Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Lord Bane 01-18-05, 01:15 AM	I was going through my book...... City of Towers and I have noticed that most of the criminal organizations have leaders that are level 3 or 4. Is this correct? It seems to me that to be a criminal of any renoun you would have to at least make it to level 10 or so just to get some standing within your guild. What do you guys think???
polt 01-18-05, 01:48 AM	Dude, this is Eberron :D Its a low powered ECS, read the ECS again and you will understand :)
Fordel 01-18-05, 01:56 AM	Character level doesn't equate to power in this case. At this level of crime its all about contacts and information. What area's you control, who is on your payroll, who is on the other guys payroll, who is competeing with you, who isn't etc... Like the GodFather wasn't the GodFather because he was the greatest combantant around.
Blizzard_Bobsan 01-18-05, 01:59 AM	Let's also keep in mind that the character level is purely a game mechanic. It isn't written on the foreheads of PCs and NPCs and by itself it doesn't equal respect, notoriety or charisma. Even in settings other than Eberron I find quite possible the leader of some gang or the king of some country to be a low level character. Every powerful man is a hero and chosen by Someone only in FR and I personally find this unconvincing...
Thramzorean 01-18-05, 03:59 AM	Not only that but I like the way the Eberron Campaign doesn't throw all its cards on the gaming table and has deliberatly kept the open source stuff low level, yes there should be higher level dudes around, there are sure to be, but at this stage of the campaign who really needs or wants them or would necessarily know them? An epic level puppet master should be something the DM can introduce in the right way, in his or her way.
Lord Bane 01-18-05, 04:30 AM	It just doesn't hold water....... My charecters started at the age of 16 and are quickly outleveling the world. After my first two self-created adventures and the three published adventures my charecters are level 4-ish. With very few exceptions all of the NPC's im seeing are 3 to 4. A war just ended a few short years ago. Wouldn't the average battle hardened fighter with war experience be over level 3? I know I can raise these things and adjust them for my campaign. I just thought that it was Odd.
Sarlax 01-18-05, 04:56 AM	A war just ended a few short years ago. Wouldn't the average battle hardened fighter with war experience be over level 3? Not necessarily. It's been said again and again that "NPCs don't gain XP the way players do," which is simply code for, "NPCs have whatever level the needs of the setting dictate," which is again code for, "Eh." I don't like that line of reasoning, so here's an alternative: The XP system is built on the idea that you gain a level after beating 13 or 14 challenges of an appropriate level. If the encounter was easy, you gain less XP; if it was hard, you gain more XP. Extrapolate this idea to the battlefield. A team/unit/army gains XP when it defeats an opponent of about equal strength. If you destroy 100 soldiers in an encounter, you gain 100 soldiers' worth of XP, but you divide it among the winning force equally. This should mean (roughly) that an army's soldiers gain levels only after they participate in battles which their own forces were about evenly matched with the enemy. Here is why battles must be evenly matched for XP to be gained: In a regular D&D battle (PCs vs. monsters), luck can swing a battle greatly. But in a massive battle, randomness is muted. If you have 1000 attack rolls in a round, you have good odds that you have equal distribution of rolls: there are 50 rolls of twenty and 50 rolls of one. In a big battle, then, all that matters is the average roll. Randomness is negated by the fact that so many rolls would be occuring. Since average results will shape the outcome, stronger armies will (almost) always win. If an army is nearly guarenteed a win (because statistics favor it), it won't gain much XP: the weaker army isn't a challenging encounter. And if the army's weaker, well, its soldiers flee or die, so XP can't be gained. If the armies are about evenly matched, XP can be gained, but the soldiers are still only going to gain a level after 13 or 14 battles with evenly matched forces. Since little of war is actually battle (most time goes to camp, travel, and waiting), it will take a very long time to gain XP, hence few people will gain levels in war. In social situations the same concept applies: you must overcome genuinely challenging circumstances to gain levels. Most people (clerks, smiths, bakers) are not challenged in their day to day work, so they won't gain levels. If challenges emerge, however, they can advance. For instance, a clerk for House Kundarak might have a few levels of expert and not advance for years. But when there's a sudden economic crisis that requires careful financial strategy to stabilize, he might gain a level over a period of months in which he struggles to come up with innovate policies. Once things settle down again, he'll be wiser and more capable, but his pace of advancement will again slow down. The reason PCs gain levels so fast is because they face extraordinary challenges on a very regular basis. They lead absurdly difficult and dangerous lives. Almost no person in the world lives this way. Crime bosses, small business owners, and farmers aren't routinely put through intensely difficult circumstances.
Lord Bane 01-18-05, 07:27 AM	That was a great post! I have been working an angle in Sharn where the Adventurer Guilds begin to attempt a shakedown of my players. The player have begun to get some fame throughout town and the guild in question feels it may become obsolete or begin to be cut out of the larger action due to the players success. The first phase was for an Agent of the guild to attempt to sort of recruit them offering them the choicest jobs. I knew my players would rebuff the offer. The next phase was a "practical joke" in which a highly publicized mission was being touted at a RedBlade’s Tavern for “platinum by the wagonload”. When the players allowed the general public to know of their interest in going on the quest the guild in question hired a changeling to tell the PC’s of an even more lucrative quest that wasn’t being offered publicly and was paying in magic items (a rare in my campaign) Of course the PC’s jumped on this opportunity and were sent on a wild goose chase in which they were locked in a mine for a few hours clearing the way for the adventurer guilds groups to complete the quest of local renown. This has made my PC’s hard headed and very angry! I see some open hostilities are possible and the NPC levels were giving me a hard time. I appreciate all of your posts and Sarlax thanks for taking the time to set me straight.