D&D General Are NPCs like PCs?

[Cadence]

According to the XP Threshold table, close to it. Hard would be 3750xp worth of monsters. Your encounter is 3500.

Edit: No, wait. 5 of a monster multiplies that by 2. So it's beyond deadly as @NotAYakk said.

Does the deadliness change if the party also had 5?

 

[Maxperson]

What's interesting is that both 3 AND 6 multiply the encounter by 2. So doubling the 3 isn't any more difficult than 3?

 

[Reynard]

I don't want to play a simulation, either. There's a whole lot of real estate in-between, nonsense and simulation, though. I'm in that area.

Are you suggesting giving an enemy a unique ability is nonsense? Because in that case every NPC in the MM is nonsense, because none of them are classed.

 

[Maxperson]

Does the deadliness change if the party also had 5?

The table has you add up the threshold for each individual PC, so the total xp budget for the encounter is raised if the party goes from 4 to 5. The multiplier table doesn't make any sense to me and is based purely on number of monsters. So if you have 3 of a monster, you multiply the xp of the encounter by 2 to figure out difficulty. If you have twice that, you're still in x2 territory which makes no sense. In fact, to get to x4 you have to get to 15 of a monster. It's almost like they just gave up on how to really figure out the multiples and were like, "Well, they're dead at x2 anyway, so screw it."

 

[Cadence]

Are you suggesting giving an enemy a unique ability is nonsense? Because in that case every NPC in the MM is nonsense, because none of them are classed.

Your question is making me want to repost the below for the part about multiple arguments going on in this thread.

D&D General - Are NPCs like PCs?

If the PC needed a +7 in persuasion or deception that would come with years of training in a market, maybe I would let the PC swap out some other character things to get it. (Did you give up your school of magic training because you worked in the market place? A point of to hit and your armor...

www.enworld.org

 

[Maxperson]

Are you suggesting giving an enemy a unique ability is nonsense? Because in that case every NPC in the MM is nonsense, because none of them are classed.

No. I'm saying that giving an enemy a unique non-racial ability that cannot possibly be gained by a PC is nonsense.

And as far as trying to figure out balance for a PC goes, just give powerful abilities a high cost. The player will either determine that 1) it's not worth it or 2) it is worth it. If it's not worth it, you don't need to be concerned. If it is worth it, you've already roughly balanced it with the drawback, and if the remainder is a little bit unbalanced in favor of the PC, well that sort of thing is fun for the player so it falls squarely into the, "context of how it makes the game more fun" category.

 

[jmartkdr2]

The Veteran is a monster similar to a 5th level fighter.

An 14 con L 5 fighter with the Tough feat has 10+6*4+4*5=54 HP. The Veteran has 58 HP.

The L 5 fighter with 16 strength has a +6 to hit and attacks for 1d8+5 damage per swing one handed (Dueling) x2. If they have 2 shortswords they instead attack for 1d6+3 times 3.

This nearly exactly matches the Veteran. The LS Veteran version does 2d10+6 (17) vs the Fighter LS 2d8+10 (19). The SS Veteran does 3d6+9 (19.5), same as Fighter.

The L 5 fighter has second wind (1d10+5) and an action surge on top of the Veteran and 1 additional point of proficiency.

So, literally, if you dropped a L 5 fighter into a game you could get a fight that was nearly indistinguishable on the PC side from using a stock Monster Manual Veteran. You could also build the Fighter to be less meaty and more aggressive.

I mean, action surge ain't nothing. The Veteran is probably closer to a L 4.5 fighter.

HP including Second Wind: 44 + 5.5 + 4 = 54
Cut Action Surge for +1 attack/round (a bit of an upgrade; over a 3 round fight, it is 6 attacks instead of 4).
Lose a point of proficiency.
Lose saving throw proficiency.

A level 4.5 fighter with neither a subclass nor ASI, if we weaken Action Surge.

So if we add in, say, a couple Battlemaster maneuvers and Polearm Master, suddenly the veteran starts really falling behind.

 

[Reynard]

No. I'm saying that giving an enemy a unique non-racial ability that cannot possibly be gained by a PC is nonsense.

Again, that is a belief that we just won't find common ground on. I find it silly on its face. ::

And as far as trying to figure out balance for a PC goes, just give powerful abilities a high cost.

That isn't really how game balance works since the ability is immediately powerful and the cost almost certainly isn't. That PC is still going to throw a wrench into trying to make balanced encounters, even if they have to give up 10% of their treasure or whatever.

 

[Azzy]

I suppose I'm a simulationist at heart,

The problem, though, is that D&D has never (despite 3.xe's best efforts) been a simulationist game. Even Gygax got up on a soapbox about this. The game mechanics are not the game's laws of physics, they are rules to provide players (including DMs) a fair and consistent (lol, mostly) framework through which they can play pretend about elves and dragons. Trying to insert simulationist "sensibilities" ionto D&D is an object lesson in futility. If you prefer a simulationist standpoint, other games (like GURPS, so I'm told) do it far better. D&D and games based on its chassis are a bad fit for a simulationist mindset, and this is something that has been noted since nigh the beginning.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, that is a belief that we just won't find common ground on. I find it silly on its face. ::

That isn't really how game balance works since the ability is immediately powerful and the cost almost certainly isn't. That PC is still going to throw a wrench into trying to make balanced encounters, even if they have to give up 10% of their treasure or whatever.

There's a reason I didn't say treasure and actually gave, you know, an example of something that would balance it immediately.