| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
It seems very likely that (somewhat tragically) NPCs would be using different rules from PCs, except the ones with PC class levels.
Now, this doesn't mean that's not totally acceptable for in-universe verisimilitude, my greatest priority in choosing a favorite RPG ruleset, if done correctly. For instance, even in PF1 and 3.X, non-humanoids usually have a lot of (Ex), (Sp), and (Su) abilities arbitrarily tacked on their stat block, and (usually) no one bat an eye on that, for it could be hand-waved off as some sort of a racial trait for those creatures. Plus, they follow general rules like (in case of PF1) BAB following HD size without exceptions, feats added up every odd HD, etc.
What's totally inacceptable is when the rules turn sort of inconsistent with formula. Like in a certain adventure in a certain edition of the Brand (which even had NPCs' general check bonus scale twice faster than PCs AND their ability bonuses absolutely meaningless in combat, god), in which a NPC paladin's stat block suddenly "transformed" into a monster stat block without the guy in game actually changing, just because he was temporarily an enemy for the duration of the encounter, for balancing reasons. In another awful instance, in Starfinder's Alien Codex, the main text explicitly stated that for the alien species which are playable, there are two different ability adjustments each for NPCs and PCs; no, just no. For me, these instances were accepted as some sort of a highest order of Blasphemy. It's like the gravitational constant(G) working explicitly different for humans and non-humans, a total chaos.
Now, the Brand's 5E is teetering on the line between my personal acceptance for NPC presentation or not. All generic stat blocks for NPCs don't have specific abilities that arbitrarily surpass PC abilities with similar usages in fuctionality, so they all could be hand-waved off as an unseen flexible NPC class statted up for easy usage. Well, except for the horrible fact that their Proficiency bonus does NOT scale with the number of HD, but their CR, a floating, weightless value that should never have had in-game interactions (but unfortunately do, like Turn Undead and polymorphing spells). Plus, The new monster races added on later books often have ability adjustments and racial features arbitrarily "watered down" from the monster versions, further making me lose favor for the 5E ruleset, despite its core rules still being an OGL based one (which usually earns a lot of points when I'm deciding wich book to buy and support for).
So, in conclusion, I'd be still accepting different NPC rules as long as the game's basic formula isn't crushed (like their proficiency bonus hopping up and down for different rolls without explanation, or ability score bonuses not mattering), and PC versions (if any) NEVER get a watered down nor buffed version of NPC racial features but only equal ones. How about you?
|
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well, they've said that you can create an NPC using the PC creation rules and that's both legal and Level appropriate.
So, while you can also use other rules to make NPCs the math is gonna line up and there's no need to suddenly swap a character because they're on the other side or any such ridiculousness.
Hit Dice are also no longer a thing and everyone and everything seems to use Level to determine things like HP as well as the very important Proficiency bonus so it's, in many ways, the sort of measure that HD used to be.
With those facts in evidence, I think the NPC rules are likely to fall well on the right side of all my personal dividing lines.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
As deadmanwalking said. What's very likely is that there will be a "quick and dirty" generation method for throwing together an NPC as a "monster" with grafts applied to base stat blocks from a table, but if you have the time for prep, and it's someone important rather than just a mook who doesn't deserve the effort, you can just built an NPC from scratch like a PC.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Frankly, I really liked Starfinder's NPC creation rules and I think they made for really easily made creatures on the fly. But I do enjoy making NPC's slightly more closer to effectiveness as PC's, so stating them out like in PF1 can be fun but time consuming.
Having both on the table would be good for me. I don't dislike either system and think both are fun in their own way.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
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.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
To be 100% honest, I don't like the idea of different rules for NPCs and monsters at all. I'm a big fan of giving monsters class levels, and trying to apply a class level to a monster with the new system seems like it will be very troublesome to me.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
PC and NPC have to follow the same rules. NPCs can be cut down versions of the rules for simplicity. The amount of cutting should be up to the GM.
PC and NPCs following different rules is anathema.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm fine with separate build rules for NPC's as a replacement for the NPC classes (Warrior, Adept, Expert, etc). I never felt they mixed well with PC class levels anyways, so I don't think it's a huge loss if those use a quick-build system. With the confirmation that PC class levels will remain a perfectly acceptable way of building antagonists, my fears are mostly alleviated on this front.
