Commoner Magic: Levels, Magic Items, and Training

Continuing my sort of series on the worldbuilding with the magic of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, I've decided to try tackling the magical items, levels, and the time it takes to train today.

I'd imagine someone with an inborn talent as described later in the article to be someone who people generally know about. They could achieve greatness with all of their potential, possibly even going slightly beyond.
Silverquill Apprentice, by Mike Bierek

Levels

In order to gauge how many people of certain levels there could be, I came up with a simple guideline to assume when worldbuilding.

The maximum level that a commoner can reach in a class is equal to the lowest ability score modifier that the class requires (as per Multiclassing Prerequisites) multiplied by 2.

Just for the sake of clarity, let's make an example. Let's say someone wishes to become a rogue. What level can they be at best, if their Dexterity modifier is +4? The answer is 8.

Now, the most obvious question would be "How come players can reach higher levels?" This is a general rule of thumb. Exceptions can exist. Alternatively, there could be an actual reason for this. Maybe the players are blessed by the god of adventure. Or maybe they actually need help from the magical items in order to progress further. That all I leave up to the DM, to each their own, I'm here to give advice on worldbuilding, not on managing the party.

One curious consequence of this is, that in order to reach a level of 10 in a class, the character will need to have a starting modifier of +3 or higher in that stats associated with their class. Upon reaching level 4, they can increase this modifier by 1, and they can do that again upon reaching level 8. There's a handful of exceptions, a good exception being Fighter who can afford to have a stat of +2 or higher in order to get to the 10th level (extra bonus: Fighter is the only class in the game that gets to choose which of the stats it tracks). On the other hand, someone with a +4 or higher modifier in their class' stat has one ability score improvement to spare, perhaps for a feat or into a different ability score.

A rather curious bad case of an exception is the trio of monk, paladin, and ranger. Each of these classes has two stat prerequisites, which means that by my own rules, the lower of their stat modifiers determines the maximum level. In order to become a level 10 monk, level 10 ranger, or level 10 paladin, a commoner would have to have a beginning modifier of +4 in Strength and Charisma for the paladin, or +4 in Dexterity and Wisdom for the other two.

There's another interesting consequence to take notice of. Some magic items exist that can help one increase their natural predispositions. These include but are not limited to:

• Gauntlets of Ogre Power and Belt of Hill Giant Strength, which replace the Strength modifier with +4 and +5 respectively.
• Headband of Intellect, which replaces the Intelligence modifier with +4.

I'm leaving out the items that increase the Constitution since that isn't on the Multiclassing Prerequisites table, as well as any consumable items and very rare or rarer items (the reason for the last will become apparent with the next rule). Understandably, there could be further items added to this list through homebrew, such as a cloak made out of a nymph's hair that replaces the wearer's Charisma modifier with +5, but that's up to the DM.

So, what worldbuilding consequences does that create within our world? Here's a handful in a neat bullet point list format:

• If you're not born with strong natural predispositions (+3 modifier) for anything, but you're somewhat strong or dexterous (+2 modifier), you may as well try your hand at being a Fighter.
• Unless you're predisposed to be excellent in whatever you wanted to be good at (+4 or higher), you should focus on improving what you're good at already instead of getting distracted along the way (feats). If you get distracted, you may never be able to reach your fullest potential.
• If the settlement has a magical item that could increase one's capabilities, they could be lent for training.
• Since only such items at the moment in the game increase Strength and Intelligence, such practices could lead to wizards who are capable of casting spells much more powerful than they could understand on their own, as well as barbarians and fighters who can seem rather weak.

Hey, I think I've mentioned magic items, so it's time to talk about those now.

Magic Items

This rule might be kind of controversial, but it's something at least I find somewhat reasonable, considering all of the previously established rules.

Commoners can at best create magic items of rare rarity.

Before you raise your pitchforks, let me show what happens when the commoners raise theirs. Xanathar's Guide to Everything states, that in order to craft a magic item, you'll need time, gold, formula, and most importantly an ingredient from a monster of some CR. I did some maths assuming the 5th edition's combat balancing is right. I don't know if it is, let's just go with it for now. I've considered two kinds of scenarios: One in which the commoners face a monster along with some "minions" of its own, and another in which the commoners lure such minions away, thus facing the monster on its own. I chose only the highest CRs in each of the ranges listed for the magic item crafting, and I made some CRs up for the minions that felt legit to me. I also assumed all of the commoners to be of the same level, and that they wouldn't go into a Deadly encounter (making these the hardest possible Hard encounters). Here's a nice table, displaying how many commoners would be needed for each of these encounters.

Level	Common (CR 3)	+2x CR 1/2	Uncommon (CR 8)	+4x CR 1	Rare (CR 12)	+8x CR 2
1	6	-	-	-	-	-
2	4	7	10	-	-	-
3	3	5	6	-	11	-
4	3	4	6	-	9	-
5	1	3	4	7	6	-
6	1	2	3	6	6	-
7	1	2	3	6	5	-
8	1	2	3	5	5	12
9	1	1	3	4	4	11
10	1	1	3	4	4	9

As you can see, Common items are something that even villagers could their hands on if enough of them got together. Uncommon items, on the other hand, could only be achieved by folks who live in communities that help them grow in their magic or martial capabilities, or by a large group of villagers who know how to distract the monster's assumed companions. Rare items would be restricted to city folks who know how to distract the minions or lure the monster away, or in case the monster's minions are not so easily swayed, ... only the most experienced of the commoners.

