NPCs aren't heroes (as I understand it - the core objection to mastery "inflation" is that NPCs run around being supercompetent). To my mind a fumble means that you'd lose sheep (and they would require special actions, climbing, healing etc. to recover), a fail means that they'd go off in the wrong direction and (e.g.) take longer than usual to round up and you'd miss your dinner. Shepherding also strikes me as a bad example for the "no self respecting hero ..." line. Losing sheep to illness, accident, predator etc. is a life of death matter to poor cottars. I'm happy to have experienced NPCs with Shepherd 1W. As a rule of thumb my mature NPCs (in their thirties) have at least 1W in a professional skill. Starting NPCs (in their twenties) will tend to have 1 or so. Excluding PCs my clan has about a dozen NPCs with masteries in close combat (weaponthanes and a couple of ring members).
Thom
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