kamosa
Explorer
Sir Whiskers said:Did anyone else think of Microsoft when reading this post?
Where do you want to Hack today?
Sir Whiskers said:Did anyone else think of Microsoft when reading this post?
teitan said:And there goes Balance out the window plus a million other things and a bag of chips. Sure you can do it... but should you? In OD&D and AD&D I would just assign a level and USE THE FRICKING SAVING THROW CHART on my DM's Screen for that information, throw in a magic item or two and randomly determine money and if he had spells I would just cast spells keeping track of how many he used as compared to the class chart in the PHB just so I didn't use too many... 3E offers too many tactical and balance options to be able to do that on a lark and create an NPC that doesn't overpower my players or is underpowered.
Well, one of the things 3E purports to do is to standardize these sorts of things, for better or worse:Henry said:Heck, the new variables for monsters and NPC's should be a DM's friend, not his enemy! I was more likely to get called on incorrect stats in previous editions than now, because the players knew the rules inside and out! Nowadays, who can know why the ghoul spellcaster had 5 magic missile spells instead of four? Maybe he had a feat, or a higher intelligence, or maybe he used a higher level slot! In the old days, none of these things were recommended or even suggested; a DM could come up with them, but they didn't readily suggest themselves except to experienced DM's.
Faerl'Elghinn said:As far as statting out an NPC, it's basically no more complicated than 2e save for one minor detail: skills. Skills, especially for advanced, non-spellcasting characters, are by far the most time-consuming aspect of creating statistics.
francisca said:Since I've gotten my hands on Unearthed Arcana, I've been using "maximum Ranks, Limited Choices" method for NPC skills (The Sigil uses this in his OGL Fantasy Lite as well.) Basically, each class gets a number of skills equal to: (it's skill points per level) + Int Mod The skill check for class skills is then: d20 + (level + 3) + ability mod + misc mods. Cross-class is the same, but with (level + 3)/2, rounded down.
The effect is that the NPC has fewer skills, but they are maxed out. For me, usually one 2 or 3 skills really matter for the encounter, so this really, really has helped both in prep time, and for winging it.
Unearthed Arcana by Wotc, and it has proven useful. I'm using 3 or 4 things out of it, which is more than most d20 books I've bought.Faerl'Elghinn said:I haven't gotten to check out Unearthed Arcana yet- good book? Is that the one from Malhavoc Press, or the one from WotC? One is Arcana Unearthed, and one is Unearthed Arcana, I believe. Confusing.
Anyway, yeah, that's basically what I meant anyway. If you just stick to combat-pertinent skills and stick a reasonable number in there, it cuts your preparation time way down.
3catcircus said:But do you use every available WoTC source, or just the core rulebooks