Troll Lord Games

i am preparing for first C&C session using my setting and have a question. What do You think npces are in game terms. Should a king be a knight of 15 lvl or just relativly standard human? Do clerics from nearby church have any spells to use or not. How You do it? Are there many heroes out there or nor ?

An excellent question.

The way I do it is based upon what level my campaign is. So I scale the levels in relation to what the PC's are doing. This is because I treat my world as "dynamic", meaning everyone is doing something all the time.

Plus, as far as kings go, I never assign a level, they are as tough as I want them to be, or as weak.

So my biggest advice is to NOT lock yourself into a specific level of power, adjust as you need as your game progresses. Make them what you need them to be when you need them. Don't worry about doing it ahead of time, unless you think your players will fight them soon.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

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Kings, Queens, Princes, Dukes, and such do not necessarily have to have a class or be of a high level. In fact, in many instances, the higher level royalty have little chance to gain meaningful experience as they live a mostly sheltered life. This does not mean that they do not have exceptional skills in certain areas, just that they may not be suitable for direct combat. Now to be certain many nobles, royals, and others are classed, and some will be of high level. What classes and levels are in play are strictly up to the CK.

Other non-nobles of certain types will generally have a class, and levels may vary widely. Take a sheriff for example, usually these would be of some sort of combat-oriented class appropriate for the area, fighters, paladins, ranges, and in some cases even rogues. Small town sheriff's may be of 2nd or 3rd level on average, and large cities perhaps 6th-10th level, though the inverse is also possible. So, even in a large city, it could be that the sheriff is of low level, or maybe not even classed, though their underlings most certainly would be of varied abilities and levels.

As for the priest at the local church, again, this would be up to the CK. If given a cleric level, it should be appropriate for the size of the church, and the area, or have a background story as to why that cleric is present. That said, in various RPG's it is assumed that those that follow a god as it's priests are able to wield spells, so I would say that all should be at least a 1st level cleric. However, it is the piety of a priest that places them in the hierarchy of the church more than the power they can wield.

So have I answered the question? Well yes and no, I can't tell you what is right for you, only the CK can answer the questions for their campaigns. I would start with the first question you must ask yourself... Are classed characters common, or are they rare in your world? What level of fantasy are you planning on, and is it more the swashbuckling type, more magical, or a combination there of? The higher the level of fantasy, the higher the average level of your NPC's, and ultimately your PC's.

How do I do it? I have had many different styles of campaigns. I think as a CK, my most enjoyable are where the characters are exceptional, even at 1st level, they stand far above what a "normal" npc is. In this way, the older the kingdom is, the more likely that the royalty has low or no levels to speak of, rather, their subordinates carry much more "real" personal power. Younger lands, and "new" nobility tend to have classes and levels. A borderlands territory in one of my campaigns had a 12th level Ranger as the Baron of the lands. He was constantly on the move, and working with his troops in direct combat with humanoids and brigands. This resulted in his high level. The king of that kingdom was only a 3rd level Knight. He led his troops more with his mind and through his generals, and combat for him was mostly limited to training sessions, and tournaments, resulting in his low class level.

In that same campaign, the high priest of the god of justice was a 5th level cleric. He was elevated to the lofty position through fulfilling a quest as was prophesied. There was some resentment of his elevation (by other of higher level), leading to a splinter faction leaving the church, and actually falling to follow a different god. There were many churches throughout the kingdom, of various sizes, the smallest chapels are generally served by acolytes that are 1st level clerics, with few spells, but able to call on their deity as needed.

This campaign, I would consider a mid-fantasy game, the PCs spent most of their time in what I considered the sweet spot of 4th-9th level. The campaign came to a conclusion with the highest level character of 14th level, and that was a thief. Ah, there were a few members of that group that were moving away, and this brought it to it's end...

I hope this helps, I felt like I was rambling a bit there...

Scott

MacTele wrote:
i am preparing for first C&C session using my setting and have a question. What do You think npces are in game terms. Should a king be a knight of 15 lvl or just relativly standard human? Do clerics from nearby church have any spells to use or not. How You do it? Are there many heroes out there or nor ?

This is a matter of what flavour you prefer for your game. If you want a gritty, low magic feel, classed NPCs might be fairly rare, and clerical healing might be hard to find at the local temple.

If you want a higher magic/fantasy content, like the Forgotten Realms setting, then that bartender at the local tavern might be a retired 10th level fighter who, after a few ales, will tell tales of his old adventuring company (indeed it may be hard to find bartenders who are not ex 10th level fighters )

Both are compatible with C&C, so this is a choice you must make. What flavour does your home brewed setting favour?