Very rare magic items, as well as magic items of higher rarities, are not in the table because even with just 8 minions, a CR 18 foe would be insurmountable even for twelve level 10's. If they were to distract them, it would still be somewhat feasible, but hardly so.

Since these two approaches were suggested to me by the community, I'd much rather just try combining the two in a way that makes sense to me, and translate it into the levels to keep it in theme with some of the previous rules.

• Common items could be crafted by commoners with a spellcaster level of 5 or higher.
• Uncommon items could be crafted by commoners with a spellcaster level of 7 or higher.
• Rare items could be crafted by commoners with a spellcaster level of 9 or higher.
• Unless we're talking about making a common item by a skillful 5th level commoner who knows how to split the target away from its minions or a 9th level commoner, making magic items is a group effort.

I know it's not exactly what the table above says, but this way it feels at least somewhat nice and authentic to me. You could change these levels as want. This is just a guideline for a minimum provided by me.

Sorcerer has wares if you have coin. Of course he knows what all of these things do, and he isn't just selling his experiments to find out when others try them, that's why his stock is full!
Ye Old Magic Shop, by jjpeabody

Training

I think I've finally sorted out a good way to determine how long it takes for a commoner to get levels. All you need to do is just to say it takes them a number of months equal to twice the level they wish to reach a worth of training. Reaching level 1 takes two months, reaching level 2 takes 4 months after level 1. Thus, the full journey from level 1 to 10 would take 110 months, which is 9 years and 2 months. These years assume 8 hours of daily training, weekends and some holidays off, etc. One could complicate this further by increasing the number by 5 minus the Intelligence modifier, but I feel like this is good enough for me.

If you're concerned that it might be too easy to become a master of your craft, just remember that it takes 10 years of not working in order to get this good. You would need money to cover your own expenses, as well as money to pay your trainer. Thus, for someone who has to work hard every single day, the process could take way, way, way longer.

Example

All of this sounds like it deserves some examples, so let's roll up stats for three siblings and see where their lives could take them. For this, I'll use an odd method of stat rolling I came up with just for this article (6 + 2d10 drop highest, they're commoners after all), and convert them to modifiers instead of bothering with ability scores.

• Aleya: Strength +2, Dexterity -1, Constitution +0, Intelligence -2, Wisdom -2, Charisma +2
• Barnsby: Strength -2, Dexterity +1, Constitution +0, Intelligence -1, Wisdom -1, Charisma +1
• Clayre: Strength -1, Dexterity +0, Constitution -1, Intelligence -1, Wisdom +3, Charisma +1

Aleya was strong and charming from a young age, though she was easy to fool and clumsy too. She has some potential for becoming a paladin, though the best she could achieve would be 4th level in almost 2 years of training. If she became a bard, shown some magical powers characteristic for a sorcerer, or made a deal with an otherworldly being, she could reach 6th level in that class, which would take her 3.5 years. The same goes if she tried to be a barbarian. However, she could reach 10th level if she trained to be a Fighter for more than 9 years.

Barnsby was never truly exceptional in anything, besides being rather weak. Even if he tried to be a charismatic mage or rogue, he'd at best reach his personal limit of level 2 in 6 months, unless someone would assist him with magic items.

Clayre however was always seen as an exceptionally wise individual. While she was not dexterous enough to become a monk or a ranger, she could still become a cleric or a druid. If she dedicated all of her focus to growing wiser, one day she could reach the 10th level in her class of choice too.

Not everyone has it in them to achieve greatness, and thus sadly Barnsby would be left behind by his sisters. While the game is trying to be fair to us, life is not fair to the commoners. If I were to assume the rolling method I made up on the spot for all of the villagers, only 1% could ever go beyond 8th level in a class that's not a Fighter, and even out of those some could stagnate due to diversion of focus on something else. And you know what? That sounds like a pretty good guesstimate to me. Ideally, I'd be able to count the number of 10th (or possibly even 9th) level characters in the whole world, minus players and story-important NPCs. People like Clayre, who reach their full potential and become 10th level, would be known about across the kingdom without a doubt, if not further.

When my burnout started, the magic system of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition felt like a big intimidating body of water. An ocean that I would rather avoid if I could. The first article was testing the waters. The second was putting my whole leg in it. Right now, it feels like I'm standing in it up to my waist. When I get around to making the next article, it might finally be my full dip into the water. I'll try to rewrite the rules to be clearer and to work better together, I'll probably try to also reword them in order to allow the DMs to adjust them as they wish. Who knows, one day I might get back to actually DMing D&D instead of just talking about it. But it is not this day, these days I feel too overwhelmed with work to do that.

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!