I never use the NPC stats as written when I feel the AP needs some punching up. I would rather NPC's be quick to run than have a million definable characteristics.
Like I dont need a full statblock of unimprtant information for the goblins they are fighting.
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I don't think a simplified Pathfinder 2E npc creation system will have the issue that Starfinder does.
The Starfinder design I'm pretty sure gives NPC/Monsters a higher attack bonus and lower AC than the PCs they're meant to be fighting and the game is balanced around that decision.
This works well for having fun fights with fewer tedious misses but leads to odd situations where a combatant NPC becomes a follower and suddenly outshines the combat specialist of the group and PC on PC fights being dull with whiffs galore.
I don't think Pathfinder 2E makes the same design decision. I think NPC/monsters will have AC and attack bonuses roughly equivalent to their PC counterparts and so building a NPC by PC rules won't lead to unexpected mathematical interactions.
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Like I dont need a full statblock of unimprtant information for the goblins they are fighting.
While that might be true in the narrow context of an AP where the goblins are part of a combat encounter that will play out in a predictable manner, in a broader sense it is insufficient. A stat that was completely unimportant a moment ago could become critical the next based on an unexpected action by your players, or the needs of the GM who are using the monster as something more than just a combat adversary. Certainly for a product like an NPC codex or bestiary, we need full statblocks that allow us to cover any possible use of the creature without having to generate them ourselves.
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That's a main issue I have with Starfinder. I'd almost rather play an NPC than a PC - I'd get better attacks, better damage at level 1-2, better skills, and x/day abilities become at will. In trade omy low level abilities fall off as I advance and my ACs are crappy.Depending on how the math lays out making PC/NPC rules identical will have some folly behind it. Starfinder necessitated it due to the way the math worked out meaning players had to ignore the numbers coming out of the other side compared to theirs (seriously when I dump out a +11 on roll20 while they're rocking a +6 some curse words get muttered).
On that note the reason Starfinders math was presented the way it was was to make fights more consistent and less swingy.
I understand the feeling and its somewhat tiresome to explain from the gm side of it. But the numbers still average out the same. My groups high acs verus the monsters low acs typically means that the actual rolls required are roughly the same to being in the pcs favor.
Probably the biggest perpetrator of this feeling are skills.
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I do not want to have to restat a creature just because it joins the PCs' side. Especially if that magically makes it weaker without rhyme nor reason
My specific issue which was already there in PF1 is Animal Companions. I just cannot explain away why PCs seem to only attract the unfittest runt of the litter. Or why you can buy a grown horse but if you befriend it and make it your Companion it becomes a foal overnight
Animal Companions and their Bestiary siblings should not feel like entirely separate species
Automatic Bonus Progression is one of the best additions to Pathfinder 1, mostly because of what it does to NPCs if you want to run an NPC heavy campaign. Hoping to see something similar in PF2e.
To B... yes! Not exactly like this but similar.. more frequently in the form of: But he is a rogue! How can he do XYZ!? That's not right. Or similar other ways of basically telling the GM they are cheating.Also, it leads to useless metagaming when my Players can say Things like "as a rogue this guy should never have ability XYZ and therefore I know perfectly how to kill him with spell ABC".A) Mutliclass/Prestige Class/Archetypes/Feats basically kill this thought process instantly.
B) has this ever actually occurred... ever?
That’s on the players for assuming something’s a certain class. And again, A) disputes the opinion of “if they’re Class X they can’t do Y”.
In the play-by-post I GM, my players constantly try to reverse engineer the creatures they fight. I have mixed feelings about this, on the one hand, I can't just come up with numbers I think sound fair, I have to math everything out because they'll be checking my work. On the other, you don't usually get to show off the NPCs you built, since the PCs never read the statblock. And it's also fun when they finally piece together what class and level the creature is, and even more fun when they get it wrong and have to re-evaluate.
I suppose that I agree with Darius Alazario that it leads to pointless metagaming, at least at his table and mine, but disagree that that's a bad thing.
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While not a deal breaker, it would make me sad to see the NPC classes go away. It's an important part of my current campaign.
On the player side, it is a diferent experience. When playing PF i expect to know how monster X did Y dmg or thing Z and so on. I expect everyone to be under the same set of rules under the same concepts... If i see a wizard cast spell X, i expect to be able to create a wizard that can cast spell X...A question, does "the human bandit gets +5 to their melee attack rolls, +3 to their ranged attack rolls" make you wonder "how?" in a way that a CR2 bugbear getting the same modifiers does not?
Personally I have literally never looked at a bestiary monster and thought "how do they get that number".
I did it plenty of times to monsters, to classed NPCs and so on i do it often even nowadays years and years in the game.
Guess it goes from person to person really.
Like i said, sometimes one just cant know for whatever reason, like my previous example where the powers often come from the GM, but if im playing a system that i can check out the numbers, you can be sure i will check out the numbers.
Suppose you want Petyr Baelish to be the finest liar in the kingdom with a +30 bluff and all the fancy new social feats. Suppose you also want him to be a non-combatant who could be killed by a typical CR 4 grizzly bear.
It is probably not going to be possible to build Petyr using the PC rules. If you give him enough levels to rank a +30 bluff, he's going to be able to pull his little belt knife and murder the bear. That's fine for PCs, you want everyone to be able to contribute in the combats even the face, but it is unfortunate for NPCs.
Building NPCs in a looser, more flexible way is an easy solution. I don't see any reason in principle that the rules should forbid someone simultaneously having +30 bluff and only 10 hit points.
On that note its long been a trope where a high enough level wizard with 8 strength can kill a mob of lvl1 commoners with his staff.
Looser npc rules again help against handwavium.
