Hi y'all!
I've been browsing numerous websites on minimizing the prep time to run PF, cause I just switched to it and got terrified to the notion that it takes a lot to DM at higher levels. I know I can use the awesome APs Paizo puts out, but I do enjoy creating my own adventures, so I'm searching for reference.
I came across a blog in which the author gives some pretty interesting guidelines to create fast NPCs, but I'm not really sure if using that method will give me challenging NPCs to higher levels.
The blog is: http://rollforinitiative.blogspot.com/2010/10/pathfinder-preparationits-not -that.html
I'm not criticizing the author, none of that. Actually, for what I know that'll save me a lot of time, and I know that my lawier's life won't allow me to spend much more into my games. All I want is some insight into it, so that I can hear more opinions about it!
Yeah, I took a peek at it and as every other product by paizo it's awesome awesomeness (i'm purchasing it in april, per say, tomorrow). But I really want to know specifically if those guidelines are good or bad businnes.
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This particular author appears to write up most of his NPC's by hand instead of using cookie cutter NPC's which is fine, but IMO unnecessary and time intensive. The players won't care if they are (Mechanically) fighting the same rogue, goblin, or rat-swarm 4-5 times and they are already set up in the bestiaries, GMG, and the NPC guide to provide the GM as a resource to use right out of the box.
For important NPC's you are going to want to do it all out by hand of course and likely even have a character sheet ready (Or at least a PDF of it saved somewhere) for when it will matter but to me it seems like more hassle than help to create your own statblocks for weenie creatures.
I want to personally recommend if you are going to be running the game to at least take a look at Herolab. It is a character creation suite made my wolflair that (With the right packages purchased) has pretty much every monster, ability, feat, spell, and so on at your fingertips that allows for crazy fast character creation without having to have all your books in front of you to manually write out a character sheet for someone that is going to die 12-30 seconds after the PC's decide they don't like them anymore. I can make any given character given 10 minutes and access to my laptop and I frequently do just for fun.
I'm currently using PCGen, which only fails me for being kinda laggy. But as a newbiew DM I'll try and save some cash for Hero Lab, which seems pretty sweet!
Thanks a lot for responding!
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I wholeheartedly second the HeroLab recommendation. Well worth the money (even if, like me, you end up purchasing everything!). Saved me a ton of preparation, and allowed me to customize extensively. The included Editor is also quite handy once you get the hang of it, and the devs hang around their forums a lot.
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I wholeheartedly second the HeroLab recommendation. Well worth the money (even if, like me, you end up purchasing everything!). Saved me a ton of preparation, & allowed me to customize extensively. The included Editor is also quite h&y once you get the hang of it, & the devs hang around their forums a lot.
+1, Keen, Thundering
Myself and my group have all chipped in for a number of extra licenses, and have bought all of the packages to date. As of right now I think my kit costs something like $80 total, the cost of 2 books and split up over 6 people it cost us each about what we spend each week on food for the game.
We also use Dropbox set up linked between our various computers to hold all of our character sheets and portfolios for the characters themselves. It saves me (No joke) at least 2 hours a week as far as game prep goes to make sure everything is well greased and ready to go.
I'm currently using PCGen, which only fails me for being kinda laggy. But as a newbiew DM I'll try and save some cash for Hero Lab, which seems pretty sweet!
Thanks a lot for responding!
Just so you know we are currently re-writting the core engine of PCGen so the whole program is faster, and redoing the UI as well. I'm not sure if it will ever be as intuitive as HeroLab or WotC's Char program though, we'll have to find out what the result is. :)