Skill rank and Title, Apprentice, Journeyman and Master... [Archive]

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aglondier

2022-01-09, 12:34 PM

So, I'm advancing my Craft skill each level, and getting pretty good...but my question is: At what point can I consider my character to be a Journeyman or Mastercrafter, or even Grand Master?

And where do feats like Skill Focus and Master Craftsman from Pathfinder or the Artisan Craftsman feat from Dragon 358 fit into it?

Biggus

2022-01-09, 02:36 PM

I think apprentice would be a "level 0" character, when you've completed your apprenticeship you're level 1 and a journeyman.

After that, it depends on the world you're playing in, a grand master would be a very different level in an E6 world than in an epic one. Assuming we're talking about a world where level 20 is the limit, I'd say probably about level 3-5 to be considered a master. Most people never get past about level 2-3, so anything beyond that would be an unusual level of skill. Also, comparing to the PC classes, by that point you've gone beyond the fragile one-trick ponies you start off as and become competent adventurers who can strike out on your own without the fear of being killed by the first pair of dire rats you meet, so it seems to fit.

A grandmaster I say would start somewhere about level 6-9. At level 11 people and items are considered "legendary" by the Legend Lore spell, and to my mind legendary is an even more prestigious description than grandmaster. Also, by level 9 Clerics can bring back the dead, I don't see qualifying as a grandmaster requiring more skill than that...

A truly legendary craftsman would be someone of grandmaster level who has the Artisan Craftsman feat or equivalent, as they can make items which do things ordinary craftman cannot.

That's how I see it anyway, it's pretty subjective tbh.

Tzardok

2022-01-09, 03:26 PM

Telonius

2022-01-09, 03:36 PM

Fizban

2022-01-09, 04:00 PM

What percentage of craftsman are "master" or "grand master?" What percentage of craftsman are above 1st level? The second number is quite probably smaller than the first number. Someone with a +10 can take 10 to hit DC 20 and roll to hit DC 25 -consider, the (one) highest shipbuilder DC in Stormwrack is 25, and most are 20 or below (the titular "masterwork" weapon is DC 20, as are locks). Of course, assistants provide an uncapped source of +2s, so with enough "apprentices" the initial leader's skill hardly matters.

A 1st level specialist should have 4 ranks and skill focus. If there are applicable other feats (or racial bonuses) for extra +2s or other amounts, they might have those, but DMG2's table which tries to pretend those exist for every skill when they really don't makes it ridiculous. If they're particularly lucky or you consider ability scores influenced by personal choices, they should also have a starting 13 (for non-elite array) or 15 (for elite array) in the appropriate ability score.

I would say anyone with a +4 or above can count as a "journeyman," 4 ranks being attainable by anyone as they properly reach 1st level, and when they hit +10 they count as particularly masterful as they can now take 10 to hit 20s without assistance. I wouldn't try to cram in more ranked titles because I doubt they were all that significant even historically, just adding and dividing up fancier names so certain people could make themselves sound more important.

Tzardok

2022-01-09, 04:34 PM

Is this (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2) the one? Covers several things, not just skills; but skills are discussed. ("D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations," by The Alexandrian). Honestly surprised the site is still there, almost 15 years after the fact.

Yes, that's it. Thank you. :smallbiggrin:

AvatarVecna

2022-01-09, 05:25 PM

It's worth mentioning: the Alexandrian article about what a real-world equivalent might look like, which is a very useful comparison, but it's also not the greatest for figuring out in-universe rankings. Lvl 6 expert optimizing craft might be equivalent to "best in the world" for IRL Earth, but NPC demographics allow for more fantastical NPCs than that.

An average metropolis (at least, average with default demographic rules) is going to have 64 Expert 2s, 32 Expert 3s, 16 Expert 5s, 8 Expert 10s, and 4 Experts hovering around 20th lvl. Metropolises aren't that common, and some of those will be scholars instead of crafters. But you can bet that if you go to a given metropolis, there's at least one craftsman who's equivalent to "IRL best on earth", and quite possibly one that is in-universe "best on earth" at a specific craft.