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I vastly prefer being able to build NPCs with PC rules. The PCs in my games often make NPCs fairly prominent due to their interactions with them, and in some cases it can be important to know, for example, whether a particular NPC has a +10 to Knowledge (religion). And it feels a bit odd to me when there are separate things an NPC can do solely by virtue of being an NPC (as opposed to things like special abilities they got from plot-related stuff, like a special ritual).
For me, it would bog things down to have to figure out how to build an NPC as opposed to a PC, and the ways in which they differ. But as long as building them by PC rules is still an option, I won't mind too much. (Although it might mean I have to re-stat the NPCs in APs, depending.)
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I don't need the NPC town guard or soldier to have the same class abilities as a fighter. Complexity is unnecessary there and just gets in the way.
They can just have a monster statblock. They don't need feats. Their HD doesn't need to tied to specific class features.
If you want to alter an NPC, such as a goblin, and make them a unique foe, you should just be able to do so. If you want to have a medium sized goblin with three arms that spits flaming blood you shouldn't need to take class levels or pick certain feats to do so.
The thing is, the players in a game never read an NPCs' statblock. They don't know if you're using a classed human fighter or an ogre that you're re-flavoring into a human with a reach weapon or even a black dragon wyrmling whose "breath weapon" attack is a specialized flask acid.
What does matter is that the character shouldn't do anything that seems implausible. The NPC soldier shouldn't be better than the PC fighter and do things that the PC can never do.
But that's easy enough to hand wave in Pathfinder as there's room for so many feats, unique techniques can easily be dismissed as a specialized feat or archetype.
It's nice if you can figure out the CR of a classed NPC if you *want* to have a fighter or a wizard NPC. But it shouldn't be mandatory.
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As for monsters, that was just a hassle. Looking through several stat-tweak feats just to see if Combat Reflexes is there, having space taken up by abilities that exist just to get around pre-requisites, having to reverse-engineer skill mods on familiars to see what ranks they had... it was messy and took up time. Hit dice had to outscale CR, so it was only so PC-like anyhow.
This is very true. Having written and developed hundreds of monsters in PF1, the idea that they "work like PCs" is at best misleading. It would be better to say "they sort of seem like they work like PCs, but not really." Let's say we're building a high CR martial-oriented fey in PF1. I don't know, maybe the wild hunt leader. Linda built those and they were awesome. You're not going to look at the CR and be like "Oh well that CR means it has that many Hit Dice." You're going to instead be more like "Oh, I need to hit how many HP with those d6 fey Hit Dice? OK, how many HD and how much Con do I need to give so that I can do that and hit a reasonable Fort bonus without blowing the Will or Dex into the stratosphere because they are strong." It's a constraint propagation problem (like the popular sudoku for those not into algorithms/AI) that isn't anything like how a PC works, since you have free access to manipulate the variables until they give you the numbers you want, it just takes a long time and gives you weird results you might not need like "Well, I guess now that I gave my monster 40 HD, it has 20 feats to assign." The best indicators of just how much it's a misdirect are any monster that has a bespoke racial bonus to the DC of an ability like the PF1 imp "The save DC is Constitution-based, and includes a +2 racial bonus." That basically just means "Even sudokuing the stats didn't give me the number I wanted, so I just raised it anyway." Really it's no different than just picking reasonable numbers.
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One thing to really remember is this is a game. Yes, it is a storytelling game where roleplaying is important... but the game has to be considered and accommodations need to be made.
An NPC that will be around 3 rounds in combat does not need the same number of options as a PC that will see 14 rounds of combat each day. The NPC doesn’t need the same number of feats and choices. You should be able to pick a couple key feats if needed, but you shouldn’t have to pick the same number of feats as a PC.
Hit points are always the big elephant in the room in these discussions. Hp increases by CR faster than level. Monster HD often increased by 2 for each CR. Which is necassary because of the damage PCs can do each roun.
When monsters follow the same PC rules this creates a disconnect where their numbers are all higher than they should be because their HD are so high.
Meanwhile, this makes NPCs fragile as their HD is effectively half what it should be for a monster of that CR. NPCs tend to be glass cannons that have to focus on winning through action denial or alpha strikes that can drop a PC: both of which are less fun for the player taken out of combat.
Simply put, for the needs of the game, NPCs generally need extra Hit Dice to be an appropriate challenge. But that should just be extra hp and not result in more feats, high BAB, higher saves, etc.
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This is very true. Having written and developed hundreds of monsters in PF1, the idea that they "work like PCs" is at best misleading. It would be better to say "they sort of seem like they work like PCs, but not really." Let's say we're building a high CR martial-oriented fey in PF1. I don't know, maybe the wild hunt leader. Linda built those and they were awesome. You're not going to look at the CR and be like "Oh well that CR means it has that many Hit Dice." You're going to instead be more like "Oh, I need to hit how many HP with those d6 fey Hit Dice? OK, how many HD and how much Con do I need to give so that I can do that and hit a reasonable Fort bonus without blowing the Will or Dex into the stratosphere because they are strong." It's a constraint propagation problem (like the popular sudoku for those not into algorithms/AI) that isn't anything like how a PC works, since you have free access to manipulate the variables until they give you the numbers you want, it just takes a long time and gives you weird results you might not need like "Well, I guess now that I gave my monster 40 HD, it has 20 feats to assign." The best indicators of just how much it's a misdirect are any monster that has a bespoke racial bonus to the DC of an ability like the PF1 imp "The save DC is Constitution-based, and includes a +2 racial bonus." That basically just means "Even sudokuing the stats didn't give me the number I wanted, so I just raised it anyway." Really it's no different than just picking reasonable numbers.
