Anatomy of Failed Design: 3E NPC/Monster creation

[MGuy]

If you tie Caster level to HD then the one level of wizard might indeed prove useful (this is an idea out of Trailblazer). If we were to balance it per class we'd need to again balance the classes. And even before that we'd need to fashion a standard of what challenges a PC should expect to face at each individual level. This truthfully has to be done even if we were to shore up the monsters' numbers first. If we don't have a standard for this we're firing blind.

[RandomCasualty2]

What I would like to see is a list of abilities and modifiers appropriate for each CR. Ideally in a sortable format, with tags like "mind-affecting" or "movement". Then when I want to whip up a CR 10 golem I look at some tables, pick an AC that is considered high for that CR, a touch AC that is terrible, some random combat abilities appropriate for CR 10, some powerful defenses and if I want to be thorough I work out his ability modifiers from those stats.

Sure its a compromise and you can't build exact PC copies which such a system, but it should work fine to build random monsters and NPCs.

Thoughts?

Yeah, generally I'd like to see something like this too.

Now, for the ability list I think you'd want some kind of monster role that gets access to higher level abilities, but has an otherwise weaker chassis, because a lot of monsters have one potent ability, but otherwise suck, like medusa and basilisks. And you should be able to write them out.

But you'd want to have something table driven, with the tables small enough to fit on a DM screen.

[NativeJovian]

If you tie Caster level to HD then the one level of wizard might indeed prove useful (this is an idea out of Trailblazer).

I thought about that, but then it gets ugly where you can do things like take 19 levels of fighter (or play as a level 19 monster) and then take 1 level of wizard and get all the advantages of being a 19th level fighter/monster AND a 20th level wizard (because you're a wizard with 20 HD). I'm not real sure how to fix the issue, honestly.

If we were to balance it per class we'd need to again balance the classes. And even before that we'd need to fashion a standard of what challenges a PC should expect to face at each individual level.

Sure, but those are both things that are worth doing for their own sake as well. Having balanced classes and clear standards for levels are both things you want to have a good system in the first place. The fact that having them could lead to a better monster creation/rating system is just icing on the cake, really.

[MGuy]

If you tie Caster level to HD then the one level of wizard might indeed prove useful (this is an idea out of Trailblazer).

I thought about that, but then it gets ugly where you can do things like take 19 levels of fighter (or play as a level 19 monster) and then take 1 level of wizard and get all the advantages of being a 19th level fighter/monster AND a 20th level wizard (because you're a wizard with 20 HD). I'm not real sure how to fix the issue, honestly.

That's easily handled. Just don't give them actual levels in the class. They'd count as a 20th level caster but only have 1st level spells. Sure those spells will be more potent because of the high caster level but you're still missing the higher level spells. Also Trailblazer does have something on this but I'd have to look over the book again (going to ask friend for a copy).

If we were to balance it per class we'd need to again balance the classes. And even before that we'd need to fashion a standard of what challenges a PC should expect to face at each individual level.

Sure, but those are both things that are worth doing for their own sake as well. Having balanced classes and clear standards for levels are both things you want to have a good system in the first place. The fact that having them could lead to a better monster creation/rating system is just icing on the cake, really.

I know and agree. I think though that before we start worrying about CRs that the issue should be tackled first.

[Red_Rob]

Something that just occurred to me is that by basing monster HD = CR we are effectively saying that average character damage increases by about 4 points per level, as a CR1 monster has around 4hp and a CR10 monster has around 40hp and they should each take an appropriate level character the same amount of effort to destroy.

Does anyone know if this is true, or has been looked at by anyone in the past? Because if not HD = CR may not be such a good starting point.

[TarkisFlux]

That's easily handled. Just don't give them actual levels in the class. They'd count as a 20th level caster but only have 1st level spells. Sure those spells will be more potent because of the high caster level but you're still missing the higher level spells. Also Trailblazer does have something on this but I'd have to look over the book again (going to ask friend for a copy).

