Gearing NPCs?

[danielxcutter]

It feels like it's really hard for NPCs to keep up with PCs or even other monsters of a comparable CR the higher level you go. Is that just me? Consumables help, but there's only so much you can do, and it doesn't always make sense for NPCs to have stuff like oils of greater magic weapon +4 and whatnot. If you use moderately powerful monsters as a base and then give them gear and class levels it's easier, especially if the base monster doesn't use that much gear, but PC race or low-CR monsters have it rough.

[KillianHawkeye]

I usually outfit NPCs with gear based on what would be useful for the PCs as loot, although sometimes (for weaker enemies) it just has to be stuff for them to sell. Sometimes an important enemy gets a special item that helps them against the players more than it will help the players, but I try to balance that against other items that I specifically leave as upgrades to a player's preferred equipment.

[danielxcutter]

Do they pose any realistic challenge, though? Casters at least make up for it a lot with spells... but martials have a really hard time of it.

[Maat Mons]

Have you tried some form of automatic bonus progression? It seems like it may help.

[danielxcutter]

That's not RAW though, and I'd prefer to exhaust my options before resorting to houseruling.

[Gruftzwerg]

Another good option are slotless items/buffs/stuffs that can be obtained via wealth.

some examples: ("*" can be bought as service from a npc crafter)
- Monk's Tattoo - slotless item similar to monk's belt
- *Tattoo Magic - feat (Lords of Darkness)
- *Craft Contingent Spell - feat
- *Graft Flesh - feat (Libris Mortis, Lords of Darkness, Fiend Folio)
- Magical Locations that give feats/buffs for gold/resources spend (here a list (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?400840-List-of-Feat-Granting-Items-Locations-Grafts)of feat granting locations and items)
- some templates can be obtained via wealth (e.g. paying someone to turn you into an half-golem)
- Permanency spell - bought as service


...just what comes into my mind right off the bat.

[danielxcutter]

Those also cut into WBL though, and even more than slotted items as a matter of fact.

The problem isn't that there aren't options to gear NPCs, it's that there's not enough WBL allotted to them to even approach comparably CRed creatures.

[Gruftzwerg]

Those also cut into WBL though, and even more than slotted items as a matter of fact.

The problem isn't that there aren't options to gear NPCs, it's that there's not enough WBL allotted to them to even approach comparably CRed creatures.

While these options are more explensive, they have the benefit that the PCs can't loot em. That's the trade off here.

And regarding the direct comprehension to creatures/monsters:
Imho this has to be, because monsters rarely come in mixed groups. Whereas a group of NPCs can have totally different builds. A group of the same monsters can be dealt with a single ability that works against them. A group of NPCs is less likely to be prone to a single ability. And npc wealth is another layer of customization.
The flexibility for NPCs that thrives from this is a double edged sword. Because it is heavily influenced by the system master regarding optimization the DM has. Therefore non-optimized NPC groups have to be weaker by default than monsters of the same CR. On the other hand, a fully optimized NPC group should most of the time overshadow creatures of the same CR. Just my experience so far..^^

[danielxcutter]

While these options are more explensive, they have the benefit that the PCs can't loot em. That's the trade off here.

I'm sorry, "give the NPCs free stuff that the PCs can't get through fiat" isn't exactly what I'm looking for.


And regarding the direct comprehension to creatures/monsters:
Imho this has to be, because monsters rarely come in mixed groups. Whereas a group of NPCs can have totally different builds. A group of the same monsters can be dealt with a single ability that works against them. A group of NPCs is less likely to be prone to a single ability. And npc wealth is another layer of customization.
The flexibility for NPCs that thrives from this is a double edged sword. Because it is heavily influenced by the system master regarding optimization the DM has. Therefore non-optimized NPC groups have to be weaker by default than monsters of the same CR. On the other hand, a fully optimized NPC group should most of the time overshadow creatures of the same CR. Just my experience so far..^^

Well of course a bunch of casters is going to be stronger than by-the-book monsters, what else is new? Not to mention the higher level you are it gets harder to cheese a group of monsters with just one ability, and that assumes it's one kind of creature with no variation between them whatsoever.

[Thurbane]

So let me get this straight... you want an option to give NPCs better (i.e. more expensive) gear, but without using fiat or house ruling or straying from RAW, or by using NPCs that are casters who don't rely as much on gear?

I'm not sure exactly what can be done to help you within your own constraints? Are you wanting us to find a RAW loophole to better equip NPCs without breaking any rules or guidelines in the books? Or are you just wanting sympathy that "Yes, martial NPCs are at a disadvantage because they don't have PC WBL to shore up their shortcomings"?

[Gruftzwerg]

I didn't wanted to imply to give it for free. I just wanted to justify the price tags. Imho they are worth, depending on the circumstances.

____

Try to see it this way:
Monster are more "balanced" towards their CR, while NPCs are more flexible. Monsters give a guideline of what to expect normally for a given CR. NPCs are flexible and thus can be tailored to the level of optimization the PCs have. If you have a group of newbie players, they might have a hard time fighting monsters of the expected CR. But you can throw a bunch of unoptimized NPCs at them.
And if they get better at system mastery and optimization, you can adjust the NPCs. While monsters can become irrelevant enemies for high optimized PCs, NPCs can always stand their ground.
The real issue of NPCs is, that building a good NPC takes so much time compared to just using a generic monster.

[danielxcutter]

So let me get this straight... you want an option to give NPCs better (i.e. more expensive) gear, but without using fiat or house ruling or straying from RAW, or by using NPCs that are casters who don't rely as much on gear?