This may be the most revealing post by a developer I've ever read. It's also very reassuring. Thanks for that. :P
This is very true. Having written and developed hundreds of monsters in PF1, the idea that they "work like PCs" is at best misleading. It would be better to say "they sort of seem like they work like PCs, but not really." Let's say we're building a high CR martial-oriented fey in PF1. I don't know, maybe the wild hunt leader. Linda built those and they were awesome. You're not going to look at the CR and be like "Oh well that CR means it has that many Hit Dice." You're going to instead be more like "Oh, I need to hit how many HP with those d6 fey Hit Dice? OK, how many HD and how much Con do I need to give so that I can do that and hit a reasonable Fort bonus without blowing the Will or Dex into the stratosphere because they are strong." It's a constraint propagation problem (like the popular sudoku for those not into algorithms/AI) that isn't anything like how a PC works, since you have free access to manipulate the variables until they give you the numbers you want, it just takes a long time and gives you weird results you might not need like "Well, I guess now that I gave my monster 40 HD, it has 20 feats to assign." The best indicators of just how much it's a misdirect are any monster that has a bespoke racial bonus to the DC of an ability like the PF1 imp "The save DC is Constitution-based, and includes a +2 racial bonus." That basically just means "Even sudokuing the stats didn't give me the number I wanted, so I just raised it anyway." Really it's no different than just picking reasonable numbers.As for monsters, that was just a hassle. Looking through several stat-tweak feats just to see if Combat Reflexes is there, having space taken up by abilities that exist just to get around pre-requisites, having to reverse-engineer skill mods on familiars to see what ranks they had... it was messy and took up time. Hit dice had to outscale CR, so it was only so PC-like anyhow.
And of course the fun part comes when you have to play with benchmarks and abilities so a momster is actually rewarding to defeat rather than a slog or outright deadly.. I remember a criticism of a 3pp monster i qrote that said the monatera hp was a bit low from its cr. It kind of failed to mention that the monster itself killed people in their sleep invisibly from a separate plane of existence. So the CR wasnt a measure of its ability but a stop gap to ensure gms didnt try to put it in front of players incapable of handling its weirdness before they were ready.
And no one can be perfect about this. Bestiary 1 orcs bein an early example.
Diplomacy should only work on NPCs.Yeah, another weird thing in 5th Ed, what is the point of Intimidate in the monster's skills, what, do you win an opposed roll, and tell the player "Yeah, you're intimidated.", players don't like being told things like that.
Players also hate Fear, Charm, Mind Control, Confusion, Sleep, and any number of effects that removes them.
But they keep showing up in NPC/Monster ability/spell lists so...
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And of course the fun part comes when you have to play with benchmarks and abilities so a momster is actually rewarding to defeat rather than a slog or outright deadly.. I remember a criticism of a 3pp monster i qrote that said the monatera hp was a bit low from its cr. It kind of failed to mention that the monster itself killed people in their sleep invisibly from a separate plane of existence. So the CR wasnt a measure of its ability but a stop gap to ensure gms didnt try to put it in front of players incapable of handling its weirdness before they were ready.And no one can be perfect about this. Bestiary 1 orcs bein an early example.
Yes, this very much so!
Now all that being said, this is for adversaries, monsters most often (NPCs in PF1 you don't have the toggles you do with monsters, so you usually just put up with the numbers being really problematic or use tricks like prebuff spells or one-use items if you are allowed a tactics entry). For PF2, we wanted the best of both worlds: the ability to fully use the PC system for NPCs and get a great NPC if you want to spend the time and have the cognitive load of remembering all those feats (possibly for multiple NPCs at once), and the ability to stat NPCs quickly that are less complicated to run but still are fun adversaries or allies.
Does the Intimidate skill impose any of those effects?Diplomacy should only work on NPCs.Yeah, another weird thing in 5th Ed, what is the point of Intimidate in the monster's skills, what, do you win an opposed roll, and tell the player "Yeah, you're intimidated.", players don't like being told things like that.Players also hate Fear, Charm, Mind Control, Confusion, Sleep, and any number of effects that removes them.
But they keep showing up in NPC/Monster ability/spell lists so...
In combat? Shaken. Enjoy your -2 on everything.
The point I was reaching for was Players don't like when they themselves have some form of Crowd Control on them. From Debuffs to hard "SKip your turn", they aren't fun when the players get hit with them.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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This is very true. Having written and developed hundreds of monsters in PF1, the idea that they "work like PCs" is at best misleading. It would be better to say "they sort of seem like they work like PCs, but not really." Let's say we're building a high CR martial-oriented fey in PF1. I don't know, maybe the wild hunt leader. Linda built those and they were awesome. You're not going to look at the CR and be like "Oh well that CR means it has that many Hit Dice." You're going to instead be more like "Oh, I need to hit how many HP with those d6 fey Hit Dice? OK, how many HD and how much Con do I need to give so that I can do that and hit a reasonable Fort bonus without blowing the Will or Dex into the stratosphere because they are strong." It's a constraint propagation problem (like the popular sudoku for those not into algorithms/AI) that isn't anything like how a PC works, since you have free access to manipulate the variables until they give you the numbers you want, it just takes a long time and gives you weird results you might not need like "Well, I guess now that I gave my monster 40 HD, it has 20 feats to assign." The best indicators of just how much it's a misdirect are any monster that has a bespoke racial bonus to the DC of an ability like the PF1 imp "The save DC is Constitution-based, and includes a +2 racial bonus." That basically just means "Even sudokuing the stats didn't give me the number I wanted, so I just raised it anyway." Really it's no different than just picking reasonable numbers.As for monsters, that was just a hassle. Looking through several stat-tweak feats just to see if Combat Reflexes is there, having space taken up by abilities that exist just to get around pre-requisites, having to reverse-engineer skill mods on familiars to see what ranks they had... it was messy and took up time. Hit dice had to outscale CR, so it was only so PC-like anyhow.
