The secrets of winging it

I'm not particularly good at "winging it" and particularly since 3rd edition came I've felt a bit like I never had quite the information I needed at my fingertips. Now that I've been playing for a few years, I'm getting more comfortable -- I feel like I could come up with stats off the top of my head if I needed to. And with a laptop at the ready, I have at least the SRD and whatever eTools stuff I have purchased and/or entered myself as far as coming up with raw monster stats.

NPC stats are another matter. I have the ghost of an idea in my head about how to come up with "fair" stats off the cuff but it clearly needs some work -- something like this:

* in a "typical" encounter, the PC fighter-types should be hitting the NPCs about 50% of the time; so the base AC of an opponent should be about 10+ the party's level;

* give NPCs an attack bonus equal to the party's level, and maybe half of that as a damage bonus as well.

* saves ... same deal ... a bonus equal to the party's level on "good" saves, and 3/4 of that on "poor" saves.

*Skills -- gosh, how to do this -- I guess as skill checks are required, the skill is either maxed out (party's level +3, with 1-4 extra for appropriate stats), or untrained (+0 to +4 depending on stat used).

* however, I also want to provide some wiggle room -- something to emulate various feats, differing stats, magic items, masterwork items, etc. -- so I would also scatter a certain amount of "wiggle room" bonuses among the following stats: AC, Attack Bonus, Damage bonus, and each of the three Saving Throw categories. Again, I might say that NPCs have "wiggle room" bonuses equal to the party's level.

* So as an example, a 4th level party encounters some NPCs fighter types -- those NPCs would have AC 14, +4 to hit, damage by weapon +2, Fort +4, Will and Reflex +3, and 4 points of "wiggle room" to scatter among these (this time I might spend 2 of those points on AC, 1 on damage, and 1 on Reflex save). Later, when the encounter is over, I can come up with reasonable equipment if needed. After all, the players don't know what stats I used!

* Spells are another matter -- I would just pick out some easy ones, maybe a couple per appropriate level, and set DCs as if the NPC had 16-18 in the spellcasting stat.

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Stats aren't the only thing, of course, that makes winging it a challenge. If you are good at winging it in 3rd Ed, what are your secrets? Any products, methods, practices, tools you use to make it easier? Educate me!

Monte wrote a decent article on this very subject, probably worth a read.

As for myself I do not care for the method you use solely because it produces what I call "Expected Encounters". I do run my world a bit different though, encounters fit a situation and not the party level or APL.

Vascant said:

I do run my world a bit different though, encounters fit a situation and not the party level or APL.

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Same here,

Monte Cook had a method for estimating in one of his Dungeoncraft articles- sounds kind of like what you have.

When I was running Temple of Elemental Evil, I was doing a lot of conversion on the fly. Not quite the same as winging it, since I had something to work from, but I couldn't use the stats as presented; when was the last time you saw a 0 level bandit in 3E? So, the bandits became Warrior 1- BAB 1, say +2 for str, +1 for weapon focus, max hp 12 with toughness, AC 18 for chain mail, dex and shield. Fighter leaders were assumed to have a masterwork weapon, and were pretty similar on feats- weapon focus, weapon specialization, power attack, and so on. I'd have a book open to a class table, and I could eyeball saves.

Again, not quite what you're looking for, and not useful in every situation. I guess it is a good representation of how I do up generic bad guys in most situations, where they all come out as clones of each other. I do like your idea for wiggle room- it'd mean I'd have to keep track of which NPC has which bonuses a little better, but it also adds some variety.

Spellcasters, I use much less frequently. For important NPCs, I'll take a moment and scribble out a partial spell list. For less important, I glance at how many spells they should have, and they cast basic spells that I know the effects of; Generio the Wizard is much more likely to be casting Magic Missile or Fireball than that really neat spell I saw in the Spell Compendium.

When I wing it, the main things I do are look at dice and decide whether they look like they should succeed or not. If a player sees a 17, he can accept that he's been hit. If I roll 10, though, I'll decide whether I want to hit (usually yes, since more damage makes the players more worried).

