DUH DUH DUH! Re: Monsters and NPCs

[the Jester]

do you want me to send you the conversion materials i did for the Adventure Path series. i convert it from the new editions to OD&D.

Actually, I'd be interested to see some of that. You should post it in the conversions forum.

 

[diaglo]

Actually, I'd be interested to see some of that. You should post it in the conversions forum.

i'll mail them to you.

they are not on my puter. so i need to type them up. and i'm still on dial up at home. i have a lousy scanner. and at work well... i'm sure the gov't doesn't want me to place X Gigabytes of D&D material on their server.

the material is all handscrawled otherwise.

the last time i sent someone my conversion notes for a module... i never heard back. i at least know you and where you live...

 

[BigRedRod]

and that's what annoyed me about ill prepared referees.

it didn't take much to do the same in AD&D either.

and yet to look in the AD&D MM you wouldn't see "average" stats for a monster bar intelligence. This was very annoying
If I need the Charisma or Wisdom of some random creature I can just open a book, back i nthe old days it wasn't so simple due to lazy designers

 

[the Jester]

the last time i sent someone my conversion notes for a module... i never heard back. i at least know you and where you live...

Well, it's more idle curiousity than something I plan on using... but you never know, I've had a time travel adventure before where the pcs converted into older editions as they went...

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

THe only caveat I would throw in there is make sure the skills make sense - no +20 hides for 1st level rogues!

I do essentially the same thing Henry does. Don't sweat the details. I also use E-Tools to make up various flavors of sample low-level mooks. Well-armored 2nd level warriors? I got some worked up and saved. 2nd lvl Ftr/2nd lvl Rogue swashbuckler pirate types? I got some worked up and saved. I can just pull out a statblock and copy-n-paste it into my Session Prep notes. But if I have to inprovise a 4th level fighter, for example, I can say off the top of my head that he'd have around 28 HP, a +7 attack with his longsword, and do 1d8+2 damage. No one will ever know I just did that in 5 seconds in my head.

 

[jester47]

THe only caveat I would throw in there is make sure the skills make sense - no +20 hides for 1st level rogues!

I do essentially the same thing Henry does. Don't sweat the details. I also use E-Tools to make up various flavors of sample low-level mooks. Well-armored 2nd level warriors? I got some worked up and saved. 2nd lvl Ftr/2nd lvl Rogue swashbuckler pirate types? I got some worked up and saved. I can just pull out a statblock and copy-n-paste it into my Session Prep notes. But if I have to inprovise a 4th level fighter, for example, I can say off the top of my head that he'd have around 28 HP, a +7 attack with his longsword, and do 1d8+2 damage. No one will ever know I just did that in 5 seconds in my head.

1st level rogue would have a hide of +8 on average after feats and abilities. I wouldn't go past +10 as that would be a guy with max ranks, 18 dex, a feat to improve hiding and if human he might be able to get +12 with a skill focus feat. But that would be all he's good at.

A good rule of thumb for quick NPC skill bonuses I would suppose is 5 + level for any class skill, 2 + level/2 for any non-clas skill. Of course this is the stat coming out of your rear. A fair out of the rear range for any class skill would be 3+level to 11+level.

Aaron.