How to determine XP for NPCs?

[dontremb]

I'm very new at this, but I'm wondering how you determine experience points for encounters with class levels?

For example, a level 1 wizard, fighter, cleric encounter would be MUCH more difficult than 3 level 1 goblins.


To be clear, I want to be able to use their action points, and healer surges... Everything, just as if they were PCs, but controlled by the DM to fight the players.

Thanks for any help.

 

[the Jester]

They aren't pcs, they're npcs, which means they're monsters. I don't know that I'd ever run a fight with pc-style bad guys- too much to keep track of- but if I did, I'd just call them 1st level monsters.

If you really feel like this short changes the pcs xp wise, make elite monsters out of them and do it that way. But what you're asking about really isn't how 4e npcs are designed to run. Look at some of the "human" and other pc race entries in the MM and MM2 for examples.

 

[dontremb]

Thank you very much for this information. I think you helped me understand something basic that I was missing.

 

[the Jester]

Thank you very much for this information. I think you helped me understand something basic that I was missing.

The cool thing about this approach is that you can give your "classed" bad guys powers and abilities that the pcs will never use!

When my party fought an evil druid, he had NO pc druid abilities, though some were very similar... on the other hand, I could have easily built him using only pc abilities as well. It's all about what works for the villain/campaign.

 

[Ketjak]

That said and understood, if one wanted to throw an NPC built like a PC at the party, how much XP would one award for defeating it?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That said and understood, if one wanted to throw an NPC built like a PC at the party, how much XP would one award for defeating it?

I have no idea. The problem is, that a character made like a PC tends to have hitpoints like a standard creature, damage like an elite(or possibly a solo depending on how you make them), while having more variety of options than most solos, probably has the ability to gain enough hitpoints back using powers and second winds to count as having elite hitpoints, their defenses are in elite levels...

They seems closest to Elites in difficulty but are in between Solo and Elite strength. Solos have way more hitpoints and therefore stick around long enough to USE their options. But if you have a group of PC-like monsters who can work together, it can easily double their individual power(assuming they don't die until negative bloodied value, they get death saves, and so on). This can increase each of them to the strength of a solo.

I'd give out XP for a solo of their level just to be safe.

 

[Turtlejay]

Even PC's built by the DMG guidelines are tough. Building one to full PC specs would give you trouble, especially at higher level. consider a high level PC as an adversary:
- No incentive to save dailies/enounters/AP's, so combat goes daily, AP: daily, daily, daily, encounter, enocounter, etc until dead.
- PC level damage and utility
- Lower HP's than a monster. Much lower.

If you did a party of PC's, it would be a 50% chance of a TPK, and likely a party member *will* die. Imagine how fun it would be for an Epic Orbizard to stunlock your character. Yay, you might as well go home! Or if an epic barbarian decides to nova on your PC, he might as well rage strike, and take the 9[w] rage strike at that.

Even at lower levels, the adversary PC's have no incentive to guard their resources. At 5th level each NPC can use their two dailies in the first round. Do you want Lead the Attack on you for an encounter? Guess what, you've got it, and more. Add to that the PC healing being in the enemies hands, and you have a swingy, deadly encounter waiting to happen.

Even the NPC guidelines in the DMG make for a fairly tough fight. I would use those as reccomendations for how to allocate powers, but stat up your enemies as full on monsters with a monster stat block instead of power cards. Use the mechanics of the powers you want to emulate, but with to hit and damage values more in line with a monster of their level. They will *seem* like enemy adventurers, but it will be a lot more fun for you to run and for them to play.

Notice, I did not even get into the complexity of trying to run a party of adventurers *by yourself*. Yuck.

Jay

 

[MrMyth]

My advice would definitely be to use the NPC creation rules in the DMG, found on pages 187-188. They are an excellent resource for making class-based opponents who feel just like a PC, but adjusted to be appropriate for an encounter - and thus making them easy to calculate XP for, rather than trying to figure out how much to give for an NPC built using the normal PC rules. (Which would make them much more dangerous than appropriate in a fight.)

Note that the above rules are seperate from the NPC class templates in the DMG, found on pages 182-183. Those are primarily for taking existing monsters and giving them classes, rather than building a full NPC from scratch.

 

[dontremb]

My advice would definitely be to use the NPC creation rules in the DMG, found on pages 187-188. They are an excellent resource for making class-based opponents who feel just like a PC, but adjusted to be appropriate for an encounter - and thus making them easy to calculate XP for, rather than trying to figure out how much to give for an NPC built using the normal PC rules. (Which would make them much more dangerous than appropriate in a fight.)

Note that the above rules are seperate from the NPC class templates in the DMG, found on pages 182-183. Those are primarily for taking existing monsters and giving them classes, rather than building a full NPC from scratch.

Thank you guys for all the responses. I will look into these pages in the DMG.

 

[ValhallaGH]

That said and understood, if one wanted to throw an NPC built like a PC at the party, how much XP would one award for defeating it?

I'd figure that each member of the opposition was an Elite monster, and work XP from there.

• 1 Action point each.
• Healing surges that they can use in combat.
• Second Wind.
• Multiple Encounter Powers
• Daily Powers.

So, an equal number of NPCs, of the party level, using PC-like abilities would be an extremely dangerous encounter (X Elite N monsters = Double typical encounter XP), about a Level + 4 encounter. The DMG strongly recommends not using anything higher, meaning that this would be a great fight for a climactic, campaign-ending encounter, where the PCs have a significant chance of dying.

Good luck.