Your preferred level of complexity in a game?

[PhoneLobster]

The only difference to your NPC example is one of degree.

Que Frank insisting that the PCs who took sailing MUST engage exclusively in 50-50 sailing/farming campaigns or his game breaks.

[Draco_Argentum]

The only difference to your NPC example is one of degree.

Correct, we can only design for the average game, PCs will vary in power due to deviations from the assumptions that make up the average game. The NPCs are generally going to be cherry picked such that they always get more power out of this effect though. I'd expect the pirates to have sailing rather than farming for example. The PCs in an all sailing game will probably be heavily biased towards having sailing. So if the game is sailing only it'll be nearly a wash.

The difference is that when the game mixes sailing with tilling the NPCs are probably still optimal for whatever they actually do during their screentime whilst the PCs are never optimal.

[MartinHarper]

The only difference to your NPC example is one of degree.

Well, yes. For PCs it's a small source of imbalance, and the players and DM work to reduce it. This is a price worth paying to allow PCs to vary and have different specialties. For NPCs it's a major source of imbalance. If you want your "challenge ratings" or "encounter levels" to mean anything, you need to account for it somehow.

[PhoneLobster]

we can only design for the average game

What you are describing though is designing for the average and average alone, any tiny deviation from the mean will break the described design methodology because it lacks robustness.

The NPCs are generally going to be cherry picked such that they always get more power out of this effect though.

Haha! Cherry picked as manufactured examples relying on something akin to the "trade power in social mini game for power in combat mini game" to support a bad argument!

But seriously.

If the NPCs are "generally" picked in such a way then means that most of the time the devaluing of farming NPC skills for sailing encounters is indeed "generally" a total god damn non issue!

But that's what comes of Frank making a sailing/farming NPC fairy story that doesn't actually directly address the issue he was pretending it does.

Effectively he stepped in and declared that NPCs and PCs cannot pick from the same lists, because if bad cherry picking occurs an NPC might be weak in an encounter.

Do you realise how many insane assumptions are IN that line of argument?

It runs directly counter to your assumption that the opposite happens.

It assumes PCs DON'T have similar problems.

Simply not picking from the same ability lists in no way actually addresses the problem of bad cherry picking.

And it does nothing (and ignores any attempt to do anything) to determine actual encounter based difficulty ratings. And if you don't have a metric based on that kind of context cherry picking and situational usefulness will ALWAYS break your game, separate PC/NPC ability lists or not.

The difference is that when the game mixes sailing with tilling the NPCs are probably still optimal for whatever they actually do during their screentime whilst the PCs are never optimal.

You mean the perfect Mean PCs.

More so, a party consisting entirely of individually perfect Mean PCs.

In a campaign world that hates them with a GM who only introduces relevantly specialised NPCs from the extremes of the range rather than a similar perfect Mean.

AND requiring the assumption that your encounter challenge rating system is totally retarded, non contextual, and built with the blind faith that the GM and the players won't go behaving like that.

[Murtak]

The only difference to your NPC example is one of degree.

Correct, we can only design for the average game, PCs will vary in power due to deviations from the assumptions that make up the average game. The NPCs are generally going to be cherry picked such that they always get more power out of this effect though. I'd expect the pirates to have sailing rather than farming for example. The PCs in an all sailing game will probably be heavily biased towards having sailing. So if the game is sailing only it'll be nearly a wash.

The difference is that when the game mixes sailing with tilling the NPCs are probably still optimal for whatever they actually do during their screentime whilst the PCs are never optimal.

I don't see the problem here. I expect a lifelong sailor to have a decent sailing skill, be he PC or NPC. If you toss in a generic adventurer among professionals, shouldn't he be at a disadvantage? Should every PC automatically sail as well as a dedicated sailor, farm as well as any farmer, be among the best fletchers in the world, sneak around with the best of burglars and know about history on par with a historian?

[Username17]

I don't see the problem here.