(the reason I say "hovering around 20th lvl" is because the average for such a roll would be 19.5, but it ranges from 15-24. Technically the DMG doesn't allow for generating epic NPCs, but I think that's boring. Especially since it's like the one thing in the demographic rules that's trying to be realistic.)

Biggus

2022-01-09, 05:42 PM

There is an essay on the skill system in 3.x and how well-designed it is somewhere on the internet. Sadly I can't find it anymore, but IIRC in it the author calculated that a 4th-level NPC with Skill Focus and maximised ranks would be the equivalent of a master in the real world and the same one at 6th level roughly equivalent to the best in that skill that ever lived in the real world. Beyond 6th you reach the realm of the fantastical.

That essay is pretty notorious, it cherry-picks its examples to make its point. As a counterpoint, there's a sidebar on this (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060120a) old WotC article (scroll down the page about two-thirds of the way) where they calculated that olympic archers had the same attack bonus as a 7th-level Ranger.

I think it's fairly safe to say that no real-world human has reached a level beyond about 8 though however you calculate it.

An average metropolis (at least, average with default demographic rules) is going to have 64 Expert 2s, 32 Expert 3s, 16 Expert 5s, 8 Expert 10s, and 4 Experts hovering around 20th lvl. Metropolises aren't that common, and some of those will be scholars instead of crafters. But you can bet that if you go to a given metropolis, there's at least one craftsman who's equivalent to "IRL best on earth", and quite possibly one that is in-universe "best on earth" at a specific craft.

I deliberately ignored the DMG demographics because frankly they're utterly stupid. If you do use them you're right, a grandmaster would be much higher level than I suggested.

Raven777

2022-01-09, 06:02 PM

hamishspence

2022-01-09, 06:13 PM

Cityscape has sample NPCs and levels as follows:

Apprentice: 1st level
Journeyman: 5th level
Master: 10th level

Arms and Equipment Guide had

less than 7 ranks in appropriate skill: Apprentice,
7-11 ranks: Journeyman
12 ranks: Master

Fizban

2022-01-09, 07:28 PM

An average metropolis (at least, average with default demographic rules) is going to have 64 Expert 2s, 32 Expert 3s, 16 Expert 5s, 8 Expert 10s, and 4 Experts hovering around 20th lvl. Metropolises aren't that common, and some of those will be scholars instead of crafters. But you can bet that if you go to a given metropolis, there's at least one craftsman who's equivalent to "IRL best on earth", and quite possibly one that is in-universe "best on earth" at a specific craft.
The phrase "average metropolis" is completely artificial, because metropoli are not average. They are singular, literally the largest possible cities supportable with medieval technology, drawing in massive amounts of food from a massive area, listed as only 1% of population centers even by the DMG's generation table. The very definition of an exception. Contrary to what seems to be the standard knee-jerk reaction (all evaluations immediately jumping to the largest 1% city size possible), there are multiple "countries" or "kingdoms" in published settings that don't even have a single metropolis.

So the "average" metropolis should really not figure into anything more than "the single largest trade center on the continent." Does Forgotten Realms have multiple? Sure, and you have to travel to the other end of the landmass some ~1000 miles away. Should adventurers gravitate towards the largest city? Of course, but that doesn't mean it's in any way an "average" representation of the world.

AvatarVecna

2022-01-09, 07:59 PM

I agree with AvatarVecna. The Alexandrian article is a great primer on how potent 3.5 is at modeling a world. It should be required reading for anyone delving into 3.5 as a model/simulation, especially in relation with skills. But the assumptions from the article best model low magic societies like Earth or even Middle Earth. On the other hand, regular D&D assumes high magic by default. Think more in terms of Sigil or Dalaran or Diagon Alley: magical shops and goods and the skilled labor that enables these are not rare. There's Gnomes and Dwarves and Half-Elves and hedge mages hawking mastercraft goods and arcane baubles at the town square.

This, essentially. I'm not saying the Alexandrian article is bad, it's a fantastic demonstration about how realistic the D&D skill system can be, and what point you have to pass to go outside of what's realistic. The issue is that lots of D&D kinda exists outside of that bubble of "realistic stuff". Sometimes far outside it.

