d20 needs different rules for NPCs

[Gundark]

I have been thinking lately after reading through the villian classes section of the Mastering Iron Heroes book. I got reading what Mike Mearls was saying about NPCs and some assumptions about them. In a nutshell

#1 DMs don't have time to create a whole cast of characters. Spending up to an hour creating a character isn't unreasonable for a player. A DM for example needs to create and stock the dungeon, if said dungeon is filled with creatures with class levels it can get a bit nuts.

#2 Character classes are complex as they assume (mostly) that only the player will be using it. When the DM runs a large cast of NPCs things get hard to manage. Villians need to be easy to use in an encounter. Maybe I'm stupid or something, but I still have to look up spells (gee...what does wall of fire do again), this grinds the game down. Yes I can look it up before the session, but I don't always havethe time.

#3. EDIT: I didn't obviously explain this well enough as people seem to be misinterpreting my summary of what mike said. Hexgrid put it better "The only way they "break the rules" is that they aren't constructed with classes and levels the way standard d20 characters and monsters are."

How many times has a boss fight gone bad because you rolled poorly on initiative, or the group just gets in some crazy rolls and your rolling badly. That saving throw that you should have made ended up failing and now your NPC that you've been carefully building as this total bad@$$ goes down without fanfare.

Spycraft 2.0 keeps this in mind with dramatic scenes. Once a session (I think) the GM can declare that the current encounter is a "dramatic scene" thus the bad guys get a huge bonus to initiative, obtaining hits can be harder to do for the players, there are other benifits to the villains. It's not overpowering but it makes it difficult which what a boss fight should be. Even in non-dramatic scenes there are rules set up that allows the baddie to escape.
EDIT: I agree with many that something like this works well in spycraft. But it wouldn't work well with the ways things are currently done in D&D. I was using the above example to illustrate how I think NPCs needto be handled differently in D&D

What I think that someone should publish a product (WotC or 3rd party) with 4 villain classes (VC for short) (similiar to Masterig Iron Heroes). Each of these VCs should be modeled after the 4 basic "types" of characters (rogue, fighter, arcane, and divine). These classes come preloaded with saving throws, abilities, skills, feats, Hit points, AC, powers, and abilites, etc. Their powers and abilites make the villian overpowering one on one with a PC and a tough match for a group.

I like how IH does it. The villians "levels" goes up by CR. For example a 1st level dread sorcerer is a CR 3, at second level they're a CR 4 and so on. Thus the DM picks the CR and is pretty much good to go. The only thing that is missing is the customisablity of the VCs. An ideal product would allow the DM to switch out abilites and powers for others.

Lastly the VC idealy would be interchangable with creatures. The system should be flexible enough to add to any existing creature. Thus say adding a CR 7 caster VC to a Bugbear would up the bugbear to CR 9.

NOTE: I'm talking about bosses or sub bosses here. However I think that there should be a "mook" VC as even the NPC classes can be time consuming to generate.

 

[painandgreed]

So far, it seems Mr. Mearls is batting 1000 and everything the man has done, I dislike.

I consider #3 the antithesis of everything I try and accomplish in running an most RPGs.

Editted to add:

How many times has a boss fight gone bad because you rolled poorly on initiative, or the group just gets in some crazy rolls and your rolling badly. That saving throw that you should have made ended up failing and now your NPC that you've been carefully building as this total bad@$$ goes down without fanfare.

Yes, and when my carefully set up encounters are destroyed by a single bad roll, I put it down to bad design on my part and let the PCs have their victory. Then I think about what went wrong and learn not to make the same mistake again. I don't need or want special rules to protect my adventures from my own mistakes because that just leads to more bad design supported by Deus ex Machina rules. In turn, later, I can apply those lessens to when I run PCs.

 

[Scribble]

Creating an NPc does sometimes take a bit of time... And I've never been a huge fan of numbers and number crunshing... So stat blocks tend to be my least favorite part of adventure designing...

But in anycase... A lot of what you wrote about doesn't seem like it's a huge problem... (at least for me...)

I mean, if I really want an NPC to make a save, he'll make it... Or if i want him to escape, he'll have some sort of trick up his sleeve... and not always using a pregenerated method... (He runs into the building, and dissapears!!!) I'll worry about HOW he did it later, if it needs to be explained...

that kind of stuff just doesn't seem that important to change...

Maybe if you started using a sytem of Bad Guy points? Like at the start of the encounter the BBEG gains a pool of, say, 20 points that he/she can use as random bonuses, or random uses, when you really need them?

 

[an_idol_mind]

#1 DMs don't have time to create a whole cast of characters. Spending up to an hour creating a character isn't unreasonable for a player. A DM for example needs to create and stock the dungeon, if said dungeon is filled with creatures with class levels it can get a bit nuts.

I must have missed a rule somewhere that says all monsters must have class levels. I don't see any reasons why I should have to use anything but the standard entry on a monster for 99% of encounters. Only recurring NPCs need unique stats.

