What are your shortcuts....

[damiller]

for making d20 NPCs?

I dont have any, that is why I am asking!

Also anytime I have tried to come up with ways I feel like I have to justify it to my players.

d

 

[Crothian]

My shortcut is to not make them. I come up with a name and a personality and plots or whatever purpose the NPC is going to serve. Most everything else is made up as it becomes important. Statting out an NPC that just serves to answer questions is a waste of time. Most NPCs I use are more for interaction then combat, but I know the system well enough to easily come up with combat stats if I need to.

 

[Johnny Angel]

I have a chargen spreadsheet, so I can generally go from concept to stat block in a few minutes. Mine is built for my campaign, but could be used to create more generic d20 Modern characters. There's also the Modern Heroes sheet for more generic modern:

http://idisk.mac.com/uraniumdragon-Public?view=web

 

[Stormborn]

My shortcut is to not make them. I come up with a name and a personality and plots or whatever purpose the NPC is going to serve. Most everything else is made up as it becomes important. Statting out an NPC that just serves to answer questions is a waste of time. Most NPCs I use are more for interaction then combat, but I know the system well enough to easily come up with combat stats if I need to.

What he said. If I need combat stats I take a look at the ones in d20 Modern and the Menace Manual and use those as a guideline. Half the time, however, I figure out what the average HP for a challange of the appropriate level would be (typically I say 4-5 hp per level) assume a Dex Mod of +1 to +3 and a similar strength depending on their prefered mode of combat. If they have a higher dex its ranged and they also have a higher Defense. I assume a 3/4 BAB and a 1/2 bonus to Defense. If for some reason they have to make a save or use a skill v. the PCs I just roll a d20 and add +0 to +5 depending on how highly skilled I think they should be. This if for general mooks that I don't anticipate being more than a speed bump on the PCs way to the main encounter -which is USUALLY fully stated ahead of time.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Spycraft 2.0 has a neat way of making ultra-easy NPCs, and I believe that Heap Thaumaturgist was thinking about a way of taking that and doing it for d20 modern

 

[Peterson]

Spycraft 2.0 has a neat way of making ultra-easy NPCs, and I believe that Heap Thaumaturgist was thinking about a way of taking that and doing it for d20 modern

Not "was" thinking, but rather - did. From what I've seen of it, it works wonderfully too.

It should be hitting a publisher soon, if we're lucky.

Peterson

 

[Masada]

Most mooks are nameless and I just make up their combat stats by swag. If an NPC has a key skill check to make then I figure he/she has maxium ranks in it with as much as a +2 misc bonus to the check (this assumes I find it reasonable for the NPC to have the particular skill).

I don't waste much time fully stat'ing out NPC's unless they're going to be recurring a lot and their stat are important. For example, one of my players has a contact that is a Forger. This NPC will occassionally be talked to by the police so I have him stat'd out. But then I only allow my players a small number of real "contacts" they can depend on.

I also you an excel spread sheet to generate the basic values (BAB, Defense, Saves, and Skill points).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I stat them up ahead of time.

I have lots of mooks, mob bosses, SWAT members and the like ready, just in case. Most are Ordinaries, but more than enough are heroic.

 

[arscott]

Menace Manual. If I can't pull characters directly from a book, I often start with a book-statted NPC and modify from there.

Besides that, I've got a word version of the new statblock, and easy access to the SRD. It's surprising how much a computer speeds up the process, even if I'm still filling in the numbers myself.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It should be hitting a publisher soon, if we're lucky.

Ah, would that be why he removed it from the thread here then?