NPC classes

[Judging__Eagle]

Piece of shit, I wasn't logged in and didn't realize it. -_- That was me above.

[micah]

No, not really, CR should go from -inf to +inf. I mean, how difficult an encounter it is is supposed to solely depend on the difference in CR.

In general, this is a laudable goal (I totally approve of anything that takes D+D away from the stupid linear-at-the-bottom, exponential-at-the-top paradigm that seems to pervade it). It's not particularly compatible with making CR=HD, though.

[Brobdingnagian]

Unless each HD was equivelant in ability to a PC class of equal level.

I really have no idea how to do that without a total revamp of the MM, though. Don't ask.

[micah]

Even then, you have issues at the low end, unless you can figure out what a -2 HD monster is supposed to do.

The weakest meaningfully CRed monsters in the MM are kobolds, which are CR 1/4 (and so would be CR -4 under a purely exponential system). You could just give everyone 5 racial hit dice, but that would basically require writing D+D 4.0 to balance properly.

[Brobdingnagian]

With kobolds, there is a chance of Pun-Pun.

[RandomCasualty]

1179673550[/unixtime]]Even then, you have issues at the low end, unless you can figure out what a -2 HD monster is supposed to do.

The weakest meaningfully CRed monsters in the MM are kobolds, which are CR 1/4 (and so would be CR -4 under a purely exponential system). You could just give everyone 5 racial hit dice, but that would basically require writing D+D 4.0 to balance properly.

While it'd actually kind of be nice to have negative CRs, unfortunately, based on how the HP system works, we can't do that. 1 is the starting point for hp and it can't go any lower. So you can't really represent negative toughnesses at all, because 1 hp is the absolute bottom for how weak a creature can be.

[RandomCasualty]

1179623901[/unixtime]]
Non-com NPCs really only need to be a HD and a bunch of skill bonuses. You could use Frank and K's profession skill rules with them pretty successfully too.

Yeah, honestly, I'm not even sure if non-com NPCs even need many classes. Because non-com stuff doesn't increase CR, it's easier to just design a template that grants extra skill points and allows a character to transcend normal skill rank limits, with the exception that it only works for non-combat skills.

Basically it amounts to just creating a crap 1st level character, throwing on a template and arbitrarily assigning him skills (since the template can be applied more than once and has no CR increase). That's the easiest way to design a non-combatant who is good at what he does, you don't need expert classes and tons of rules.

I mean really, why waste time spending and divvying up skill points to try to make your sage work in the system. If you want him to have a +15 knowledge (arcana), then just assign it. Hell, as the DM you're probably not even going to roll his checks and just have him dispense information as you see fit anyway.

non-com NPCs are there to supplement the plot anyway and little else.

[Cielingcat]

You don't even need rules for them; they need skills and you're done. If the PCs want to kill them, they die.

[Crissa]

1179854494[/unixtime]]You don't even need rules for them; they need skills and you're done. If the PCs want to kill them, they die.

That's useless, rules-wise. At that point, why are we even playing D&D?

If NPCs can't attack/defend other NPCs, why are they still there at all?

At first level, NPCs are usually more powerful than you are. At tenth, they're usually not. And at twentieth, they're no longer ever your level.

I don't see a reason for NPCs to not have some sort of stat block other than 'you're playing a game other than D&D'.

-Crissa

[CalibronXXX]

1179858985[/unixtime]]
That's useless, rules-wise. At that point, why are we even playing D&D?

If NPCs can't attack/defend other NPCs, why are they still there at all?

At first level, NPCs are usually more powerful than you are. At tenth, they're usually not. And at twentieth, they're no longer ever your level.

I don't see a reason for NPCs to not have some sort of stat block other than 'you're playing a game other than D&D'.

-Crissa

That's only for the purposes of the random lvl1 schmo when the PCs already have several levels under their belts, writing out stats for said schmoes would just be a waste of valuable time that could be spent procrastinating.

[RandomCasualty]

1179858985[/unixtime]]
That's useless, rules-wise. At that point, why are we even playing D&D?

If NPCs can't attack/defend other NPCs, why are they still there at all?

