Turning a PC into an NPC

[Maelynn]

The city that my setting takes place in will host a festival where adventurer's and would-be heroes of all sorts can sign up to be pitted against each other. For fame, for glory, for gold, you name it. Fights are 1v1 and 2v2, no more.

Now, I thought it'd be a great idea to have 2 of my own characters enter the dome as a fighting duo. I just love the idea of my own cameo, especially because one of the players knows both of them.
Depending on how the party signs up, they could face my Dwarf Barbarian and Tiefling Paladin. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that both my lvl 4 characters will be far too powerful an encounter for 2 lvl 4 of my players. So I want to tweak them.

All I've found on this subject is to just 'grab a generic monster and tweak the statblock', but that's not what I'm looking for. I specifically want to take my own charsheets and adjust them to become a proper enemy. What's the best way to go about this?

[Anymage]

What makes your own characters so strong? Optimization, gear, or simply the fact that two PCs vs. 2 PCs should in theory be an even tossup (when you very much want the actual player characters to have an edge here).

Gear can be stripped away. Optimization can be downplayed, and quietly dropping a level couldn't hurt either. The most important thing to remember is, while a cameo can be cool, it's better to err on the side of underpowering your personal characters.

[Maelynn]

What makes your own characters so strong? Optimization, gear, or simply the fact that two PCs vs. 2 PCs should in theory be an even tossup (when you very much want the actual player characters to have an edge here).

Well yes, very much the fact that 2 lvl 4 NPCs would end up being far too strong against 2 lvl 4 PCs. I'll admit that this is what I've been told by a friend of mine (years of DM experience, though he only plays 3.5), and I have too little DM experience on my own to be able to tell if he's right.


Gear can be stripped away. Optimization can be downplayed, and quietly dropping a level couldn't hurt either. The most important thing to remember is, while a cameo can be cool, it's better to err on the side of underpowering your personal characters.

I was indeed thinking of making them lower level and downgearing them. I just find it hard to determine what it'd have to be. They can't go lower than level 3 however, or they'll lose their archetype. And of course they won't have the magic items that they have as PCs. But how far do I have to tweak them to make them a suitable encounter? When will I hit that sweet spot of 'medium encounter'? I tried making sense of what the DMG says, but as I've never done this before it's still confusing.

[JNAProductions]

A CR 4 NPC is far, far stronger than a level 4 PC.

But, if built as PCs on the same rules as your players, it should be an even match.

[MoleMage]

The thing to remember here is that a CR4 monster (or NPC with a monster star block) represents a reasonably winnable but still dangerous encounter for a party of 4 level 4 PCs.

If you're looking for ways to weaken your cameo characters to give the edge to your players, try pulling parts of their class features that are not essential to their identity. Does Rage absolutely need to give both damage and resistance (what was important to your barbarian)? Does your paladin use Lay on Hands as a primary function or an afterthought? What about Divine Smite.

Pull small pieces like this out and give them only basic/non-magical gear and you've got a only slightly weakened but still recognizable NPC.

[Maelynn]

But, if built as PCs on the same rules as your players, it should be an even match.

I thought so too, but they'll be a wee bit overpowered still. I'll need to strip them of some things, and as such I'm thinking of going for hp already lost and spell slots already used. (oh, I can see it now... the Dwarf has 1 lvl of exhaustion and some hp loss, but refuses to be healed in between fights by the Paladin because he doesn't want to 'let a bloody Demoness fondle him' with her Lay on Hands...)

Anyway, I don't mind it becoming a bit of a hard encounter - the fighting arena is going to be nothing more than a sidequest to earn some gold and to do something different. The rules inside the arena won't make death possible, so all they could lose is the participation fee... and their dignity. :smallamused:




The thing to remember here is that a CR4 monster (or NPC with a monster star block) represents a reasonably winnable but still dangerous encounter for a party of 4 level 4 PCs.

Except they'll be fighting either 1v1 or 2v2. I compared my Barbarian to a Bandit Captain and the stats were rather similar, so in a 2v2 fight it'd be 2 PCs versus 2 enemies of CR2. That's... pretty damn deadly, according to KFC. For that reason I was thinking of having them enter the fray after having already fought a battle, so with spell slots used and not at full health. That should compensate.

[brian 333]

Give them a previous or subsequent fight in round 1 so the players have time to recognize and perhaps socialize before the fight.

As others have pointed out, CR is determined by comparison to an adventuring party, not a solo character. I find CR to be far less accurate a judge of a creature's threat than the 1st ed. HD system which was straightforward and simple, but it is what it is.

However, your PCs are not rated by CR. They are defined by class levels. D&D has gone a long way toward 'balancing' the classes so that any character with access to the things that character needs, (druid in the woods, rogue in a place with lots of hiding spots, etc.,) has an equal chance versus any other character of the same level. It's imperfect, but it's a lot closer now than when Thieves had to be several levels higher than a fighter to have a chance.

Things to look for:

Equivalency of gear. Boots of speed are vastly superior to a +2 weapon because they allow twice the number of attacks per round. Even with a 10% lower chance to hit, having 200% of the opponent's attacks is still a game winner.

Insta-gank spells. Hold Person as an opening move means the fight is over before it begins. Likewise Finger Of Death and Harm. Two wizards squaring off both casting Fireballs is likely to be a double kill. If a spell or magic item offers a save vs. severe disability, it's likely to result in short fights.

AC vs. To Hit. Some classes have very high BABs and these usually have very high ACs and lots of HP. If the character with these advantages duels with one who lacks the ability to overcome the opponent's AC due to crappy BAB, the contest becomes a predictable slaughter.

Terrain benefits. Duels in open arenas with no cover tends to favor fighter classed characters. The same arena with walls, barriers, and shrubberies, perhaps with a few high points as well, would favor characters with sneak attack abilities. In the first scenario a fighter versus rogue would be a disaster for the rogue, while the second scenario favors the rogue.

[Anymage]

Skimming the DMG guidelines on both encounter design and creature design, finding a reasonable XP target for those two will be an exercise in threading the needle. Especially because multi-NPC encounters are going to be a little trickier by their nature.

I have absolutely no experience in doing this. But -2 or 3 to hit, AC, and saves should start to skew things in the PCs favor. And as far as your NPCs, definitely NPC-ize the core bursty class abilities; Frenzy should not provide a second attack and either the rage resistance to damage should be dropped or HP should be lowered to compensate, while the paladin's smite should be reduced from d8s to, and here I'm just spitballing, 2 damage per level of the spell slot. Burst especially makes things swingy, and you want to mitigate that.