This is exactly the method of designing 3.x/PF monsters that I was disliking earlier in the thread. It's like you've taken all the benefits of the 3.x/PF monster system and deliberately set thing up for them to work against you. My understanding is that this "backwards" (to me)monster design comes from being assigned a CR to start and trying to reverse engineer everything to fit within that parameter.
To me, if you want to design a monster that actually flows and works well within the PF1e system, you pick abilities and stats that seem reasonable from its story role in the setting. This monster has a 22 Strength because it's a little bit stronger than the strongest real-world humans. It has a +4 natural armor because it's got a thick hide but not a shell. It has 7 HD because it's Large and a little tough. Then just let the derived stats fall where they may and assign a CR based on what you get. I've used this version in home games for decades and it works great for me.
I do understand my idealized version works much better for a home GM designing a monster rather than a professional designer told to have a monster of CR5 by Friday. The thing is, as a home GM, I'd much rather have "designers have to fudge the occasional number, GMs have a system that makes internal sense," than "all numbers are just fudged."
Bestiary 1 Orcs
CR 1/3 Goblin: 6 HP, hits with +2 for 1d4 (19-20) damage. 16 AC.
CR 1/3 Orc: 6 HP with Ferocity, hits with +5 for 2d4+4 damage (18-20). 13 AC.
Yeah.. Something here doesn't add up. That Orc is gonna oneshot you...
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Bestiary 1 Orcs
CR 1/3 Goblin: 6 HP, hits with +2 for 1d4 (19-20) damage. 16 AC.
CR 1/3 Orc: 6 HP with Ferocity, hits with +5 for 2d4+4 damage (18-20). 13 AC.
Yeah.. Something here doesn't add up. That Orc is gonna oneshot you...
lol its way worse than that.
Its ferocity effectively doubled its hp too.
Bestiary 1 Orcs
CR 1/3 Goblin: 6 HP, hits with +2 for 1d4 (19-20) damage. 16 AC.
CR 1/3 Orc: 6 HP with Ferocity, hits with +5 for 2d4+4 damage (18-20). 13 AC.
Yeah.. Something here doesn't add up. That Orc is gonna oneshot you...
lol its way worse than that.
Its ferocity effectively doubled its hp too.
Triple, technically. Will die at -12 HP, though it loses 1 per action. Not too easy to oneshot at level 1. Expect at least 1 hit from that Falchion. The CR formula for classes is silly!
Then again, this happens with PCs too based on optimization.
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My only complaint with going to a more freeform method for building opponents in published adventures is that we're losing the ability to debug broken stat blocks.
It seems like almost every Pathfinder stat block has errors of some sort and I'm not sure that Starfinder's doing much better--but in Pathfinder we can at least project based on the other abilities and so on what the stat block was supposed to be doing. In Starfinder, it doesn't work that way, which means we don't really know what the designer intended. In Society play, especially, that makes it nearly impossible to fix anything without leadership chiming in.
Unofficially, this idea hews pretty closely to how I build stat blocks anyway. I think it should be just fine if the number of errors can be reduced and someone tries to validate the stat blocks before they're published.
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I've been playing with "NPCs don't need anything more written down than their role in the story necessitates" for like 20 years now.
So my dividing line is nonexistent. All I care about is that it's possible to design NPCs with PC creation rules, so I have something to do with the half-dozen PCs I make every time I get a new book.
This is where I'm at. The sheer amount of prep work it takes to design a new monster in 3.x/PF, along with CR being at best a vague guess that is just as often far off the mark, is not worth it. Nor do I need to have every single trait that PCs have for foes that will see a very small amount of screen time.
Monsters/NPCs are using level instead of hit dice, which is a big, big plus for me, and should factor into the game's much-improved math nicely. So if it doesn't take me an hour to construct a single monster when it's going to show up and be destroyed in a single encounter, great! Monsters and NPCs aren't PCs, and don't need to run on the exact same rules detail. That you can fully stat out an NPC as you would a PC is a great bonus option, but the number of times I've really needed to do that over the years is very small.
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This is exactly the method of designing 3.x/PF monsters that I was disliking earlier in the thread. It's like you've taken all the benefits of the 3.x/PF monster system and deliberately set thing up for them to work against you. My understanding is that this "backwards" (to me)monster design comes from being assigned a CR to start and trying to reverse engineer everything to fit within that parameter.
To me, if you want to design a monster that actually flows and works well within the PF1e system, you pick abilities and stats that seem reasonable from its story role in the setting. This monster has a 22 Strength because it's a little bit stronger than the strongest real-world humans. It has a +4 natural armor because it's got a thick hide but not a shell. It has 7 HD because it's Large and a little tough. Then just let the derived stats fall where they may and assign a CR based on what you get. I've used this version in home games for decades and it works great for me.
I do understand my idealized version works much better for a home GM designing a monster rather than a professional designer told to have a monster of CR5 by Friday. The thing is, as a home GM, I'd much rather have "designers have to fudge the occasional number, GMs have a system that makes internal sense," than "all numbers are just fudged."
As a GM, I'm generally making or altering monsters that fit somewhere around the PC APL. For example, it does me no good to spend all the effort creating a monster for use while the PCs are in the mountains, then come out with a CR either too low to actually be useful in an encounter vs the PCs' current level, or so high that the PCs will likely have left the mountain by the time they are high enough level to not get crushed by it.
