Creating an NPC


Beginner Box


I'm writing my first dungeon and need to create an NPC fighter who will help the PCs in the last encounter. I'm trying to base the stats on the Evil Fighter on page 67 of the GMG. I would just use those stats but the party have rescued the fighter and so he has no weapons and armour (and part of the point of doing it is to help me understand the rules a bit better). I've worked out most of the stats, but I can't work out what the base stats for melee and ranged would be, given that he currently has no weapons, or why the evil fighter has melee +10 and ranged +5.
By my calculations the battle axe would have +1 for weapon focus, +2 for attack bonus for being level 3 and +1 for it being a masterwork weapon. I can't see where the other +6 comes from in the stats. Similarly for the ranged attack. What am I missing?

His final stats will of course depend on what 2nd hand armour and weapons the players decide to give him, and the fact that he is both shaken and exhausted.


I'm not really sure about the fighter in question but, attack bonus is generally calculated with:

Base Attack Bonus - If he's all fighter levels, then his BAB is equal to his fighter level.

Strength or Dexterity Modifier - Melee attacks use the strength modifier, and ranged attacks use the dexterity modifier.

There are other things, but those are the basic two.

So, as an example, if you have a level 3 fighter with 18 strength, Weapon Focus (Battleaxe) and a Masterwork Battleaxe, he'll have an attack bonus of:
3(Base Attack Bonus) + 4(Strength) + 1(Weapon Focus) + 1(Masterwork) = +9.

For ranged weapons, suppose the fighter has, say, 14 Dexterity, but doesn't have Weapon focus, and the bow isn't masterwork. The attack bonus then is:
3(BAB) + 2 (Dexterity) = +5.

Does this help clarify things? Like I said, I'm afraid I'm not terribly familiar with exactly what you're asking, but I think it should probably be somewhere along those lines.

Now, without any weapons, an unarmed strike will most likely be his Base Attack Bonus and his Strength modifier, unless he's taken some other things for it.

Assuming he hasn't though, also note that without the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, he'll be provoking attacks of opportunity whenever he makes an unarmed strike, so he might be severely limited without a weapon to work with.


Thank you! It's close enough - I had forgotten to add in the strength and dexterity modifiers. You know when you look at a problem for so long that you fail to notice the stupid mistake that you made at the start...


find a good working fillable sheet? at least one without a lot of errors in it, there are a couple that show you what stats go where. Or look at a basic vanilla char sheet.

Grand Lodge

I don't believe this is really addressed any where in the Beginner Box GM Guide, but when you have class leveled monsters the CR is equal to level-1, so the CR3 'Evil' monsters are actually level 4 in their respective classes.

That should put it at: 4 (attack bonus) + 4 (str bonus) + 1 (weapon focus) + 1 (masterwork) = 10.

The damage (1d8+6) seems right for str bonus (4) and weapon specialization (gained at 4th level)(2) = 6

I cannot get the math to work for the AC 23. Full plate (9) + heavy steel shield (2) + dex bonus (1) + base (10) = 22. Probably shield focus feat.

There is only 1 feat listed (power attack) but there is an implied improved initiative (+5 init, with only a +1 dex bonus means the +4 had some come from somewhere).

The Will save is off, it should be: 1st level (2) + 3rd level (1) + wis bonus (1) = 4

I'm a little scared to check the others now :)

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Paizo Products / Beginner Box / Creating an NPC All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Beginner Box