[Ptolus] The Power Level of NPCs

[sckeener]

besides stats do not equal influence.

and as some of the NPCs show even being 20th level does not mean you are a mover and shaker....just take the 20th Barbarian Harrow elf.

Tailoring encountersis an art.

If the player goes up and smacks the prickly Harrow elf barabarian in the corner...smack them around a bit. It makes the city more real.

 

[lukelightning]

For an overview of NPC stats in Ptolus, all you have to do is check out the personal ads in the Ptolus Ptimes:

Single Elf Female looking for steady companionship. I'm 5'1, 98 lbs, a young and vivacious 113yo. I'm looking for a 36pt buy or higher male elf. NCDNA (no Charisma Dumpers Need Apply)

 

[D'karr]

Here's a thought. What if he rolled every stat for every NPC or even better, what if Monte just picked the stats he wanted instead of using point buy?

Wow. What an unbalanced concept.

Is your campaign going to come to a screeching halt because a city guard has 4 more points on abilities than the PCs. Are the PCs ever going to know what an NPC stats are anyway? Does every NPC in your campaign go around with a sandwich board that has his ability scores printed on them?

What is really the problem? Up to now, I see none.

 

[2WS-Steve]

I'm sympathetic to the OP on this one. If I were a player and the GM regularly assigned attribute scores to NPCs that I couldn't achieve even after 20 levels I'd be a bit annoyed. One nice feature of 3e+ is that they really tried to do as much as possible to make it so that the players and NPCs ran by the same rules -- no super-powered NPC classes and so on.

The worst game for this was the old Seventh Sea. You'd look in supplements and literally all the NPCs -- deck washers included -- would have core stats that it would take the players years of gaming to achieve. Marvelous way to make the players feel like those hobbits that stayed in the Shire in the Lord of the Rings.


Despite the NPC thing though -- Ptolus kicks ass.

 

[D'karr]

One nice feature of 3e+ is that they really tried to do as much as possible to make it so that the players and NPCs ran by the same rules -- no super-powered NPC classes and so on.

And there has not been one instance of the NPCs posted that could not be achieved by rolling dice in the standard manner described in the rules (4d6 drop lowest). So how are the NPCs breaking the "rules"?

Besides, how does your PC know the NPC's stats?

This is a perfect example of a storm in a teacup.

 

[Stalker0]

I think its an interesting observation, and I do agree that giving practically all of your npcs high stats is "cheating" a bit. But as most have said, its not going to cause a lot of problems for a game. It does however gives players some ammo in convincing their dm to give them a high point buy

 

[Voadam]

I bet my players have no clue what stats my npcs have.

"Strong" might be the closest they could get for IDing an NPC's stats. Or knowing that a spellcaster is casting a certain level spell indicates a minimum spellcasting stat. But exact numbers are not really worth considering.

 

[hexgrid]

Something to consider- discussion of attribute generation is prohibited by the d20 license, isn't it?

So if Ptolus NPCs were created assuming that Ptolus PCs also had higher than normal attributes, Monte wouldn't have been able to tell us about.

 

[2WS-Steve]

And there has not been one instance of the NPCs posted that could not be achieved by rolling dice in the standard manner described in the rules (4d6 drop lowest). So how are the NPCs breaking the "rules"?

Do you really think that those attributes were rolled for using the 4d6 method? The odds seem pretty unlikely that they'd all turn out that way.

Besides, how does your PC know the NPC's stats?

It's not about knowing or not-knowing. It's about being fair.

This is a perfect example of a storm in a teacup.

It's not a storm. Who said it was a storm?

I said, and I quote: "I'd be a bit annoyed." and "Ptolus kicks ass."



One thing I think, is that if, as a GM, you find yourself regularly bending the rules when making NPCs in order to make them better fit what you think is right, then you should seriously consider allowing the players to bend the rules in that fashion too -- because, in all likelihood, they're getting frustrated by the same issues.

For example, I was building an NPC the other day and I wanted it to wear medium armor, but the best medium armor is generally pretty inferior to the good heavy armors and good light armors -- so I looked around for an alternative in other d20 books.

In that case, being fair to the players (even though they'd never even encounter this guy I made up) and offering them the same options that I offer my NPCs would likely make the game more enjoyable for one or more of them -- who may have been contemplating the medium armor route, but eventually gave up because the cost was a bit too high.

 

[moritheil]

It's not just what you have, it's how you use it.

I once had a player laugh at a set of stats he rolled - something like 14, 11, 10, 10, 8, 6. He claimed that nothing decent could ever be built with them. I allowed him to reroll, but wrote the stats down in my notes.

The CR 8 BBEG cleric I built with those stats nearly destroyed the entire party of 10 9th- and 10th-level players, using no outside help (that is, all undead in the fight were raised by him, and all his assistants were derived from the Leadership feat) and with wealth below level. The fight with him was massive in scope, requiring three sessions to conclude (and it was not until the third that they managed to actually damage him.)

If the party is conscious that their stats don't match up, that should just encourage them to work all the harder to come up with good builds and good uses of their abillities and spells.

Oh, and if the party complains about the stats of NPCs - which they have no right to know - deck them for metagaming.