Because the sailing/farming example is a deliberately flippant one. It also counts for things like winged flight and water breathing. And ranged attacks. And magma walking. And literally every single conditional or even potentially conditional ability in the game.

Because a Player Character buys some set of abilities based on their expected chances of coming up in future encounters. But an NPC actually only shows up for one fucking encounter. And the encounter they are appearing in is generally known to a very good approximation before they hit paper or spend a point. A closet troll loses nothing for not having a ranged attack if they are actually in a closet; and they are completely worthless if they show up on the far side of a river. And the GM generally knows which scenario they will be in before creating them.

Consider the game of roulette. The players have to spend their points on various bets on different colors and numbers. And when the appropriate situations come up, their abilities pay off and they collect the reward of advancing goals and hogging screen time. And those bets are pretty much fixed during character creation and advancement. But the NPC is actually appearing in only one situation and is created with that situation being a known factor. In short, when the NPC is made, the person making the NPC actually knows that the relevant situation will correspond to 32 Black. And they can, and indeed must make any of their "bets" already knowing that fact.

So to make an NPC using PC generation rules that is going to b in any way balanced against a PC the GM has to voluntarily spend some number of their points on things that are specifically worthless and will never see play. It's very difficult to enforce, it's very difficult to perform correctly, and it's a complete fucking waste of time.

Why bother giving the NPC whole bunch of space to set fire to all their points on bets on 15 Red when you know that it's going to be 32 Black when he actually shows up? Why not just have a parallel system in which the 32 Black NPC has some amount of relevant powers for 32 Black and doesn't horrendously overshadow the PCs who are going to go to 27 Red in a few moments and had to actually worry about hedging their bets?

-Username17

[Murtak]

So to make an NPC using PC generation rules that is going to b in any way balanced against a PC the GM has to voluntarily spend some number of their points on things that are specifically worthless and will never see play. It's very difficult to enforce, it's very difficult to perform correctly, and it's a complete fucking waste of time.

Or you can just spend, say, half of the NPC's points, optimize him for lava swimming or whatever and just leave the rest of the points unassigned (just in case you decide to flesh him out later). By the way, that is an option you miss out entirely when you go towards fully separate models - turning a generic NPC into a full long-time adversary or into a PC.

Edit:
How do you handle the PCs optimizing for lava swimming (instead of balancing their characters) and then refusing to leave th earth's core? Is the entire game unbalanced now?

[Username17]

Or you can just spend, say, half of the NPC's points, optimize him for lava swimming or whatever and just leave the rest of the points unassigned

In which case you are
Not using the same fucking system that PCs use!

So what he fuck are you arguing?

-Username17

[Roy]

I want to know why the topic changed to some bullshit about sailing and farming. Fuck that, everyone knows the optimal way is to put all your points into CORN SURFING.

...Yes, the above is fucking pointless. So is the stuff it's directed at.

[Murtak]

Or you can just spend, say, half of the NPC's points, optimize him for lava swimming or whatever and just leave the rest of the points unassigned

In which case you are
Not using the same fucking system that PCs use!

So what he fuck are you arguing?

-Username17

I am arguing that not bothering to fill out the entire sheet to save work is entirely different from "oh noes, its a different system".

Now would you kindly address my other point? Here, since you like big letters I will point it out to you again:

How do you handle the PCs optimizing for lava swimming (instead of balancing their characters) and then refusing to leave the earth's core? Is the entire game unbalanced now?

According to you NPCs must not be allowed to spend as many points as PCs on specific abilities (lava surfing) - if they could do that they would be imbalanced compared to PCs who have to spread out. So you have your NPC generation system which does not allow NPCs to spend all their points in lava surfing or which just hands out less points to NPCs. Fine. Now the PCs go and hyperspecialize in lava surfing. As far as I can tell the game is imbalanced in the other direction now.

[Murtak]

Roy: You are right, this is far from the original topic.

What's your ideal level of optimization? I suppose mine allows unoptimized characters to face level-appropriate challenges while letting optimized characters to perform better than unoptimized characters, but it doesn't put optimized characters at an entirely different power level than unoptimized characters.

