Treasures, Rewards and an NPC Party

[dvvega]

Greetings,

not sure if this is a rules question or not since it stands across two things from my perspective.

The 4.0 rules indicate that monsters should not be allowed to use the magical items in the treasure packets assigned to their encounter for balance reasons. I can understand this and have been enjoying the balance of this edition very much.

Although it seems "wrong" to ban the Orc Barbarian from using a magical weapon I can disassociate myself from this inconsistency in my game.

However I have been planning to send my group up against classed humans at some stage - not the Humans in MM1 or MM2 but rather an actual command group that is built like a normal adventuring party - 2 Defenders, 1 Striker, 1 Controller, 1 Leader.

Unfortunately this leads to a conundrum. The equipment for this NPC group should be relative to their level correct? So they should be carrying gear similar to that of the party.

So this makes them dangerous and a challenge to the party. There will be 5 characters of equal level. With the added gear I would personally label the encounter as Hard and away we go.

However at the end of the encounter - assuming the PCs win - all that gear will instantly throw balance out the window. It will give them more resources than a party of their level (even if they sell items they do not want they can pool the money and buy things they are missing).

So what is a DM to do with this? It is a rules question since it relates to treasure parcels and their handling. It is a rules question since it relates to challenge of encounters with magic items in them. It is a DM question about handling the aftermath.

T.I.A.
D

 

[Flipguarder]

Ok, my thoughts on the subject.

1. Although a cool idea, and desired by many DMs, using NPCs built "like" PCs is generally not a great idea.
2. The quickest and easiest solution would be to tell the PCs that this stuff is tuned directly to the people who used them, and thus cannot be used by the PCs. However allow them to sell said items for about the worth of a hard treasure parcel.
3. If you played your cards right, you might be able to give the enemies items that the PCs can't use all that effectively.
4. My favorite solution would be to lower all the Enemies gear level by 1. (if they have +3 weapons, make them +2) and don't lower their att bonus for doing so. Pcs should be none the wiser, and then you can significantly lower the amount of stuff you are throwing at them.

 

[fba827]

yeah, the enemies get built-in bonses that mimic the "default" enhancement bonus progression which is why you don't add the bonus "again" if using magic items with the NPCs.

Having said that, come up with two similar lists.
One list includes the types of weapons/properties/powers that you want the NPCs to have -- and then use those properties/powers as part of the NPC stat block (i.e. as if abilities of the NPCs rather than of the weapons).
And then make a second (somewhat similar, perhaps similar theme) list of weapons/magic items that you include as their "equipment" that you are comfortable with the PCs getting as physical loot for themselves.

Also, if the NPCs have a bunch of potions/consumables/weapons(like a backup longbow or something) that they never got to use (and that you didn't want the PCs to get, for whatever reason) then simply pretend they didn't exist at all. Sure you have 3 fire resistance potions on the list as well as a longbow of dragon slaying +2 but they never pulled out those items nor did you describe them, so no reason to worry about those items floating to the party if they would already get enough other loot.

Also note however, that in giving a NPC party appropriate loot of their level as if built like PCs, they'll have 1 magic item above their level, one magic item at thier level, and one magic item below their level, and then some gold to buy other stuff. If the PCs are at the same level, then the loot will be more or less at level (though you'll just hit the issue of too many items when in combination to any loot they already have, rather than too powerful items). In which case you compensate by simply not giving them 'magic loot' for the next several adventures (or at the very least dramatically slowing down the rate of loot)

 

[LostSoul]

Eh, don't worry about it. It won't be that unbalanced either way. Even if this NPC party had as many magic items as a regular PC party, I doubt it would make the game unplayable.

I gave a 1st level Paladin a 7th or 8th level sword and never really noticed it.

As for NPCs actually using their magic items? Let them and don't worry about it. It's not like a +1 or +2 is going to be the difference between a cakewalk and a TPK. (Well, it might, but that would be awesome.)

As an aside, I have a custom monster called a Human Crossbowman. One of his powers is: jagged bolt; encounter; ranged 20; +7 v Ref, 1d10+3 and slowed (sv). He's got a "jagged bolt" in his inventory. If the PCs feel like using it, I let them. It slows (save ends) on a hit.

If the PCs kill 20 of these guys before they use the jagged bolts, who cares. Let them enjoy it.

 

[Shin Okada]

The 4.0 rules indicate that monsters should not be allowed to use the magical items in the treasure packets assigned to their encounter for balance reasons. I can understand this and have been enjoying the balance of this edition very much.

Well, Chapter 10 of DMG, notably "Customizing Monsters" and "Creating NPCs" sections tells you how to handle magic items in opponents' hands.

Using actual PC creation rule, instead of NPC creation rule, may not break the game. But will not give you (and your players) better game experience either.

Basically, PCs hit tend to inflict more damages and have less HPs total comparing to monsters or NPCs of equal level. By using PCs as opponents, you will make combat encounters more ... accidental.