I'm not sure exactly what can be done to help you within your own constraints? Are you wanting us to find a RAW loophole to better equip NPCs without breaking any rules or guidelines in the books? Or are you just wanting sympathy that "Yes, martial NPCs are at a disadvantage because they don't have PC WBL to shore up their shortcomings"?

No, not that. It just seems like unless it's a caster or using a monster with good stats as a base, it seems like it's a lot harder for even the basic stats to keep up with the party unless you give them more gear than normally allocated for an NPC of that level, and I'm not sure if that is it just me or if I'm doing something wrong. Tips about how to use the budget efficiently woulld also be appreciated.

[Gruftzwerg]

Tips about how to use the budget efficiently woulld also be appreciated.

Crafting is a often used mechanic to cheese WBL, since it cuts the costs/price in half. PCs often abuse a single PC for this purpose. Why not do the same with NPCs? An NPC crafter can get double the value out of WBL.

[Biggus]

In Pathfinder, NPCs with PC classes are considered to have a CR of their character level minus 1 due to their reduced gear value. At high levels I think there's an argument for increasing that to level minus 2.

Edit: as for efficient use of wealth, I make extensive use of the tables at the back of the MIC (p.235-265) to find cheap-but-useful items.

[danielxcutter]

Well, 3.5e is a bit different than PF. How big is the gap between PC and NPC there? In 3.5e it’s more than triple IIRC, I haven’t put them in a calculator.

[Biggus]

The main difference is at low levels, PF NPCs get significantly less gear than PCs from level 2 onwards, whereas in 3.5 that doesn't happen until about level 5.

At high levels (roughly level 10+) NPC wealth is about 29% of PC wealth in 3.5 and 18% of PC wealth in PF.

The other main difference I find at high levels is that there's a wider variety of really useful magic items, and items make up a higher percentage of a character's overall power level than at lower levels.

As a rough estimate, I'd say in 3.5 at levels 1-4 NPCs count as their actual level for CR, at levels 5-14 their level minus 1 and and at levels 15-20 their level minus 2.

[danielxcutter]

That… adds up pretty closely, yeah.

[rel]

It feels like it's really hard for NPCs to keep up with PCs or even other monsters of a comparable CR the higher level you go. Is that just me? Consumables help, but there's only so much you can do, and it doesn't always make sense for NPCs to have stuff like oils of greater magic weapon +4 and whatnot. If you use moderately powerful monsters as a base and then give them gear and class levels it's easier, especially if the base monster doesn't use that much gear, but PC race or low-CR monsters have it rough.

I haven't noticed this, but my NPC's aren't really expected to 'keep up' with anyone.
The NPC's are as strong as they are, and have the items they have.
If an NPC ends up fighting a weaker PC or monster or NPC then they are more likely to win. Conversely, if the NPC fights someone stronger, they're probably going to lose.

am I misunderstanding the question?

[danielxcutter]

I haven't noticed this, but my NPC's aren't really expected to 'keep up' with anyone.
The NPC's are as strong as they are, and have the items they have.
If an NPC ends up fighting a weaker PC or monster or NPC then they are more likely to win. Conversely, if the NPC fights someone stronger, they're probably going to lose.

am I misunderstanding the question?

I mean, with the budget an NPC is supposed to have it's hard for their base stats to stay high enough for them to be an appropriate challenge for their CR.

[JNAProductions]

I mean, with the budget an NPC is supposed to have it's hard for their base stats to stay high enough for them to be an appropriate challenge for their CR.

CR is imprecise.

And more importantly, your goal as a DM should be to make a fun game for you and everyone else-if the game is improved by giving NPCs extra WBL compared to what the books say... Do it.

[danielxcutter]

I suppose.

Homeground bonus spells like (Un)Hallow might help with that too I guess? I think I see that fairly often in adventure paths and whatnot.

[AvatarVecna]

I don't really have a good answer for this thread.

"How can my NPCs traveling with the party keep up in both gear and overall capabilities without breaking the rules?"

...they can't. That's why they're NPCs instead of DMPCs.

NPCs default to having a highly-unoptimized 15 pb stat setup, with the elite ones having a mildly-optimal 25 pb stat setup. Regardless of their stats, their WBL is going to majorly lag behind the PCs starting at lvl 2. DMPCs are PCs controlled by the DM, and have access to the default-awesome resources that PCs have access to.

Any economancy trick your NPCs have access to is going to be just as accessible to the PCs - meaning that no matter how high you legally-cheat your money, the PCs can legally-cheat it proportionally higher. Unless you're going to give only NPCs access to the thing, which I believe you said you don't want to do.

[Biggus]

CR is imprecise.

And more importantly, your goal as a DM should be to make a fun game for you and everyone else-if the game is improved by giving NPCs extra WBL compared to what the books say... Do it.

If you're going to do this, you'll also need to reduce monster treasure or the PCs will just end up with more wealth than expected for their level, bringing us back to square one.

[Lilapop]

If you're going to do this, you'll also need to reduce monster treasure or the PCs will just end up with more wealth than expected for their level, bringing us back to square one.

NPCs don't drop their entire WBL as loot. They just can't. NPC WBL is already significantly higher than the treasure value of an encounter consisting of only one NPC, and if you run groups of enemies it only gets worse. So magical weapons become nonmagical masterwork, masterwork armor loses the masterwork quality, leather armor gets cut up and destroyed by killing the wearer, magic rings disappear, etc. And you should count yourself lucky if your players don't have at-will detect magic.