The only concern I have remaining is added PC class levels to monsters. Because that's just so much fun in so many ways, and was one of the coolest ways to customize monsters.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It sounds like the only PC-NPC concern is loot.
The only loss to me is APs no longer providing PC class listings for major figures. That’s probably a tradeoff with being able to provide more stat blocks in general.
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.
I’d much rather see things based on CR than HD, at least if HD isn’t something that stays close to CR.
|
What I personally like though is when NPCs will have options available to them that aren't there for PCs to a certain degree. Racial traits through EX/SU/etc abilities, or some custom SP for a seemingly human caster to represent some special area of study he might have done.
I think overall, rules need to be applied consistently but NPCs need to have some tricks and abilities up their sleeves that will keep PCs guessing. I think there's a certain degree of excitement that comes up (except from those trying to game the game) when an NPC does something they completely didn't expect. As they all go, wait.. what? Uhm.. now, how do we deal with this?
I also must admit, that having to build out many NPCs as practically fully fleshed PCs can be tedious. Some methods for simple, clean, and basic stat blocks with a few little tidbits thrown in to give a flavorful and interesting encounter with significantly less work could certainly be nice.
|
|
It sounds like the only PC-NPC concern is loot.
Huh? I'm clearly missing something and not getting what you're saying here.
The only loss to me is APs no longer providing PC class listings for major figures. That’s probably a tradeoff with being able to provide more stat blocks in general.
I wouldn't assume this, necessarily. NPCs using the PC rules totally still exist in PF2. There may be the option of quick build rules of some sort, but those would still be listed as Level X Class Y since everything is measured in levels now.
I’d much rather see things based on CR than HD, at least if HD isn’t something that stays close to CR.
There are no more HD since there's no more rolling for HP, and CR looks gone as well (or synonymous with Level). There is only Level. For everyone.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
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?
|
|
Yeah, cool, base things off the monster level, something concrete, but not CR ("You must be this tall to ride.").
They might have kept CR as an encounter balance metric or something like that, but monsters themselves seem to have Level (Skeletons and Zombies were mentioned as Level 0 in one Demo Game, for example).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It sounds like the only PC-NPC concern is loot.Huh? I'm clearly missing something and not getting what you're saying here.
The only loss to me is APs no longer providing PC class listings for major figures. That’s probably a tradeoff with being able to provide more stat blocks in general.I wouldn't assume this, necessarily. NPCs using the PC rules totally still exist in PF2. There may be the option of quick build rules of some sort, but those would still be listed as Level X Class Y since everything is measured in levels now.
I’d much rather see things based on CR than HD, at least if HD isn’t something that stays close to CR.There are no more HD since there's no more rolling for HP, and CR looks gone as well (or synonymous with Level). There is only Level. For everyone.
Building enemy NPCs with PC rules requires them to have less gear than PCs, or you’re handing the PCs a ton of loot, that’s all.
You can build NPCs with PC rules. Will the APs do that? I don’t know. Will the APs still list off unstatted NPCs as Bard 7, or Expert 5, Rogue 2? I don’t know, and the second one may not be possible.
The HD bit was mostly in response to some other people talking about it. We don’t have monster stat blocks, so I don’t know if they’ll just have level, both level and CR, or just CR.
Yeah, cool, base things off the monster level, something concrete, but not CR ("You must be this tall to ride.").They might have kept CR as an encounter balance metric or something like that, but monsters themselves seem to have Level (Skeletons and Zombies were mentioned as Level 0 in one Demo Game, for example).
Ah, thanks, I was missing that context. Monsters are the part most likely to change of course, because their deadline is much later, but for now, level makes sense.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ok, I see this as two different issues: NPCs with class levels, and monsters.
I don't mind a simplified NPC system that approximates what you'd get with a full build. That's fine, often it will be used for inconsequential minions, and you can always create a full stat block if you need it (like if an enemy becomes a friend through magic or diplomacy). I absolutely don't want NPCs having things unavailable to PCs - if it's a learned skill, then learning it should be an option available to PCs. There should be no test a character can perform in-universe to tell whether said character is a PC or an NPC. Note: I'm perfectly fine with NPCs having abilities that heroic PCs won't want to take horrible actions to learn - if an evil necromancer has a fear aura because he's turned an orphanage into an undead nightmare, that's fine, as long as that option is available to evil PCs.
