Proposal for 3.5/PF: Separation of NPC normals and heroics

[redking]

Here is a proposal for extensive use of templating to make NPC characters.

For example, lets say there is a 'captain of the guard'. Normally he might be a 7th level fighter (or whatever) and be built that way. But what if he had a template instead? You would expect a captain of the guard to have skills like Gather Information yet a fighter does not have this skill. Instead just create a 'captain of the guard' template and give him the skills and combat abilities, and hit dice that he needs to do his job.

In this case he is an NPC normal and doesn't have or gain experience points. He might lose his template and gain another, however. Lets say the captain was previously a regular guardsman, with the guardsman template. After many years as a guardsman he gains enough on the job training to be promoted to captain, and he loses the guardsman template and gets the captain of the guard template in its stead.

In this way you could make hundreds of different varieties of NPC without being held do specific builds. For example you might want to build a low level NPC archer with a good archery feat, but that feat is only available at 7th level and you have the NPC pegged at 2nd level. Well its simple - just grant it in the template. No more complicated building for these mook type NPCs. Potentially the generic class Expert could be the base chassis for these NPCs at 1st level. No more 20HD commoners just to get them to have skills as professional farmers.

So you have NPC normals, and then heroic NPCs and PCs. Heroic NPCs and PCs actually gain levels and follow the normal class system. Their followers via the leadership feat will be these templated NPC normals for the most part, rather than heroic types. Bosses and sub-boss enemies will be heroic, rather than normal, NPCs.

Once the templates are created it speeds up mook creation significantly. And as stated above it prevents the leadership feat getting crazy.

[Falontani]

Fun idea. I'd be on board to at least try it out. Here is a question: Bill the guardsmen worked hard and eventually became captain of the guard. After years of working as the captain of the guard he was getting a little old (middle age human, almost to old) and decides to retire. He is required for half a year before he gets bored and runs for mayor. Everyone knows him and he becomes mayor. During his down time he still drilled himself because it's all he has known. Now he had been captain of he guard for 20 years and mayor for 2. What sort of normal npc is he?

[Zombimode]

You could do it that way, but it would be somewhat against 3.5 design pattern.
Personally I'm not against deviating from those Patterns as longs as you arrive at at something formally correct in the language of 3.5.

That said, I'm not a fan of your proposal because is tries to fix something that isn't broken. Or rather is only broken because you broke it.
To Elaborate: there is nothing that says that a captain of the guard needs to be a Level 7 fighter. That was a choice you made. Then, you were not satisfied with the results of that choice.
But instead of reevalueating that choice, you try to fix it by applying some kind of self-made patch.

There is nothing wrong with your approach, it just not the type of problem-solving I personally perfer.

[BowStreetRunner]

I have a feeling the hardest part of creating these templates would actually just be setting the CR adjustments. Other than that part (which can be a little subjective) the process would be fairly straightforward.

EDIT: @Zombiemode - I don't think it's entirely accurate to say this fixes a self-made problem. There are plenty of times when a DM wants to create an NPC to fill a specific role but the only way to practically do that withing existing rules is to use some combination of classes, levels, racial hit die, templates, and so forth as to make the end product seem a bit ridiculous. So a lot of DMs I've known just employ hand-waveyness instead, which is a time honored tradition but can lead to mechanical problems when the encounter takes a turn the DM didn't expect.

[BassoonHero]

For example you might want to build a low level NPC archer with a good archery feat, but that feat is only available at 7th level and you have the NPC pegged at 2nd level.
An archery feat that's fair for a low-level NPC is probably also fair for a low-level PC. In this case, it sounds like you should adjust the feat's prerequisites.

[redking]

Fun idea. I'd be on board to at least try it out. Here is a question: Bill the guardsmen worked hard and eventually became captain of the guard. After years of working as the captain of the guard he was getting a little old (middle age human, almost to old) and decides to retire. He is required for half a year before he gets bored and runs for mayor. Everyone knows him and he becomes mayor. During his down time he still drilled himself because it's all he has known. Now he had been captain of he guard for 20 years and mayor for 2. What sort of normal npc is he?

You create an 'ex-military mayor' template. Somewhat comparable to previous templates but with less HD, BAB, physical skills, but more diplomacy, reflecting that he is no longer what he used to be.