I don't cheat. In my head I have a clear sense of what every random character's stats are, just with a small range of possibility. And the PCs seldom let such foes live long enough for them to Heisenberg him into certainty.

My main tools for winging it don't apply to combat at all. My main issue is when players decide to do something I didn't prepare for (like flying to Greece to buy magic items in my modern game, instead of working on the real adventure). In such instances I say that I need to use the restroom, and I have about 5 minutes to work up a new plot. It helps immensely if I'm familiar with the location, or if I've read about some place similar so I can just transport ideas from one place to another.

When running fantasy games, I like to have a vivid knowledge of my whole world, so I can create things on the fly. It's fun, actually. Some of my best adventures have been the result of 'off the cuff' GMing.

Oh, but one thing I do keep in mind is that when I run things without planning, my villains seldom have good tactics, so to compensate I either give them more numbers or more raw power. Thus the PCs think they've triumphed with a great victory, when in truth it's more like the bad guys were just having an off day.

Ok, so what I'm hearing so far is...

1) know the setting well -- helps you pull things out of your hat (yes, I said "hat"!)
2) take a quick break now and then to collect your thoughts

Anyone use a particular product to help them with "insta-plot" or "insta-encounter" type situations? I have AEG's "Toolkit" book (or is it "Toolbox") but have never used it -- need to dig it out. I have Johnn Four's NPC Essentials -- need to read through that again. I just bought Necromancer's "Encounter Tables" and "Treasure Tables." Wilderlands of High Fantasy has tons of plot hooks.

Comment about stats fitting the PCs vs. the situation -- yes, of course! But if the situation appears out of nowhere and I need stats, the method outlined above seems to work. If the situation warrants weaker opponents I can do the same math but reduce the party's level; if I need stronger opponents, likewise. Of course it becomes more challenging as you go up in levels to make sure NPCs have appropriate/interesting gear, powers, spells, etc.

Another key to winging it is this: Never tell your players you're making it up as you go along. They'll never know unless you tell them.

Vascant said:

As for myself I do not care for the method you use solely because it produces what I call "Expected Encounters". I do run my world a bit different though, encounters fit a situation and not the party level or APL.

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I'm using a bit of both. Encounters definitely should fit the situation, but the party level is also an important figure to estimate how difficult an encounter will be, if the party decides for combat.

Some encounters are not made for combat, but then there should at least be some hints, that it is not really wise to attack.

And what I was actually going to say... you can wing those, too!

What I usually do is not really winging it, but more like guesstimating. I have a pretty good idea about what kind of bonuses from various sources a character should have by what level, and calculating the basic bonuses from levels and ability scores is a matter of seconds, anyways. I don't prepare sheets for NPCs, I just make up the numbers whenever they are needed.

It's a bit different when I DM PbP, since there is often a much longer time between the first time the score is needed and the next time, I usually write the basic information down then, so I can ensure to use the same values throughout. Same with recurring NPCs, they are actually being written down in some fashion.

Bye
Thanee

RangerWickett said:

When I wing it, the main things I do are look at dice and decide whether they look like they should succeed or not. If a player sees a 17, he can accept that he's been hit. If I roll 10, though, I'll decide whether I want to hit (usually yes, since more damage makes the players more worried).

I don't cheat. In my head I have a clear sense of what every random character's stats are, just with a small range of possibility. And the PCs seldom let such foes live long enough for them to Heisenberg him into certainty.

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This is exactly what i do, hence i've never worried about atrociously long stat blocks for everyone you can possibly meet. If it's a combat encounter, unplanned, the enemy typically won't live long enough for the PC's to know you bluffed through it. Takes some practice though. If the PC's meet 6 mooks, then all the mooks have the same range of stats to make it easier on me. Maybe a leader is a little bit tougher.

As far as npc stats go, HeapThaumaturgist posted a cool system on a thread here:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=164910

I haven't tried it in play, but it looks clever. It's halfway between actually statting them up and RangerWickett's "That looks like it should hit" method.