I prefer a system to have next to no optimization potential, or rather, to have no options which are objectively superior to other options. There is enough potential for superior players to shine during gameplay - a planning minigame does not add to the game. It is fun for me, it is fun for some others, but overall less character building and more playing is a good thing.

[Thymos]

Frank you have some very rigid notion of system. It's seriously so rigid that by your definition fighters and wizards, as used before, really do use fucking different systems.

Even if NPC's get less skill points than PCs, they still use the skill points the same way. A Fighter has fewer skill points than a rogue, is he now using a different system?

As it is, we shouldn't let every ability a PC can grab be usable in the same turn, or even the same combat. Why are mysteriously NPC's able to grab abilities that are usable in the same turn and combat?

Limit the top end output of PC's. If vertical is upping your damage output, and Horizontal is varying the ways you can do damage (fire, lightning), then our concern is limiting the vertical growth. Having more skill points can translate into either vertical or horizontal growth, but if we limit vertical growth (by, I dunno, tying new damage abilities to level), then they can only go horizontally. Which doesn't matter very much.

Edit: I don't think PC's and NPC's should be built exactly the same way, only roughly. I also think that if you want to build a monster/NPC in the middle of a session your doing it wrong. We have pregenerated monsters/NPC's and tables for that shit.

[Roy]

Roy: You are right, this is far from the original topic.

What's your ideal level of optimization? I suppose mine allows unoptimized characters to face level-appropriate challenges while letting optimized characters to perform better than unoptimized characters, but it doesn't put optimized characters at an entirely different power level than unoptimized characters.

I prefer a system to have next to no optimization potential, or rather, to have no options which are objectively superior to other options. There is enough potential for superior players to shine during gameplay - a planning minigame does not add to the game. It is fun for me, it is fun for some others, but overall less character building and more playing is a good thing.

So basically, Everyone Is the Same? Like 4.Fail tried to be, but Failed because Orb Wankers own everything? Also, Horse Archers.

[Psychic Robot]

Well, nothing has to be entirely the same. If, for instance, you increase casting time of spells to multiple rounds and leave melee with standard actions/full attacks, you're going to have to make tough decisions about what to do in combat. And when the wizard is casting finger of death but has to wait three rounds to finish it, it's going to make it a lot harder for him to get the spell off. But if he does get it off--and the target fails his saving throw--it will be worth it.

Not that I'm suggesting such a fix, since it would require much more work than simple "moar rounds," but it's an example.

[Username17]

Frank you have some very rigid notion of system.

Sure. Whatever.

If a player character gets 50 points to spend and stat max of 10 at level 2 and a 100 points to spend and a stat max of 20 at level 4; then if a level 4 NPC gets 50 points to spend and a stat max of 20 then he is obviously using a fundamentally different system.

And that's even before we get into the fact that NPCs can buy advantages and disadvantages that no PC can. Like "immobile" and "nonsapient."

But seriously, if you are going to tell me that a 4th level NPC fighter spending 50 points with a stat max of 20 is using the same system as a PC fighter spending 100 points with a stat max of 20, you are being deliberately disingenuous and we don't have to talk about things anymore.

-Username17

[Murtak]

No, not the same. But I prefer 3rd edition archers to 3rd edition chargers. You can go for some moderate amount of extra damage, you can go for some cover negation, ranged AoOs, crit multipliers but overall it does not matter how you mix your Peerless Archer, Order of the Bow Initiaite, Deepwood Sniper and Ranger levels. There are still cutoff points, empty levels and horrid entry requirements for these classes, but the basics are fine: You get to choose options, not power.

Now an optimized charge build will, 90% of the time, annihilate anything he gets to hit, while an unoptimized charging character, with the same number of "levels of chargingness" will bounce of and promptly finished off with a full attack to the head.