On the thread's main premise: If you allowed your players to use a better stat generation method, you could upgrade your NPCs as well. And is this just a gut feeling during the design, or are your NPCs actually getting trounced? Depending on the PCs' optimization levels and the players' skill levels, trouncing can happen regardless of numerical benchmarks.

[danielxcutter]

NPCs don't drop their entire WBL as loot. They just can't. NPC WBL is already significantly higher than the treasure value of an encounter consisting of only one NPC, and if you run groups of enemies it only gets worse. So magical weapons become nonmagical masterwork, masterwork armor loses the masterwork quality, leather armor gets cut up and destroyed by killing the wearer, magic rings disappear, etc. And you should count yourself lucky if your players don't have at-will detect magic.

That kinda feels… cheap. At that point you’re just flat out denying them loot via fiat.


On the thread's main premise: If you allowed your players to use a better stat generation method, you could upgrade your NPCs as well. And is this just a gut feeling during the design, or are your NPCs actually getting trounced? Depending on the PCs' optimization levels and the players' skill levels, trouncing can happen regardless of numerical benchmarks.

Well, I’ll admit I’m not DMing at the moment, but while messing around with statblocks and thinking about encounters in general… it really feels like NPCs trail pretty far behind even monsters of equivalent CR. Base stats are a problem, but there’s also the difficulty of giving them basic abilities. Forget stuff from the Necessary Magic Items list; unless they can cast the right spell a lot of NPCs can’t afford to fly at all at levels where the party can do that almost all day, aside from items that either have terrible maneuverability(martials basically can’t do much without at least Good maneuverability, manifesters have quite a bit of trouble using psionic focus, and even for the casters you’re still forced to move around to stay aloft with average or less maneuverability).

Incidentally, I was looking at the MMV just now, and the Red Widow and the Black Duke both have items comparable to a PC of the same level as their CR, without having their CR further increased by it. They’re more intended as villains rather than just random encounters(though at mid~late teens I wonder how many encounters really are random), but I just think by then the devs realized you need to give encounters good stats or good gear for them to pose a semblance of a threat against PCs.

[Lilapop]

denying them loot via fiat.At first glance, it might seem so. But they are still getting as much as they are owed based on the encounter level. And I'm not saying you should make the things the NPCs have been openly using disappear - the chieftain's big axe that has been dealing so much damage to the PCs is still there, as is the suit of plate armor you can clearly see on his VTT token, but the unmentioned belt of strength he was wearing underneath his armor is quietly pulled away. Just, you know, never tell them it was there.

In a pinch, you can also increase your loot budget through prior encounters with gearless creatures and pay it out in a single hoard.


On the actual NPC gear, I think you are thinking too much in single-enemy encounters. Build a tribe (that has a shaman). Build a gang (that has a mage). Build a cult (that has a priest). Even on encounters where this caster is not personally present, the enemies could feasibly be affected by his buff spells, because his existance is revealed just a few fights later. Also, flight? Not as necessary (though still useful) when you put some archers on a gallery. And an enemy getting taken out of the fight by an ubercharger or a SoL spell isn't as big of a deal when there are other enemies still up.

Bottom line though, the PCs aren't supposed to lose. They are only supposed to expend daily resources. As long as the wizard doesn't win against your enemies in a knife fight, your enemies are powerful enough :P

[danielxcutter]

Hmm… include monsters without gear, and use the amount of treasure they’d have to supplement the NPC budgets? That sounds like a good idea, yeah.

[Xervous]

On budgeting: a lot of 3.5 WBL goes into plugging expected holes. Necessary Magic Items etc.

The party will equip itself to mitigate a variety of threats, but that’s because their failure has grave consequences. NPCs who die are a common occurrence, NPCs who don’t have to engage with every aspect that players might expect to encounter are also common.

As they progress players have reason to acquire: tactical teleportation, flight, protection against stuns, protection against mind affecting, protection against paralyzation, ability to breathe in nonstandard environments, protection against save or dies, protection against ability damage and drain, protection against negative levels, protection against poisons, special modes of vision or perception, weapons for dealing with various DR typings, copious amounts of healing, bags of holding plus other convenience items, etc.

Players on the other hand don’t tend to present such a grab bag of dangers to their opponents, and the penalty for a given NPC failing to be proof against a specific thing is typically death... which they’d encounter anyways in the form of raw HP damage.

Things (not just Items) that would be iffy for players can be awesome on NPCs since one use is all they’re probably ever going to get on screen. One of my favorite examples of evil GM “it’s technically CR1” is the half orc frenzy Brb1 with animal devotion. Even with the elite Array (which any serious NPC should have as a baseline) that’s 20 raging STR and a 40ft fly speed that swings twice at +3(5 on a charge)/2d6+7. My point here is that you can cherry pick limited abilities and flex some OPfu to compensate for the lack of wealth.

Getting large enough attack bonuses to hit the players generally is not an issue. Worst case you throw a feat at it after putting on a masterwork weapon and a +X main stat item. Damage is also not a concern with all the optimization tricks out there.

Saves are easy to boost, just multiclass to grab the fat +2s.

AC is probably the hardest thing to boost. Past a point NPCs should be relying on miss chance effects as those are more economical.

[danielxcutter]

And Profane would be useful as a DM because most living creatures can’t really use it but undead can, can’t they?