Also, a fair amount of these "campaign" decisions can be allowed to evolve organically as your game progresses. If you begin in a typical starting area, with a small town in trouble, a humanoid stocked dungeon nearby, and a few plot strands between factions in the area, you can let the decisions flow from what happens.

A temple in the small town might lack spells and potions, but in Capital City they can be found easily. The mayor of the town (who the players meet regularly) is a 0 level human, but the Duke of the region (who they only encounter around 7th level) is a 15th level knight
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Like the others, I feel that it should all depend on how you envision the royalty to be, rather than some pre-determined or formulaic method. Was the King of Sequatia a general-prince in the Shining Legion or was he a scholarly type that completed his studies in the College of Lyrana City? Or perhaps he was taught in the ways of magic, like his mother. Or maybe he was the snivling second-born, destined for nothing great, but when the crown prince was killed in a hunting accident he was suddenly thrust in the limelight. As you can see, these examples run the gamut of classes and levels and all are legitimate possibilities for royalty.
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Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

I have a couple of ways of dealing with this. But like all others have said, it really depends on what level of gritty, and what you are trying to accomplish.

For example: I am working on a C&C campaign right now, set in the World of Greyhawk/Verbobonc. There are two main faiths in my Verbobonc, Rao and St. Cuthbert.

Rao is the god of peace and serenity, St. Cuthbert is a militant anti-evil force.

The Patriarch of Rao in Verbobonc is a 1HD (d6) human, with spells and turn undead ability as a 10th level cleric. Why? Because as a priest of the god of peace and serenity, he wouldn't have been a mace wielding adventurer. Why does he have abilities as a 10th level cleric? Because he is the Patriarch of the city. He represents Rao to all of Verbobonc. As I envision the Temple of Rao's heirarchy, a patriarch should have that level of ability.

The Bishop of St. Cuthbert is a 7th level cleric. Why? Because clerics of St. Cuthbert are zealots hunting down evil. They are militant. The bishop spent his time fighting the good fight for his shrine/church/temple and the people he is sworn to protect.

In the same way, a local baron might be a 10th level knight. Now, if the old baron died, his eldest son would become baron. But he might only be a 5th level knight. He would be politically weak at first, as a new baron, but after a year or so, he might be reclassified as 10th level, not due to adventuring, but because I have deemed that barons are equivilant to 10th level knight class, and he has established himself.

If the King of a nation were a 'head of the army, fight the orc hoard' type of leader, he might be a 12th level knight. If however, he was a rule from the throne, not the head of the army, type king, he might be a 1HD (d8) human, with abilities equivilant to a 10th or 12th level knight...because he's the king, and that gives him a certain level of power.

NPCs have and do whatever they are supposed to do in a game. I do not bother to stat them out unless it becomes needed to do it, and then, only as much as would be required. A king, for example, might be a wussy 0-level guy who ascended by virtue of birth but another might be a high-level warrior who got their by brute steel... each is different, as befits the character, and I avoid any hard rules for it as there should, as far as I am concerned, not be any.
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serleran wrote:
NPCs have and do whatever they are supposed to do in a game. I do not bother to stat them out unless it becomes needed to do it, and then, only as much as would be required. A king, for example, might be a wussy 0-level guy who ascended by virtue of birth but another might be a high-level warrior who got their by brute steel... each is different, as befits the character, and I avoid any hard rules for it as there should, as far as I am concerned, not be any.

I agree with that, but would add something more: rumor and superstition. The king (or any other NPC) is not necessarily what he seems to be. For example:

1) Everybody is convinced that the king has dragon blood in his veins, and is a 15th level fighter-mage. However, this is as in antique China when emperors were humans like anybodye else, not the children of gods as everyone would believe. So the king has no dragonblood and remains but a zero level character, but well protected by others.

2) Everybody believes the king to be the snivelling 2nd son of late King Richard, but in truth he is an impostor who took his place. Hence, unknown to all, the king is not a zero level idiot, but a 18th level illusionist in disguise.
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Kings are plot devices rather than NPCs. Only if a player character attacks a king in combat or casts a spell on him is it necessary to think in terms of classes, levels and so on.

Tenser's Floating Disk wrote:
Kings are plot devices rather than NPCs. Only if a player character attacks a king in combat or casts a spell on him is it necessary to think in terms of classes, levels and so on.

Or in terms of PC pin cushions as the erstwhile practitioner of regicide gets feathered by cloth yards from all directions.
Course, on a more serious note, for those who actually like to plan their adventures. The class abilities of the nobility entirely depend on what sort of kingdom it is?