A build should just be about picking options, and about the worst thing you should be able to do to yourself is picking contradictory options, or picking 50 versions of the same option. You should not be able to accidentally castrate your Berserker by staying in Barbarian and you should not be able to feat pick your way to world domination.

[Murtak]

But seriously, if you are going to tell me that a 4th level NPC fighter spending 50 points with a stat max of 20 is using the same system as a PC fighter spending 100 points with a stat max of 20, you are being deliberately disingenuous and we don't have to talk about things anymore.

In DnD NPC wealth is different from PC wealth. According to you thats a different system already. According to your vision, is there any system already in existence where any character uses the same system as any other character? Anything with a die roll obviously is right out, as is anything with classes, with selectable abilities depending on class, race, status or background ... I can't think of a system which fits your description.

[Roy]

Well, nothing has to be entirely the same. If, for instance, you increase casting time of spells to multiple rounds and leave melee with standard actions/full attacks, you're going to have to make tough decisions about what to do in combat. And when the wizard is casting finger of death but has to wait three rounds to finish it, it's going to make it a lot harder for him to get the spell off. But if he does get it off--and the target fails his saving throw--it will be worth it.

Not that I'm suggesting such a fix, since it would require much more work than simple "moar rounds," but it's an example.

Tough options =/= non options. If it takes 3 rounds, then they just won't fucking do that. Even if it works, the fight is OVER by then, so who gives a shit? For that to work you need Padded Sumo bullshit, which is a fucking 24 pack of Fail.

[Thymos]

It depends on what you mean by system Frank. If you mean that PC's get an exact number of skill points with a specific max, then yes, they are using different skill systems. PC's that receive different amounts of skill points are also using different systems in this case.

If you mean that they receive a variable amount of with a specific max, then anything may or may not be using the same system (if class let's you exceed the max then he apparently is using a different system).

If by system you however mean that your character receives a variable amount of skill points, has a max, and puts the skill points into skills in order to receive a bonus equal to the amount of skillpoints spent, then yes, they are using the same system.

You seem to be using the first, where the fact that fighters and rogues having different skill points is different from pc's and npc's having different skill points in a meaningful way.

[Username17]

You seem to be using the first, where the fact that fighters and rogues having different skill points is different from pc's and npc's having different skill points in a meaningful way.

Yes it is, I'm glad you understand now. The Player spends some of their points to take a level of Fighter or a level of Rogue. An NPC does not get all their points, so they aren't getting PC packages even when they write Fighter or Rogue on their character sheet.

-Username17

[Crissa]

I think an NPC of a reoccurring character; something similar to the PCs in the world but not closet trolls.

I suppose I think of monsters or other units just as single-faceted objects; when you turn them around they don't have anything but a stick behind them, yeah, 'cause they were only there for once.

-Crissa

[PhoneLobster]

The Player spends some of their points to take a level of Fighter or a level of Rogue. An NPC does not get all their points

That is retarded, and ignoring the bit where you are using basically the same underlying system... it is STILL retarded.

You are effectively FORCING the sailing sail pirates of sailing town to spend skill ranks on farming, only those ranks actually disappear entirely so if they get shipwrecked on farming island... they still don't have fucking farming ranks.

Since your sailing/farming fairy story is meant as a metaphor for say, Social and Combat effectiveness you are effectively sitting here telling us that the 4E Monstrous Manual entries with their complete omission of social stuff is the way you want to go

You are also effectively telling us "nyarh nyarh the NPCs may never be specialists for their environment, not ever!". From a toolkit perspective that is fucking shocking, the GM just got hit in the nuts with a massive and sweeping "here is a vast range of encounters that can't happen".

And finally your reduced skill ranks in no way addresses the poor value of farming in sailing encounters. I mean, hey, I got less ranks on my sailor, I can still spend all the stupid things on farming what the hell?

[RandomCasualty2]

Edit: I don't think PC's and NPC's should be built exactly the same way, only roughly. I also think that if you want to build a monster/NPC in the middle of a session your doing it wrong. We have pregenerated monsters/NPC's and tables for that shit.

