15 Minute NPCs

[Storminator]

Just give me a race and a class, including prestige, and I'll give it a shot. If anyone else wants to try they are welcome to.

Edit: To clarify, just give me ONE class (it can be prestige) and ONE race (any monster you'd like). Also, I'll pick an arbitrary CR. Let's say...16th.

Mageblade 8/Unfettered 8, 32 point buy, 2 level bumps in Int.

PS

 

[takasi]

. . .Foodies don't let foodies do Mickey D's

I think the analogy of McDonald's vs making it yourself is a bad one.

I think a better analogy is gardening.

Sure, you can put a lot of time and effort into creating a greenhouse and picking out the perfect seeds. You can purchase a lot of pesticides and carefully prune and weed until everything is perfect.

Or you can just throw some seeds down and see what happens. Sometimes the simplest of gardens produce delicious fruit.

 

[Set]

[tangent] You get a bazillion cool points for having Mok as your avatar. [/tangent]



I tend to think up characters in bed, the car, the shower, at the gym, etc. so by the time my fingers hit the keyboard, I already know race and class, basic theme (dual axe wielding human-hunter bounty hunter urban ranger!) and have most of the feats and skills and equipment stuff worked out in my head. I then bang keys, check the SRD, use an online Ability point-buy calculator and flip open and closed about 10 books (I'm horrible about sticking to core, I always have to have something that I read somewhere, but can't remember where...). Even then, in 90 minutes I can (and did, last night) rewrite and change classes / feats / skills / equipment for all of the NPCs in Death in Freeport, to make them better suit my tastes (Egil became a 1st level Archivist, the press gang and yellow shields flunkies became 1st Fighters, because I hate NPC classes, etc.).

I don't give NPCs Prestige Classes, generally, so that's not an issue. I don't really like Prestige Classes anyway, but if a player wants one, I'll let him have it. But they are 'prestigious.' That dude on the street corner isn't going to have one. I don't care much for most NPC classes, either, so I tend to axe them as well. Considering that the big difference between a 1st level Warrior and a 1st level Fighter is a Feat and a hit point, it's not terribly time-consuming to adapt them.

 

[takasi]

Mageblade 8/Unfettered 8, 32 point buy, 2 level bumps in Int.

Didn't ask for point buy or stat selection. I will do that. And please only these classes:

Barbarian
Bard
Beguiler
Cleric
Dragon Shaman
Druid
Duskblade
Favored Soul
Fighter
Hexblade
Knight
Marshal
Monk
Paladin
Ranger
Rogue
Scout
Sorcerer
Swashbuckler
Warlock
Warmage
Wizard

If you want a prestige class, please nothing psionic or from Tome of Magic or Bo9S or Incarnum.

(I also won't be available until after 10am Pacific. )

 

[hexgrid]

Just give me a race and a class, including prestige, and I'll give it a shot. If anyone else wants to try they are welcome to.

Edit: To clarify, just give me ONE class (it can be prestige) and ONE race (any monster you'd like). Also, I'll pick an arbitrary CR. Let's say...16th.

What would this accomplish? You've already said that you aren't doing the same thing as Mearls when you create an NPC, and have different goals in mind. I'd much rather have the stat-block Mearls spent 90 minutes on than the one you copied out of the PHB2.

 

[Wormwood]

(I also won't be available until after 10pm Pacific. )

Don't you think 13 hours on one NPC is a little excessive?

 

[takasi]

Don't you think 13 hours on one NPC is a little excessive?

Edited to 10 am right afterwards, sorry. Please don't post the request until after that.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

What you are addressing: the same problem will exist in 4e.

To the same extent? Or have they actually addressed the problem proactively, as they claim to have done, and have reduced the impact of complexity on NPC and monster design?

 

[bgardner]

12th level wizard NPC, specialist (your choice). Gnome. Assume he's the big bad NPC at the end of the module and he's ready to fight the PCs!

 

[takasi]

What would this accomplish? You've already said that you aren't doing the same thing as Mearls when you create an NPC, and have different goals in mind. I'd much rather have the stat-block Mearls spent 90 minutes on than the one you copied out of the PHB2.

It's generated, not copied. The better the generation method the better the NPCs. Improve the PHB 2 generation method by making more feat trees, including more classes, adding variance to spell selections, etc.