In 3.5 there's a gnome affiliation that allows for the crafting of magic items without being magical yourself. There is a kind of dwarf capable of the same, and a special magic dwarf smith that allows non-magic craftsman to make magic items. XP isn't that difficult to get even in a world where murder in the only way to get it - the lower the tech/magic level overall, the more likely somebody is to have to deal with pests on a day-to-day basis. And if you're getting regular XP, you're just gonna level up as a matter of course. And if murder isn't the only way for a craftsman to get better at their craft (if they can get better by, say, practicing their craft), then leveling up will happen even more frequently. Artificers and low-level mages are capable of pumping out weaker magic items pretty cheap, most of which have some serious utility in regards to one market or another.

Based on the DMG2 Business Rules, if you walk into a shop of some kind in a middle-of-nowhere farmtown, and you ask the owner "how long have you been in business", and they reply "oh, about a year now", understand that they have rolled 24 business encounters, which shakes out to about 6 monster attacks and 1 bandit encounter. It takes a bit more than 3 monster encounters to level up, and the failed outcome of that is "you lose some money" instead of "you die" by default. He's probably leveled up at least once this year with just murder XP. And because the encounters you get increase in difficulty as your own level increases, that's always going to be the going rate. If you own a shop, and the attacks don't kill you, you're levleing up twice a year. Forever.

Imagine a commoner who's working a food stall down by the docks. There is, of course, a rat problem. So traps are laid out. Once a week, he ends up catching a rat in a trap. Once every other month, this ends up being an elite rat instead of a regular rat. 69 months in (nice), he hits level 7. He's not handling swarms, he's not a professional exterminator. This is just the cost of doing business. This is...it's just how the world is. Even if murder is the only way to get XP.

There's a lot of stupid things about the demographic rules, but "high level NPCs exist" isn't one of them.

Doctor Despair

2022-01-09, 08:03 PM

It might be worth consideration that the Mentor feat requires 8 ranks. Maybe that should be considered the bar to be a master?

Zanos

2022-01-09, 08:32 PM

I'd consider a Master to be someone who can reliably create, well, masterfully crafted items. The best of the best. That's not necessarily the same as a Masterwork item. If masterwork items are the best mundane equipment in your setting, then anyone who can hit +10 to their craft checks could be considered a master. But if you use stuff like armor and weapon additions from dragon magazine or include other supplemental items with much higher crafting DCs, or are talking about fields like Alchemy or Poisonmaking where items often have DCS in the 30s or 40s, the math is going to change quite substantially.

So figure out what the best equipment in that category is in your setting, figure out what the DC is to create it, an then figure out how soon an NPC can hit the bonus needed to reliably make those items. That could be as early as level 1 if you're talking about a dwarf(+2), with ranks(+4), skill focus(+3) of reasonable intelligence(+2) making masterwork longswords. It could be in the later teens or even an epic character if your NPCs don't have access to substantial cheese and you use material that includes items with crafting DCs in the 60s.

Jervis

2022-01-09, 10:50 PM

AvatarVecna

2022-01-09, 10:57 PM

The phrase "average metropolis" is completely artificial, because metropoli are not average. They are singular, literally the largest possible cities supportable with medieval technology, drawing in massive amounts of food from a massive area, listed as only 1% of population centers even by the DMG's generation table. The very definition of an exception. Contrary to what seems to be the standard knee-jerk reaction (all evaluations immediately jumping to the largest 1% city size possible), there are multiple "countries" or "kingdoms" in published settings that don't even have a single metropolis.

So the "average" metropolis should really not figure into anything more than "the single largest trade center on the continent." Does Forgotten Realms have multiple? Sure, and you have to travel to the other end of the landmass some ~1000 miles away. Should adventurers gravitate towards the largest city? Of course, but that doesn't mean it's in any way an "average" representation of the world.

You're right. Instead of making a statement about a particular place in the world, I should use the demographic rules to model continents at once, so we have a better idea of what a billion citizens actually looks like. I'm about 85% sure I've done this particular problem before, but eh I feel like doing it again!

So, correction 1: Metropolis aren't that rare. 6-36% of all people live in one, and "only 1% of settlements" looks something like this:

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[/RIGHT]

They're just not that far apart either. Waterdeep to Neverwinter is 240 miles, not 1000, and D&D characters (even low-level NPCs) don't tire all that easily. And that's just metropolises: the larger 50% of communities hold 93-95% of the population - that's small towns and up. I'd say that's probably pretty representative, wouldn't you?

