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

[maddman75]

The fastest shortcut for such important NPCs is that they get one skill of ranks level + 3 per skill point/level. So a rogue with an int of 12 gets 9 skills. Granted, this shortcut falls short when you have multiclassing, but it generally speeds up chargen.

Heck, I make most of my PCs this way.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I rarely find skills rewarding to use when statting up DnD NPCs. I find it a lot more rewarding in D20 Modern however - guards who can actually spot things and nice occupations make a huge difference.

 

[jester47]

MOAT ends all NPC woes!

MOAT is a 3.5 Derivation of the Troll Lords SEIGE Engine found in the Castles and Crusades game. Its different enough from SEIGE to not call it SEIGE, so I call it MOAT.

MOAT works like this:

Humans can select three prime stats while all other races can select two. The player can assign these anywhere. Prime stats offer a base target of 12. Non-prime stats offer a base target of 18. In saves and task checks, all characters can add the appropriate stat bonus. Each character is allowed to add his level to the roll for tasks that involve the listed class skills. A character can always add his level for a saving throw. Will saves break down into Int, Wis, or Cha, Fortitude saves break down into Str or Con, and Reflex saves are now dex saves.

This way you are only ever keeping track of three numbers that rarely change: The stat, its modifier, and the characters appropriate class level. Armor and encumberance adjustments work in just fine. All the DM needs to know is if the class has the skill or not, and the non-character factors involved in the task.

Turning works great in this system also:

When a cleric or other class with the turning ability tries to turn undead, the player rolls a wisdom check. If Wisdom is prime then the character needs to beat a 12 + the HD of the undead type he is turning. If wisdom is not prime it is 18 + the HD of the undead. The player adds wisdom bonus and turning class level to the roll. If the roll is sucessful, the player rolls damage. If the undead are non-intelligent (that is they do not have an Int score) the player rolls 1d12. If the undead is intelligent and the HD are lower than the turning class level of the character the player rolls a 1d6, if the undead has HD higher than the character has turning levels the damage roll is always 1. The player then adds the character's charisma bonus to any damage results. This is the number of that type of undead that the character can turn in that turning. If the character is 5 levels higher than the undeads hit dice the undead are automatically destroyed. If they are 10 levels higher than the undead hit dice it is assumed they rolled the maximum damage.

This way, characters and NPCs can be horizontally consistant without being unusable for the DM.

Aaron.

 

[el-remmen]

When it comes down to it I would not feel personally satisfied doing it any other way. . . like I said, the way the skills work is the best part of 3E as far as I'm concerned - it just takes a lot of time in some cases - esp. since I tend to have a lot of multi-classed NPCs - as I prefer multi-classing to the myriad of alternative classes that have come out since the core books. . .

 

[Psychic Warrior]

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.

I agree! Spell lists for anything over a 6th level caster become terriby burdonsome. Skills I've never had much problem with (I try to do the "pick a # of skills equal to the # of skill points they get/level and max them out") but spells drive me nuts. I find I spend more time picking spells for the enemy NPC only have him dropped by the Half-Orc monk before his initiative! :\

 

[Ace]

I agree! Spell lists for anything over a 6th level caster become terriby burdonsome. Skills I've never had much problem with (I try to do the "pick a # of skills equal to the # of skill points they get/level and max them out") but spells drive me nuts. I find I spend more time picking spells for the enemy NPC only have him dropped by the Half-Orc monk before his initiative! :\

Spells can be a real chore especially if you use extra resources.

JMO but D&D is awfull prep heavy and it gets worse with time and more books -- add in some 3rd party stuff and its nightmare city

Now what I recomend for spells is having a standard loadout for different situations -- from levels 1- x

what you do is look at the chart and select the appropriate spells

Say Sor/Wiz combat L1

Magic Missile
Armor
Burning hands
Lesser Acid Orb and so on

Sor Wiz ar home Lo
Detect Magic
Mending
Mage Hand and so on

Pick 1 from each list than swap a few out for something different you have been wanting to try

Major bad guys that players WILL encounter can be customed around a theme --

AKA The Spider

Spider Climb
Web
Summon Fiendish Dire Spider

etc etc

 

[S'mon]

II run a very verisimilitudinous game - and you never know what might happen - fighting retreats, hiding, ambush, re-grouping, religious debate, gathering information - any and all of these things might come into play and as soon as I start "faking it" in one situation I might over or under compensate in terms of skills/feats/abilities if I don' recall or happen to not what I decided on the spot for them and then we do get into the range of not fair for the players, because their characters do have to keep track of skills and armor check penalties (and even rations!) and the same things they should have to keep in midn when attempting something their opponents and allies should have to keep in mind as well.

I think this is ridiculous - players have to keep track of ONE character, GMs have to play an entire multiverse! Hundreds or thousands of NPCs, in a typical campaign. Where's the 'fairness' in that?

 

[Bigwilly]

Copycat

I use Jamis Buck's NPC generator:

http://www.aarg.net/~minam/npc.cgi
http://www.aarg.net/~minam/npc2.cgi

Fast enough and good enough to use at game time for improvised NPCs. Just have it create 10-20 NPCs of the sort you are looking for and pick what you want.

This is the method I use too, although I prefer to generate my NPCs in advance of the gaming session. For equipment I repeat the process with an NPC equipment generator (I think I got it from the downloads section here). I often tweak skills and especially equipment once I have the 'flavour' of the NPC, but I find that the sometimes weird results helps me to give character to my NPCs.

Bigwilly

 

[Ravellion]

When it comes down to it I would not feel personally satisfied doing it any other way. . . like I said, the way the skills work is the best part of 3E as far as I'm concerned - it just takes a lot of time in some cases - esp. since I tend to have a lot of multi-classed NPCs - as I prefer multi-classing to the myriad of alternative classes that have come out since the core books. . .

House rule: All skills are class skills for everyone.

(edit: I find that) This is only unbalanced if you allow prestige classes with strange skill requirements. I don't allow any prestige classes at all, so I don't have that problem.

Rav

 

[Aristotle]

How many skill points does the NPC get per level? That's how many skills he has totally maxed out. Just pick 'em and move on. It's not like NPCs make that many skill checks anyway.

Yep! And this works for at least 75% of NPCs. It's basically how the original rules assumed characters would spend points as well. For more diverse, special, characters you can take a little extra time and get fancier with the skill points.