Granulator
2008-06-04, 10:53 AM
Heeheehee. I like that title.
Anyway, on to the more important part of this thread: I'm thinking of tossing a situation at the PCs in which the only way to preserve the greater good and greater law(75% of them are Lawful Good, and the rest are still Lawful) involves seriously ticking off every peasant in the village. As such, it may come to killing and/or knocking unconscious hordes of level 1 commoners. Now I'm wondering, how do I award experience for this?
In the Dungeon Master's Guide, on page 38, it reads, "Since NPC classes (see Chapter 5: Campaigns) are weaker than PC classes, levels in an NPC class contribute less to a creature's CR than levels in a PC class. For an NPC with an NPC class, determine her Challenge Rating as if she had a PC class with one less level."
I can see this working in the case of a troop of warriors trying to apprehend the PCs after they inadvertently incite this riot, and warriors are even used in the examples right next to this small paragraph. However, commoners(And experts and aristocrats in a straight-up fight, but who cares about them anyway?) are even weaker than warriors, and as such should be treated with a lower CR. For first level commoners, this may entail giving them a CR of 1/4, but not every commoner in a village is going to be first level. Would one treat level 5 commoners as CR 3? Even that seems a little high.
Anyway, on to the more important part of this thread: I'm thinking of tossing a situation at the PCs in which the only way to preserve the greater good and greater law(75% of them are Lawful Good, and the rest are still Lawful) involves seriously ticking off every peasant in the village. As such, it may come to killing and/or knocking unconscious hordes of level 1 commoners. Now I'm wondering, how do I award experience for this?
In the Dungeon Master's Guide, on page 38, it reads, "Since NPC classes (see Chapter 5: Campaigns) are weaker than PC classes, levels in an NPC class contribute less to a creature's CR than levels in a PC class. For an NPC with an NPC class, determine her Challenge Rating as if she had a PC class with one less level."
I can see this working in the case of a troop of warriors trying to apprehend the PCs after they inadvertently incite this riot, and warriors are even used in the examples right next to this small paragraph. However, commoners(And experts and aristocrats in a straight-up fight, but who cares about them anyway?) are even weaker than warriors, and as such should be treated with a lower CR. For first level commoners, this may entail giving them a CR of 1/4, but not every commoner in a village is going to be first level. Would one treat level 5 commoners as CR 3? Even that seems a little high.