Across 100 communities, there will be:

10 Thorps (pop. 20-80 each)
20 Hamlets (pop. 81-400 each)
20 Villages (pop. 401-900 each)
20 Small Towns (pop. 901-2000 each)
15 Large Towns (pop. 2001-5000 each)
10 Small Cities (pop. 5001-12000 each)
4 Large Cities (pop. 12001-25000 each)
1 Metropolis (pop. 25001+ each)

Let's say Metropolises cap out at 200k. This mostly matters because we wanna find the reasonable maximum (that way we have as few special people as possible). Additionally, these population figures are just the adults - there will be a number of children in a given settlement somewhere between 10% and 40% of the adult population. Let's go ahead and call that 40%, for the same reason. For a given random 100 settlements, the average subtotals will be 561800 adults and 224720 children, for total population of 786520 people.

Somebody went through FRCS collecting data and found a bunch of neat conclusions (https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/number-crunching-the-demographics-of-the-forgotten-realms.819530/), including that Faerun's total population is about 66 million (comparable with modern Britain, or the Roman Empire). We'll use that for our total population; I'm not sure if it's including children, but I'll just assume it does. For ****s and giggles, let's say that half the people living in faerun aren't living in communities at all, and they're just hiding out in the hills or something. Does a group of 20+ bandits living in tents in the hills count as a thorp? Questions for philosophers! But I'm saying no, for my purposes. 33 million divided by 786520 is gonna be roughly 40 (well, 41.956 but let's call it 40 for even fewer special people).

So here's the our community centers:

400 Thorps (pop. 80 each)
800 Hamlets (pop. 400 each)
800 Villages (pop. 900 each)
800 Small Towns (pop. 2000 each)
600 Large Towns (pop. 5000 each)
400 Small Cities (pop. 12000 each)
160 Large Cities (pop. 25000 each)
40 Metropolis (pop. 200000 each)

Lvl 6 is our "IRL best in world at thing", so let's see how many of those we're looking at in our 33 million:

% of Population
0.14%
1.42%
3.20%
7.12%
13.35%
21.36%
17.80%
35.60%

# of Population
32k
320k
720k
1.6m
3m
4.8m
4m
8m

% of Communities
10%
20%
20%
20%
15%
10%
4%
1%

# of Communities
400
800
800
800
600
400
160
40

Thorp
Hamlet
Village
Small Town
Large Town
Small City
Large City
Metropolis

Adept

133.33
400.00
1333.33
1280.00
480.00

Aristocrat

300.00
800.00
1200.00
480.00

Barbarian

300.00
800.00
1200.00
480.00

Bard

133.33
400.00
1333.33
1280.00
480.00

Cleric

133.33
400.00
1333.33
1280.00
480.00

Commoner
343.75
909.38
1165.63
1446.88
1635.94
2393.75
1440.00
480.00

Druid
40.00
93.33

133.33
400.00
1333.33
1280.00
480.00

Expert
125.00
400.00
575.00
775.00
1200.00
2300.00
1440.00
480.00

Fighter

100.00
200.00
300.00
600.00
1600.00
1320.00
480.00

Monk

300.00
800.00
1200.00
480.00

Paladin

200.00
800.00
1120.00
480.00

Ranger
20.00
80.00

200.00
800.00
1120.00
480.00

Rogue

100.00
200.00
300.00
600.00
1600.00
1320.00
480.00

Sorcerer

300.00
800.00
1200.00
480.00

Warrior

50.00
150.00
300.00
637.50
1800.00
1440.00
480.00

Wizard

300.00
800.00
1200.00
480.00

Total Lvl 6+
528.75
1732.71
2290.63
3655.21
8173.44
20627.08
20320.00
7680.00

Avg Lvl 6+ per Community
1.32
2.17
2.86
4.57
13.62
51.57
127.00
192.00

% of Community Population
1.65%
0.54%
0.32%

Metropolises are going to have 192 people 6th level or higher. Small cities will have about 52 each. Small towns will average 4 or 5. Even a Thorp is gonna have 1 on average. In D&D, a lvl 6 person isn't "best in the world", it's not even guaranteed to be "best in the place I grew up", no matter how small that place is (unless it's the family farm literally out in the woods away from society). Even if we assume the maximum size communities, so that there's as few communities generating special people as possible, and even if we assume that half the continent's population is living off in the woods by themselves, there's still 65000 people across Faerun who are lvl 6+. It's not even a one-in-a-million chance, it's close to one-in-a-thousand.

