Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 3635081" data-attributes="member: 198">To go off on a bit of a tangent, something I've done sometimes is give NPCs the benefits of a particular magic item without actually giving them the item. So they're as effective as they should be if fully equipped, but the PCs don't end up with a boatload of items. For example, I might give an NPC a +1 resistance bonus to all saves, but not actually equip him with a Cloak of Resistance.My PCs all have very high saves (each has a permanent +4 resistance bonus to all saves at 13th lvl), so the chances of being trapped were very low, esp. with action points available, three can cast Greater Dispel Magic and another Dispel Magic, one can cast Teleport/Dimension Door and one has a Dimension Door item, so there was literally no chance of them being out of a fight completely. I'm a big fan of effects that temporarily incommode a PC, because (as you've noted) reducing a player to a spectator sucks.BTW, if a PC does get taken out of a fight early, one simple way to keep the player very involved is to have him roll the dice (in the open) for some of the NPCs. There's usually a great deal of tension created for both the individual player (who's usually really worried about screwing another player's PC with a great roll) and the group. This also works well in situations where only some of the PCs are involved in a fight, e.g. duels, PCs separated, etc.True, and that was a very intentional aim of mine. And it's almost a necessity, since the UA rule I mentioned above means PCs are almost always casting their AoE spells empowered (since it doesn't take a higher level slot).  Actually, only 1 pt in total more than what they should have had by the RAW. Since they have class levels, they're supposed to use the elite array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8 (before racial modifiers), which is a total of 72 pts between the stats. What I usually do is use the 72 pts but rearrange as I feel fit, so a particular NPC may get a 16, 15, 12, 10, 10, 9, while another may get 18, 16, 10, 10, 10, 8.That chance was actually created for them by the PCs, who got to prepare completely and buff up before the attack, so I figure it's a bit of a wash too.Any time.</blockquote>

Verification