While Trailblazer attempted the admirable thing of figuring out what sort of CR adjustment adding naked spellcasting to anyone was, they failed to do it in a context that makes any sense. The DM's day preview had a level of wizard casting on it's own as something like .6 CR, so you could add 2 levels of wizard casting to a level 19 fighter and have a supposedly CR 20 thingy. Except that at 20th level no one cares even a little bit if you can cast Sleep or Color Spray or whatever a couple of times a day, and the save on them is going to be laughable to any competitive character whether they're CL 2 or 50. It doesn't add anything to the challenge of the creature, and shouldn't be counted. If you really want to do the HD = CR thing you probably need to go back and fix caster multi-classing while you're at it, because you suffer similar issues.

[RandomCasualty2]

Vancian magic is not meant to be taken out of a single class level system.

But we're talking about monsters anyway, so we don't want to give them actual wizard levels.

Quite simply the best way to simulate spellcasting on monsters is to have crap on your ability table like: "Can cast one 5th level arcane spell per day" or some shit like that. Remember that we don't want monsters having the spell slots of a PC wizard. That's bad, because it lets them totally nuke the fuck out of you. Even if it wasn't a colossal pain in the ass to use PC levels for NPCs, we still wouldn't want to do that anyway, because they're playing different games.

Honestly, forget about making NPCs real wizards, we want to make them close to what a wizard does, so they feel wizardly, but we don't want to actually ever use the wizard class. That's just a big massive can of worms which we should avoid at all costs.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The funny thing is that if 4E didn't go out of its way to eliminate PC/NPC transparency, it could have easily (not very easily, but easily) supported monsters taking up PC class features.

Monster powers, with a few crazy exceptions on both ends, are generally comparable to PC powers of the same level. Monster powers just end up sucking on the damage because they don't get feats/class features/magic items that help them out. But I could very easily see Goblin Hexers trading out for Ray of Frost or Storm Pillar. I don't think they would, because Goblin Hexers are overpowered for their level, but the general idea is sound.

Unfortunately, I don't know how good this approach would end up. Like I said earlier, PCs get a large amount of their power from magic items (feats, too, but mostly magic items); ranger powers are not all that great without a bunch of static damage bonuses. But it wouldn't cause the game to implode for Orcus to bust out with the Legion's Hold.

[MGuy]

So you're suggesting that NPCs be like monsters in regard to their skills/abilities?

[RandomCasualty2]

Unfortunately, I don't know how good this approach would end up. Like I said earlier, PCs get a large amount of their power from magic items (feats, too, but mostly magic items); ranger powers are not all that great without a bunch of static damage bonuses. But it wouldn't cause the game to implode for Orcus to bust out with the Legion's Hold.

Yeah, that's the bottom line. Monsters and NPCs just shouldn't take the time and dedication to create min/maxed builds for, nor should you even try. Collecting small bonuses is okay for PCs who control one character, and I don't even care if they have shit like "+1 damage when using a fire spell within 30 ft of a target" or similar crap.

But monsters have to be simple. that means preferably, their statblocks don't change dramatically during combat. (Monsters shouldn't need to be buffing, or drinking buff potions and the like). The only thing that should occur to monsters is status conditions.

If you want to simulate a mage monster who you can dispel, you have a "Dispelled" status condition that it throws on a monster, and certain monsters are affected by that in various ways. Something as simple as "Weakness: Dispelling (-6 AC)" would probably be fine. But it should be something pretty major and not require much in the way of calculations.

As far as monster attacks, they don't use feats or any of that crap, they're standalone powers and the damage or effect is just based on CR. That's it. For interaction/counter purposes, you toss on tags.

[Lago PARANOIA]

RC2, what you just posted is exactly why people continually deride your proposed monster system as inflexible and overly wordy.

No feats? No temporary magic items? No buffs?

With all due respect, fuck your monster creation system.

[Crissa]

I think there's a difference between 'doesn't need' and 'doesn't have'.

