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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jimmifett" data-source="post: 5646707" data-attributes="member: 55006">Much of what you are doing will not change. You don't need to stat out NPCs unless you expect to fight with or against them. In which case, grab an entry from the monster manual/vault for that race, adjust level, and possibly add a template to represent a PC class in way of abilities. For opposed checks, you have the ability mods and can decide on the fly if the NPC is trained in anything, in which case, add +5 to a skill. For any other skill checks, you can ball park a DC based on party level and if the check is easy/medium/hard to get a good DC. The new DM screen is great for this. Skill challanges are good for montages, or to keep track of an overarching event in the background that occurs time, and has branching paths of success and failure. For instance, weekening an approaching army befor it hits the town. Gain successes for scouting, infiltrating bases, stealing plans, assassinating officers, contaminating food stores, etc. Success, the army is weaker when it reaches town. Failure, the army is at normal strength (which should be just slightly above tough) and possibly the party captured and must escape during the battle. As for winging encounters, just have a few generic encounters planned out in advance with prefined archetypes needed for enemies. You know that a forest ambush, you'd like x strikers, x brutes, x minions w/ ranged attacked, etc. Then when it comes time, you use the monster by levels chart (or the compendium) to find monsters to fit the roles of the appropriate level. For heroic tier, grab Monster Vault: Threats to nentir vale. It has grouped enemies of similar level that work well together that you can just drop in. For pacing, I like to run like an action movie (indiana jones-ish) between extended rests. Some exploration and research up front, maybe allow an extended rest after that, then the action starts to pick up with some time sensitive plot hook. I'll have 3-5 encounters during this high action crunch time with just enough time in between to catch a breath. At the end, I expect the party to be VERY low to empty on resources (healing surges)and thankful for an extended rest. Since you have more enemies than previous editions, I like to make use of minions, preferably in waves. First handful rush in to get good tactical positioning. Then the stronger monsters, then the rest of the minions to re-inforce and help flank. You want to avoid head on combats were both sides start on opposite ends. Surround the party in an ambush, or spread out so the party splits up. Have terrain in 3 dimensions.  Add unique set pieces like a bar you can set on fire, or vines to swing from high elevation to behind the party on, places where a dungeoneering cheek and a standard action can collapse a tunnel and create a choke point or knock monsters down off elevated positions.</blockquote>

Verification