Well he's talking about non-combat NPCs. Really, how often do we have the shoemaker attack the sage or what not?

Basically ceilingcat is saying to make non-combat NPCs so inept that they're killable with one attack. It's much like attacking a helpless target.

And really, why not? I mean it may kind of screw up the plotline where you rally the farmers to hold off the orc invasion but that's about it. It goes a long way towards simplifying things.

I mean we don't write out statblocks for the shoemaker anyway, so really, why do we even care if he has 4 hp or 1?

[Cielingcat]

If the plotline is "rally the farmers to stop the orcs" you probably don't want to be rolling dice for all of the farmers. The action focuses on the PCs, so you just narrate what's happening with the farmers who they're interacting with. You can just have one set of stats for the farmers (AC, hp, attack, damage, saves), and use it when needed.

Plus, that's a low level plotline anyway, which means you probably should have rules for the NPCs. But Random Beggar #34 isn't someone you need stats for-he's someone who just says something and maybe the PCs give him money.

[Crissa]

If you're playing a game in which random beggar #34 and the rat in the corner do not have stats - you're not playing D&D. You're playing something else.

NPCs need stats. You want to know if the evil villian really can kill them.

NPCs aren't for attacking or defending against PCs - they're for other NPCs. FI they don't have stats, your world doesn't exist. It doesn't mean everyone needs to be written out, but we really do need to know what the shoemaker has for stats when Joe the lvl 1 PC or Jane the NPC tries to intimidate or kill them.

There's a reason you can command useless numbers of NPCs - and it's not to rally against other PCs. It's to rally NPCs vs other NPCs.

The soldiers of the castle really don't care which group of adventurers sits on the throne - they can't stop them - but they can operate the dungeon, drag people in chains, make sure taxes are paid and petty monsterous threats are kept from the castle and little adventurers are paid for.

Look, Shrek 3 was a terrible movie - but when the monsterous villians take the castle by force, the human defenders surrender. They really have no place in this fight of adventurers vs adventurers. But these NPC guys need stats when a single adventurer tries to break out of jail, or Joe the lvl 10 PC's minions come calling.

If NPCs are always smaller than PCs, then there's no jail that could hold a single PC, ever. There's no threat so small as to be their sized. And there's no reason five kobolds don't overrun the villagers while the PCs are out fighting the orcs.

-Crissa

[JonSetanta]

I see most people in any setting as Experts, with more customization to Hit Die.
Some don't have any combat experience and as a result have as much HP as a L1 character.
Others have no skill points.
Some have mostly feats.

All I suggest is rolling all Commoner, Warrior, Expert, and Adept into one PC-equivalent class with many options to advance/drop every class feature.
Aristocrat, we can toss.

Oh, wait, it's called 'classless system'. haha.

[CalibronXXX]

Crissa first you're saying tha all the little NPCs need stats, then you go to say the DM doesn't need to stat out all the NPCs. You then go on to say the NPCs need stats for purpose of interacting with each other, which rarely happens on screen, and almost never on any large scale. You act as if the DM can't just arbitrarily make the background characters and events happen the way he wants them too, that for some reason every DM needs to simulate the cobbler's mercantile transaction with the leather worker with full blown sense motive and bluff checks, craft checks to see if he'll actually get all the shoes made on time for the big royal ball order, and that Cat Burgler Tim manages to actually get away from Town Guard Joe when he sneaks in and steals the payments out of Cobbler Jeff's strongbox.

WHY!?

At least, that's what I seem to be getting out of what you wrote.

[Crissa]

We don't need the stats at level 20. Only need some of the stats at level 10. But we need pretty much all of them at level 1.

Does every specific NPC need stats? No!

Does there need to be a potential and CR appropriate stat block for every NPC? Yes!

Because NPCs might be on the player's side of the screen. Or the DM's. Or the villians'... This is D&D. It's a wargame first, and a roleplaying game second.

The entire point of playing a game with rules is to have those rules to use when you need it.

If the rules don't exist, then the game grinds to a halt and the GM handwaves it and... it's not D&D.

-Crissa

[Draco_Argentum]

So? Thats the same point that you're arguing against.

Combat NPCs get an NPC class with CR = lvl.