Warlike kings are obviously more warrior like.

Then you have priest kings, mage kings, or, when your setting is more shades of grey, a Grandmaster thief as the head of the guild structure that runs things (hey, at least my govts are honest about their thievery).

Depends on what your going for.
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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

Thanks for Your answers.

My setting idea is that there is not too much heroes all over the world and PCes are exeptional personas in the world. It does not mean that there is no high lvl NPCes but that they are not commonly spoted. No 10 lvl fighter bartenders and so on. In my setting dragons are rather powerfull creatures which can bend all princedoms to their knees not reptiles hiding from bartenders. It leads to another question which is: who are princes soldiers? I mean, every prince or king have his military forces, i think i prefer regular warriors to be not very powerfull and PCes should stand above them. The question is, has it any sense ? or maybe PCes should be "heroes" over some lvl, like from 5th which means that You can find 1-4 lvl NPCes without much trouble but higher are exeptions. What do You think ?

And another question about mounted warriors. As i read the rules only good mounted fighters are knightes. Fighters and Paladins are ground lvl warriors rather. I envision knightes as rather exeptional characters not regular landed nobility which leads us to setting where there is rather no mounted forces. What do think about it?

The potential problem with this idea is this. If you have the PC's be "superior" to the vast majority they can go out of control and take over the world rather easily. So to keep them in control, and to keep them challenged, you do have to be open to allowing others to be successful adventurers/highly experienced in order to enable the rulers and city watches, etc... to even be capable of taking your out of control PC's into custody.

Now if you are going to run dungeon/monster focused games where they will hardly ever interact with the civilizations of your world, then it likely will never be a problem.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

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Treebore - i like Your way of thinking and the only question is, why all those in town heroes do not go out to kill all that monsters, thats what bothers me. But as i said i agree. It cannot be that 3lvl PCes are suddenly kings of the world.

And what with my mounted problem ?

MacTele wrote:
Treebore - i like Your way of thinking and the only question is, why all those in town heroes do not go out to kill all that monsters, thats what bothers me. But as i said i agree. It cannot be that 3lvl PCes are suddenly kings of the world.

And what with my mounted problem ?

Thats easy. They stay in town because they realize "adventuring" is dangerous work and like living. So they stay in town until they have to go risk their lives. PC adventurers have mental issues, because they don't fear death nearly enough to make them behave sensibly.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

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Treebore wrote:
Thats easy. They stay in town because they realize "adventuring" is dangerous work and like living. So they stay in town until they have to go risk their lives. PC adventurers have mental issues, because they don't fear death nearly enough to make them behave sensibly.

Thats sweet. But not enough for me. How they got to their lvls in first place if they prefer to sit at armchairs in their houses?

MacTele wrote:
Thats sweet. But not enough for me. How they got to their lvls in first place if they prefer to sit at armchairs in their houses?

Having gained 'experience' in dealing with the occasional conflict in town is one means.

One doesn't always have to leave their home town to acquire experience in adventure. It just takes longer.
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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

MacTele wrote:
Thats sweet. But not enough for me. How they got to their lvls in first place if they prefer to sit at armchairs in their houses?

Experience points are a mechanism in the game by which to advance player characters. If you treat it as the quasi metaphysics of the game world you will soon lose all contact with an authentic fantasy milieu and have yourself a jolly good MMOCRPG.
Seriously, though, just because player characters gain experience in order to advance in levels and "power", doesn't mean that the same mechanism need be applied to every NPC that walks the world. Quite the contrary, in fact.

NPCs should just have whatever statistics are appropriate to their role in the game world.
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Advneturers can retire at any time. Smart ones do, because they realize they'll likely live longer if they stay in a large group, like a city, and run faster than enough others when the dragons attack.

Rich, high level adventurers were crazy enough to risk their life again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, etc...

So sweet or not, its a realistic way to look at why some would stop doing it, and give you an answer as to why not everyone is rushing out to save the day. Some people decide their lives are worth more, so are more than happy to let someone else go out and risk losing theirs.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

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MacTele wrote:
Thanks for Your answers.

It leads to another question which is: who are princes soldiers? I mean, every prince or king have his military forces, i think i prefer regular warriors to be not very powerfull and PCes should stand above them.

If you want them not to be ordinary 1-6HP people, I'd treat them as if they were monsters, just giving them hit dice rather than assigning them character classes. As to knights, not all knights are Knights.

Congratulations, you've discovered one of the most troublesome problems of a class-based instead of a skill-based system.

imneuromancer wrote:
Congratulations, you've discovered one of the most troublesome problems of a class-based instead of a skill-based system.