There's no reason the statblock can't say they have bonuses from various sources, so that push-pull or dispel/disarm will have an effect upon them. In fact, that's probably a good idea.

But it should be pretty standard to the race/group/array instead of being unique except for solos.

-Crissa

[Cynic]

There's a difference between long-standing recurring NPCS and the monster built on the fly.


Why is it that RC's system can't be used for the easy-to-build monster and a more nuanced approach is taken for other npcs.

Bruce the hacksaw murderer - built on fly -- berserker strength, traits - unrelenting and weapon causes bleeding damage. --

Jack the ripper - well this you'll have to build up as he'll be cutting up those Prostitutes each session. Rogue 3 -- hey we have JtR

---

Additionally, each approach has its own area to be used also dependent on DM play style and amount of time spent planning a session. This goes without saying, of course.

[Draco_Argentum]

Read what you just quoted. Are you really arguing that the chances of defeating a random CR 20 monster are the same as the chances of defeating a random CR 1 monster are? Because that is what random means. I'm sure we all agree that the CRs by the book are not precise and that it involves a lot of guesswork to assign CRs to newly created monsters. But to literally argue that the CR means nothing at all is moronic.

Read the discussion. I only said random to echo K's claim that 1e, 2e and 4e are random and 3e was somehow different. This is patently untrue. 3e hasn't got a mechanic that estimates the CR of a new monster at all. The DM has to eyeball it, thereby making it an arbitrary number.

[Crissa]

Yeah, it should be fairly intuitive to take a mob and and stat it out like an NPC - like a section in the bottom of the entry giving suggestions. Like, take the MM entries and down where it says skills and feats and past the flavor text have a section with the breakdown of numbers like 'four levels of fighter, elite array, +x weapon' to give you an idea of how the entry could be created under the N/PC system rather than the encounter system.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty2]

RC2, what you just posted is exactly why people continually deride your proposed monster system as inflexible and overly wordy.

No feats? No temporary magic items? No buffs?

Yeah. Pretty much.

Feats are really just better handled as monster abilities. The fact that you're handing out "petrifying gaze" as a monster ability, should really be similar to handing out shock trooper. The fact that every monster gets X number of feats based on hit dice is kind of pointless. We can live without handing feats for them.

As for buffs, yeah. Buffs are pretty complicated and while they work for PCs, it's not a great idea to give NPCs complex buffing routines, because that's just way too much to keep track of.

I mean just try a simple scenario like this.
There are four warriors. Each has a potion of barkskin, shield of faith, bull's strength, bear's endurance, divine favor and fly. Try keeping track of who drank what potion in combat. It's hard.

Now, obviously this shit is only going to be remotely useful if the NPCs prebuff, because wasting rounds in combat to actually drink these potions is pointless. We all know that. So basically you're setting it up where the NPCs require prebuffing to be remotely challenging. Not to mention the DM has to cross off a bunch of crap on their character sheet to record a bunch of minor bonuses.

Well that's bad.

I say work backwards. What we want to have is a competitive combat monster. And then we want it to have a vulnerability to dispelling, which turns it into a less competent combatant. There's a lot of ways of doing that in a much simpler fashion than having to stack 4 different buffs that minorly enhanced various attributes.

From the PC end, they don't really have to ID what buffs are active, only that the creature has some kind of magical enhancement active, which tells them that dispelling would be a useful tactic.

And you get basically all the tactical versatility out of that only with half the complexity and book-keeping.

Needless complexity is bad.

[Crissa]

I would certainly say giving monsters feats and abilities is just annoying. Right now they have an entry that has 'attacks' then 'other attacks' then 'other abilities' and yet another for 'feats'.

It'd be more straight forward if they had a BAB, a set of attacks, and a set of abilities, period. If those abilities are like feats, all the better.

Of course, the chassis you're looking at couldn't decide if a feat was a sticker (intel inside!) or a game changer (64 bit!)