Non-combat NPCs get one commoner HD plus the skills to do whatever their thing is. These guys are CR 1/2 because coopers are not a combat challenge and shouldn't be.

[RandomCasualty]

1179905876[/unixtime]]I see most people in any setting as Experts, with more customization to Hit Die.
Some don't have any combat experience and as a result have as much HP as a L1 character.
Others have no skill points.
Some have mostly feats.

All I suggest is rolling all Commoner, Warrior, Expert, and Adept into one PC-equivalent class with many options to advance/drop every class feature.
Aristocrat, we can toss.

Oh, wait, it's called 'classless system'. haha.

That's exactly what you don't want to do. When a DM is making up an NPC, he shouldn't have to run through a bunch of charts and have to pick several crazy options.

NPC generation needs to be fast above all else. PCs can screw around all they want with character creation because they're playing one character. The DM routinely has to create several NPCs in a given session. You want to be able to create stuff quickly and easily.

[tzor]

I sort of agree with Crissa. One could argue that everything needs stats; it's important part of the game mechanic. From creatures to NPC, everyone needs, more or less stats. Shit happens and eventually some random NPC has to make some really odd check for a bizzare very rare situation.

Now the question is: Does every NPC get specific stats? (This is a slightly reworded version of Crissa's question.) No! No matter how painful this sounds, it's no crime to make the bulk of NPC humanity downright generic.

Now being an old Lankhmar fan I can see an argument comming between the great powers Chance and Necessity. Chance can, no doubt recall the infamous example in the OOTS strip where all the kobolds realized that they all had the exact same stats because more or less they were all exactly going to be killed.

But giving all Generic wall guards a strength of 12 for purposes of making things simple is perfectly acceptable. They do indeed have stats, just the same ones. Now one can and should throw in the exception to that rule ... raising his level by a few points as well, just to show the PCs that it' not deja vu all over again.

I'm an old fashioned gamer. The generation of an NPC, for me, is done the old fashioned way; I flip through my looseleaf of NPCs and pick one. They used to make whole books of NPCs back in the old pre-3E days. I think I still have them. You have your generic 13th level female gnome thief, your generic 12th level male elf wizard &c.

You can really churn out a plethora of NPCs ahead of time as long as you remember the old mantra. "They are NPCs; turn the Min/Max part of the brain off." Yes that's hard. So is Centering Prayer. Not thinking isn't as easy as it sounds. But you can do it.

In fact, I think I might have found a great book to write.
"The Complete Book of Useless NPCs."

[RandomCasualty]

1179934635[/unixtime]]
You can really churn out a plethora of NPCs ahead of time as long as you remember the old mantra. "They are NPCs; turn the Min/Max part of the brain off." Yes that's hard. So is Centering Prayer. Not thinking isn't as easy as it sounds. But you can do it.

Yes, but the point is that you're creating NPCs that actually make a credible threat for the PCs. The NPC classes I'm proposing in this thread aren't to be applied to Farmer Bob, but rather to the evil wizard's henchmen and bodyguards and such.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

1179955567[/unixtime]]

Yes, but the point is that you're creating NPCs that actually make a credible threat for the PCs.

Why?

I mean, there definatly needs to be fights that are challenging to the party. The BBEG's henchmen, and even the henchmen's enforcers need to be able to bring the pain, it's why they're there. Any combat that advances one of the campaign's plots should be challenging.

But by the same token, why should the bandits you rolled as a random encounter between towns nessissarily have to be deadly? Do you really want someone's character to die because they decided to start a barfight during their night of drinking? Either case, the combat should take 2-3 rounds tops, and at the end you either pick through the bodies for loose change (In the former), or you pick your opponent off the floor and buy him a drink for the impressive haymaker he hit you with. If it wasn't important enough for you to plan out ahead of time, then you shouldn't waste time on it, you get it done and move on.

If a deal goes south and the party wants to kill an important NPC that you haven't statted because they're not supposed to fight them, let them do it. By all means, let them face the consequences, but the game will not grind to a halt if they can kill the town blacksmith. If the party is regularly attacking merchants and contacts, then you have a problem that cannot be fixed by making everyone suddenly badass.

