Looking for advice for making encounter-creating simpler

[Iamalaser]

Hello folks,

I am starting a new campaign and am feeling like I've taken too large a bite...

I'll be the DM of a 3.5 campaign set in an urban setting, characters level 12. We had been playing 4.0 but decided 3.5 seemed a lot cooler in many ways... except that it seems like creating encounters in 3.5 is waaaaaaaaaaaay more complicated.

I'm trying to create the first encounter right now- the characters will be in a tavern having a good ol' time, when suddenly a group of assassins comes busting up in on the place and trying to killum. Seems simple enough... But I'm having a really hard time getting the whole enemies thing in order. I just want some assassins, like humanoid mundane sneaky knifers. But it seems like if I want to create a human/elf/half elf etc.. npc, its nearly as complicated as creating a PC. And I can't find appropriate monster manual entries.

Is there any way to simplify this process? like some kind of free software you recommend, or a trick of the trade? What was nice about 4.0 is that the monster manual entries had all of the relevant information right there for you, you didn't have to look through a bunch of books to figure out what spells they had, how they worked, feats etc...

Basically I'm wondering if there's any wisdom out there for making encounter-creating less like clerical work... I'm already doing that 40 hours a week...

Any advice would be much appreciated

 

[Jacob Marley]

The Dungeon Master's Guide has a section (Chapter 4: Nonplayer Characters, pages 103-128) that gives you the basic stats for the eleven Player's Handbook classes at each level (1-20). My recommendation would be to play fast and loose with those stats until you are more familiar with the system.

Forex, for a group of 3 assassins I'd take the stats listed for a 10th-level rogue (page 123), give them each a unique feat, item, and skill -- I'd also make sure each had a high Tumble modifier -- and call it a day.

Beyond that, you could look to the various free adventures from WotC for premade NPCs to use in your games. Dungeon magazine is another great resource if you want to spend a little money.

Finally, you could make use of Myth Weavers free NPC generator.

Welcome to ENWorld. Hope that helps.

 

[S'mon]

I am starting a new campaign and am feeling like I've taken too large a bite...
I'll be the DM of a 3.5 campaign set in an urban setting, characters level 12.

Yes, you have taken too large a bite. At 12th level you are already out 0f 3e's sweet spot and into 3e's World of Pain. I would strongly recommend reconsidering, and start this campaign no higher than 6th level.
Jacob Marley's advice about using the DMG stats is good (& see my sig), but to challenge PCs with NPCs at all you need to either use much higher level NPCs, or a well-balanced adventurer-style party. At very least your 'assassins' need a spellcaster backing them up, probably a Wizard, or they will be laughably ineffective. IME being attacked by 3 12th level non-casters is rather less threatening than being ambushed by a single 6th level Wizard. The power imbalance in 3e is literally that bad.

The best way to run this sort of fight is to have the NPCs be a balanced adventurer-style party, fully Buffed with precast spells, of a level much lower than the PCs, so that the EL works out at around PC level. This will get the XP and the threat level in sync. Normally using NPCs in 3e the threat level is laughable compared to the XP.
If you must make it a 12th level game, with 4 PCs you want a 4 NPC group with EL 12. That would be 4 8th level NPCs. The pre-buffing from their Cleric & Wizard should make them a decent challenge. You could make it 2 Rogues, 1 Cleric & 1 Wizard if you want to keep an assassiny feel.

 

[S'mon]

I just want some assassins, like humanoid mundane sneaky knifers.

You cannot threaten 12th level 3.5e PCs with humanoid mundane sneaky knifers. You are playing at the wrong level.
If you want to threaten 12th level PCs with humanoid mundane sneaky knifers in d20, then find a copy of OGL Conan.

 

[Sunseeker]

I agree with S'mon, after running a 3.5 game recently, even at level 9 my players were easily horribly overpowering everything I could reasonably throw at them. Even things +5 their CR were no match at all. Having not gotten any further, I have played at higher levels, and frankly there was little that would slow us down. If this is your first time running a game, I agree that you should start low, it's much easier to get a feel for encounter building at lower levels. The game is far more forgiving, stuff in the 12+ range are either going to die in a heartbeat or kill your party in a heartbeat.