Fizban

2022-01-10, 12:53 AM

You're right. Instead of making a statement about a particular place in the world, I should use the demographic rules to model continents at once, so we have a better idea of what a billion citizens actually looks like. I'm about 85% sure I've done this particular problem before, but eh I feel like doing it again!
Well I haven't seen it before, and you can say that sarcastically but yeah- if you want to speak about the entire world, you need to model the entire world.

So, correction 1: Metropolis aren't that rare. 6-36% of all people live in one,
That's a mighty wide range there, including percentages that are usually considered rare.

and "only 1% of settlements" looks something like this: [graph]
I'm. . . not sure what that picture is supposed to mean? You can make a nice circular distribution with the given ratios on an open field?

They're just not that far apart either. Waterdeep to Neverwinter is 240 miles, not 1000, and D&D characters (even low-level NPCs) don't tire all that easily.
I'll admit, I was having trouble getting the maps that would appear on a google search to cooperate (used to be you could just get the whole setting in ridiculously high res instantly) so I went for the larger estimate based on the 500 mi scale I saw on one of the larger ones.

And that's just metropolises: the larger 50% of communities hold 93-95% of the population - that's small towns and up. I'd say that's probably pretty representative, wouldn't you?
Working from towns does seem more appropriate, yes.

including that Faerun's total population is about 66 million (comparable with modern Britain, or the Roman Empire).
Modern Britain is densely packed modern humans and doesn't count- honestly, I don't think most people have a serious grasp on modern populations at all, they vary too much by location and the numbers are long past the range where they stop being intuitive. It's not a useful comparison.

The Roman Empire comparison should, I think, give you pause- that's 40 across the entire Roman Empire. Which crossed seas and involved multiple continents. Not a mere country or kingdom, but just as the metropolis assumption, essentially the largest empire possible at the tech level. How much of Faerun does the typical adventure or even campaign involve? Even if it's 1/10 that gives you 4. (For that matter, I'd also double check if they're talking just the "Faerun" portion, or all the published areas- I'd ask what edition but I doubt any but 3.x have given any serious detail).

Aside: Which actually lines up with the maximum I would expect to see in a setting with any amount of detail- and come to think of it, how many of these have actually been detailed before anyway?

In D&D, a lvl 6 person isn't "best in the world", it's not even guaranteed to be "best in the place I grew up", no matter how small that place is (unless it's the family farm literally out in the woods away from society).
Which was meant to be the point of The Alexandrian's article- not that DnD is overleveled, but that even those "merely" 5th level characters should be and are impressive compared to IRL people. This is stated more directly in a further article linked at the end. I take issue with people jumping to metropolis's (and 20th level wizards, etc) for all their world considerations, not with the fact that DnD might have characters more powerful and more numerously powerful than real life. Though neither they nor I said anything about "one in a million" people, and focusing on individuals with particularly famous achievements will naturally leave less focus for the who knows how many who made similarly intractable findings that just happened to be less interesting to the public.

I think what you're saying is that titles for skill ranks should go higher, because they should be reserved for the best X many people in the world, which in DnD goes to higher skills than real life. But you go and say on-in-a-million- you just said that there are 66 million people in Faerun. Which means 66 such individuals*. How many people are there of X specialization even taking into account the entire "known world?" How many of them are allowed to be "best in the world?" Who certifies them and doles out the official rankings?

Those sorts of titles come from guilds. Journeyman means you're allowed to work (which includes being skilled enough not to make your guild look bad), higher ranks exist in whatever quantity to whatever people the guild decides to say they are, who exist within that guild. If anything, with all the added divisions based on race, the guilds should be smaller, the best they have available more random and the ranks given less representative of the world as a whole.