[redking]

To Elaborate: there is nothing that says that a captain of the guard needs to be a Level 7 fighter. That was a choice you made. Then, you were not satisfied with the results of that choice.
But instead of reevalueating that choice, you try to fix it by applying some kind of self-made patch.

That's absolutely NOT what I am saying. I didn't say the captain of the guard has to be a 7th level fighter.


For example you might want to build a low level NPC archer with a good archery feat, but that feat is only available at 7th level and you have the NPC pegged at 2nd level. Well its simple - just grant it in the template.

And -


No more 20HD commoners just to get them to have skills as professional farmer

The normal 3E design requires ever escalating HD just to get NPCs the skills or feats that they need to be credible in their roles. I am saying just grant it in a template.

[redking]

An archery feat that's fair for a low-level NPC is probably also fair for a low-level PC. In this case, it sounds like you should adjust the feat's prerequisites.

Adjusting the feat prerequisites has far more far reaching consequences than granting a 7th level feat to a 2HD NPC in a template because the NPC is a professional archer. By separating them out as 'normals' and 'heroic' the changes are kept away affecting PC character builds.

[Rynjin]

In this way you could make hundreds of different varieties of NPC without being held do specific builds. For example you might want to build a low level NPC archer with a good archery feat, but that feat is only available at 7th level and you have the NPC pegged at 2nd level. Well its simple - just grant it in the template. No more complicated building for these mook type NPCs. Potentially the generic class Expert could be the base chassis for these NPCs at 1st level. No more 20HD commoners just to get them to have skills as professional farmers.

Even simpler, you could just...do that.

Seriously, does not everybody do this when building NPCs and creatures as a GM? If not, I feel sorry for you, spending more than five minutes on the statblock for a guy who will either be dead or whose stats will probably never be relevant by the end of a similar period of time in-game.

Why do you even need a statblock for Farmer Joe in the first place? If the PCs pick a fight with farmer Joe, you can literally at the table, with no extra time, mentally construct a simple statblock for the duration of that one round he's going to live.

"I swing at Farmer Joe, I rolled a 19"

"Farmer Joe has 12 AC, you hit" (Farmer Joe has no armor, after all, and no shield, but it makes sense he'd have 14 Dex, or 12 Dex and you just drop the AC to 11, whichever sounds sensible).

"I did 42 damage"

'He had 6 HP, ded"

Easy peasy, doesn't require writing a whole new subsystem for nameless background characters like this.

For characters you want to re-use, again you just write down relevant statistics and stay within relative CR guidelines. A CR 5 Town Guardsman will probably have a Breastplate, plus a Halberd (or longsword and heavy shield), 12-14 Dex, 16-18 Str, and 14-16 Con, plus 7-8 CHa, 9-10 int, and 12-14 Wis at most. You don't even need most of those unless the party uses poisons; you can just write down derived statistics and have a statblock in under a minute consisting of "Guard: +9 attack, 1d8+5/19-20 x2 damage (Sometimes Power Attack or Vital Strike), 30 HP, AC 19, Ref +2, Fort +5, Will +1; Perception and Sense Motive +9" and you're donezo.

Almost all of my reusable faceless NPCs are written up this way, and it makes it very easy to repurpose and improvise within a session as well.

[Falontani]

You create an 'ex-military mayor' template. Somewhat comparable to previous templates but with less HD, BAB, physical skills, but more diplomacy, reflecting that he is no longer what he used to be.

I'm sold. This could be a great idea, and a good resource, however exceedingly hard resource to build. If you go through with it I'd be willing to make a template or three after I saw an example.

[redking]

I'm sold. This could be a great idea, and a good resource, however exceedingly hard resource to build. If you go through with it I'd be willing to make a template or three after I saw an example.

That's the great thing about it. Yes it requires a bit of work to start, but once a particular template is done then you have it forever. And variations on types are easy.

The framework is set out roughly like this. Take 5 tiers in various things like BAB and skills, and determine the bands for these tiers. For example, 1 to 2 BAB could be the first tier for BAB, considered to be the BAB of someone with poor attack skills. While someone with tier 5 has 15 to 20 BAB and excellent attack skills. Likewise an ambassador might have 1-4 ranks in diplomacy at the lowest tier, and 17 to 20 ranks in the highest. Keep in mind I am just throwing stuff out here and tiers and bands could be different. The point is that once you have a framework like this then templates can be built rapidly depending on the quality or ability of the NPC normal type that you want.