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tetsuoh
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Joined: 21 Jul 2010
Posts: 505
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 Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 11:37 am Post subject: The CP lvl of NPCS |
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As I have started a reworking of the NPC generator that Gollummen did a long time ago, a question has been raised in my group as to just how appropriate the CP gain of the npcs by their lvl was.
I plan on everything in our games around a 6 tier standard.
The difficulty standard.
Very Easy - Easy - Moderate - Difficult - Very Difficult - Heroic
Gollummen's roller did the same with the Rank of NPC' being
Trained - Experienced - Veteran - Elite - Minor Hero/Villain - Major Hero/Villain
Is there a set of by RAW guidelines for the building of NPCs?
And what would your takes be on an appropriate amount of CP to award NPC's by those lvls above?
What should the Max NPC CP be as a Major Hero/Villain? 200? less? more?
I have games that at the moment have characters with as much as 500cp in their lifetimes. And have had games with as little as 3 ever being rewarded.
Should instead I build a roller that allows the GM to change the CP scale?
If so what should be the Highest value? Might be laughable to see what a Great Villain could do with 1,000.
On that note who would like to help me calculate how much CP some of the major star wars characters have had? Might be interesting to see I think.
I want to eventually be building a roller that includes all the reasonable Templates (I do not consider a race template as being a template, and some of them are kinda just plain junk.) And the vast majority or Races.
However at the moment I am doing a LARGE number of things - so atm I just need input on this. I am however planning on a look through all the templates and races and posting to get some major input on them in order to add them into the Roller's functionality at some point.
So yeah - there you got it - and yes I am aware of the fact that I have posted similar things before - I did not know java before starting all this and it is taking time, a LOT of it - that I don't really have usually. |
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Jedi Skyler
Moff
Joined: 07 Sep 2005
Posts: 8440
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| Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 11:21 pm Post subject: |
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That sounds like a very ambitious, but wonderful project!
I never got hold of Gollumen's creator, and I'd like to...at least, until the new one becomes available (which is a ways off, I know).
I won't claim to have ideas on numbers for CP caps for major Heroes and/or Villains. My recommendation, if it's something in which you're interested, is perhaps to create several villains of differing CP levels, and run them in rolls against a group of NPCs with the same levels as your players. See how they roll against each other (of course, keeping in mind that players are wont to take the game in wonderful and unexpected directions). If the villain CAN be defeated, but isn't a pushover, I'd say you've picked well. I say 'if you're interested,' because I know that can be time consuming, even if you're just running a bunch of opposing rolls to see results. But there are GMs out there who like that kind of thing, so I figured there are at least some who will like that idea. |
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cheshire
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 04 Jan 2004
Posts: 4834
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| Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 11:12 am Post subject: |
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I talked to Gulloman some time ago. He was pleased that his program was still in use, and he was willing to support anyone who wanted to move beyond the scope of his vision to make changes. Though I don't think he even had the source code for it anymore.
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cheshire
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| Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 11:17 am Post subject: |
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Grimace had constructed this system some time ago. I'm not sure if it would be useful to you or not:
| Quote: |
I've found that encounter balance goes generally like this:
NPC baddies should be about 2D less than a Player Character in their primary skill that will be used. So if you're envisioning a fight, the fighting skill should be about 2D less than the PCs fighting skill. This allows you to use 1-2 NPCs per PC. So if you have a group of 4 PCs, and the PC's primary skill in the encounter is at 7D, you can throw 4-6 NPCs at the players if the NPCs have 4D-5D in the primary skill.
When the NPCs have their primary skill equal to the PCs primary skill, you'll want to keep it either at about 75-100% of the PCs in number. So again, if you have 4 PCs, you'll want 3-4 NPCs if the NPCs have the same general skill level in the primary skill. From that point, for every 2D greater than the PCs, subtract 1 more NPC, with a minimum of 1 NPC against the group. So if the group of 4 PCs had a general skill of 7D, and you had NPCs of 8D-9D, you'll either want 3 or 2 NPCs. If the NPCs had their primary skill of 10D+, compared to the PCs at 7D, then you'll only want 1 NPC.
In all cases, if you find that the PCs are simply getting too good at contending with only 1 or 2 NPCs of higher level, then make up the difference with lower skill level minions. So while the main bad guy might have 11D in the primary skill when going against the 4 PCs, you could also throw 3-4 NPCs that are at 4D-5D in skill. That gives the players something extra to chew on as well as the greater experienced NPC.
If you're having a non-combat encounter, such as an investigative encounter, or puzzle solving encounter, you'll want to generally provide challenges that are multi-faceted in difficulty. Attempt to keep the difficulties for things either realistic (especially if you're already established a difficulty for something in a prior adventure) or keep this in mind: (reminder, these are only rough numbers, so vary them to suit your game)
Skill dice = 3D Difficulty range for tasks = 10
Skill dice = 4D Difficulty range for tasks = 14
Skill dice = 5D Difficulty range for tasks = 20
Skill dice = 6D Difficulty range for tasks = 24
Skill dice = 7D Difficulty range for tasks = 28
Skill dice = 8D Difficulty range for tasks = 34
If you lower the difficulty by a few points for things, sometimes you can make a challenge a multi-roll sort of challenge, such as climbing a wall, or picking a lock. Require two or more rolls of lesser amounts. Generally speaking, these numbers should ONLY be used for the primary challenge of the encounter. So if they're attempting to steal a golden stature from a long forgotten temple, have them make a Sleight of Hand roll or some sort of manual dexterity roll, but put that particular difficulty at the high number. Thus it makes it a suitable challenge for them without it being out of the realm of their
capabilities. You don't want to have that high of difficulty number for speaking to the natives or some other skill roll that isn't pivotal to the challenge, but you do want to use the higher difficulties when they are in the primary skill challenge area.
Also, there isn't any adjustment for greater quantities of player characters when it comes to skills. And don't vary the difficulty number depending on the character attempting it. If you are pretty sure that Bob's character has 5D in the skill so you set the difficulty at 20, but then Joe announces that his character has that skill at 6D, don't change the difficulty. Just grin and bear it and let Joe roll. Sometimes luck or fate will have a play in how things work out for the group. And if luck should have it that you forget that Joe's character can also do that particular skill, then that's the way it goes.
Hopefully this gives you some idea for determining encounter balance. |
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind. |
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