*As you have noted, DnD produces many more than "one in a million" characters of high level- indeed, every metropolis generates 64 top level characters, so even one metropolis in all of Faerun would fill that "one in a million" expectation.

AvatarVecna

2022-01-10, 06:26 AM

That's a mighty wide range there, including percentages that are usually considered rare.

It's admittedly odd that the population range goes so far, but that's partly just cuz some metropolises don't have an upper limit on population. If all other 99 settlements are at max population, and the one metropolis is at minimum, it's ~6.46% of the total population (the smallest percentage it can really get). If we assume metropolis is 62.5k (average between minimum and the kinda-sorta ELH maximum) while still assuming the others are max, metropolis jumps to 14.73% of the population across all hundred settlements. If we set the metropolis population to 200k like I did (seems to be the high end of reasonable after a glance across various canonical metropolises), it becomes 35.60% of the hundred community population. If we set it to 2 million (AFAICT, in-universe modern Waterdeep), it jumps to 84.68%. I vaguely recall seeing a 5 million metropolis but I can't remember where and honestly it was probably Sigil or something similar. But things that big would be metropolises. The average between 25k and infinite is infinite. "How much of the population lives in this one metropolis" can legally range from 6% to 99.9999999...%.

I'm. . . not sure what that picture is supposed to mean? You can make a nice circular distribution with the given ratios on an open field?

It's part of a larger point having to do with...

I'll admit, I was having trouble getting the maps that would appear on a google search to cooperate (used to be you could just get the whole setting in ridiculously high res instantly) so I went for the larger estimate based on the 500 mi scale I saw on one of the larger ones.

...with this point:

"Things aren't as distant as you're making them out to be."

Metropolises are not distant things people dream of one day visiting while knowing in their hearts they'll never see it. It's that place over there. It's maybe a week or two on foot and you'll pass by a bunch of other settlements on the way, but it's not some impossible goal forever out of reach of the poor woebegotten common folk, even in a medieval-ish setting. The whole point of them is that a lot of trade goes through them. That means big roads that are relatively easy to traverse, relatively safe due to how most traffic across them tends to be heavily armed for trade reasons, and have lots of stops along the way in small communities where a bit of the metropolis wealth has overflowed due to relative proximity. Most communities, just as a matter of how communities are laid out relative to each other, aren't going to be that far from a metropolis.

It's not that unreasonable that PCs are going to visit one, or even a few...or even just have entire campaigns happen without leaving city limits. It's not that unreasonable that NPCs are going to visit, even low-level commoners. The fact that there's 99 other communities for every metropolis isn't as important as the fact they hold a fifth of the population, and are thus reasonably representative of what's available in the kingdom (not ideal or thorough, but a really quick basic example with a single settlement that gets the point across).

Modern Britain is densely packed modern humans and doesn't count- honestly, I don't think most people have a serious grasp on modern populations at all, they vary too much by location and the numbers are long past the range where they stop being intuitive. It's not a useful comparison.

I was just quoting from the original person who made it, the RE is the better comparison for being over a large area. I don't think "Modern Britain" is bad because of being modern though, just tiny and packed. It's a reasonable idea that a medieval setting, who's "tech" (magic) has advanced them a good ways will end up having bigger settlements in general and end up modernizing a bit. Still probably more spread out than Britain is by a good bit, but I don't think "all of Europe" would be necessary for it to be realistic.

The Roman Empire comparison should, I think, give you pause- that's 40 across the entire Roman Empire. Which crossed seas and involved multiple continents. Not a mere country or kingdom, but just as the metropolis assumption, essentially the largest empire possible at the tech level.

The DnD tech level is maybe on par with the romans, but their "tech" level (magic level) is much much higher, and that means that even a relatively ragtag country in magic-world isn't going to be doing that much worse than the romans. That's just what happens when you're playing a high-magic setting - it might look medieval on the small in-person scale players tend to operate, but on big scales it's gonna outgrow it's tech. Economic markets are going to run on magic just because there's a lot of magic stuff to buy and sell, and also because magic just makes everything easier, and "doing business" is part of everything.

