NPC generator
- Thread starter kalunk
- Start date
Doing this sort of thing is one of the key designs behind RolePlayingMaster .
The Jamis NPC Generator is recognized as the best currently available generator, and is integrated into RPM as one of the possible methods to create creatures.
It doesn't, however, handle templates - but RPM does.
You can take any generated creature and add a template with a couple of mouse clicks. You can add multiple templates, or remove them - even change the base Race as you play around.
If you add the "Vampire" template, for example, to a generated creature, you'll see the damage resistance, natural AC bonus, long list of immunities, resistances, slam attack, special abilities etc all added to the instantly recalculated creature.
Templates (like Vampire) have often changed the base race hitdice ( to d12), and RPM keeps the original Jamis generated hp, although it changes the hit dice appropriately. If you like, simply press the "Roll Hp" button in the "ReCalculate" window to re-roll hitpoints using the correct template modified hitdice.
Regards,
The Jamis NPC Generator is recognized as the best currently available generator, and is integrated into RPM as one of the possible methods to create creatures.
It doesn't, however, handle templates - but RPM does.
You can take any generated creature and add a template with a couple of mouse clicks. You can add multiple templates, or remove them - even change the base Race as you play around.
If you add the "Vampire" template, for example, to a generated creature, you'll see the damage resistance, natural AC bonus, long list of immunities, resistances, slam attack, special abilities etc all added to the instantly recalculated creature.
Templates (like Vampire) have often changed the base race hitdice ( to d12), and RPM keeps the original Jamis generated hp, although it changes the hit dice appropriately. If you like, simply press the "Roll Hp" button in the "ReCalculate" window to re-roll hitpoints using the correct template modified hitdice.
Regards,
Last edited:
Twin Rose
First Post
kalunk said:
Campaign Suite comes with a character generation wizard that will let you create an NPC based on class, race and profession. You can make a "Human Vampire" race by applying the vampire template to the human race, tweaking as needed. Then you can use the chargen wizard to create the character as you wish. It does require the full version to set up your own professions, and very soon we'll have a block of perhaps a hundred professions for normal folks - thanks to help from our friends at Ambient from their work, "Everyone Else".
Re: Re: NPC generator
ETools has the same problem with lack of templates support.
There's been a lot of whining on the ETools board about this "solution" of implementing templates.
Having to create Race variants for Races with different templates added creates a huge headache. Full support means a extra Race records = (number of core races) * (number of templates available), and that assumes that you can only have 1 template.
Its also a big headache in that you have to manually tweak each new race record to suit the template for that race, as opposed to having the RPG engine instantly do it for you.
Of course it wouldn't be so bad if you were running a D20 modern campaign which only had humans in it (ie. your reference to professions), but I didn't infer from kalunk's post that he was necessarily limiting himself to D20 modern and a very restricted set of Races.
Twin Rose said:
ETools has the same problem with lack of templates support.
There's been a lot of whining on the ETools board about this "solution" of implementing templates.
Having to create Race variants for Races with different templates added creates a huge headache. Full support means a extra Race records = (number of core races) * (number of templates available), and that assumes that you can only have 1 template.
Its also a big headache in that you have to manually tweak each new race record to suit the template for that race, as opposed to having the RPG engine instantly do it for you.
Of course it wouldn't be so bad if you were running a D20 modern campaign which only had humans in it (ie. your reference to professions), but I didn't infer from kalunk's post that he was necessarily limiting himself to D20 modern and a very restricted set of Races.
Twin Rose
First Post
Re: Re: Re: NPC generator
Actually, that's not correct. Within CS you simply right-click on a race and applya template to it. Why did I choose to do it this way? While working the code, it came out 'cleaner' to do so, and I didn't have to store the entire template in each and every character file. It's still only 2 clicks, and most people have no problem doing it this way within CS.
Luke said:
Actually, that's not correct. Within CS you simply right-click on a race and applya template to it. Why did I choose to do it this way? While working the code, it came out 'cleaner' to do so, and I didn't have to store the entire template in each and every character file. It's still only 2 clicks, and most people have no problem doing it this way within CS.
Re: Re: Re: Re: NPC generator
Okay, sounds better. If you could apply the template to a creature, rather than a Race, that would work very well, since you don't end up having lots of extra "Race" records, and you don't need to go and create a new race-template variant when you need one (if its not already there).
If you factor on about 500 core races (incl variations for dragons and skeletons), and about 20 templates (incl different 1/2 dragon), thats 10000 race records to work with, just in the core rules. It also assumes only 1 template "combination". Either you have a massive amount of work pre-done, or you're asking users to do them on the fly, as needed, which is a hassle.
I suppose that if you want to change a template definition, you need to delete the old race-template combination, and redo them.
Still, that's a *lot* better than the poor ETools users, who need to go and configure each new race record by hand. I think that samples of race-template combinations have been made available for download via Davin's helper program, but its still all pretty ugly.
Twin Rose said:
Okay, sounds better. If you could apply the template to a creature, rather than a Race, that would work very well, since you don't end up having lots of extra "Race" records, and you don't need to go and create a new race-template variant when you need one (if its not already there).
If you factor on about 500 core races (incl variations for dragons and skeletons), and about 20 templates (incl different 1/2 dragon), thats 10000 race records to work with, just in the core rules. It also assumes only 1 template "combination". Either you have a massive amount of work pre-done, or you're asking users to do them on the fly, as needed, which is a hassle.
I suppose that if you want to change a template definition, you need to delete the old race-template combination, and redo them.
Still, that's a *lot* better than the poor ETools users, who need to go and configure each new race record by hand. I think that samples of race-template combinations have been made available for download via Davin's helper program, but its still all pretty ugly.
Twin Rose
First Post
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: NPC generator
You can apply them to creatures, too, with 2 clicks... Well, four I suppose ... You click on the creature, then you click the template button, and then you click the template and okay .. =P
You also can save backups of your race configurations, etc. I've still debated about storing them for individual characters, but I've ran into some problems when people were using third party templates that their GM's didn't have loaded in CS and felt this worked out 'cleaner'.
Luke said:
You can apply them to creatures, too, with 2 clicks... Well, four I suppose ... You click on the creature, then you click the template button, and then you click the template and okay .. =P
You also can save backups of your race configurations, etc. I've still debated about storing them for individual characters, but I've ran into some problems when people were using third party templates that their GM's didn't have loaded in CS and felt this worked out 'cleaner'.
How about pcGen?
You go by the book - create a character, apply vampire template and you're almost set (you have to manually adjust hitpoints (d12 instead of class die)).
Regards,
Ruemere
PS. PcGen: free, java based character generator. With statblock export and many source materials in (you still need original books to run it as the generator does not include non-OGL stuff).
You go by the book - create a character, apply vampire template and you're almost set (you have to manually adjust hitpoints (d12 instead of class die)).
Regards,
Ruemere
PS. PcGen: free, java based character generator. With statblock export and many source materials in (you still need original books to run it as the generator does not include non-OGL stuff).
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