I want a system that can create an NPC in the middle of a session.

And that doesn't mean whatever NPCs happen to be on my pregen table. That means any NPC. If I need a CR 6 dwarf psion with an axe, or an CR 12 illithid duskblade that uses a spiked chain, I need to be able to build him on the fly. I don't want to be consulting a table of magic items and purchasing shit, or selecting feats.

I just need some way to easily convert a description into a challenge and have it be relatively balanced.

I have no problem with a few simple tables like what 4E has that are effectively just to find a final AC, attack bonus and so on by CR. WHat I don't want is pregens, because they're too damn specific and I don't want to spend 10 minutes flipping through a binder of pregenerated characters only to realize that I don't even have anything remotely close to what I want to make, so I have to reverse engineer one. Then to make things even worse, the result isn't even remotely a challenge of the given level that it should be.

I did that with 3.5 and I don't even think the english language possesses words that describe how horribly awful that actually was. And the only plus side was that it appeased overly anal players who got some kind of thrill out of knowing that NPCs and PCs used the same system and were in all regards equal to them (even though they were actually not, because of what Frank and I have been saying). The downside was that you were in railroad hell, where you couldn't adapt at all.

Really I'm not sure why people even care what skills or bullshit NPCs have. Because ultimately NPCs are just obstacles or are used to advance the plot. If they get an extra trained skill or whatever, then honestly so what? So the DM realized that nobody had tracking and decided to let Bill the mercenary track things to let the group advance? I don't see why the world is going to fall apart because of that.

What you probably care about is that Bill is not impossible to kill in combat.

[Thymos]

Ok, there are a couple points to address here.

1. A few simple tables like 4e has sounds like what I'm suggesting. Pregenerated tables. I don't see why you continue to say that these tables are not pregenerated. 4e oddly has the math worked out so that players get a bonus of 1 to attack every level (I believe) if they stay up to date with feats, magic items, etc. It's just disguised pregeneration.

2. Your pointing out the problem with tables is that it's not specific enough (or too specific, as the npc is using a short sword instead of the longsword you described, an average of 1 point damage difference, whup dee doo), or when it's specific then it's not exactly what you want, then suggesting an even more vague system as a solution (where you are simply told the bonuses). Yes, this makes sense.

3. CR is bork. It's my main argument for building NPC Roughly (not exactly, not using the exact same system), as PC's. If you simply grab the NPC numbers out of your ass, or what you think is balanced, we get CR. Which is shit. If level meant the same damn thing across the board, we wouldn't need CR.

So we agree that CR is bork. I think that we should have both NPC's and PC's use similar levels, you think that we should drive the divide even further (and remove CR?).

4. I don't care what bullshit skills NPC's have. I also don't care about bullshit skills PC's have. There is no is no difference to there for me. Just like an NPC in a cave doesn't need swimming (so apparently he has more skill points to spend on useful things... which doesn't really matter as long as he can't pump the skills he actually uses even higher), it's just the same to me that a PC on a boat can't use farming.

The main reason I'm suggesting balancing NPC's and PC's along roughly the same system and scale is to limit the vertical strength of both. I don't want either one to be able to blow their entire repertoire in one combat, or if they can I want it to be balanced for both of them doing it.

Along that line, I also don't want PC's to have numbers on a different range from NPC's and the combat system to diverge wildly and only work because it's distorted on both ranges (If a PC has an AC of 40 and an attack of 5, and a NPC has an AC of 10 and an attack of 35, it all looks and worlds the same as long as a PC never tries to attack another PC, then your up shit creek, not to mention when NPC's try to attack NPC's). It also creates a ton more work, both balance wise, reworking everything, and memorizing a new set of rules.

Just Balance all the PC's with each other and roughly, roughly base the monsters off of PC's.

As far as immobilize and such not being appropriate PC abilities. They aren't appropriate because they hinder other PC's. They can still be balanced for PC's, even if they are inappropriate for other reasons. Balance isn't the only reason an ability can be no good.