How much of Faerun does the typical adventure or even campaign involve? Even if it's 1/10 that gives you 4. (For that matter, I'd also double check if they're talking just the "Faerun" portion, or all the published areas- I'd ask what edition but I doubt any but 3.x have given any serious detail).

The book they're drawing from is FRCS, so it likely includes non-Faerun things, but their breakdown has them saying Faerun a lot. Idk if that's them being accurate to their findings, or if that's a person who did extremely meticulous counting not realizing that they were confusing Faerun with the whole of Forgotten Realms. It might be an opportunity for you to nitpick somebody, who knows. Unfortunately if you're possessed with a burning urge to make sure the numbers are right, you'll have to check them yourself because I'm not doing the hard part of your argument for you.

I take issue with people jumping to metropolis's (and 20th level wizards, etc) for all their world considerations, not with the fact that DnD might have characters more powerful and more numerously powerful than real life.

Here's a general summary of the conversation:

How does rank/bonus tie into in-universe rank?
Alexandrian article can provide you some good guidance.
Alexandrian is good for IRL, but you shouldn't base D&D ranks on that because D&D NPCs scale a bit higher than that, sometimes much higher, like in a metropolis for example.
AcTuAlLy depending on how you look at it metropolises are super-uncommon and unlikely to come up. You can't base your entire conclusion on 1% of places.
I guess you're TECHNICALLY right but you're kind of missing the point of how examples work, and you're not really putting in the actual work necessary to disprove my point either.

The point of the example isn't "metropolises are the perfect model of how D&D world works", it's "even in a single metropolis, in just a single core class, there's gonna be a dozen people above this particular skill level, some of them nigh-epic". It's not about being a perfect model, it's a hyperbole to showcase the far end of what's reasonable, to point out how relatively low 6th level can be in a world of monsters and magic, as part of the larger "Alexandrian isn't a great model of D&D land for the purposes of in-universe ranking" point.

Though neither they nor I said anything about "one in a million" people, and focusing on individuals with particularly famous achievements will naturally leave less focus for the who knows how many who made similarly intractable findings that just happened to be less interesting to the public.

The issue here is that when I say "one in a million", it is not a literal statement about the statistics of best-in-world people. It's this thing called a "common phrase" that people use to refer to "generally extremely unlikely thing". Unlikely things like...meeting somebody who's the best in the world at a thing, for instance. Or even just in the running for "best at thing". There's a lot of people in the world, and a single person can only meet so many of them. Even though there's a lot of things to be best at, the sad truth of the matter is that most people IRL are never going to meet somebody that cool. IRL people who would be 6th level at a thing just don't run in the same circles as most folk.

But in D&D land, they're freaking everywhere. They're about 1 in 125-1000 in metropolises. They're about 1 in 20-80 in thorps. If you've got a big family in D&D land, chances are good you've probably got one or more people this cool coming to elf-thanksgiving. Some will be commoner 6s. Some will be Wizard 16s. It's quite an eclectic mix.

I think what you're saying is that titles for skill ranks should go higher, because they should be reserved for the best X many people in the world, which in DnD goes to higher skills than real life.

I'm not necessarily saying it should be higher, or even different at all. I'm just saying that "Alexandrian say X is true for IRL, therefore X is true for D&D" isn't necessarily accurate. It was a light caveat for the sake of the OP, to make sure they didn't just follow this verbatim:

Lvl 1/+5: Apprentice
Lvl 1/+10: Local Smith w/ apprentice
Lvl 3/+10: Experienced Smith w/o apprentice
Lvl 5/+19: best in world/history
Lvl 10/+25(?): crafter straight out of mythology
Lvl 20/+37(?): one step removed from Haphaestus himself

The point I was making was nothing more than "one step removed from godhood? there's a handful of these guys in the big city, and the bonus isn't even that high, let's tone down the reverence a bit". Or, if you prefer, "it's a good start, but maybe D&D guild ranks should be based on what's impressive and normal in D&D setting rather than in IRL?"

But you go and say on-in-a-million- you just said that there are 66 million people in Faerun. Which means 66 such individuals*.

...

*As you have noted, DnD produces many more than "one in a million" characters of high level- indeed, every metropolis generates 64 top level characters, so even one metropolis in all of Faerun would fill that "one in a million" expectation.