Unless you're just making monsters for random consumption, there's almost always a CR you want to make the monster hit, otherwise it won't be useful for the time you actually want to use it.
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This is exactly the method of designing 3.x/PF monsters that I was disliking earlier in the thread. It's like you've taken all the benefits of the 3.x/PF monster system and deliberately set thing up for them to work against you. My understanding is that this "backwards" (to me)monster design comes from being assigned a CR to start and trying to reverse engineer everything to fit within that parameter.
To me, if you want to design a monster that actually flows and works well within the PF1e system, you pick abilities and stats that seem reasonable from its story role in the setting. This monster has a 22 Strength because it's a little bit stronger than the strongest real-world humans. It has a +4 natural armor because it's got a thick hide but not a shell. It has 7 HD because it's Large and a little tough. Then just let the derived stats fall where they may and assign a CR based on what you get. I've used this version in home games for decades and it works great for me.
I do understand my idealized version works much better for a home GM designing a monster rather than a professional designer told to have a monster of CR5 by Friday. The thing is, as a home GM, I'd much rather have "designers have to fudge the occasional number, GMs have a system that makes internal sense," than "all numbers are just fudged."
Except it doesn't work.
Let's say I want to build a high level martial fey, for my game, which we are currently playing at 17th level. I'm going to build a high level swordmaster of the fair folk, for example.
Let's start by the first problem: Feys have 1/2 BAB. Soooo my high level swordmaster attack is going to suck, badly. How can I change that? I can give him more strength. But we are talking about lvl 18 CR here. He is like 9 points below full BAB. I "could" give him STR 40 or something to compensate, but that does not make sense at all, does it? He is a fairly good swordmaster, but he's not hulk. Even STR 20 might be a stretch. I could give him Finesse, though. Great Idea!. But now, If I give him DEX 40, that's a problem too. Because yes, I want to overcome that 9 point deficit in BAB... but I don't want to give him +15 to initiative and +15 to AC and REF save in the process. Or +15 to archery, for that matter, because it's a swordmaster, not Legolas. Another problem is Feys have bad FOR scores. But this character, being "martial", should probably have better FOR than, say, a classic Faerie Queen. I could raise CON. But how much? I want to raise FOR, not HP. Because I want my "faerie swordmaster" to look nimble and dodgy, not bulky and tough. He also has probably a high number of HD, to compensate a bit of that lackluster BAB, so if my CON becomes too high to bring Fortitude to where a "FAerie Legendary Fighter" should have, then I'd end with a ton of HP. Not to mention that, with low BAB, he'll do very few attacks in a full round action, which sounds weird for something as nimble as a high level member of the Faerie Court focused on legendary swordmanship.
This is, actually, a real example. Is something that Sean K. Reynolds explained once in his blog, about designing monsters for d20 system. In the end, he "solved" those issues. He gave the monster an ad-hoc bonus to Fortitude. Gave him an ad-hoc bonus to attack, and free permanent Haste, and other ad-hoc, litterally out of the blue, stuff, until the high level faerie soldier looked like a high level faerie soldier. But he had to FIGHT AGAINST THE SYSTEM to build the monster, instead of using the system to do it. In the end, with so much ad-hoc, he is, in fact, building stuff based on what he needs, except he needs to struggle against the system to do so.
It's like Nat Armor bonuses. Pick a high level monster. Even better if you look for a monster which has, in lore, soft fur or skin. Then compare it to something like, say, a Bulette, which has, in lore, a thick, hard shell. A bulette has +12 NAt armor. A Gorgon, made of metal, has 11, and is on the same ballpark CR-wise. That gives us a hint of how thick a Bulette hide is. Yet a Bandersnatch, which has panther-like fur, has +20. A shinigami, essentially a high level skeleton, anatomy wise, has +16. A Nightwalker nightshade, which is made of living shadows, has +21. When they build this creatures, they don't really ask themselves "should this creature skin be tougher or softer than a Bulette's skin?". They ask themselves "which number do I need to write here, so it has the correct AC for a monster of this CR?". Then they write that number. It does not matter if the creature has metal scales, suede-like fur, is a naked skeletton or is made of solid shadows. It has the natural armor it needs to have, to be CR 18.
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Except it doesn't work.
Let's say I want to build a high level martial fey, for my game, which we are currently playing at 17th level. I'm going to build a high level swordmaster of the fair folk, for example.
Let's start by the first problem: Feys have 1/2 BAB. Soooo my high level swordmaster attack is going to suck, badly. How can I change that? I can give him more strength. But we are talking about lvl 18 CR here. He is like 9 points below full BAB. I "could" give him STR 40 or something to compensate, but that does not make sense at all, does it? He is a fairly good swordmaster, but he's not hulk. Even STR 20 might be a stretch. I could give him Finesse, though. Great Idea!. But now, If I give him DEX 40, that's a problem too. Because yes, I want to overcome that 9 point deficit in BAB... but I don't want to give him +15 to initiative and +15 to AC and REF save in the process. Or +15 to archery, for that matter, because it's a swordmaster, not Legolas. Another problem is Feys have bad FOR scores. But this character, being "martial", should probably have better FOR than, say, a classic Faerie Queen. I could raise CON. But how much? I want to raise FOR, not HP. Because I want my "faerie swordmaster" to look nimble and dodgy, not bulky and tough. He also has probably a high number of HD, to compensate a bit of that lackluster BAB, so if my CON becomes too high to bring Fortitude to where a "FAerie Legendary Fighter" should have, then I'd end with a ton of HP. Not to mention that, with low BAB, he'll do very few attacks in a full round action, which sounds weird for something as nimble as a high level member of the Faerie Court focused on legendary swordmanship.