[mabriss lethe]

A weapon/item of legacy might be an interesting option on an important NPC. It gives them powers and options that they otherwise would lack. But once dead, the magic item reverts to its base form. If the players really want to, they can try to awaken those powers again, giving you sidequest fodder.
Likewise the Monster of Legacy template could be added to a handful of PC races (just not to the PCs themselves) like Elans, Half Giants, Planetouched, and Delkyr half bloods in addition to most proper monsters. That could let you create some far more threatening NPCs (Say an infamous band of Teifling mercenaries that draw their powers from the unholy bonds of blood they share with their masters.)

You adon't have to use a single go-to method to increase their threat level, so mix, match, and have fun.

[danielxcutter]

Aren’t most Weapons of Legacy not really worth the legacy cost?

[mabriss lethe]

Aren’t most Weapons of Legacy not really worth the legacy cost?

From the perspective of the NPC, it doesn't really matter that much, since you can tailor the rest of the encounter around any weaknesses that a WoL might cause.

As for the players, they don't have to pursue the legacy. They always have the option to just sell the item. And yes, if you're using the pre-created Weapons... almost all of them aren't worth the sacrifice. Custom legacies, however, aren't nearly so bad, and can be balanced decently with their costs.

And while you've said before that you're loathe to houserule changes if you can avoid it, simply ignoring the penalties works just fine in the vast majority of cases.

[rel]

I mean, with the budget an NPC is supposed to have it's hard for their base stats to stay high enough for them to be an appropriate challenge for their CR.

Well, feel free to mess with all those numbers if you think it will result in a better game

If your PC's are finding things too easy just up the CR of the opposition until you get a good level of challenge for your group.

If it seems like an NPC could use more (or less) equipment adjust things as required.

As long as the fights are exciting and the PC's aren't getting vastly more or less treasure than you expect you shouldn't run into too much trouble.

If that means the bandits have a few extra levels (or are flat out reskinned monsters) I doubt anyone will care or even notice.

[MightypIon]

If I understand you correctly, your challenge is as follows:

1: Increase the challenge of NPCs
2: Without increasing their WBL level
3: While staying within the overall framework.


Lets say we have a party of 5 Orcs. 3 Barbarians, a Priest and a Skald.
Let us say that we want to make this encounter harder, without doing much to wealth levels etc.

--One potent source of strengthening monsters are consumable 1 time boosts, typically via scrolls and tatoo magic. A scroll of good hope can easily double the to hit chances (assuming you were hitting a strong PC on an 18, well, now its on a 16, or on a 14 when you are charging). If the PCs were loud, the enemies are not obligatorily stupid and can use rounds to prebuff.

--Another underappreciated thing are Bards and Skalds. Not only can you get pretty atmosphereic with those (I like to play Russian Sabaton covers for Orc/Demon Bard/Skalds), a Bard and a Skald are, at minimum, a +2 to hit and damage swing for melee brutes. In the pretty likely scenario that your brute NPCs are hitting PCs at 18s, this actually doubles the to hit chance. Charging Orcs with Butchering Axes who hit you on a 14s are serious business, esepcially because they can probably get through your AoO, if you have one, on account of ferocity.

--Enlarge person is a fantastic spell for mooks. Suddenly, you hit with +1 more, and possibly with a lot of damage dice more, and get reach.


Then there is the gear thing:
--In both DND and Pathfinder, offense is cheaper then defense (overall speaking). You will rarely get NPCs to a level where the PCs have trouble hitting them (unless you are getting creative with Tiny enemies like Quasits), an Orc who spends 65 gold on his weapon (an orc butchering axe in that case), and 25 gold on hide armor is scarier then an orc who does the opposite. Generally, if you want to challenge your party with "normal" NPCs, go for offense.

--If you want to have any creativity in actually gearing them up, my recommendation is to equip them on an encounter basis. This means that you add the CLW of the encounter together, and thus can potentially add interesting magic items, without actually changing the total WBL.
This has several effects: First, you can try some pretty funny (funny as in interesting, not as in will murder the party) magic items even at relatively low level play. Second, the players get some interesting stuff to loot, after generally speaking having it seen used against them and well, I promise this, the encounters will be much more interesting this way. Every encounter should have one cool trick.

The biggest thing to increase encounter challenge is imho tactics and ambush though.
If Elephant in the room is in play, use them Combat maneuvers. Trip people. Bull Rush people of bridges, use the enviroment, Grapple the mages. A lot of PC insufficiently value CMD.
You have Demons? Dretches have stinking cloud, which is a fantastic spell. Babaus can teleport and dispell magic at will, actually use these abilities!

Things still easy? Well, the alarm has been sounded, several rooms are uniting!

[Gnaeus]

At first glance, it might seem so. But they are still getting as much as they are owed based on the encounter level. And I'm not saying you should make the things the NPCs have been openly using disappear - the chieftain's big axe that has been dealing so much damage to the PCs is still there, as is the suit of plate armor you can clearly see on his VTT token, but the unmentioned belt of strength he was wearing underneath his armor is quietly pulled away. Just, you know, never tell them it was there.

This would make me incredibly upset as a player. {Scrubbed}

[Troacctid]

You could use cursed items. That would reduce the market value of their gear to allow them to have more stuff without giving PCs too much loot. According to the DMG, requiring ranks in a skill can cut an item's cost by 10%, while requiring a class or alignment can cut it by 30%.

[Techwarrior]

I think there's a misunderstanding here of what CR is.

A party is expected to be able to reasonably defeat something like 5 encounters with a CR equal to their PL. A single humanoid with class levels and magic items has a CR. If that CR is equal to your party's PL then this rule applies.