Once again, you're taking "one in a million" very literally as if I'm stating an inherent fact about how common world-class people are, as opposed to a common freaking phrase that everybody on this forum has used at least once in their life in a non-literal fashion to refer to extremely unlikely occurrences. Including you. You have done this, I guarantee it. You know what this phrase means, and you how it is used.

How many people are there of X specialization even taking into account the entire "known world?" How many of them are allowed to be "best in the world?" Who certifies them and doles out the official rankings?

"Who's the best in the world" is only a matter of legal certification if it's about handing out ribbons, which is completely missing the point. To reiterate:

Alexandrian say "lvl 6 best IRL".

Other person say "Alexandrian good to assign guild ranks".

AV say "Alexandrian good for IRL ranks, but not necessarily DnD ranks".

It's not about the biggest guild in the biggest city having official "best basket weaver in the world" ribbons to all the competitors who have travelled there across the multiverse. I'm just pointing out that it's probably a mistake to hand "master" status to somebody with a few levels just because Alexandrian said that was probably the real-world equivalent.

And when you come in with your "AcTuAlLy" comment, making a slight correction and acting as if you're scored some critical counterpoint in an argument, you miss the forest for the trees. As shown by how, by all accounts, you ****ing agree with me.

I take issue with [...], not with the fact that DnD might have characters more powerful and more numerously powerful than real life.

This is a very concise version of the point I was making with my post, where I used a metropolis as an extreme example. "Maybe its a mistake to say lvl 20 is a step removed from god when there's a bunch of guys like that in every really big city, maybe base your ranks off D&D stuff instead of IRL stuff."

And it baffles me, because I know you know better. I know you know the game well enough that you saw me bring up the demographic rules and you already more-or-less knew there were 200 lvl 6+ NPCs in a metropolis. Already more-or-less knew that metropolises make up ~20% of the population. Already more-or-less knew that the odds of mid-to-high level NPCs are actually better in thorps than metropolises. Already more-or-less knew that my 65k-in-33m (~0.197% or ~1 in 500) Faerun is a low-ball calculation, and that the actual number (accounting for both the missing 33 mil and making all the settlements more average sized) would see that number swerve closer to 333k-in-66m (~0.505% or ~1 in 200). Already more-or-less knew that small towns and bigger make up 50% of the settlements in existence and ~95% of the population. Already more-or-less knew that the number of high-level NPCs in metropolises (and other really big settlements) are numerous enough that handing master status to lvl 3s and 4s is probably a mistake. Already more-or-less knew that a single metropolis holds enough NPCs lvl 6+ that you could run 10 campaigns straight to lvl 20 in that one single community, with a new quest-giver every level, and never see the same one twice across all campaigns.

It's why I shouldn't have even replied to your post. Because I knew you already knew this stuff. That replying to you and showing my work even in a half-assed capacity like that would take up hours of my day, all to counter a post from someone who doesn't even actually disagree with my conclusion or my methodology, just with my presentation.

aglondier

2022-01-10, 07:20 AM

Here's a general summary of the conversation:
I like your summary. You should go professional. 👍

It was a light caveat for the sake of the OP, to make sure they didn't just follow this verbatim:

Lvl 1/+5: Apprentice
Lvl 1/+10: Local Smith w/ apprentice
Lvl 3/+10: Experienced Smith w/o apprentice
Lvl 5/+19: best in world/history
Lvl 10/+25(?): crafter straight out of mythology
Lvl 20/+37(?): one step removed from Haphaestus himself
Excellent. Exactly what I was looking for. I'll just copy that down verbatim. 😁

Doctor Despair

2022-01-10, 08:22 AM

It was a light caveat for the sake of the OP, to make sure they didn't just follow this verbatim:

Lvl 1/+5: Apprentice
Lvl 1/+10: Local Smith w/ apprentice
Lvl 3/+10: Experienced Smith w/o apprentice
Lvl 5/+19: best in world/history
Lvl 10/+25(?): crafter straight out of mythology
Lvl 20/+37(?): one step removed from Haphaestus himself

Are those figures from a book (and you are disputing them), or are these figures you're suggesting (but with a caveat that actual numbers can vary greatly based on setting)?