4th Edition Red Wizards

[Charwoman Gene]

"In World" he and the other Red Wizards are Wizards, and the 100 year shakeup of their power structure is a direct result of the loss of the schools. Their stats will be determined by clear rules laid out for NPC creation, and likely designed to roughly correllate to PC wizards, but with their own nifty powers..

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Self-Mod. Inflammatory

 

[dblade]

No, most NPCs are just slapped together randomly so that they provide a challenge for PCs. No rules, no classes.

Hey Derren. Did they provide a preview article on how this is done? I'd really like to read this. Are there random tables to aid the DM in creating the NPCs. Oh, probably not. Since you said there were no rules. This really cuts down on DM prep.

 

[Cirex]

Could you please show/explain me a few examples of the randomly part?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers

I will have to side with Derren in this. I understood perfectly what he meant with "randomly". Problem is that in some languages besides English, randomly can mean something similar, but not exactly the same. When he means random stats, he doesn't want to say "I will throw a d100 for each stat and I'll be done", more like, "I will designate stats with no order, rule limitation or similar".

 

[Bluenose]

I wonder how they're going to handle the Red Wizards of Thay (from the Forgotten Realms) now that the schools of magic are gone and Necromancy has been stripped from Wizards to make its own class? How will they stat Szass Tam? Will he be a Necromancer or a Wizard? Will the Necromancer class even be released by the time the FR book is out?

Probably by making them similar to their 1st edition incarnation, unless there's some intention of adding a whole group of specialist classes later (possible, but many would be rather pointless). More emphasis on politics and conflicting loyalties and less on "Specialist Wizard" would seem like a good idea.

 

[hong]

And I really would like to see you actually reading what you are responding to. See the word most in my post? Look it up in a dictionary if you need to.

Psst. That was not the halftruth.

 

[Jack99]

I will have to side with Derren in this. I understood perfectly what he meant with "randomly". Problem is that in some languages besides English, randomly can mean something similar, but not exactly the same. When he means random stats, he doesn't want to say "I will throw a d100 for each stat and I'll be done", more like, "I will designate stats with no order, rule limitation or similar".

I know, being a non-native speaker (writer in this case) myself, but that doesn't really change my question.

 

[Wormwood]

. . . more like, "I will designate stats with no order, rule limitation or similar".

Which is also wrong. Unless the designers are all lying.

 

[cwhs01]

Two things. First and most importantly, i apologize to Derren, i shouldn't have started the namecalling. Sorry. No excuses really, i should be able to get my message across in a better fashion.

I will have to side with Derren in this. I understood perfectly what he meant with "randomly". Problem is that in some languages besides English, randomly can mean something similar, but not exactly the same. When he means random stats, he doesn't want to say "I will throw a d100 for each stat and I'll be done", more like, "I will designate stats with no order, rule limitation or similar".

and instead to clarify my view a little on what we actually were discussing (i think)...

I know we haven't seen the entire ruleset yet. But assuming there won't be rules or guidelines at all is, well, imo strange. My guess is that the rules won't be as strict in defining npc's as 3e, but more like guidelines (eg. a lvl.4 brute should have between x and y HP and do a total of z dam etc.). Guidelines don't really equal No Rules (unless you really want to be pedantic about it).

 

[Cirex]

Which is also wrong. Unless the designers are all lying.

That's what he meant.

When I think of randomly stating a NPC I think of something like this :
"Ok, this villain needs high HP, but not that high or PCs will be out of resources and eventually die. I will give him 70 HP".

70 is a random number, but following some guidelines. Giving it 7 or 700 (random numbers too) HP wouldn't make much sense.