Really? I thought even in the skill based systems experience still had to be earned in order to have your skills increased, and you still got that experience from adventuring.

So I still see the same problem even in skill based systems.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

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For MacTele:

Levels for the soldiers depends on the nature of your campaign world and a lot of personal preferences. However, I borrowed a few rules of thumb from the old AD&D 2nd edition "World Builder's Guidebook". (This is available in PDF from RPGNow and the like.)

First, I assume that no more than about 5% of the people have a class & level. You could take this up to 10% but over this point is beyond what I personally feel is right.

Once you know how many people have a level and class, assume that half of those are 1st level, then half the remainder 2nd level, and so on. For example, I recently did this for a city of approximately 18,000 people and came up with 900 people with a class and level (450 1st level, 225 2nd level, etc.)

The mix of classes will depend upon the flavor and nature of your campaign, but generally speaking, my default assumption is that most are fighters or rogues. Again, depending upon the city or kingdom you're creating, it's not unreasonable to assume that many of these are soldiers. I assume the regular footsolders are level 1, with higher levels serving as sergeants, officers, the elite King's Guard, etc.

Other persons with characters & levels form the nobility, resident wizards, ranking members of the criminal class, etc.

Hope this helps! For more general ideas and guidance, the World Builder's Guidebook has some good ideas, and "Medieval Demographics Made Easy" site (http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm) has more (and is free!)
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Treebore wrote:
Really? I thought even in the skill based systems experience still had to be earned in order to have your skills increased, and you still got that experience from adventuring.

So I still see the same problem even in skill based systems.

It depends which skill based system. In RuneQuest or Call of Cthulhu, you only increase the skills you practice, so adventuring only increases adventuring type skills. Not adventuring will still get you increases in other sorts of skills you may use. Bushido was both level and skill based and adventuring didn't increase your skills at all.

Treebore wrote:
Really? I thought even in the skill based systems experience still had to be earned in order to have your skills increased, and you still got that experience from adventuring.

So I still see the same problem even in skill based systems.

There is an adventure named "Horror on the Orient Express" for Call of Cthulhu that has a REALLY good chef that has 99% in such combat-oriented skills as "bread making", "sauces", and "french cuisine."

I'm pretty sure he didn't get those skills from battling monsters.

D&D and its descendants make an assumption that all of your rulers (and barkeepers) are Conan-type ex-adventurers that conquered (or retired) their way into their position.

Is this a "problem"? Well.... I probably should have used the word "limitation" instead, but the answer is "yes."

Every system, even ones as fantastic as CnC, have limitations or areas where they don't do very well. This doesn't significantly diminish the game, it just puts things in context.

(And to be positive/productive on the original topic: my suggestion is just to make the king a 12th level ranger or whatever and be done with it.)

I only treat NPC's that have an adventurer background as characters with levels (and in my campaign world, that means very few - limited to the wandering hero-types like Aragon). I'd say that more than 99.9% of NPC's I treat as Normal Men (1-4 hp), from peasant to king.

Along the same lines, finding a level 9 Cleric that can Raise Dead is not as easy as finding the nearest monastery. Powerful Clerics are as rare as powerful Wizards.

I play mostly B/X, so YMMV.

Galadrin wrote:
Along the same lines, finding a level 9 Cleric that can Raise Dead is not as easy as finding the nearest monastery. Powerful Clerics are as rare as powerful Wizards.

I actually take the same approach in my current game, which draws a lot of influences from Poul Anderson's "King of Ys" novels, at least thematically. So to get the dead raised, you're looking for someone on the level of St. Martin, aka Martinus, Bishop of Tours, or St. Corentin, Bishop of Quimper.

But my preference is for a world where there's a number of people with a little power (arcane or divine) out and about - though not at the levels I understand to be implied by 3.x and 4e - and only a handful of truly powerful people.
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When I have rulers of Kingdoms or the like come into play I normally just slap a level 10 class of some sort on them (normally fighter but not always). These folks will have a retinue of skilled retainers that will be the meat and bread of their ability to effectively rule and squash any potential rebellions. Level 10 is a fine base in my game and works quite well. It gives them enough hit points and ability so that the random PC or NPC cant easily put them down but doesnt make it so that there is no need at all for heroic individuals (IE- the player characters) due to the rulers battle prowess being overwhelming. He/She is likely to have a solid retinue of guards which I normally make level 3-9 and appropriately equip. This is outside of the "generic" level 1-2 castle guards that would litter the ruler's stronghold as well.