Also, PCs are much more complex than monsters or NPCs. By using PCs as opponents, you as a DM suddenly have to handle multiple times more stats and resources.

Unless you definitely need to use PC creation rules to spawn opponents, use NPC creation rules. That is much easier.

 

[Amaroq]

Yeah, I don't know what you think you're "buying" by running a full-on-PC-vs-PC encounter, either.

The way I tend to run my game I use Monster Builder or Monster Maker to create and stat out my monsters .. this lets me build monsters that feel more like a Striker than a Brute, or more like a PC Leader than the monster-role-Leader.

When I decide to drop a great magic item in, I usually put it on the guy who is wearing it - it feels a lot more satisfying to wrest the Staff of Storms from the hands of the dead shaman than it does to find it in a treasure pile somewhere .. but I do follow the DMG guidelines around it; usually I'll add the magic item's daily power to the monster's power list, or I might buff something up (e.g., somebody with Iron Armbands of Power does get the +2 damage) but as I do this often enough I've a pretty good idea how much this will or won't push the difficulty, and for the most part I steer clear of modifying attack bonus and defenses.

 

[Turtlejay]

I gladly violate the DMG's recommendations about letting NPC's use the magic items they are about to drop. In my first 4e adventure the hobgoblin warlord used the daily power of a flaming warhammer to ignite the rogue. He burned most of the battle. It is one of my favorites. I agree that it makes the reward more worth it.

Jay

 

[Jhaelen]

I gladly violate the DMG's recommendations about letting NPC's use the magic items they are about to drop.

Ditto! Imho, it's generally fine to allow npcs to use the daily/encounter powers of the item.

It's similar to the theme powers in DMG2. Adding them also doesn't really change their power level to warrant more xp.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There are a couple of points to make:

1) You can certainly have monsters use items. The DMG has a chart for 'magic item threshold' that shows what the effects are. Basically an on-level item won't add anything to the monster in terms of to-hit/damage. A really good item will usually give them a +1. The upshot of this is that monsters don't really need items and if you give one a fairly appropriate item it will either do nothing for the monster or give it a very slight edge. Some item properties might help more and some item powers could be handy but the vast majority of powers only work once a day anyhow, so the difference is still small.

2) Using NPCs and ESPECIALLY using full PCs as monsters is sub-par in 4e. The battles are very swingy. Because PCs have high damage output and fairly low hit points you can easily run into a situation where one side gets the initiative and pretty much wins the battle on round 1 or 2. Beyond that NPCs have no need to hold back anything for later in the day, so they can just nova all over the party with complete abandon. A few good init rolls by the NPCs coupled with dropping 5 daily powers in round 1 is ugly. Sure the NPCs have LESS powers overall, but they have an AP and certainly have a daily and an encounter power, all of which they can burn in the first round. The players can reciprocate in kind, IF they still have all their powers, but often even if they get good init rolls they won't drop their best powers right off and may well be toast by round 2 when they realize they need to unload the big guns.

The moral of the story is use monster stat blocks for opponents. If you look at Fallcrest and KotS for example you'll see that all the NPCs that have combat stats are done using the monster guidelines. In fact I don't know of a single instance where WotC ever used the NPC rules at all. In DMG2 they introduced a hacked version called Companion Characters for friendly allied NPCs that fight with the party. They have never published NPC class templates for any classes beyond PHB1 either, which indicates to me that they consider that subsystem essentially dead at this point. Instead they have monster style class templates for all the new classes, indicating that would be the supported method for making an NPC that is portraying something similar to a classed PC.

As a general point 4e does not presuppose that classes actually exist as a concept in the game world. Unlike earlier editions of D&D where the default assumption seemed to be that every NPC was just a PC that was run by the DM and used the same rules 4e jettisoned that whole idea. Classes are just the rules by which the heroes are defined. Everything else in the world is its own thing and has no exact rules. Most NPCs will have abilities SIMILAR to what a PC has, but they aren't a 'level 7 fighter', they're just some guy that is good at melee combat and wears heavy armor. From the in-game perspective they may be considered equivalent to the PC fighter but mechanically they're just whatever the DM needs them to be.

So my advice would be to use monster stat blocks. Then you don't NEED to give the monsters lootable magic items. You CAN, but its optional and you can decide it more on the basis of what loot you want to drop and less on the necessity to make the battle challenging. Also remember that if items are lower level than that the party has already they'll just disenchant/sell them for 20% of face value. You can then consider their loot value at 20% to start with, which means it may be a good treasure drop, but it won't blow the parcel system out of the water.

Also if I were creating a really special group of opponents like a rival party or something I'd consider the story concept of giving out an artifact or something. This group should be pretty memorable and a fairly major plot point, so that could be a way to create a treasure that is exciting but not part of the parcel system (artifacts aren't loot in 4e, they are more like an NPC which is also a magic item and the DM should take them away at a later point in the adventure).

Anyway, just some thoughts. Don't let the rules get in the way of having fun!

 

[DracoSuave]

Actually, they did print the templates for post phb1 classes in the dmg2.