What you're describing is multiple issues rolled up in one.
A) NPC wealth is very low. You have to use this efficiently and carefully without buying frivolous stuff.
B) A single NPC is going to have action economy issues versus a party. This is difficult to resolve without adding creatures, but PL +4 is a reasonable start if you're looking for a singular creature to challenge your party in a meaningful way.
C) Your party is expected to win most challenges by the book. This CR = your party is an all but guaranteed fight.

[MightypIon]

I think there's a misunderstanding here of what CR is.

A party is expected to be able to reasonably defeat something like 5 encounters with a CR equal to their PL. A single humanoid with class levels and magic items has a CR. If that CR is equal to your party's PL then this rule applies.

What you're describing is multiple issues rolled up in one.
A) NPC wealth is very low. You have to use this efficiently and carefully without buying frivolous stuff.
B) A single NPC is going to have action economy issues versus a party. This is difficult to resolve without adding creatures, but PL +4 is a reasonable start if you're looking for a singular creature to challenge your party in a meaningful way.
C) Your party is expected to win most challenges by the book. This CR = your party is an all but guaranteed fight.


I agree, although I would note that PL +4 for a single encounter is dependent on what your level the party is. PL +4 can be incredibly rough at low levels. This is mostly because the difference between CR 4 and CR8 is much more then the difference between CR8 and CR12.
An intelligently played Succubus (The succubus can choose where to engage, and can split the party with suggestion without expending resources) will typically wipe a party of level 3 characters. The saving grace adventure wise is that the party would perhaps end up captured, rather then killed but well yeah.
There are non linearity CR wise depending on mobility and control abilities.

[danielxcutter]

I think casting might be a factor too. Unless the encounter includes a caster or at least monsters with a lot of good SLAs, it’s hard to do jack against a party.

[Gusmo]

If your PCs are working against a large organization, you could easily justify whatever buff spells you want being cast on employees which are on shift. Just make traps keyed to buff spells (which the PCs won't trigger, of course). The Spell Compendium also has Energy Transformation Field, which can power an unlimited amount of buffs with any unlimited use magic item like a hand of the mage. Make all employees pass through a hallway with a series of either of these which will add as many buff spells as you think are appropriate. Add a pass through such a hallway in the middle of their shift, and that easily allows them to have as many buffs with a 10 minutes/level or longer duration as you think is appropriate, without adding to their WBL. Perhaps special forces could also have access to an armory with the hallway leading in and out granting them great invisibility and other shorter duration buffs.

[danielxcutter]

If your PCs are working against a large organization, you could easily justify whatever buff spells you want being cast on employees which are on shift. Just make traps keyed to buff spells (which the PCs won't trigger, of course). The Spell Compendium also has Energy Transformation Field, which can power an unlimited amount of buffs with any unlimited use magic item like a hand of the mage. Make all employees pass through a hallway with a series of either of these which will add as many buff spells as you think are appropriate. Add a pass through such a hallway in the middle of their shift, and that easily allows them to have as many buffs with a 10 minutes/level or longer duration as you think is appropriate, without adding to their WBL. Perhaps special forces could also have access to an armory with the hallway leading in and out granting them great invisibility and other shorter duration buffs.

Obviously, I imagine there should be some limit to this(without increasing the effective CR or at least the XP reward). Also that only works in the case of a large organization.

That being said, homeground advantage buffs does seem like a plausible idea. A lot of adventure paths seem to give at least a bit in such cases.

[Thurbane]

Would the Item Familiar or Ancestral Relic feats help at all?

[Lilapop]

This would make me incredibly upset as a player.

I just don't see how else you are supposed to reconcile the two values in an adventure heavy on NPCs. A fortress full of soldiers might be an extreme example, but even my players' bumble trough the underdark, from level 8 to level 10, only had about 34k of its total 110k treasure budget come from challenges without NPC gear - and that was with cliffs to climb, walkways to balance, tunnels to swim and wildlife plus some evil outsiders to fight.


A single NPC of level X should have A gp worth of gear. He is a level X encounter, for which the players should earn a treasure worth B gp.
A pair of NPCs of level X should have a combined 2*A gp worth of gear. They are a level X+2 encounter, for which the players should earn a treasure worth C gp.

A is consistently, from level 1 to 20, over two and a half times higher than B.
2*A is consistently, from 2x level 2 to 2x level 18, over three times higher than C.


In the end, you have to keep the players' WBL on track (unless you just play fast & loose with everything), and making NPCs drop their entire gear does not do that. Even if most of the NPC gear is sold at half value, you STILL overshoot encounter values. I don't particularly like it, but as mentioned, I don't see an alternative that works for all types of adventures.

[Mordante]

WBL is a suggestion not a rule. If one player needs double WBL to perform as good as a player with 1/4 of WBL that is completely fine. loot from a party doesn't need to be converted into cash. If a three man party just wiped out 30 gobbo's chances are they will find nothing of use.

There is no reason to assume that combat will lead to loot.

[Seward]

Part of the problem is the game assumes that since the NPCS only ever have to fight one battle (vs the PCs) and PC's are expected to fight multiple battles in a day that PCs won't nova if they get in trouble and will instead spend only a fraction of their resources in a given encounter.

The other problem is they just didn't admit how important WBL is to PC/NPC strength as level increase. Honestly classes should just have faster save, AC and attribute boost progression as class features instead of having a WBL tax of armor+x, (and deflection item+x, nat armor itm+x etc), resistance item and primary stat boost item+con boost item (and for martials, a weapon tax as well).