#2 Character classes are complex as they assume (mostly) that only the player will be using it. When the DM runs a large cast of NPCs things get hard to manage. Villians need to be easy to use in an encounter. Maybe I'm stupid or something, but I still have to look up spells (gee...what does wall of fire do again), this grinds the game down. Yes I can look it up before the session, but I don't always havethe time.

That's why the DMG has tables listing NPCs of just about every class and level. Again, unless the guy we're dealing with is a multi-session big bad, I don't see a reason to go further than this.

#3. Villians need to break the rules. They need to be able to do things that the players can't do. They shouldn't have to follow the same rules the PCs do.

I totally disagree with this. The rules add consistency to a character, defining what they can and can't do. Otherwise, it becomes easy and tempting to just make up new abilities on the spot. I can see making up new spells, magical items, and possibly feats for a bad guy, but not making up new rules entirely.

How many times has a boss fight gone bad because you rolled poorly on initiative, or the group just gets in some crazy rolls and your rolling badly. That saving throw that you should have made ended up failing and now your NPC that you've been carefully building as this total bad@$$ goes down without fanfare.

This has happened to me before. In most cases, I let the PCs have their day. Their luck won't hold out forever, and the next time it might well be one of them that gets killed by some unlucky rolls.

Spycraft 2.0 keeps this in mind with dramatic scenes. Once a session (I think) the GM can declare that the current encounter is a "dramatic scene" thus the bad guys get a huge bonus to initiative, obtaining hits can be harder to do for the players, there are other benifits to the villains. It's not overpowering but it makes it difficult which what a boss fight should be. Even in non-dramatic scenes there are rules set up that allows the baddie to escape.

Again, I don't like the idea of arbitrarily giving a villain special rules. Most villains are already higher level than the PCs; handing the bad guy more bonuses because I think he's cool will generally just piss my players off.

 

[an_idol_mind]

Maybe if you started using a sytem of Bad Guy points? Like at the start of the encounter the BBEG gains a pool of, say, 20 points that he/she can use as random bonuses, or random uses, when you really need them?

If using Action Points from Unearthed Arcana, it would be easy enough to allow the villain a pool of action points as well.

 

[Gundark]

I mean, if I really want an NPC to make a save, he'll make it... Or if i want him to escape, he'll have some sort of trick up his sleeve... and not always using a pregenerated method... (He runs into the building, and dissapears!!!) I'll worry about HOW he did it later, if it needs to be explained...

And that works for you and that's great . This wouldn't work in my group. The players in my group would get upset if I did this. As a player I would be annoyed if the DM just randomly decided that the spell I just fired off failed.

Edit: Point is this would not fly with all groups

 

[Gundark]

So far, it seems Mr. Mearls is batting 1000 and everything the man has done, I dislike.

I consider #3 the antithesis of everything I try and accomplish in running an most RPGs.

Yow...I'm intrigued...tell me more.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I like the CONCEPT of the product, but not so sure I like the specific implementation.

The thing about a product like this is that it absolutely needs to be balanced with the core assumptions in mind. You can't have your CR4 villain have any more tricks up his sleeve than a standard fourth level wizard would have, for instance.

Secondly, a "boss encounter" in standard D&D is simply a CR of the average party level +2-3. That way, you can fight a mind flayer at level 6 (when he's orchestrating the goblin raids), and then fight an army of them by the time you're level 10 (and uncovering their secret lairs). You aren't meant to keep the same individual villain for very long, and if you want to, he has to obey the same methods for escaping that the PC's do.

It is also important to make sure he obeys the same rules as the PC's. For a bad guy to make a save just becaue the DM wants him to live is pretty lame. D&D wants a DM to be flexible enough to roll with one dead villain. If a villain gets bad guy points, heroes should get hero points. If a bad guy can use his bad guy powers to try and escape, the heroes should be able to use their heroic power to stop him from escaping.

This is reminding me a lot of 7th Sea, and the rules for Drama Dice. Basically, you get a bonus when doing something you think it important to your character, but whenever you do, the DM gets a bonus when doing something important for the villain. This -for-tat formula gives both the heroes and the villains bonuses.

Now, a dramatic system like this could earn my support -- FFZ is using something similar called Cutscene Moments where your character is assured automatic success...and then the moment is paid to the DM, who can assure his own automatic success. And vice-versa -- whenever the DM assures his automatic success, the PC's gain a use (and, like many rescources in FFZ, it's a party-based rescource, meaning your PARTY gets it, not your character). This is very apt for FFZ's cinematic style.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

#3. Villians need to break the rules. They need to be able to do things that the players can't do. They shouldn't have to follow the same rules the PCs do.

I voted absolutely not because of the above quote.
I would not play in an RPG where this was an assumption. The rules of character creation/action, to me are the physics of the world, and if the NPCs can do things the players cannot, or ever be able to do, it destroys immersion. And in many minds that is cheating.

 

[hexgrid]

Villain classes are my favorite part of Iron Heroes, and I'd love to see a whole book full of them.

The only way they "break the rules" is that they aren't constructed with classes and levels the way standard d20 characters and monsters are.