 

[delericho]

Yep, like others have said, you've managed to hit just about the worst possible combination of level and encounter type.

3.5e most definitely has a sweet spot in the level range, where play is at its best. Playing at levels below this is okay (but tends to feel quite limiting), while play at higher levels gets bogged down in a morass of options and maths. IMO, the sweet spot runs from about level 4 to about level 12, but only if you play Core Rules Only (if using supplements, chop a few levels off the top). So, you're right at the top of that range.

Additionally, not all encounters are created equally, and as you have noticed, the absolute worst are encounters against humanoid NPCs, precisely because these do level up in exactly the same way as PCs (with all the options to juggle, skills to assign, and so on). And, even worse, encounters against NPCs tend to give out much more loot than do more traditional 'monster' encounters, so you'll quickly start finding a balance issue there, too.

If you're still keen on the urban adventure/humanoid monsters thing, my serious recommendation would be to reset your campaign to levels 4-6, and go from there. That way, characters will still have a decent range of options without being painful, and you'll have plenty of room to grow before the system really becomes a burden.

However, I appreciate that you may not want to do that.

As a fallback suggestion, you should probably look at Hero Lab, which seems to help speed the generation process, so should hopefully get you somewhere along the road. And, as others have suggested, look for various sources of pregen NPC stats - the DMG has some, Dungeon magazine has more, there are quite a lot online. Oh, and you can almost certainly get away with using Pathfinder NPCs almost as-is - the systems are close enough that they pretty much fit.

One final thing: never, ever throw away NPC stats! Keep a big file of those stats, and reuse as often as you can. Bear in mind that that sneaky assassin that the PCs just killed almost certainly had a whole raft of abilities your players never saw him use. So, keep the stats, and next time you need a master thief, reuse the stats (perhaps with half a dozen changes). Short term, this sort of reuse won't make a massive amouont of difference. However, the longer you play, and more stats you accumulate, the more you can reuse - it's a resource that only ever grows in value!

 

[S'mon]

Here are sample Pathfinder NPCs from the GameMastery Guide, these are 95% 3e compatible:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/mastery/nPCGallery.html

Or this website has every OGL Pathfinder NPC ever published, I believe:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/unique-monsters
Watch out for spoilers if you ever plan to play a Paizo AP, though!

 

[Gilladian]

Personally, I agree with everyone on biting off too much at 12th level if you're not system-mastered...

To help me create NPCs, I've been indexing every dungeon magazine NPC for a while now. I don't have a massive number done, but it is a very worthwhile project.

 

[amerigoV]

Add on level of Assassin to a Tarasque - that will get them (and not as complicated).

 

[Iamalaser]

Thanks all for very useful advice and information. The online npc generator makes things a lot simpler actually. I'm not opposed to tinkering with stats and stuff like that, I just don't want to be creating lots of npcs from scratch for every meeting.

Regarding the difficulties with difficulty (hrm hrm), is it mainly just when one uses npc enemies, or does it extend to using MM monsters as well? 'cause I can easily take monsters from the MM's and reflavor them to fit my urban setting...

I am familiar with the 3.5 system, I get how it works for the most part, I am just trying to avoid spending hours flipping through 5 different manuals. Much of my confusion is due to the fact that I started creating this campaign about 6 months ago, then we all got busy for a long time and now we're just deciding to get it going. So I've forgotten a lot of what I knew... Where do I find the rules for adding levels onto enemies again?

We're starting at level 12 because we'd been playing 4e from 1-11 and figured we might as well pick up at the same level we left off at. I figure we've earned some increased badassery

I think for the first encounter I will use NPCs, probably a few knifers and maybe a sorcerer or something. I want to keep the first one easier because we'll be relearning 3.5 and there will only be 3 PCs initially.