But that isn't 3.5. So the traditional options in higher level play boil down to these.

1. class levels on monsters (as you discovered) mutes this to some extent, as it plays out more like lower levels

2. NPC party is glowing with buffs before fight started from a mix of lower level spellcaster slots and by spending their WBL entirely on scrolls/potions used before the fight begins. Such a party can keep up, and doesn't drop wealth beyond encounter rating. Still ambushing a high level party as a routine thing with all your short term buffs strains believability given scouting/divination options high level parties have, and sometimes (or often) a PC party will catch them by surprise, curbstomp them without buffs and get the benefit of all those consumables themselves and all those spell slots from casters wasted since they die before anything gets cast.

For a mid-level version of this in a module, the Red Hand of Doom series was notorious for the gigantic stack of healing potions parties ended up with, along with some other common potions used to make rank and file hobgoblins with class levels a bit more dangerous in the level 6-8 range.

3. Going back to AD&D Descent into the Depths series, equip NPCS with stuff only they can use, or which otherwise degrades (underworld adamantium armor and weapons that dissolve in sunlight, etc) and has no resale value. In 3.5 this is more likely to be just good "greater magic weapon" and "mantle of faith" support, perhaps cast by a cleric the PCS never encounter given the huge durations of such spells. Having a bunch of lizardmen whose stone weapons, bone armor and wicker shields have +5 enhancements can make things a bit more interesting. Maybe they have some renewable easy way other than a high priest to get such spells (whole army praying each morning or some such)...this kind of thing could both even the odds for martial NPCs and be an interesting plot point.

As a general strategy, something mix between 2 and 3 has worked best when I did organized play (Living Greyhawk, Pathfinder Society) and scaled pretty well up to level 15. Basically make sure enemy NPC squads have some spell support, so they have long-running buffs going just like PCs do. Have said NPCs also have short duration buffing options, either with slots or perhaps with consumables they have the feats to craft on their own, so if NPCs manage to ambush PCs, they get that supercharge effect such spells give. Make support characters like a bard or warchanter a normal part of each warband. They can be massive force multipliers. (a bard who accomplishes nothing but getting off a haste spell and inspire courage makes a mostly martial warband much more dangerous).

Also..learn how to play characters that don't rely on high AC, high saving throws or high save DCs to function. It is way easier to build an effective light infantry or archer martial NPC than it is to build a tank. It's easier to build a blaster-type or battlefield control arcane than one that tries to stick save or XX. It's easier to build a buff/support or summoner divine caster than a CodZilla buffed martial or debuffer. That's because these options don't need the more expensive base equipment options or super high primary attributes to function, and what they usually spend their WBL on can be more easily simulated with spells or cheap consumables and their actions will be less likely to be wasted by strong saving throws. (for the martials, just ignore anybody who looks like a tank or who gets missed several times till squishier targets are down). You know the AC of a typical adventuring party. Just make sure the martials have enough offense going on to hit them (attack mods are some of the easier things to boost with spells/consumables or class abilities)

[Gnaeus]

I just don't see how else you are supposed to reconcile the two values in an adventure heavy on NPCs. A fortress full of soldiers might be an extreme example, but even my players' bumble trough the underdark, from level 8 to level 10, only had about 34k of its total 110k treasure budget come from challenges without NPC gear - and that was with cliffs to climb, walkways to balance, tunnels to swim and wildlife plus some evil outsiders to fight.


A single NPC of level X should have A gp worth of gear. He is a level X encounter, for which the players should earn a treasure worth B gp.
A pair of NPCs of level X should have a combined 2*A gp worth of gear. They are a level X+2 encounter, for which the players should earn a treasure worth C gp.

A is consistently, from level 1 to 20, over two and a half times higher than B.
2*A is consistently, from 2x level 2 to 2x level 18, over three times higher than C.


In the end, you have to keep the players' WBL on track (unless you just play fast & loose with everything), and making NPCs drop their entire gear does not do that. Even if most of the NPC gear is sold at half value, you STILL overshoot encounter values. I don't particularly like it, but as mentioned, I don't see an alternative that works for all types of adventures.
{Scrubbed}

[Thurbane]

{Scrubbed}

[Maat Mons]

If you ask me, it was a mistake for the game to allow wealth to grant power. Wealth is transferable. That's kind of the whole point of it. Power should not be transferable. If you kill a bear, you should not be able to gain its Strength by eating its heart.

[Seward]

If you ask me, it was a mistake for the game to allow wealth to grant power. Wealth is transferable. That's kind of the whole point of it. Power should not be transferable. If you kill a bear, you should not be able to gain its Strength by eating its heart.

At least getting experience based on gold looted went out with AD&D. That lead to even stranger economics (and actions. I had a retired elf character use her wealth to stock a dungeon for her half-elf druid son, to boost his candidacy for great druid. By moving her excess coin in the dungeon after startup costs, in accordance with the resident monster treasure tables she could "launder" it again for XP. Yes this was a campaign where we deliberately tried to play "by the book" with opposition learning from PC abuses of various holes in the system and vice versa).

[icefractal]

A single NPC of level X should have A gp worth of gear. He is a level X encounter, for which the players should earn a treasure worth B gp.Not all encounters give the same amount of treasure. For example, dragons typically have more than normal ("Treasure: triple", noted in the entry), and some things like animals usually have none. The balance is achieved* by using an appropriate mixture of high-treasure, mid-treasure, and low-treasure foes.

