to attain specialized abilities, while NPC classes represent people who just exist. If an NPC-classed character wishes to take on challenges big enough to get him to the next level, he needs to do the kind of specialization that gives him a PC class. Let's take Bob the Warrior as a case study. He's just a regular third-level Warrior: He's a cut above the first- and second-level guys, but in the grand scheme of things he's nothing special. Logic dictates that his biggest problems will be apprehending criminals and occasionally repelling goblins, so he won't have enough of a challenge to level up, as noted above.

However, Bob is different. Bob is tired of repelling goblins. Bob wants the goblins to repel him for a change. As such, Bob takes a bunch of volunteers and attacks the goblin villiage. He's badly outnumbered, and he's got the disadvantage of fighting the goblins on their home turf. This would be considered enough of a challenge that it could give him a nice amount of experience. If he succeeds in whatever he's trying to accomplish, he'll be much closer to levelling up than his comrades who stayed in bed (not to say his comrades are stupid, of course: Significant progress towards a level up means significant risk). However, this does not mean that Bob will swiftly become a fourth-level Warrior, and that he will take his NPC class to high levels. In order to succeed in his task, Bob must adapt. In fighting the goblins, Bob learns far better tactics than he could learn simply being the city militia. On his next level up, he is battle-hardened and has learned new tricks solely from experience. Thus, Bob's next level will be in a PC class, most likely Fighter.

So, in short, anything that would give a Commoner enough experience to reach epic levels would give him enough special training that said Commoner would just take a PC class. The guy mentioned in the OP has to have learned some special trick to farming that's set him above everyone else. To have successfully farmed the entire kingdom like that, he's had to take on a lot of challenges. He's had to rally the people behind him, fend off vermin, tend to every single field regardless of the weather conditions, etc. so that everything is covered in golden wheat. He's got to have some sort of PC class to accomplish that, not necessarily because he'd need the PC class to do the job, but mainly because doing the job would give him the PC class.

Rockphed
2007-09-26, 10:48 PM
According to the DMG, page 139, a 16th level commoner is a possibility in Small towns. A level 20 commoner is possible in small cities, and almost assured in Metropolises. Likely to happen? Not at all, but it does.

As for what class the "Corn Lord" would be, I would label him an expert. A twentieth level expert is, by RAW, possible in a large city (12K-25K) inhabitants.

Now that is by RAW, but if you limit the NPC classes, you should also limit the PC classes. Sure, the 20th level commoner is 80 and can barely walk, but he is 20th level.

RTGoodman
2007-09-27, 12:03 AM
How do peasants hit epic? Farmers and the like gain experience differently than adventurers - they gain it by growing crops, mending shoes, getting into tavern brawls - doing general peasant things. So what must a peasant do to break that threshold and get into level 21?

We had a discussion a couple of months ago as to what sort of creature would warrant a CR of 9000, and one example of a CR 9000 creature is a human with 9001 levels of Commoner. It might be a little bit of overkill, but thought it might be of help.

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3003775&postcount=29) is a part of the thread that lists my formula for how long it'd take for a Commoner to gain 9001 levels, as well as Tokiko Mima's take on what an appropriate Encounter for him would be.

The rest of the thread, if you're interested in reading it, is here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53125) (including the Major Artifact, the Mighty Rake). Take note - the thread is old, and posting there is probably thread necromancy and therefore frowned upon.

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-27, 12:40 AM
According to the DMG, page 139, a 16th level commoner is a possibility in Small towns. A level 20 commoner is possible in small cities, and almost assured in Metropolises. Likely to happen? Not at all, but it does.
Heh. This reminds me of that NPC in Waterdeep who's a commoner 16/vigilante 1. :smallbiggrin:

Kurald Galain
2007-09-27, 03:45 AM
According to the DMG, page 139, a 16th level commoner is a possibility in Small towns. A level 20 commoner is possible in small cities, and almost assured in Metropolises.

This sounds silly, and the only reason this rule exists appears to be to allow NPCs to have decent craft/profession checks (which could easily have been solved in some other fashion).

"High-level commoner" is an oxymoron. If someone is high level, he shouldn't be a commoner.

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-27, 05:33 AM
This sounds silly, and the only reason this rule exists appears to be to allow NPCs to have decent craft/profession checks (which could easily have been solved in some other fashion).

"High-level commoner" is an oxymoron. If someone is high level, he shouldn't be a commoner.

Maybe he's really good at being an average guy.

Adumbration
2007-09-27, 08:21 AM
Or maybe some day, some place, a 16 level commoner just goes berserk and starts felling the city guards with a scythe without taking any levels in PC classes?

:smallcool: