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A handful of NPCs in recent AP books have firearm attacks with the Scatter trait. Breaking with convention, there's no listed splash damage on any of them, and one even just has a straight d8 with no flat modifier added. This is not the case with NPCs that throw alchemical bombs, in contrast, which will have creature-level-appropriate splash damage explicitly included in the stat block.
Unfortunately there are only ~3 examples to reference, so I'm left wondering if the splash damage was unintentionally omitted, or we're expected to actually add splash damage of some amount to their attacks.
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The scatter trait itself says 1 damage per die of the attack, is there any reason not to simply use that value for these NPCs?
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Maybe?
Effects based on a weapon’s number of damage dice include only the weapon’s damage die plus any extra dice from a striking rune. They don’t count extra dice from abilities, critical specialization effects, property runes, weapon traits, or the like.
It's easy enough to include some quantity (or not) when running the AP, but I'd also like to know how the scatter trait is supposed to be handled in general for NPCs.
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I agree with Squiggit. The trait itself gives the answer you are looking for. There doesn't need to be a Scatter rule for PCs and one for NPCs.
Maybe?
Effects based on a weapon’s number of damage dice include only the weapon’s damage die plus any extra dice from a striking rune. They don’t count extra dice from abilities, critical specialization effects, property runes, weapon traits, or the like.It's easy enough to include some quantity (or not) when running the AP, but I'd also like to know how the scatter trait is supposed to be handled in general for NPCs.
The same way as PCs. Splash damage equal to the number of weapon damage dice, including striking runes but not other sources.
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The same way as PCs. Splash damage equal to the number of weapon damage dice, including striking runes but not other sources.
In 2nd edition, NPC attacks are at most loosely related to their inventory weapons. The damage dice for their attacks aren't usable for determining effects that depend on them. This is why this sort of thing normally appears directly in the stat block.
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You're thinking too hard about it. Yes, some NPCs do multiple damage die without striking weapons, but that's just because the writers likely forgot that weapon users need those runes to do extra damage. There's also plenty of high level enemies who only do a single die of damage with a weapon because of the lack of a striking rune.
My point is, if a creature has more than one damage die on their strike, just treat it as if they had striking. It will make your life much easier.
The enemy build table for strike damage increases its die size at the same levels as the striking runes come available - an additional die at levels 4, 12, and 19.
I also notice that the two creatures that I pull up that have weapons with the Scatter trait: Leadsmith and Clockwork Gunner - both of them have single damage dice even though they are in that level 4 - level 11 range that should have two dice. The Leadsmith has all of their attacks at lower die counts than expected. But the Clockwork Gunner has all of their other non-scatter attacks dealing two damage dice.
So if the creature writers create creatures with a backup weapon that has scatter but doesn't have the virtual striking rune, I have to assume that it was a deliberate decision. I would still run the Scatter trait based on the number of damage dice that the attack does.
This is not the case with NPCs that throw alchemical bombs, in contrast, which will have creature-level-appropriate splash damage explicitly included in the stat block.
Just to elaborate a little, the reason NPCs with bombs or other similar unique attacks list splash damage is because there's no bespoke rule for how splash damage works. It varies from attack to attack.
But the Scatter trait itself already tells you how it works, so we don't really need anything else.
The same way as PCs. Splash damage equal to the number of weapon damage dice, including striking runes but not other sources.In 2nd edition, NPC attacks are at most loosely related to their inventory weapons. The damage dice for their attacks aren't usable for determining effects that depend on them. This is why this sort of thing normally appears directly in the stat block.
You're not wrong, but if it's not written otherwise you have nothing else to go on.
I can't imagine they're going to make a big effort to edit and reprint the book for this issue, but maybe if you're lucky when they do reprint bestiaries/AP/etc if you're lucky they'll address it.