[RandomCasualty2]

1. A few simple tables like 4e has sounds like what I'm suggesting. Pregenerated tables. I don't see why you continue to say that these tables are not pregenerated. 4e oddly has the math worked out so that players get a bonus of 1 to attack every level (I believe) if they stay up to date with feats, magic items, etc. It's just disguised pregeneration.

It's not pregeneration, it's simple formulaic generation. Because there's no underlying tax code that has to be done to get those 4E NPCs. It's not set up such that their numbers can be reached via anywhere except via the table. Pregeneration is about actually having some long process that you do and then having a series of results of that process. In this case, the actual generation process is simply looking up a formula on a table.

While yes, the formula is based on math... that doesn't mean that the NPC is pregenerated, you really are making him from scratch, because there is no long way of doing it.

3. CR is bork. It's my main argument for building NPC Roughly (not exactly, not using the exact same system), as PC's. If you simply grab the NPC numbers out of your ass, or what you think is balanced, we get CR. Which is shit. If level meant the same damn thing across the board, we wouldn't need CR.

Well, ideally level should equal CR, but regardless, what you're actually interested in is how much of a combat challenge a monster poses, not so much its overall value. This concept is much more apparent in point based systems like GURPS or Shadowrun. When you have a merc in Shadowrun, you want to know how big of a combat threat the guy is, not necessarily how many points he's built on. In fact, we seriously don't even care how many points the guy is built on most of the time.

But "will this kill my PCs" is a big question and one that we definitely should care about. In fact, it should be the center piece of NPC design. I know my PCs level and I want to build a challenging gate guard for them. So I know what CR I want to start with, and then I can go from there.

Like I said, if level = CR, that's fine. But the fundamental starting point should be CR. It shouldn't be the 3E system where you create a creature of a given level or given hit dice then have to figure out the CR. I mean, what fucking good is that? You may go through the trouble of making an NPC or monster and then realize that its CR is too high or too low.

When I'm generating an encounter what's the first thing I want to know: How tough is this monster that I want to create?

The main reason I'm suggesting balancing NPC's and PC's along roughly the same system and scale is to limit the vertical strength of both. I don't want either one to be able to blow their entire repertoire in one combat, or if they can I want it to be balanced for both of them doing it.

Well, actually this is a good reason for them to use different systems. An NPC wizard always has an edge over a PC wizard, because the NPC can blow all his spells in one encounter. He doesn't plan for more encounters. Meanwhile the PC wizard has to plan for all the encounters he may have between rest periods.

Ideally, we want our NPC wizard to use similar tactics as our PC wizard. But this can't be achieved via the PC system, because the PC system builds... well PCs. And PCs are supposed to go through multiple encounters. NPCs never have multiencounter resource depletion to worry about.

What you want is an NPC creation system that creates NPCs with limitations that makes them feel like PCs. So the NPC wizard casts a similar amount of spells to the PC wizard. But to achieve that, it means that the NPC wizard is going to be much more limited in terms of how many spells he gets, because he's built for one encounter, not for an extended adventure.

Along that line, I also don't want PC's to have numbers on a different range from NPC's and the combat system to diverge wildly and only work because it's distorted on both ranges (If a PC has an AC of 40 and an attack of 5, and a NPC has an AC of 10 and an attack of 35, it all looks and worlds the same as long as a PC never tries to attack another PC, then your up shit creek, not to mention when NPC's try to attack NPC's). It also creates a ton more work, both balance wise, reworking everything, and memorizing a new set of rules.

Yeah, though this can easily be set via making up formulas in a table, because those formulas can be anything you want. Ultimately you want an NPC to behave very similar to a PC, you just don't want the NPC to be the result of several substats, but rather from a formulaic fast generation based on CR. And you get those numbers by just looking at what PCs can do and creating a relative challenge.

I don't think anyone here wants some oddball final fantasy system where PCs are glass cannons and monsters are huge buckets of HP. That would just be doing a lot of weird math for no reason.