I am beginning to appreciate some of the design decisions of 4E.

[Celtavian]

re

While i think this is a fine idea, let me be clear: the issue that inspired my original post was not that it took too long to create the NPC cleric. The cleric was already made, in fact (I had done that work a couple weeks ago). What took so long was the process of going through each spell and noting on cards (to be used during play) things like ranged, durations, saves and so on (and page references where the description ws too long to briefly note).

The 4E design decision I was suggesting i would like is the replacement of vast options of spells for villains and instead a smaller pool of potential "powers", perhaps with a little more versatility. Something like Magic Blast (assign level) (assign element) or Freeze ray (assign Save type) (assign level) (assign flavor)

A few spells in the APG are like this. You might see a magic system designed in this manner in the future in Pathfinder. Elemental ball with the caster picking the element when cast. A streamlining the magic system would be nice.

 

[Celtavian]

I 've seen mention of giving the BBEG insane HP's. That really only eliminates the already marginalized Martial classes. Hold Monster doesn't care how many HP's you have. In 3e Forgotten Realms my Sorcerer spammed a Dhulark's(SP) Glasstrike on the High level Vampire Wizard he survived one round. I have no idea how many HP he had. Bad guys that do not go down when you hit them gives rise to save or die spells.

Now there are very few save or die spells. Hold Monster gives a save every round. I like that type of spell design. But it takes a full round action to save as though the character were using all his will to resist.

I like how Pathfinder changed save or die spells at least giving things a chance to live.

 

[Coldwyn]

The problem with that is that PCs tend to be quite resourceful and it is hard to know just what the NPC spellcaster might do when you don't know what the PCs might do.

Ultimately, it's an issue of wanting my cake and wanting to eat it too. I want the versatility afforded in PF/3.x spellcasting (or feats or rogue abilities or anything else that is a selection from a wise variety of choices) without the cost of the prep time. It's probably unrealistic.

I do want to simplify spells and spell-like abilities for monsters/NPCs though. I feel like I have allowed extraneous information to overwhelm play, which benefits no one.

An interim solution would be to create combat templates instead of individual entities. Having a quick reverence sheet for necromancers, assassins with options across all levels would help a lot.

 

[Runestar]

Admitably, one thing I liked about 4e npcs is that they just give them whatever abilities the designers deem fit. However, 3e noticeably lacked guidelines for modifying existing monsters on the fly.

In 3e, if I wanted to say, make a frost giant wizard, I would have to tack on wizard lvs like crazy. A frost giant wiz15 is cr17. Powerful yes, but if I wanted a cr11-12 caster, I am out of luck, because a frost giant with 6 lvs of sorc gets only 3rd lv spell, which won't be too useful against a 12th lv party.

But in 4e, what you had would be the equivalent of just taking a MM frost giant, and giving him a few SLA/spells of the appropriate lv. I could take a frost giant, and give him ice storm, wall of ice and freezing sphere 1/day and it wouldn't increase his cr too much.

 

[Hussar]

but what do you do about having all the spells prepped?

Well, now there's one place where I do have a bit of a leg up. Playing online means that all that kind of stuff is just macroed. Typing up a macro for most spells is very fast and, honestly, after calculating in most of defensive stuff that's been cast, I just pick out a half dozen or so spells that I'm pretty sure he's going to use and use those.

Then again, I avoided using NPC casters like the plague in 3e, for precisely the reason you list - too frigging much work prepping them. High level critters are bad enough really when some of them have a shopping list of abilities.

Fortunately, a lot of the work has been done for you in the frameworks for Maptool.

 

[Reynard]

In 3e, if I wanted to say, make a frost giant wizard, I would have to tack on wizard lvs like crazy. A frost giant wiz15 is cr17. Powerful yes, but if I wanted a cr11-12 caster, I am out of luck, because a frost giant with 6 lvs of sorc gets only 3rd lv spell, which won't be too useful against a 12th lv party.

As an aside, with giants and other powerful humanoid types, I replace racial hit dice with classes rather than stack them on top, to avoid the insane CR problem. It's just as much work, mind you, as you are basically creating the NPC from scratch, but at least you can have a mid or low-high level frost giant wizard without it being an epic enemy.

 

[pawsplay]

I run Pathfinder and really enjoy it. I don't like 4E much.

However there's something to be said for not having to spend 2.5 hours putting together spell info for an enemy who might last 4 rounds.

Dammit.

Yeah, it's called, "Tie a bow on it!" Sheesh.

 

[Runestar]

As an aside, with giants and other powerful humanoid types, I replace racial hit dice with classes rather than stack them on top, to avoid the insane CR problem. It's just as much work, mind you, as you are basically creating the NPC from scratch, but at least you can have a mid or low-high level frost giant wizard without it being an epic enemy.

I thought of it, but how do you adjudicate the racial abilities?

Say I build a sorc10 or barbarian12 with the frost giant racial modifiers sans racial HD (large size, +9NA, +18str, +10con), how much cr increase does that amount to?

I just wish there were some guidelines to go by.

 

[Celebrim]

Powerful yes, but if I wanted a cr11-12 caster, I am out of luck, because a frost giant with 6 lvs of sorc gets only 3rd lv spell, which won't be too useful against a 12th lv party.

Depends on the spells.

6th level arcane spellcaster gives a frost giant the following highly useful options - protection from energy (fire), heroism, rage, displacement, keen edge, slow, bear's endurance, mirror image, blur, invisibility, protection from arrows, resist energy, protection from good, and shield.

The trick when stacking low level spellcaster on a brute monster is remember that losing an action to cast a spell is bad, but showing up for the fight buffed is huge. Bear's Endurance on a 20HD creature is +40 h.p(!!). That's an effective +1 CR boost by itself. Add to that the ability to absorb 70 fire damage (fixing a big weakness, because you know that against a cold creature the party casters will be breaking out scorching ray and fireball), heroism, a 20% miss chance on attacks, mirror image, and shield (negating that quickened magic missile at the very least), invisibility, and protection from good cast before the fight and the things are looking good for getting the most out of those 6th levels of spellcaster.

I could take a frost giant, and give him ice storm, wall of ice and freezing sphere 1/day and it wouldn't increase his cr too much.

It would also be pretty useless unless they were free actions, because in casting those options he's giving up his brute beat down.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I agree with the OP. Ideally, I would say that 1 hour of prep should provide at least 4 hours of play.

And, while I am not a fan of 4e, I certainly agree that some of the design goals/decisions were laudable:

* Concept of healing surges.
* Quicker prep.
* Attempt to flatten power curve/extend sweet spot.
* Attempt to minimize tracking in combat.
* Condition track.

I don't always agree with how they went about these things, mind you, but I am aware that the ideas themselves move in the right direction.



RC