For monsters, it's a little different. Monster stats are already somewhat arbitrary based on the monster's role in the game world. I do want some logical consistency to them - I don't want dragons with a high touch AC just because they have a high CR. I want to know what happens if a monster wears armor, or wields an oddball weapon. I want enough skills to know what happens when the PC conjurer summons a monster to ask it questions instead of fighting. I really want the monster's stats to be explainable by in-world justifications, not just a collection of arbitrary numbers because the foes is CR7.
(Actually one of my issues with PF1e monster design is designers who just tack on an arbitrary amount of natural armor after otherwise designing a fine creature just to meet CR-based AC benchmarks. I understand why they do it but it bugs me a lot.)
|
It doesn't matter to me how different the systems are. NPCs could be generated with a completely different system, as long as the system is:
1. Simple
2. Fast
3. Full of pre-made options
My players are highly unlikely to fight full-caster NPCs enemies in Pathfinder because making custom spell lists is a pain. The premade NPCs book was a blessing for that reason.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
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?
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.
|
|
Building enemy NPCs with PC rules requires them to have less gear than PCs, or you’re handing the PCs a ton of loot, that’s all.
Ah! Yeah, that's definitely an issue if you do it too often.
You can build NPCs with PC rules. Will the APs do that? I don’t know.
This is true. We don't know. I'm actually comfy either way, though I'd expect it'll be a mix.
Will the APs still list off unstatted NPCs as Bard 7, or Expert 5, Rogue 2? I don’t know, and the second one may not be possible.
I'd expect they'd list them something like this, yeah. Heck, even in Starfinder they have all this but level and that's a much more asymmetrical system.
And I have no idea how concepts like Expert will work. Or multiclassing, to be honest.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I want to be able to present the PCs with a party of evil NPCs the anti-party. And have that work as a dangerous fight where they win through knowing themselves.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
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?
This comes down to a playstyle/approach. Personally, if the GM tells me something, I don't usually bat an eyelid, but immediately work out how my character reacts. I have played with plenty of folks who immediately reverse engineer { what they have been told x what they think they know / what they know they know } and if it comes out wrong they question e GM. I have nver enjoyed that - the GM is fallible, sure, but they are te final arbiter of what is happening - if they added wings to a snake and called it a landshark, then it is a landshark with wings and no legs. The endless quibbling about why creature/person z deals 12d4 force damage with only a pentometric azaleablade or how we should be hitting the doomon's AC of 18 removes me from the game's verisimilitude immediately. For others, if the rules and reason don't make sense, the verisimilitude is unachievable.
Different approaches.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
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”.
The new ultra-flexible level up system for PCs would make it a bit annoying to make classed NPCs with. However, they can approximate some of the classes with like templates and such, which should make things smooth.
As long as the math is even betwen both parties (comparable HP/BAB at X level) and the rules are consistent (Level to skills, not CR), I don't care if NPCs have their own jank simplified classes and creation systems.
I want to be able to present the PCs with a party of evil NPCs the anti-party. And have that work as a dangerous fight where they win through knowing themselves.This is definitely and officially doable. Though, as mentioned, probably a pretty hefty payday for the PCs when they win.
Great! than I am satisfied. In the past I dealt with the wealth issue by 1. having the andti-party be near end campaign bosses, the Big Bads enforcers and 2. Some of their gear is unholy or otherwise unusable by the PCs and hard to sell. It's stil a fat pile of loot just not a doubling of wealth.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
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.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
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.
What is good for the goose... I like anything the PC can do, can be done by NPC/Monsters also.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm fine if NPCs get things that aren't available to PCs- we had this in PF1 with monster feats and SLAs that monsters get and PCs can't. But moreover, I wouldn't mind mundane NPCs getting something that can represent how somebody who has been farming for 20 years and is still only level 2 can nonetheless be excellent at farming.
It doesn't matter to me how different the systems are. NPCs could be generated with a completely different system, as long as the system is:
1. Simple
2. Fast
3. Full of pre-made options[...] The premade NPCs book was a blessing for that reason.
This is where I stand. Well said, Davor.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
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.
