[RPG] How relatively strong is a character of a given level

character-levelspathfinder-1e

I'm new to DMing and writing my own campaign, and I've only played Pathfinder once with a group of other new players. I was wondering how "powerful" of something level X (in terms of character level) is from the standard 1-20. Coming into it I had the mindset of level 20 is kind of like a max level character in an MMORPG, maybe a bit more powerful, however I feel this is pretty wrong assumption now.

I guess really what I'm asking is how strong (from a story standpoint) is a level 5/10/15/18/20? For example, what level would a captain of the guard for a metropolis settlement be or a Summoner guild master on the council of a powerful mage city? I'm not necessarily referring to sociopolitical power (probably should have used more diverse examples), but just how personally powerful I should depict them in the story. Is it jarring for a random guardsman to be fifth level? Or for a feared warlord to be ninth level?

Best Answer

It's Setting-dependent

In most settings, level isn't synonymous with political power. Kings can be level 1 and farmers can be level 20. It's often easier on the community (and on the setting's verisimilitude) if the most powerful folks are the folks in charge, but that's never mandatory. A highborn, well connected level 2 wizard could be in charge of the wizards' guild, and a down-on-his-luck level 20 fighter (perhaps the victim of amnesia magic or an effect that removed from him his gear) might be earning his 2 sp per day working as bouncer at the Rusty Gorgon.

Two Examples

  • The Eberron setting for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, Pathfinder's immediate antecedent, had very few high-level characters, owing to disastrous conflicts in the setting's recent past. I'm no Eberron expert, but I think most published characters for the setting were levels 10 and below.
  • The Forgotten Realms setting, originally published for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and updated for every edition since, came to be inhabited by so many high-level characters DMs sometimes struggled to find things for their low-level players to do at all because, it seemed, a high-level character should've handled it already--I mean, there's one right over there, after all.

One of my disappointments with Pathfinder is its lack of demographic guidance. I, too, am curious, for example, just how many summoners the designers think should live in a village. While I think it's brave of the designers to leave this to the DM instead of mandating it, at least some guidelines like those available for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 in the Dungeon Master's Guide (137-41) (but not made available as part of the d20 SRD) would've been useful, if only for comparison.

Suggestion: Reverse-engineer

If writing a campaign instead of setting, gear the setting to the campaign, not vice versa. Figure out what you want the characters doing in the campaign at levels 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, and 16-20, and make the NPCs of levels appropriate to when they're going to be more important to the campaign. This way the NPCs can be encountered earlier and be untouchable yet the NPCs can be of the appropriate levels when the PCs reach that point in the campaign.

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