PC's fighting NPC's who are classed...

[Mal Malenkirk]

In an "equal" fight, it's the PCs who seem, in my experience, to have the advantage.

I think you underestimate the advantage of having a unified command.

With th DM at the helm, a party of NPC can act with more cohesion than most PC group. It's like playing chess.

This compensate for the players greater mastery of their own characters.

 

[green slime]

Ah mouseferatu, while you may be correct in some aspects of your analysis, I think the main key is that the DM is overworked, trying to efficiently judge the whole outcome, and make sensible decisions for 5 combatants, + any creatures standing by, while each of the PCs has but one thing to do.

But the main purpose is to give the PCs a challenge, not to kill them.

So if the band of anti-PCs work for the opposite team, or are employed to hunt down the same missing merchant by another faction, or just plain claim the credit for the PCs victories. But like PCs, these guys want to live, and they always have resources to escape, or bribe their way out of trouble.

Every battle does not need to be to the death, sometimes it is just enough to hinder the PCs a round or three, and then withdraw. Especially if the anti-PCs have lots of healing resources.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I think you underestimate the advantage of having a unified command.

With th DM at the helm, a party of NPC can act with more cohesion than most PC group. It's like playing chess.

This compensate for the players greater mastery of their own characters.

It's not really a question of "underestimating." This isn't guesswork on my part. This is what I've seen, consistently and under multiple DMs. Usually, unless you do this at low levels, the party has had time to learn to work effectively together, so the "single command" doesn't provide as much of an advantage as it might. That might not be the case with everyone, but with a party that knows how to work together, it seems--again, from my experience--to be the case.

Originally posted by green slime
But the main purpose is to give the PCs a challenge, not to kill them.

True. I didn't mean to imply that this had to end in death. Still, all else being equal, the instances I've seen have definitely favored the PCs if/when both groups had roughly the same objectives. (That is, one wasn't trying to escape from the other, or some such.)

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

It's not really a question of "underestimating." This isn't guesswork on my part. This is what I've seen, consistently and under multiple DMs.

*shrug*

I wasn't guessing either. YMMV I guess.

 

[Black Omega]

I mostly use NPC's with classes since Rokugan is 99% human and the PC's aren't generally in the right area to be encountering any of the truly nasty Shadowlands creatures yet. That did change recently though...

NPC's with classes can be truly nasty. It's -alot- of work to try and coordinate five or six NPC's to their optimum efficiency but I've generally found that just having a basic idea of what they want to do and making sure they work toward executing it works fine. One group my players encountered simply tried to flank at every chance and nearly killed half the group before a couple of grease spells from the mage turned things around.

Alot can depend on the PC's though. The more they are a well oiled machine the bigger the edge they have. My group at times has displayed awful tactics, so even simple tactics from the NPC's were more effective than expected.

 

[Darklone]

Experiences of a DM

Well. I have to admit that I usually lost against players with the same odds. Reasons: I didn't want to kill them. That way I didn't attack them one by one with all of the enemy fighters and let everyone battle one opponent. Though I scared my players to death with a little battle we had once... They encountered a hostile barbarian tribe (Don't ask why they were hostile... the players made some diplomacy efforts such as :"Lick my boots you dirty ape!").

Players were lvl 7 to 8. 7 of them. They encountered 6 barbarians (lvl 5-7). One barbarian/bard, one barbarian sorcerer, one barbarian cleric.... two barbarian rogues, one barbarian. You have to take into account that the barbarian had NO magical items (lowmagic campaign) while the players had one or two magical gimmicks each.

Well. The barbarian rogues scouted and found the players and set up an ambush. Players (they nearly all had rogue levels, but why hide or watch out if you are the hero?) didn't notice them but once. Well. First round. BBrogues tumbled between the players and flanked their mage. Barbarian nearly chopped a fighter rogue to pieces with a raging charge (and bulls strength). BBcleric cast bless and bard sang, both advanced into melee range. Ah. Their sorcerer dropped a lightning bolt down there (didn't want to give him fireball). The BBrogues evaded, players were caught flatfooted mainly... no saves. The barbarian enjoyed his endure elements (lightning and fire) and had no problems with the damage. Then the players rolled real bad for ini. Result: three players on the ground before anyone of them acted. Well... you don't have to mess with the biggest barbarian tribe around, don't you?

 

[Storm Raven]

Re: Experiences of a DM

The BBrogues evaded, players were caught flatfooted mainly... no saves.

Umm, house rule on the no saves while flat-footed thing? That isn't actually in the rules, at least not in the SRD where it describes the effects of being flat-footed.

 

[Oberton]

I am of the school of thought , if the players screw up during combat they must face the consequences... period. This does not mean I am out to get them or that I am a RAT BASTARD DM (*which I have been called*), but that combat in a "middle fantasy" world should be deadly. I learned this lesson really well from a game master called OLD ONE. He runs a story hour called , " Faded Glory ", he post his campaign on a regular basis on the EN WORLD message boards.

His enemies (Human or other wise ) are run with an appropriate level of intelligence and their combat tactics reflect this.

Later!

 

[Petrosian]

My two cents...

I get riked every time i see PRESUMPTIONS like were posted earlier... that the NPCs are all spelled up and are always aware the PCs are coming and so on...

In my games, with a wide variety of settings and challenges the PCs are the surprisers about as often as they are the surprisees. Matter of fact, in the various cases its roughly... very roughly... 10% bad guys have major setup advantage (prespelled, favorable terrain and/or good knowledge and timing vs either surprised or unprepared party), 20% bad guys have minor setup advantage (they spot party first but preparations can be overheard... basically a surprise round), 40$ even steven setupm 20% PCs have minor advantage and 10% PCs have major advantage.

The difference between a "hey there is trouble" scenario and one where we have only one side prespelled is HUGE, at least 2 maybe more in El. Often for me its the difference between rout and fight.

My NPC wizards, clerics and druids OFTEN have spell slots open, for those day to day uses they will need a spell for. They rarely have ALL COMBAT spells unless they knew ahead of time it was such and such coming. As such, BARRING time to prepare (and foreknowledge) they usually have only about half their spells as BATTLE spells. Items can assist this but items are usually less deadly than their spell counterparts due to lowest save Dcs and usually low caster level.

Thats one of the things that makes sorcerers and bards so much more dnagerous as an adversary, their 1-2 combat spells are available with every slot they have. never an unprepared moment.

Anyway, i use classed NPCs all the time and find them to work great. Plan them reasonably and it should be a challenge. Don't have them all walking around as if five minutes ago they decided for some reason to cast all their combat prep spells and that they knew this morning they needed every spell for combat.

 

[EOL]

My biggest problem with putting PC's against NPC's is that the CR system breaks down with NPC's. Essentially an NPC has a CR equal to his level which means 4 level X characters should be challanged by 1 level X NPC. In general that is not the case with a 4 to 1 advantage the PC's generally stomp all over the NPC, especially if the NPC is only equipped with the suggested amount. Which means in addition to 4 to 1 odds the PC's have more magic items. I know it's not really fair to use dragon CR's but to give the extreme example which would your party rather face a Dragon of thier challange rating or a single NPC of the a CR equal to their level.