NPCs, then, are simply high-treasure encounters. They use an alternate formula rather than being straight 2x / 3x, but it's ultimately the same thing.

* Insofar as that's even important; IME you can be anywhere from 0.5x to 3x WBL without seeing much impact.

[Thurbane]

To be clear, are we talking allied NPCs, or enemy NPCs?

If allied NPCs that tag along with the party, is there different wealth rules for cohorts/followers, since that's effectively what they are?

[Troacctid]

To be clear, are we talking allied NPCs, or enemy NPCs?

If allied NPCs that tag along with the party, is there different wealth rules for cohorts/followers, since that's effectively what they are?
Cohorts get a half-share of any loot you find. Non-cohort NPC party members get a full share of loot and xp.

[Silly Name]

If you ask me, it was a mistake for the game to allow wealth to grant power. Wealth is transferable. That's kind of the whole point of it. Power should not be transferable. If you kill a bear, you should not be able to gain its Strength by eating its heart.

"Eating the bear's heart to gain its strength" sounds pretty metal, though. I would definitely play a game where that sort of stuff was a mechanic.

[rel]

Well, feel free to mess with all those numbers if you think it will result in a better game

If your PC's are finding things too easy just up the CR of the opposition until you get a good level of challenge for your group.

If it seems like an NPC could use more (or less) equipment adjust things as required.

As long as the fights are exciting and the PC's aren't getting vastly more or less treasure than you expect you shouldn't run into too much trouble.

If that means the bandits have a few extra levels (or are flat out reskinned monsters) I doubt anyone will care or even notice.

And on a corollary point, if you're worried that someone will care (and even if you aren't) its good practice to check upfront about this sort of thing.

Simply telling everyone that the opposition will not necessarily be built using the same rules as the PC's during your initial game pitch and session zero discussions gives everyone a chance to voice objections and discuss things.

[danielxcutter]

To be clear, are we talking allied NPCs, or enemy NPCs?

If allied NPCs that tag along with the party, is there different wealth rules for cohorts/followers, since that's effectively what they are?

I was talking about enemy NPCs - I’m not sure what rules there are for cohorts/followers actually.

[gijoemike]

A single standard geared NPC will almost never threaten the party. One is lack of gear and the other is action economy. And it was stated before but an evenly leveled CR fight is only 20% to 30% of all party resources consumed. That is barely a ding to their hit points and prepared spells.

NPCs must work together. A given soldier may have a magic weapon, another may have a magic shield. Another has a scroll that will party buff ( Scrolls of haste are fairly common). By working together and using decent tactics a GROUP of NPCs can provide a fun challenge but the PCs are going to win. Have lower to hit soldiers aid another for their action so the guy 2 handing that magic sword can charge to a flanking position. Have that guy with the magic armor and normal shield fight defensively so they are a physical meat wall for an archer.


Always, and I mean ALWAYS look at what a group of NPCs can do in the fight. Don't look at individual NPCs as a threat to the party. You don't need to give each NPC better gear so that each can stand Toe to Toe with the party. You just need 2 to lean defensive, one to support of some kind, and one to offense.

[danielxcutter]

There's two problems really - one, not every encounter makes sense to have a full caster, and two, consumables are really weak against area dispels, especially at high levels where you can just nuke them without zapping the ones on your team.

[Silly Name]

I'm still unclear on what the issue here is - yes, NPCs built by the DMG/MM guidelines will almost always be weaker than a PC of equal level. This is by design, since has it has been pointed out above, a CR 10 enemy is not supposed to be a particularly challenging fight to an ECL 10 party. The PCs are supposed to be heroic figures able to overcome ardous and varied challenges, while NPCs simply aren't (unless you build an NPC using PC stat generation and WBL, but by then that's not a "common" NPC anymore, is it?)

Yes, some NPCs will be just fodder and, at best, cases of attrittion: a bunch of low-level guards may result in the wizard using an AoE to dispatch them quickly, which is exactly their gameplay purposes. They aren't meant to be a threat on their own, they are meant to act as an encounter that makes the PCs use some of their resources so they can't just nova when they get to the BBEG.
If you want an NPC to be stronger, you need to give them better stats and equipment, even more class levels if the need be. All those things contribute to increasing its CR, of course - a level 8 Wizard with the WBL of a level 12 character cannot be a CR 8 encounter, that's the sort of stuff the DMG tells you affects difficulty.

The only way around making a by-the-guidelines (and I stress: guidelines, not rules) NPC of CR X be able to keep up with a PC of level X is to build them around breaking expected power level - which isn't all that hard, but it can be time consuming.

For example, I don't really stick to WBL when outfitting NPCs: I simply give them what they "need" for their role and power level, and it results in quite interesting loot afterwards a lot of the time!

[danielxcutter]

I don’t merely mean singular NPCs, I posted this when I realized mid-way working on a khaasta blackguard at about CR 17 and realizing that even with a good number of allies so the entire party didn’t just dogpile her and her fiendish wyvern that her offensive capabilities barely stood a threat to a party, her AC was about the average of a monster 2 CR under her, and any buffs she got from consumables or her own spells to alleviate that would pop like a balloon the instant she was targeted with a (Greater) Dispel Magic.

[Silly Name]

I don’t merely mean singular NPCs, I posted this when I realized mid-way working on a khaasta blackguard at about CR 17 and realizing that even with a good number of allies so the entire party didn’t just dogpile her and her fiendish wyvern that her offensive capabilities barely stood a threat to a party, her AC was about the average of a monster 2 CR under her, and any buffs she got from consumables or her own spells to alleviate that would pop like a balloon the instant she was targeted with a (Greater) Dispel Magic.

