|
If I am building a character, and I keep up with the numbers in the bestiary, how would I measure up to other player characters?
Let's say, for the sake of discussion; An optimized Summoner, an Unoptimized Summoner, a Run of the Mill Archery Ranger, an unoptimized bard, and an Unoptimized Monk.
I imagine I would be behind the two summoners, but beyone that I have no idea.
Has anyone already run the numbers for these things?
CR 11
Hit Points 145
Armor Class 25
High Attack 19
Low Attack 14
Damage high 50
Damage low 37
Good Save 14
Poor Save 10
Is this what you mean?
lv 11 Heroic NPC bard
4th level bard spells
Str 15+2+1+2=20 Dex 13+1=14 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 10 Cha 12
headband of cha +2
belt of str +2
magic weapon +2
armor +2
BAB +8/+3
Inspire courage +3
fort +3+2=5
will +7
ref +7+2=9
two handed weapon attacks +18/+13 XdY + 12
AC = 10+6+2=18
But this is sorely un-optimized. It's also important to know what you're going for?
An optimized PC melee build will beat most = CR in combat if they just stand and deliver. Giants and elementals hit hard for their CR in my experience, but other wise the players ahead. They should have better AC even if they are not optimized. That is on purpose to keep the game tilted in the PC's favor.
PS: what is optimized will vary by group. Even using the CRB alone I expect for the PC's to be ahead in most cases.
|
|
@wraithstrike: Then if I run a game with mostly NPCs with class levels, does that make things much more difficult than if I were using monsters, or does the lower cash value on NPCs put them about on par with monsters?
And if I use some NPCs that are built as per Player Characters, how much of a power discrepancy would there be between them and the NPCs built using NPC rules or monsters? How much would their CR likely be off by?
(I am aware that the PCs shouldn't be able to loot more than WBL per level and I would have to compensate for that or the PC power will get out of hand.)
That depends on how well you build your NPC's and how well the players build their PC's.
Giving an NPC, PC level wealth ups the CR by one and gives the players more loot than they are supposed to get in once combat if you care about WBL. If you give them 25 point buy that is another +1 for "exceptional stats". 20 point buy does not move the needle, but NPC's are built on a stat array that uses 15 point buy.
With that said the actual difficulty in combat can feel like it is more than a 1 CR jump if you build your NPC's well.
One thing you can do to maximize NPC loot is to let them use potions and other consumables instead of buying them permanent gear. As an example a potion of can boost the AC by a decent amount and it stops the PC's from getting amulet of natural armor.
If you want to boost CR you can add templates to the book monsters, change out feats, let them fight in their terrain, let them use magic items, etc etc. That is also a lot less work than making PC classes.
|
|
The WBL Part isn't something I'm concerned about. When I run games, I use an alternate system that turns most magic items into innate enhancements which are bought as part of character advancement using points. The PCs get points to spend on it automatically as they gain exp, based on the WBL they should have at that time.
The idea is that they still get WBL, and I don't have to put much effort into tracking party loot, or awarding a particular amount of wealth/items; and I can use NPCs who sunder or steal PC equipment without going out of my way to make up for it later (replacing a masterwork greatsword isn't teribly difficult, for instance).
That said, you're right about it being much faster to slap templates on monsters than it is to build NPCs. Building NPCs takes forever. I often run campaigns focused on factions and guilds though, so NPCs come up much more often than monsters.
More Info:
Since I go through NPCs quite frequently, I am playing with fleshing out the monster creation rules/guidelines a little bit more (and taking the idea of monster/NPC roles from 4e to give them stat packages of a sort), and then using that to build my NPCs, rather than building them like I would build a PC. IE: Grab appropriate Monster Stats for the CR, then slap on whatever interesting race features, class features, spells and equipment that I like, to make it an NPC.
A while back I found a google docs pathfinder bestiary with statistics someone made (can't recall the original source at the moment), and I've been expanding it to find additional statistics and whatnot to tell me average DR for a given level, etc.
I'm currently between ongoing campaigns, so right now I am just playing with game mechanics a bit. I figured it might be something worth sharing later on, but right now I don't have anything fully fleshed out or usable.
So, I guess now that should give you enough information to see why it is that I am interested in how NPCs and PCs stand up against the monster stat guidelines.