Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="nijineko" data-source="post: 6055030" data-attributes="member: 52240">in response to the OP...prep time need not take more than 30-60 minutes, and that is for a party of six 18th level character in 3.x. i build an outline, a few branches of possibilities (still just an outline), and use the six-sentence rule for npcs. only important/significant stats are listed, all else is assumed to be average. during play, i take notes - some of the best ideas are handed to you by players during the game with random comments or questions. that takes care of over half my next games' prep right there. with mooks, don't bother with anything not really significant. sometimes i'll flex the hp of the encounters depending on how the combat is going. or reinforcements wander in. or something. use descriptives, it'll encourage the players to do likewise.boil stuff down to stat blocks, and reuse them. i once ran a battle of six 16th level pcs (different from above) versus 120 enemies with only 5 stat blocks, one for each kind of enemy in the battalion. worked great. (they trashed at first, but then got pinned down in a cross fire. they wound up having to bluff and negotiate their way out of the rest of the fight, and then clean up the undead mooks that were no longer under control...) they still talk about that battle.</blockquote>