This is, actually, a real example. Is something that Sean K. Reynolds explained once in his blog, about designing monsters for d20 system. In the end, he "solved" those issues. He gave the monster an ad-hoc bonus to Fortitude. Gave him an ad-hoc bonus to attack, and free permanent Haste, and other ad-hoc, litterally out of the blue, stuff, until the high level faerie soldier looked like a high level faerie soldier. But he had to FIGHT AGAINST THE SYSTEM to build the monster, instead of using the system to do it.
This is why adding class levels is generally quite useful. As an example, he could've made a 12 HD creature, and added an additional 10 levels of a martial class, giving him a BAB of 16, while keeping the CR at 17. One issue from doing it this way, unfortunately, is that his racial abilities would be set for the original CR (reduced complexity and power compared to a CR 17 creature), only increasing in DC by increasing Charisma (the general SLA attribute).
Another issue is that if you do that, you are no longer building a monster, you are building an NPC. Then that's not the stats of "a planetar". That's the stat of "Johnny Gringo, the planetar who lives in 45th of Heaven Street". Who happens to be a fighter. But other planetars could be rangers, or paladins, or even sorcerer. That works for NPC with NPC classes and status, but not really for monsters.
Another issue is that if you do that, you are no longer building a monster, you are building an NPC. Then that's not the stats of "a planetar". That's the stat of "Johnny Gringo, the planetar who lives in 45th of Heaven Street". Who happens to be a fighter. But other planetars could be rangers, or paladins, or even sorcerer. That works for NPC with NPC classes and status, but not really for monsters.
About the last time I ever played the EverQuest RPG (which I really loved) in its native system, I was trying to design this awesome death knight as an antagonist. The concept is easy enough: powerful undead knight riding an undead steed, with dark magic powers and deadly swordplay. And I am sitting there trying to wrangle this thing together: wonkiness with undead HD, having to add class levels and all the detailed minutiae that come with that, which is fun for players creating characters but not as DM prep, etc. By the time I realized I'd be better off winging it, the same realization was simply that I'd be better off trying it in a different system.
So the fact that they're changing how this works, and that I can go into greater detail but don't necessarily have to in order to create an antagonist, is great. One of the top three best features of what they're showing off so far. I can't wait to see it in action so I can get to tinkering.
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Bestiary 1 Orcs
CR 1/3 Goblin: 6 HP, hits with +2 for 1d4 (19-20) damage. 16 AC.
CR 1/3 Orc: 6 HP with Ferocity, hits with +5 for 2d4+4 damage (18-20). 13 AC.
Yeah.. Something here doesn't add up. That Orc is gonna oneshot you...
lol its way worse than that.
Its ferocity effectively doubled its hp too.
Triple, technically. Will die at -12 HP, though it loses 1 per action. Not too easy to oneshot at level 1. Expect at least 1 hit from that Falchion. The CR formula for classes is silly!
Then again, this happens with PCs too based on optimization.
Even funnier: they use a falchion to be less deadly. Old School orcs used greataxes, but (as my players discovered once), that's a real problem at lvl 1. 1d12+4 with x3 crit multiplier at level one is essentially the same effect than giving every orc a vorpal sword. A 20 is insta-killing.
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Bestiary 1 Orcs
CR 1/3 Goblin: 6 HP, hits with +2 for 1d4 (19-20) damage. 16 AC.
CR 1/3 Orc: 6 HP with Ferocity, hits with +5 for 2d4+4 damage (18-20). 13 AC.
Yeah.. Something here doesn't add up. That Orc is gonna oneshot you...
Module 1 of Giantslayer truly brought this home to my group.
We joked that in the Trunau version of Cluedo, "An Orc with a Falchion" and "An Orc with a Greataxe" were very solid bets for the cause of PC death
Another issue is that if you do that, you are no longer building a monster, you are building an NPC. Then that's not the stats of "a planetar". That's the stat of "Johnny Gringo, the planetar who lives in 45th of Heaven Street". Who happens to be a fighter. But other planetars could be rangers, or paladins, or even sorcerer. That works for NPC with NPC classes and status, but not really for monsters.About the last time I ever played the EverQuest RPG (which I really loved) in its native system, I was trying to design this awesome death knight as an antagonist. The concept is easy enough: powerful undead knight riding an undead steed, with dark magic powers and deadly swordplay. And I am sitting there trying to wrangle this thing together: wonkiness with undead HD, having to add class levels and all the detailed minutiae that come with that, which is fun for players creating characters but not as DM prep, etc. By the time I realized I'd be better off winging it, the same realization was simply that I'd be better off trying it in a different system.
So the fact that they're changing how this works, and that I can go into greater detail but don't necessarily have to in order to create an antagonist, is great. One of the top three best features of what they're showing off so far. I can't wait to see it in action so I can get to tinkering.
I have not played that system, but translating the same problem to 3.X, the really easy solution would be "forget the rules, give him what he needs to have to be a cool fight". And be done with it. If some player asks, you can tell them that it's a Unique Kind of Monster TM. So it has unique traits, just like Baba Yaga in PF has almost 800 hp being a witch, because she gains +300 because of the Unique Trait "Hut Familiar", and she adds her huge Charisma to AC, HP and Saves, because the unique trait "we needed to give her more AC. more HP and better saves", AKA "Forcecul Presence".
Yeah it needs to be said that when developers say "guidelines" thats not said out of some need to acknowledge rule 0 but a reminder that the rules are not perfect and results may vary. That sometime to get that playable construct race or build the specialized critter with the weird powers you have to break or bend the rules for the sake of a fun balanced experience. Starfinder actually does a good job of hardlining the math but runs up against the same issue where the new power or ability i want to grant is going to skew that math one way or another.
