15 Minute NPCs

[takasi]

But to summarize, you've quickly made a PC that is

1) incomplete. Initiative? Grapple? Familiar? Spell DCs?
2) wrong. Melee attack, ranged attack, skills, feats, stats, and spells are incorrect.
3) weak. He might not live thru the 1st round vs my 7th level party. If his init roll is bad, he might not act!

PS

It's approximately 90% complete. Let me try again. Any suggestions for the race and class?

 

[takasi]

I don't know about you, but I actually prefer "this is a game where I don't feel shafted by dice" over "this is so natural and realistic, which is why I have sucky stats and yours are better."

Different players have different styles. You sound like you have more gamist tendencies and look for balance and fairness when roleplaying. No one style is better than the other.

 

[Storminator]

It's approximately 90% complete. Let me try again. Any suggestions for the race and class?

Here's my earlier example. I think it's rather unfair for the exercise, because it's hard. It really is a character I've used, and I found him non-trivial make. I prefer humans, but I'm addicted to feats.

I want a bounty hunter. Fighter/Paladin/Ranger. 32 point buy, 2 level bumps in INT. CR 16. I want to explore if I want one class dominant (and if so, which one), or balanced levels. Stat the warhorse as well, and the animal companion. Again with an eye towards different level combos.

PS

edit: the incompleteness of your NPC doesn't bother me, but you gotta admit, there's a significant list of mistakes.

 

[Cam Banks]

Different players have different styles. You sound like you have more gamist tendencies and look for balance and fairness when roleplaying. No one style is better than the other.

Only at the beginning, and I don't know if it's gamist or not. Essentially, it's about making sure everyone starts on the same page, with the same opportunity to succeed or fail as they make decisions in the game itself. As I say, I'm fine with random chance once chargen is done, because that's what makes the game tense and exciting. I'm really not happy with one player getting all the spotlight and success because random die rolls during chargen gave him a better character.

At the end of the day, we're talking about a game. The playing of the game produces the story and the entertainment. If we can get NPCs created quickly, without a loss of flavor and characterization, then great. I don't like how long it takes to make a 3.5 character's stat block correctly, without mistakes. And I don't like that the mistakes are so key to making the stat block fail to do what it's supposed to do.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[takasi]

Here's my earlier example. I think it's rather unfair for the exercise,

It doesn't qualify. One class, and it can be prestige. Do not tell me the point buy.

And it sounds like your 'addicton to feats' is catering to gamism. That is not my style, and if you like that then speed is not your priority when it comes to making builds.

The people who complain about the amount of time to build stat blocks are not the same people who enjoy spending hours tinkering with 'which feat is best' or 'how many levels of ranger are optimal for this bounty hunter'.

 

[takasi]

Only at the beginning, and I don't know if it's gamist or not. Essentially, it's about making sure everyone starts on the same page, with the same opportunity to succeed or fail as they make decisions in the game itself. As I say, I'm fine with random chance once chargen is done, because that's what makes the game tense and exciting. I'm really not happy with one player getting all the spotlight and success because random die rolls during chargen gave him a better character.

So does every NPC in your game have the same point buy?

At the end of the day, we're talking about a game. The playing of the game produces the story and the entertainment. If we can get NPCs created quickly, without a loss of flavor and characterization, then great. I don't like how long it takes to make a 3.5 character's stat block correctly, without mistakes. And I don't like that the mistakes are so key to making the stat block fail to do what it's supposed to do.

The PHB 2 presents a method (which could use a little work for multiclassing and variety in feats/spells/skills) for faster to build NPCs.

That was part of the selling point of the PHB 2. In that section it says you can make NPCs in 5 minutes. The rules are the same, but the tools to aid you are new. I am guessing that we'll see something like this in 4th edition.

I think some respect should be given to the PHB 2 for 'paving the way' in presenting tables for recommended equipment, feat trees, skills, spells, etc, becauase I don't think any of those "time consuming" decisions are going away in 4th edition.

 

[Set]

I'm beginning to see the problem. If people want to use every book in creation, including 3rd party stuff like Monte's Arcana Evolved, and finesse over feats from a dozen sources to optimize their character, then it's, IMO, not an 'NPC' that's going to interact with the party for ~5 rounds before dying horribly, it's a labor of love that you might as well play as a character!

Yeah, if I wanted to play hopscotch with every book in my collection, I could also take 90 minutes, or even a couple of *months* making a character.

But, not being a masochist, I don't devote this level of min-maxing to NPCs. They get the basics. I use some odd classes (swapping out Clerics for Archivists) or take advantage of class options from Unearthed Arcana (Urban Ranger, Thug Fighter, Cloistered Cleric, Battle Sorcerer, Steadfast Monk), but I don't feel the need to go dig out every Race of... and Complete Splatbook to see if Expeditious Dodge is going to be micro-optimally better than Dodge in the couple rounds that this character is going to live in the presence of the PCs.

A character I'm going to play, perhaps for months? Yeah, I'll devote some time to finding a good fit, although the Paladin / Ranger / Fighter mentioned above is definitely more multi-classy than I like to play. I find that mixing classes often seems to result in sucking at multiple roles, rather than being competent at one (Fighter being an exception. 2 levels of Fighter can often be quite the boon to a Ranger, Paladin, Barbarian, etc. build). The Rangers Animal Companion, for instance. I'd sacrifice it for Distracting Strike from PHB2 or something, 'cause Ranger companions are already speed bumps / wastes of flesh for *single-class* Rangers, let alone multiclassers!

 

[Lackhand]

Those of you who don't get the problem with NPC generation may already be using 4th editions rules for NPC generation.

Seriously: You're making much simpler (and lower powered) NPCs whose rules coverage is less than those of the PCs. These are not the core rules for 3rd edition D&D.

So what they're doing certainly won't hurt you, and it's nice to have your views vindicated and recognized as the Official Way To Do It, right?

 

[Cam Banks]

So does every NPC in your game have the same point buy?

Sure, if they're Named Characters they'll get the same basic values as the player heroes. If they're mooks or thugs, they get standard array. Anything in between gets elite.

After writing so many of these for "official" books, it simply became the default.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Storminator]

It doesn't qualify. One class, and it can be prestige. Do not tell me the point buy.

I know it doesn't qualify. Stop restricting the characters in my game world to prove that a character can be made in 15 minutes. I know that a character that doesn't meet my needs can be made quickly. Make a character I actually want, but do it quickly, accurately, and make it a challenging game moment when my PCs meet him.

And it sounds like your 'addicton to feats' is catering to gamism. That is not my style, and if you like that then speed is not your priority when it comes to making builds.

Completely wrong. I do want gamism. I like that, and I want NPCs I can make quickly and accurately. I want 3 priorities met: speed, accuracy, and challenging in game.

The people who complain about the amount of time to build stat blocks are not the same people who enjoy spending hours tinkering with 'which feat is best' or 'how many levels of ranger are optimal for this bounty hunter'.

No. I want to tinker with characters, I want to make them correctly, and I want it to be fast enough that I can build an adventure full of interesting characters. All three. That's the rub that you seem to be missing. It's not enough to make them fast. If you can only make fast characters by skipping the other two requirements, you've implicitly conceded that making characters takes too long.

PS