3.5 breakdown at high levels?

[Steely Dan]

Would an Orc Wereboar Druid/Warshaper fullfill your request?

What about a Drow Half-Dragon Ranger/Sorcerer/Arcane Archer?

While I admit I didn't actually post the stats it took me about 20 seconds to come up with these ideas.

Now stat them out at 17th level, down to the last skill point.

I used to love spending 13 hours tweaking my Tiefling Fighter 2/Incarnate 13/Necrocarnate 3 BBEG, but it could be a bit soul destroying when he goes down, quite unspectacularly, within 2 rounds.

 

[Fenes]

Moving from a random task, let's look at some I've actually faced. The primary antagonists IMC are is an empire that slants extremely strong on the psionics. Set up the two following scenarios:

1) An advanced group has made contact with several local orc tribes and mobilized them. Craft a command group consisting of only human and elan classed NPCs, minimum four. Properly equip them, and make them an appropriate boss encounter for a five PC group of 15th level characters. Include at least one psion and one other psi-flavored character. For extra credit, add in "lair" guards comprised of either the human/elan mix (emphasizing the psionics, again) or elite orcs. Nothing more monstrous than orcs is permitted, for flavor reasons.

2) Create a competing group racing for the same relic. This group is gnollish and classed, with at least one binder (flavor -- gnoll are the ultimate scavengers, even where divine power is concerned) and one ranger. Ranger pets are permitted, but the encounter has to be weighted toward classed foes. Properly equip and scale to the same party as above.

Birched's NPC Generator For some quick and dirty mooks.

Character Generator for the boss types and special foes.

 

[Fenes]

Look, you're right, it can be done. You can gloss over the details, do as Fenes suggests and either fudge it or get it "close enough". But, at the end of the day, that's NOT using the rules. That's ignoring the rules because the rules say that you should be designing your monsters down to the last skill point.

The rules do not say that. The rules allow it, but the game does not require it.

 

[Hussar]

Equally hilarious are folks who hail, "YOU CAN WING IT!" as proof of the evolutionary design genius of 4e.

The difference, of course, is that "you can wing it" in 4e is done under some very specific guidelines. It's not a case of voodoo eyeballing and getting it to "look right". It's a case that you have lots of information available to you up front in which to make informed decisions about what to wing and what you might want to not.

It is an evolution. 1e and 2e both contained very few guidelines as to how a given monster (for example) was built. It was all spit and bailing wire. 3e gave ironclad rules for how a monster was built, but, because the rules were pretty ironclad, it was a lot of work to try to build on top.

I see 4e as a mixture of both philosophies. Taking 3e's approach of openness and rules transparency, and wedding it to 1e's philosophy that close enough is good enough.

You might not see that as evolutionary, but I certainly do.

 

[MrGrenadine]

Birched's NPC Generator For some quick and dirty mooks.

Character Generator for the boss types and special foes.

Thanks for these!

 

[Runestar]

For instance, say I want to stat a half-drow dragon figher2/sorc6/EK4 npc. How hard can it be?

Use elite array of 15/14/13/12/10/8, add racial modifiers, assume skills are maxed out whenever possible, stat boosts from every 4 lvs to key stats. Eq can be allocated using MIC guidelines. Use average hp.

When I flip through dnd modules, I tend to mentally visualize in my mind how an npc may look like if I were to rework him (because wotc creations tend to be fairly unoptimized, so I like to rebuild them to make them better). Over time, it should get fairly intuitive.

Allocate stats as 15/14/12/8/10/13. Half dragon and drow combined modify stats as follows: +8str/+2dex/+4int/+4cha, and don't forget the 3 points from 12 class lvs (lets say I assign them to str, int and cha). So that gives me 24/16/12/13/10/18.

HP is 10+5.5+2.5*6+3.5*4+12*1, or 57. Bab is +9, base saves are +9/+3/+4. He gets 5 feats from 12 HD, +2 bonus fighter and 1 bonus EK feats. For simplicity's sake, I try to select feats which provide a constant bonus, and can thus be automatically factored into their stats, and do not require me to keep track of them, such as improved toughness, weapon focus, practiced spellcaster, the various save-boosters, maybe a regional feat like discipline.

As for eq, MIC suggests to give a cr15 npc 6 items of lvs 13, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9. This make take a little more time, but only because it is so fun to mix and match different magic items and see what works what not, so I don't really see it as a chore. Maybe belt of battle, vest of the master evoker, ring of spell battle among others.

Spells are pretty straightforward. Take some long duration buffs and assume they are always on, like mage armour and false life.

Granted, he will likely die in 1 round to a co-ordinated attack from any lv12+ party worth their salt, but hey, what do you expect from an npc cobbled together in 15 minutes mentally?

 

[Steely Dan]

Never mind.

 

[Mercule]

Equally hilarious are folks who hail, "YOU CAN WING IT!" as proof of the evolutionary design genius of 4e.

It's nothing revolutionary with 4e. I almost exclusively improvised in 1e/2e. In fact, I'm pretty sure I could still do 1e cold -- and easier than 4e.

IMO, 3e made it considerably harder to improvise. Sure, you can use stock tables, but that also narrows one of the advantages 3e has over 1e. Plus, you still have to either memorize or reference quite a few feats and abilities, even for fighters and barbarians. (Again, my games tend to strongly favor classed NPCs as antagonists -- like 4:1 or more -- so YMMV.)

 

[VanRichten]

I don't know th damage output and ACs of my party. That would require that I kept a copy of their stats with me (that is to be updated every level, which means every 1-2 sessions in my group) - and also require me to identify the "typical buffs" active for the party. I'd prefer if the system would automatically tell me what ranges to expect, not experience or by running mock combats.

I don't know how anyone else reads this, but this sounds like you don't like to DM. Being a DM you need to be aware of your parties capabilities (AC, Damage Range, Typical Buffs). This is how the game has been from day one. A system no matter how it is written won't allow you to know exactly the mind of your player. It cannot always cover any and all situations. It does not provide a contigency for all the possibilities that your players can come up with. It gives you guidelines and it is up to you to adapt those guidelines to any and all situations as you see fit. Beyond that if you cannot adapt those guidelines based on said situations then I suggest don't DM. It isn't for everyone.

 

[Steely Dan]

Being a DM you need to be aware of your parties capabilities (AC, Damage Range, Typical Buffs).

I totally agree with this, I have always had a special sheet (every edition) of the party, just for me (the DM), with their AC, HP, saving throws, speed, vision types, immunities and languages spoken.