Another thing worth understanding is that pc or npc levels still dont give me as a designer and gm that level of freedom to make what i want within a reasonable mwchanical framework. Often i end up with frivolous or often wasteful mechanica. Inspire courage is nigh worthless to a solo encounter, smite evil is circumstantially useful to a monster, skills in profession (jerkwad) are meaningless.
Ultimately tabletop is a game of show, not tell and every word that ultimately cannot or does not show itself in play is wasted page space.
I have not played that system, but translating the same problem to 3.X, the really easy solution would be "forget the rules, give him what he needs to have to be a cool fight". And be done with it. If some player asks, you can tell them that it's a Unique Kind of Monster TM. So it has unique traits, just like Baba Yaga in PF has almost 800 hp being a witch, because she gains +300 because of the Unique Trait "Hut Familiar", and she adds her huge Charisma to AC, HP and Saves, because the unique trait "we needed to give her more AC. more HP and better saves", AKA "Forcecul Presence".
EQRPG was an improved version of 3.x, not unlike Pathfinder in a lot of ways. One of my favorite iterations of the D20 core engine, but it still had the same problems that plagued the engine from the get-go. But yeah, this is exactly the issue: the monster creation system didn't really work. It was very, very loosely related to the actual results, and a lot of the time, you simply had to fight against the system to make it work. Even when it did work, the results were rarely anywhere near accurate, nor worth all the trouble.
Part of the reason I'm so excited for PF2E is because my list of the top three problems with the aging D20 core are (in no particular order):
1) Bad math scaling breaking the system at anything but low levels
2) Opposition creation rules (monsters, traps, etc.)
3) Caster supremacy
From what I've seen so far, the game looks poised to solve at least the first two. The latter depends on how powerful spells end up being and what non-casters can do at those levels to compete. The Cleric preview looked awesome, but ultimately it depends on what individual spells look like.
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Yeah it needs to be said that when developers say "guidelines" thats not said out of some need to acknowledge rule 0 but a reminder that the rules are not perfect and results may vary. That sometime to get that playable construct race or build the specialized critter with the weird powers you have to break or bend the rules for the sake of a fun balanced experience. Starfinder actually does a good job of hardlining the math but runs up against the same issue where the new power or ability i want to grant is going to skew that math one way or another.
Another thing worth understanding is that pc or npc levels still dont give me as a designer and gm that level of freedom to make what i want within a reasonable mwchanical framework. Often i end up with frivolous or often wasteful mechanica. Inspire courage is nigh worthless to a solo encounter, smite evil is circumstantially useful to a monster, skills in profession (jerkwad) are meaningless.
Ultimately tabletop is a game of show, not tell and every word that ultimately cannot or does not show itself in play is wasted page space.
I agree to an extent. However, nothing survives contact with the PCs, even the GM's intentions. Something you expected to only last for 2 rounds could end up lasting for sessions. In these cases, it's helpful to at least be able to convert from a simplified system to a more complete one.
"How good is that cat at climbing the tree?""I ... don't know, I never expected it to have to."
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And of course the fun part comes when you have to play with benchmarks and abilities so a momster is actually rewarding to defeat rather than a slog or outright deadly.. I remember a criticism of a 3pp monster i qrote that said the monatera hp was a bit low from its cr. It kind of failed to mention that the monster itself killed people in their sleep invisibly from a separate plane of existence. So the CR wasnt a measure of its ability but a stop gap to ensure gms didnt try to put it in front of players incapable of handling its weirdness before they were ready.And no one can be perfect about this. Bestiary 1 orcs bein an early example.
Yes, this very much so!
Now all that being said, this is for adversaries, monsters most often (NPCs in PF1 you don't have the toggles you do with monsters, so you usually just put up with the numbers being really problematic or use tricks like prebuff spells or one-use items if you are allowed a tactics entry). For PF2, we wanted the best of both worlds: the ability to fully use the PC system for NPCs and get a great NPC if you want to spend the time and have the cognitive load of remembering all those feats (possibly for multiple NPCs at once), and the ability to stat NPCs quickly that are less complicated to run but still are fun adversaries or allies.
I generally dislike NPCs having special rules, but I understand what you mean as far as building a monster from scratch and manipulating the numbers to make it work is pretty much the same as having its own rules.
The most important thing for PF2 monster creation for me is the ability to take a given monster (ogre, dragon, whatever) and add extra class levels as a means to advance them. I'd rather actually add the levels as a PC would, including adding feats and skills and all that, than using things like the Starfinder "class graft" hand-waved class features kit. A notable example from my Hell's Vengeance game is a troll who is now learning alchemy as a means to help the party, as well as to exact revenge against a former lover who stole his heart (literally) and then left. As the party levels up (and brings him supplies and gear), the troll also levels up and can provide them with low grade alchemical items and extracts and having the ability to add alchemist levels with that level of granularity is really convenient.
Adding class levels to monsters is also a really good way to scale up low level monsters to appropriate challenges while adding a fun twist that just increasing hit dice can't do. A cairn wight magus 10 with Dimensional Dervish plays much differently (and is likely much scarier) than a cairn wight with extra hit dice.
I generally dislike NPCs having special rules, but I understand what you mean as far as building a monster from scratch and manipulating the numbers to make it work is pretty much the same as having its own rules.
The most important thing for PF2 monster creation for me is the ability to take a given monster (ogre, dragon, whatever) and add extra class levels as a means to advance them. I'd rather actually add the levels as a PC would, including adding feats and skills and all that, than using things like the Starfinder "class graft" hand-waved class features kit. A notable example from my Hell's Vengeance game is a troll who is now learning alchemy as...
