Anyone else find it annoying to figure out skills for NPCs?

[Turjan]

If the thread tries to give a solution, the better .

Does anybody know whether DMG II is supposed to address something along these lines?

 

[Mallus]

I work very hard to maintain that horizontal consistancy. To me that is called "fairness".

That would be true if D&D was had a typical adversarial paradigm; players with evenly-matched resources competing against each another on a "level playing field", say like chess.

Except its not like that at all. The DM creates a series a challenges and the players (usually cooperatatively) try and overcome them.

The DM isn't a player. He's the guy that builds the obstacle course that the contestants run through...

What's "fair" is an entirely seperate issue. It has nothing to do with the toolset used to build NPC's.

 

[Aaron2]

The fundamental problem is that DMs are shackled to systems and methods for monster and NPC creation that are, at their core, designed for use by players.

!?!?!?!? DMs are "shackled" now? Give me a break. Having different rules for players and NPCs only results in confusion and twice as many rules. Witness 1e/2e.

There's a saying among Champions GMs: "Points are for players". Same thing. If you tried to fully point out every NPC in a Fantasy Hero game you would go insane. Clinical tests have proven it.


Aaron

 

[CockyWriter]

You think skills is bad?

Try doing SPELLS!

Usually I just make up crap on the fly, but you're right, it doesn't feel very authentic when you BS and manipulate the rules to your advantage.

 

[GlassJaw]

No comments on my spreadsheet. :\

 

[S'mon]

The problem, Nemm, is that you can have detail, or you can have expediency. Unfortunately, I've not yet found a game system that offers both, and ESPECIALLY not d20.

My solution is to make their skill check equal to (A) straight d20 roll if they are not known for a skill, (B) bonus equal to class level if they have the skill, or (C) class level +5 if they are GOOD at a skill. If I have time, I might play with the numbers for major NPCs, but I use a very stripped down system for most non-main-bad guy NPCs.

It was seeing a prior post by Henry re this that caused my own GMing epiphany.

That quote _is_ brilliant. Gotta sig it...

 

[Zappo]

Either I want to make a well-rounded, detailed NPC, or I want a simple and fast NPC.

In the first case, assigning skills isn't a problem, because I have the character in my mind and I just need to distribute the points so as to get his mechanical representation.

In the second case, assigning skills isn't a problem either, because I just figure how many skill points he gets per level, choose that number of skills, and max them out.

It's synergies that bug me. I hate modifiers that only apply sometimes.

 

[francisca]

It used to drive me nuts when I first started DMing 3E. I'd obsess over skill points and feats. Then I quit doing so. My players trust me to not screw them over. Nobody cares if I blow a point or two. Of course, I'm lucky. I've seen screaming matches between a player and a DM, because the player knew, just KNEW, that an NPC had too many skill points in something.

I'm pretty well sworn off of DMing 3.5 at this point, for various reasons, but as soon as I quit working about every freaking detail, and just thumbnailed what I thought was appropriate for 90% of the NPCs, DMing 3E got much better. Of course, for special NPCs, are detailed them out just like a PC, but they were worth the effort.

 

[Piratecat]

No comments on my spreadsheet. :\

You posted it two hours ago, you big goober. No one's going to use it until they have to stat up a NPC. . . then it's going to be invaluable.

 

[S'mon]

This kind of goes against the grain of my own philosophy about games and rules. I work very hard to maintain that horizontal consistancy. To me that is called "fairness".

Fairness in GMing is important. However IMO fairness has nothing to do with whether you pregenerate NPC stat blocks in PC-level detail, or just wing it on the fly. Unfairness would arguably be altering your NPC stat block to take account of a PC ability the NPC wouldn't know about - eg the PC casts fire ball, you decide the NPC had precast protection from fire in his buff-array. Even this isn't necessarily unfair, it just takes more GM effort to avoid pro or anti PC bias. Giving the NPC 1 in 6 chance to have precast prot-fr-fire would be a reasonable compromise.