-Desdan

[RandomCasualty]

1180006504[/unixtime]]
I mean, there definatly needs to be fights that are challenging to the party. The BBEG's henchmen, and even the henchmen's enforcers need to be able to bring the pain, it's why they're there. Any combat that advances one of the campaign's plots should be challenging.

Right. And these NPC classes let you do that easily and effectively, without spending hours in preparation.

But by the same token, why should the bandits you rolled as a random encounter between towns nessissarily have to be deadly? Do you really want someone's character to die because they decided to start a barfight during their night of drinking?

This is why you just make them lower level. The advantage of having level = CR is that you can create trivial fights if you want too. So your third level PCs run into a bunch of 1st level mooks, problem solved. You've got direct control of the deadliness.

If a deal goes south and the party wants to kill an important NPC that you haven't statted because they're not supposed to fight them, let them do it. By all means, let them face the consequences, but the game will not grind to a halt if they can kill the town blacksmith. If the party is regularly attacking merchants and contacts, then you have a problem that cannot be fixed by making everyone suddenly badass.

I don't think you're understanding me. The idea isn't to have every non-combat NPC be a badass. This is a system for designing combat NPCs. The kind that PCs are likely to encounter in fights. As stated before, we could really care less what non-combat NPCs can do. They're non-combat characters and having classes for them is rather pointless anyway.

But we do care about the BBEG's henchmen and if we decide the PCs foes for the quest happen to be humanoids instead of monsters, we don't want to spend all night statting them out, because classed characters take a lot of time, especially at higher levels.

We want an easy system to create mid to high CR challenges without any problems. At least that's my goal here.

Cause seriously, anyone who says they can create a CR 8 NPC in no time is lying through their teeth. Creating NPCs takes lots and lots of work if you want to make them challenging.

[User3]

1180026589[/unixtime]]Cause seriously, anyone who says they can create a CR 8 NPC in no time is lying through their teeth. Creating NPCs takes lots and lots of work if you want to make them challenging.

It's easy: you just assign them arbitrary numbers for AB, AC, saves, movement modes, etc, and if questioned, claim they just chugged a bunch of potions. The PCs can't see "behind the curtain" so they have no clue that you decided AC 32 was appropriate by thinking for 5 seconds, rather than spending 30 minutes looking up NPC wealth and magic item prices.

[Artless]

1180039895[/unixtime]
It's easy: you just assign them arbitrary numbers for AB, AC, saves, movement modes, etc, and if questioned, claim they just chugged a bunch of potions. The PCs can't see "behind the curtain" so they have no clue that you decided AC 32 was appropriate by thinking for 5 seconds, rather than spending 30 minutes looking up NPC wealth and magic item prices.

By that paradigm, there's no need for monster manuals, seeing as you can just make it all up on the spot. While that's fine on its own, that's not what this discussion is about.

NPC classes exist because the DM, for whatever reason, wants their characters to be represented fairly by the rules. Not bone-crushingly powerful, nor cripplingly weak. They should be easily created so that NPC's don't take hours to complete their creation.

What I'd like to see is just "packages" of the regular classes or even made-up ones (like a new, NPC-only class) that do not go past 5th level, or 10th if you really want to push it. Any character past that line should probably have a more thorough creation than normal, but that's just my viewpoint.

[RandomCasualty]

1180041561[/unixtime]]

What I'd like to see is just "packages" of the regular classes or even made-up ones (like a new, NPC-only class) that do not go past 5th level, or 10th if you really want to push it. Any character past that line should probably have a more thorough creation than normal, but that's just my viewpoint.

The problem is that beyond 5th is where we really need help. It's not overly hard to represent an NPC sorcerer or wizard at 1st or 2nd level. Making an 8th or 9th level one is a nightmare. You've got to buy magic items, prepare lots of levels of spells, choose a bunch of feats and so on.

If anything, high levels are where we severely need good NPC classes.

As it is now, it's virtually impossible to run a mid to high level NPC dominated game. Unless your DM plays the arbitrary numbers game or has no life beyond preparing for game sessions. We need some mid to high level drag'n'drop NPCs badly.