If monsters use levels instead of Hit Dice to try to determine CR, you don't even necessarily need to add class levels. It sounds like you could, of course, but all we'd need to do is add levels to the monster, and increase its traits according to whatever formulas they use. That is the beauty of the whole thing.
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If monsters use levels instead of Hit Dice to try to determine CR, you don't even necessarily need to add class levels. It sounds like you could, of course, but all we'd need to do is add levels to the monster, and increase its traits according to whatever formulas they use. That is the beauty of the whole thing.I generally dislike NPCs having special rules, but I understand what you mean as far as building a monster from scratch and manipulating the numbers to make it work is pretty much the same as having its own rules.
The most important thing for PF2 monster creation for me is the ability to take a given monster (ogre, dragon, whatever) and add extra class levels as a means to advance them. I'd rather actually add the levels as a PC would, including adding feats and skills and all that, than using things like the Starfinder "class graft" hand-waved class features kit. A notable example from my Hell's Vengeance game is a troll who is now learning alchemy as...
I think it should be easier than ever to have a troll multiclass into cleric or what-have-you.
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If monsters use levels instead of Hit Dice to try to determine CR, you don't even necessarily need to add class levels. It sounds like you could, of course, but all we'd need to do is add levels to the monster, and increase its traits according to whatever formulas they use. That is the beauty of the whole thing.I generally dislike NPCs having special rules, but I understand what you mean as far as building a monster from scratch and manipulating the numbers to make it work is pretty much the same as having its own rules.
The most important thing for PF2 monster creation for me is the ability to take a given monster (ogre, dragon, whatever) and add extra class levels as a means to advance them. I'd rather actually add the levels as a PC would, including adding feats and skills and all that, than using things like the Starfinder "class graft" hand-waved class features kit. A notable example from my Hell's Vengeance game is a troll who is now learning alchemy as...
It needs to be better than just increasing those traits' numbers. For example, a CR 12 creature has more and stronger (in scope, not just value) traits than a CR 4 creature. There would need to be a system similar to the PC level system where a monster gains "monster feats" and other additional abilities that can be specialized to that given monster.
This is a big issue with monster advancement in P1E right now, as increasing a monster's HD does not increase its actually difficulty by 1 CR unless it gets super inflated. The designer needs to figure out how the scope of its abilities change as the monster increases in CR, and that requires some home-brewed decisions.
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Yeah it needs to be said that when developers say "guidelines" thats not said out of some need to acknowledge rule 0 but a reminder that the rules are not perfect and results may vary. That sometime to get that playable construct race or build the specialized critter with the weird powers you have to break or bend the rules for the sake of a fun balanced experience. Starfinder actually does a good job of hardlining the math but runs up against the same issue where the new power or ability i want to grant is going to skew that math one way or another.
Another thing worth understanding is that pc or npc levels still dont give me as a designer and gm that level of freedom to make what i want within a reasonable mwchanical framework. Often i end up with frivolous or often wasteful mechanica. Inspire courage is nigh worthless to a solo encounter, smite evil is circumstantially useful to a monster, skills in profession (jerkwad) are meaningless.
Ultimately tabletop is a game of show, not tell and every word that ultimately cannot or does not show itself in play is wasted page space.
I agree to an extent. However, nothing survives contact with the PCs, even the GM's intentions. Something you expected to only last for 2 rounds could end up lasting for sessions. In these cases, it's helpful to at least be able to convert from a simplified system to a more complete one.
"How good is that cat at climbing the tree?"
"I ... don't know, I never expected it to have to."
The retort to that is the answer is "Pretty good, it's a cat" and be done with it.
Alternatively, you can build a whole bunch of rules for climbing, with the PC in mind, and make it STR based, so in the end, the cat is worse at climbing than your average rhino, because nobody really thought in the implications of making climbing str based when you applied it to elephants, hippos, bulls and whales.
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I think it should be easier than ever to have a troll multiclass into cleric or what-have-you.If monsters use levels instead of Hit Dice to try to determine CR, you don't even necessarily need to add class levels. It sounds like you could, of course, but all we'd need to do is add levels to the monster, and increase its traits according to whatever formulas they use. That is the beauty of the whole thing.I generally dislike NPCs having special rules, but I understand what you mean as far as building a monster from scratch and manipulating the numbers to make it work is pretty much the same as having its own rules.
The most important thing for PF2 monster creation for me is the ability to take a given monster (ogre, dragon, whatever) and add extra class levels as a means to advance them. I'd rather actually add the levels as a PC would, including adding feats and skills and all that, than using things like the Starfinder "class graft" hand-waved class features kit. A notable example from my Hell's Vengeance game is a troll who is now learning alchemy as...
Excellent. Beware the black dragon anti-paladin and his army of zombie-rogues.
I think it should be easier than ever to have a troll multiclass into cleric or what-have-you.If monsters use levels instead of Hit Dice to try to determine CR, you don't even necessarily need to add class levels. It sounds like you could, of course, but all we'd need to do is add levels to the monster, and increase its traits according to whatever formulas they use. That is the beauty of the whole thing.I generally dislike NPCs having special rules, but I understand what you mean as far as building a monster from scratch and manipulating the numbers to make it work is pretty much the same as having its own rules.
The most important thing for PF2 monster creation for me is the ability to take a given monster (ogre, dragon, whatever) and add extra class levels as a means to advance them. I'd rather actually add the levels as a PC would, including adding feats and skills and all that, than using things like the Starfinder "class graft" hand-waved class features kit. A notable example from my Hell's Vengeance game is a troll who is now learning alchemy as...
Awesome. I can't wait to dig in and really start designing "monsters" off all levels and types. I might create a thread entirely for it, in fact.