I know in PF1 you can still cause them to be Shaken by using it mid-combat. This one has a DC based on player level + Wis,so it's just like any other fear ability.
|
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
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.
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 my low level abilities fall off as I advance and my ACs are crappy.
I have seen stream lined NPC creation that even divide their importance. So a nobody would have a sheet meant to do X and a big boss would get powers and a sheet that meant for Y. Their powers were literally removed from the PCs, which meant if you saw an enemy with certain powers, it didnt mean any PC could ever get the same powers unless they were that exact guy. Some rules were directly meant for the NPCs, while the PCs had their own.
From the GM side, this made creating enemies much easier and faster. Since you literally put together few stats, add one or two unique powers, which you can copy from other monsters or put together quickly and that is that.
In this system, the enemies, even the biggest end boss of them all, werent meant to be detailed, the players werent meant to question to works behind the scene, everything just goes with the flow.
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...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Diplomacy should only work on NPCs.
Diplomacy is definitely something a little different from Intimidate. But even so, if Diplomacy skill unlocks / feats allow tasks that simulate the effects of various Enchantment spells and bard abilities or exist in a similar space, then those should definitely work on PCs just like Intimidate can be used to inflict fear on PCs.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
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".
Well, they've said that you can create an NPC using the PC creation rules and that's both legal and Level appropriate.
So, while you can also use other rules to make NPCs the math is gonna line up and there's no need to suddenly swap a character because they're on the other side or any such ridiculousness.
Hit Dice are also no longer a thing and everyone and everything seems to use Level to determine things like HP as well as the very important Proficiency bonus so it's, in many ways, the sort of measure that HD used to be.
With those facts in evidence, I think the NPC rules are likely to fall well on the right side of all my personal dividing lines.
Your conclusions align with my hopes, but I'm far, far from convinced.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
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".
Me neither with monsters, but I have had that reaction when I look at PCs.
"Your attack deals 1d8+ 21 damage at level 3? I need to look at that sheet..."
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The new ultra-flexible level up system for PCs would make it a bit annoying to make classed NPCs with.
For you, it appears that highly-customizable NPCs are a bug. For me, it's a feature.
Also, my players HATE it when NPCs get to play by different rules than they do.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The key (for us) is that the results need to be invisible.
Starfinder broke our weekend group. There were too many instances of opponents who were inexplicably better than us, by a massive margin. Their saves were better, their AC was better, their to-hit was better, and basically we never felt heroic or even competent. We felt - and said repeatedly - they should just get NPCs to do this adventure.
Now, I get it that in Pathfinder you have opponents a couple CR (or even 5 CR) higher than average party level for a challenging fight. But even four or five CR higher, the numbers are fairly tight. PC abilities still have somewhere vaguely in the 50/50 likelihood to actually work. Even in a really hard fight, it's only hard, not simply some idiotic war of attrition, waiting until the party has made 50 attacks to have 5 of them hit and finally win the day.
I mean, I don't really care if NPCs have the same number of skill points as we do. I don't really care if the exact proper number of feats have been assigned. I don't really care if the 17th-level NPC wizard has all his 1st-level spell slots documented. But where it counts - the observable numbers - there should be equality.
|
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".
As a GM, I do it occasionally, and the information to figure out how is fully available from the stat block. I enjoy adding class levels to monsters from the bestiary, and having access to a complete stat block helps me mesh the two together.
At the same time, I completely understand the time and decision-making issues inherent with NPC generation, and would support a simpler process existing to make generation faster for those who need it.
|
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
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".
If the human bandit is getting +5 to their attack rolls when the best I can do as a PC at that level is a +2, then yes, I want to know where the heck that number came from so I can improve my build.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
NPCs don't need to follow the same rules.
I actually prefer a more generic NPC template based on role that can be measured against expected PC values which allow targets based on specific desires (like combat focused PCs should have a +26 to hit at this level, so we will set the AC of combat focused NPCs at this level to 36, or something like that).
I don't want NPCs to have to abide by the same rules. Besides which, sometimes in PF 1.0 I gave NPCs abilities that by the rules they shouldn't have had. Ultimately my goal is create challenging and interesting combats for PCs. Not to be bound by some exact rules. The reason I like the generic templates, is because if you control the PC math those template provide a very good place to set all your creatures off of to enable you to create those challenging combats.