-Crissa

[NativeJovian]

Honestly, forget about making NPCs real wizards, we want to make them close to what a wizard does, so they feel wizardly, but we don't want to actually ever use the wizard class. That's just a big massive can of worms which we should avoid at all costs.

That seems like a bad idea to me. If your party is fighting an enemy wizard, then the enemy should be a wizard, subject to all the strengths and weaknesses that PC wizards are. Otherwise what's the point in calling him a wizard? If PCs are unique in their use of class levels, then your campaign loses much in the way of verisimilitude, which is a bad thing. The PCs exist in a world where some people are rogues and some people are clerics and some people are paladins and some people are wizards. That's just how it works. If you turn around and say that no actually only the PCs are those things, and NPCs are actually "monsters with abilities similar to rogues/wizards/paladins/clerics", then there goes a large part of your immersion.

[schpeelah]

In the instance of wizards, however, we are dealing with a type of character wholly dependant on his resources, which is pretty iffy if you make NPCs use the exact same mechanic since NPCs usually only have to deal with one PC attack in their life.

[RandomCasualty2]

That seems like a bad idea to me. If your party is fighting an enemy wizard, then the enemy should be a wizard, subject to all the strengths and weaknesses that PC wizards are.

Only using the wizard class doesn't do this. Because PC wizards have to ration spells. NPC wizards don't.

In effect, making him actually use the wizard class makes him feel less like a PC wizard, due to the basic set up of the game.

The PCs exist in a world where some people are rogues and some people are clerics and some people are paladins and some people are wizards. That's just how it works. If you turn around and say that no actually only the PCs are those things, and NPCs are actually "monsters with abilities similar to rogues/wizards/paladins/clerics", then there goes a large part of your immersion.

But classes are mechanical constructs not professions. It's the same as saying that you can't be a knight unless you take the knight class. It's just bullshit. You can damn well be referred to as a knight when you may be a fighter/paladin. You can be referred to as an assassin before you even take the PrC.

And that's fine.

[PhoneLobster]

Only using the wizard class doesn't do this. Because PC wizards have to ration spells. NPC wizards don't.

And that sort of joke is why you can't be taken seriously on this topic.

[Red_Rob]

Honestly, forget about making NPCs real wizards, we want to make them close to what a wizard does, so they feel wizardly, but we don't want to actually ever use the wizard class. That's just a big massive can of worms which we should avoid at all costs.

That seems like a bad idea to me. If your party is fighting an enemy wizard, then the enemy should be a wizard, subject to all the strengths and weaknesses that PC wizards are. Otherwise what's the point in calling him a wizard? If PCs are unique in their use of class levels, then your campaign loses much in the way of verisimilitude, which is a bad thing. The PCs exist in a world where some people are rogues and some people are clerics and some people are paladins and some people are wizards. That's just how it works. If you turn around and say that no actually only the PCs are those things, and NPCs are actually "monsters with abilities similar to rogues/wizards/paladins/clerics", then there goes a large part of your immersion.

This approach seems to have been the one that the 3rd Ed. designers took, however the problem with this is that it leads to the exact problem we were discussing earlier about potions, buffs, item effects, spells etc.

A PC has a single player dedicated full time to thinking about his actions, strategy, options etc. A DM has to run maybe 8-10 of these characters whilst also running the whole adventure and still have the fight seem even. I would go so far as to say NPC's need to be more powerful but simpler than an equivalent player character, as a PC is going to be min-maxing every advantage he can get from a situation whilst a DM just doesn't have the time to think about it that deeply.

Effectively in a fight against equal opponents its like handing the DM everyones character sheet in the party and expecting him to play them all. Its just a logistical nightmare. NPC's need to be simpler to run, i.e. have fewer options, fewer temporary effects to remember and fewer rationed resources to track.

