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I'm excited for NPC Core! While it's technically quite easy to improvise NPCs for the majority of situations, using default DCs for non-combat challenges and things, it's SO nice to have a statblock to reference, especially if combat might reasonably break out.
The current list of NPCs is pretty decent, but more is always welcome, especially if they have descriptive names instead of the names from APs. If I haven't played Frozen Flame I don't know what abilities a Pakano might have, and I have to rely on the HP and saves listed on AoN to have an educated guess before clicking in to investigate.
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I'm excited; I don't do much monster/npc creation so I don't really use many plain old "people" currently outside the smattering available. I say again, I hope there's a high lvl barkeep (basically a retired adventurer). Godlike power is no excuse for PCs to act up in town, and somebody has to slap some sense into them.
I also can't be particularly excited about that one. I'm glad it will exist for the people it's useful for (i see questions like "Is there a good statblock I can grab for a [Level X] [Class Y] NPC?" in some PF2 related discord servers often enough). But it's not something that I personally have a lot of need for, since the NPC building system has been pretty fast and effective when I've needed it.
The NPC roster in the Gamemastery Guide is great and gets a lot of use from me, but I'm happy to see additional options provided and, hopefully, NPCs that can provide higher-level challenges.
I tried looking up the list of NPCs for this, but could not find anything. I’m assuming it will have a good mix of lower to mid-level NPCs - similar to the Gamemastery Guide. However, I’m also hoping for some higher level NPCs. I know those levels aren’t commonly played, but those stats would be extremely useful for middle-upper and higher level home games.
I also can't be particularly excited about that one. I'm glad it will exist for the people it's useful for (i see questions like "Is there a good statblock I can grab for a [Level X] [Class Y] NPC?" in some PF2 related discord servers often enough). But it's not something that I personally have a lot of need for, since the NPC building system has been pretty fast and effective when I've needed it.
For me it was useful for on the spot npcs I hadn't planned for rather than for custom npcs. At least in pf1e, but I can't see how this would change if I had access to it as a resource in pf2e.
I think my group would riot if I asked to take a 10min break to stat up a handful of npcs mid session lol.
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I'm excited for it in the sense that I expect it to add a lot to my game, this book will bear a lot of actual weight in a material sense-- especially if it has a lot of 'rival adventurer' and 'bbeg' style NPC statblocks-- Knight Commanders I can make the leaders of corrupt organizations, a variety of mages who can supplement soldier types, so forth-- and with the whole book being devoted to it, I'm hoping they'll have 'interesting monster first' mechanics like Book of the Dead and Howl of the Wild and stuff, making for more exciting people encounters.
As a mostly GM, I am also hyped for the book. Having a resource like that can save a lot of time, especially when players can do the unexpected, and in PF2, even normal NPCs, all seem to have a fun little special ability and that can also be very helpful to a GM.
It's a not for everyone product, but they even pointed that out in the panel, and for those of us who could use something like this, it is exciting.
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One thing to note is that they said that the returning NPCs from the Gamemastery Guide was but a "drop in the bucket" of all the NPCs that were packed in this book. Considering that there were 83 NPCs in the GMG, and those cover about 43 pages in the GMG originally... I'm looking forward to how many new NPCs, categories of NPCs, and new templates that will show up in this very book. It might be a LOT more than some of us were expecting.
I'm very excited for it as well. I do hope it is more along the lines of Monster Codex and Villain Codex from 1e - whereby the NPCs are grouped into themes with supporting information, rather than just pages of individual NPC stat blocks.
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I tried looking up the list of NPCs for this, but could not find anything. I’m assuming it will have a good mix of lower to mid-level NPCs - similar to the Gamemastery Guide. However, I’m also hoping for some higher level NPCs. I know those levels aren’t commonly played, but those stats would be extremely useful for middle-upper and higher level home games.
Having some extra generic soldier types but for higher levels would be nice. More swordmasters, royal guards, and arch wizards (would an arch wizard of Civic Wizardry be an arch arch wizard, or an arch arch architect?)