[Username17]

At any given time, a PC is probably going to have a number of abilities that do not matter in their current situation. For full parity, you'd want to give NPCs a fair number of irrelevant abilities out of their ability allotment as well. And thus, rather than just deliberately giving them shitty abilities, it is faster and more honest to simply fail to get around to spending all their ability slots. Call it an irrelevancy portion.

So don't make a fake wizard, make a wizard where you only bother to think of what like half of his prepared spells even are. Maybe the rest are already cast, and maybe they're spells dedicated to handling contingencies that happen to not come up. Whatever.

And if an NPC does become a pivotal or even recurring character, you ca get around to buying up the rest of their abilities.

Yes, you shouldn't cheat and you shouldn't fudge. But you shouldn't do more work than you have to.

-Username17

[MGuy]

This approach seems to have been the one that the 3rd Ed. designers took, however the problem with this is that it leads to the exact problem we were discussing earlier about potions, buffs, item effects, spells etc.

A PC has a single player dedicated full time to thinking about his actions, strategy, options etc. A DM has to run maybe 8-10 of these characters whilst also running the whole adventure and still have the fight seem even. I would go so far as to say NPC's need to be more powerful but simpler than an equivalent player character, as a PC is going to be min-maxing every advantage he can get from a situation whilst a DM just doesn't have the time to think about it that deeply.

Effectively in a fight against equal opponents its like handing the DM everyones character sheet in the party and expecting him to play them all. Its just a logistical nightmare. NPC's need to be simpler to run, i.e. have fewer options, fewer temporary effects to remember and fewer rationed resources to track.

Then you're trying to look two ways at the same time. If you shave the versatility of an npc in battle but want him to be more of a challenge you're not going to get much of either. I have learned a trick or two here and there as I've DMed so I'm used to the logistics of playing NPCs myself. So I'm used to playing a team of other people and the PCs. Its like that all the time.

Most NPCs should be weaker than the PCs. The PCs ARE the heroes.Most fights should be only a bit challenging. If you want to have an NPC or two present a credible or even overwhelming challenge to the PCs I don't see what's wrong with those particular ones taking time to make. 3e doesn't have the simplest system but its pretty damn straight forward. you use the elite array for ability scores the DMG/PHB 2 to get generic builds and tweak until you've got what you're looking for. I don't remember if it says it in the DMG(s) but many problems can be solved just by having premade generic npcs. Hell if you have the right books you can even find generic goons. They won't be the best goons but the way you're boiling down abilities (sacrificing options to streamline the process) you're going to end up with subpar goons anyway (4e style).

What I don't want to see are limits put on to my option for the customization of monsters and npcs. Personally I'd sacrifice time to keep customization and for those who want to sacrifice that for speed their are a multitude of tables to perform such an action.

[RandomCasualty2]

At any given time, a PC is probably going to have a number of abilities that do not matter in their current situation. For full parity, you'd want to give NPCs a fair number of irrelevant abilities out of their ability allotment as well. And thus, rather than just deliberately giving them shitty abilities, it is faster and more honest to simply fail to get around to spending all their ability slots. Call it an irrelevancy portion.

So don't make a fake wizard, make a wizard where you only bother to think of what like half of his prepared spells even are. Maybe the rest are already cast, and maybe they're spells dedicated to handling contingencies that happen to not come up. Whatever.

And if an NPC does become a pivotal or even recurring character, you ca get around to buying up the rest of their abilities.

That works if you're running a system that is modular. GURPS or BESM for instance, you can just buy combat abilities and just assume the NPCs other stuff hasn't been bought yet. Now the main flaw there is that there's really no good metric to determine Challenge Rating.

And that's generally the main problem with partial construction. Unless your system subdivides combat and noncombat, you can't effectively handle that stuff, because where you stop making your partial NPC is entirely arbitrary. And at that point your NPC abilities are in fact different from your PC abiltiies.

Your NPC wizard for instance only gets 2 spell slots instead of 4 (that you're using for combat spells anyway). So in fact what you're doing is writing out a whole new table to define NPC combat abilities anyway.