Is this supposed to be a boss fight, or "just" an important fight? In that case, I would go back to the drawing board of the encounter: what's the map like, does it offer her any tactical advantage? Who are her allies, what skills do they have? Can they counter the PC's Dispel Magic, even if only for a round or two?
You can give her custom items with limited uses that help her out but won't become "permanent" loot: a magic shield that can absorb up to 50 levels of spells and once it does so turns dull and loses its magic is a flavorful piece of equipment and would obviously be worth less than an item that can work forever.

Regarding gear: if getting buffs dispelled would impair her, maybe give her a Ring of Magic Turning? If her AC is low, just put a couple +1s on her armor (or don't, some enemies are tanks and other are bruisers, it depends on what you want her to be). Does this put her above her WBL? Well ok, that's not a problem, you are fiddling with her numbers and her CR to create a working encounter, the WBL charts are meant as guidelines, not untouchable rules.

[danielxcutter]

Is this supposed to be a boss fight, or "just" an important fight? In that case, I would go back to the drawing board of the encounter: what's the map like, does it offer her any tactical advantage? Who are her allies, what skills do they have? Can they counter the PC's Dispel Magic, even if only for a round or two?

Well, I hadn't had her in mind for a specific situation yet. It was more ideas to use for the future. But she's basically a miniboss - not just a random encounter, but not BBEG level either.

I did have her use the dragon mount rules from Draconomicon though; I did spend a decent portion of her resources on that but it's one of the things I actually did get a good deal for her on; flight helps a lot for a non-caster melee. She's riding an advanced fiendish wyvern; I had to look around a lot for the right items but getting Ride-By Attack and good maneuverability is actually 100% worth it if you ask me.


You can give her custom items with limited uses that help her out but won't become "permanent" loot: a magic shield that can absorb up to 50 levels of spells and once it does so turns dull and loses its magic is a flavorful piece of equipment and would obviously be worth less than an item that can work forever.

There's already items that do that in 3.5e - similar ones exist in Core, in fact - and those are worth way too much.


Regarding gear: if getting buffs dispelled would impair her, maybe give her a Ring of Magic Turning?

A ring of spell turning is insanely expensive so I don't see how this would help at all.


If her AC is low, just put a couple +1s on her armor (or don't, some enemies are tanks and other are bruisers, it depends on what you want her to be). Does this put her above her WBL? Well ok, that's not a problem, you are fiddling with her numbers and her CR to create a working encounter, the WBL charts are meant as guidelines, not untouchable rules.

Yes but there is only so much you can get away with before your players call BS.

Actually, here's Kerez (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GOPOoPpX0Yi8uOMNLt2ljbRImqwAHDy4yilGjAeknWE/edit?usp=sharing), the NPC I got frustrated tinkering with. The assumption is that she gets time to cast all her buffs and I still think she'd be trivialized easily unless her encounter features at least one T2 full caster.

No, she's not planned to be a solo encounter, I was planning khaasta warblade 9/battle trickster 3 with her and I was thinking about adding some barbarians or duskblades as well(thinking about CR 10 each or so). She has a vastly inflated stat array and can probably afford a couple more +1s here and there but that still won't be enough - I imagine what the forum considers an unoptimized four-man party in the early teen levels would trivialize her easily without allies vastly more powerful than she is.

[Seward]

Can they counter the PC's Dispel Magic, even if only for a round or two?

Area dispells only remove one buff, so if they are bleeding potion juice they aren't so bad. The net result isn't really much worse than the debuff from Prayer or Recitation.

A targeted dispel is a PC action to put a moderate debuff on an enemy. No big deal if fighting an NPC party, dispelled dude isn't dead or incapacitated which is doing well compared to similar actions. If it is the NPC leader, consider a ring of counterspells (dispel magic, or greater dispel depending on party level). Wastes the action if dispel was targeted, and it isn't obvious why so they may not follow up. If worried about cost, downgrade the belt of strength to gauntlets of ogre power and swap out cure moderate wounds to a scroll and have her prep bull's strength instead. In 24x7 use, a -2 to strength is no big deal, when prepping for the big fight, Bull str is as good as a belt, especially if you have dispel insurance from the ring.

A third way to defend against dispel if party uses prepared casters. Get them to use it up on a trap or earlier problem (illusory door, a charmed party member from a monster, whatever). Won't work on a L16 sorcerer with greater dispel, but if the dispells are competing with Heal spell, a cleric as the party dispeller won't have very many.



Actually, here's Kerez, the NPC I got frustrated tinkering with. The assumption is that she gets time to cast all her buffs and I still think she'd be trivialized easily unless her encounter features at least one T2 full caster.


OK some good choices. 10 minute/lvl buffs mean it is reasonable they're running when PCs are encountered, as long as she isn't ambushed when sleeping and has any kinds of alarms or minions to warn her bad things are happening. Alternately she could be on some other mission (so longer duration buffs running) when pc's stumble into her. It isn't hard to ensure prot energy vs favorite PC effects, Freedom of Movement and divine Vigor are running, all solid, important buffs. Her lower level spells are more problematic unless she's actually killing the party, or she gets a few rounds to buff as they carve through minions to her lair. As you chose +2 armor/shield instead of ring of deflection1 and amulet of nat armor 1 consider a potion of barkskin CL6 (last 60 minutes +3 600gp) and a potion of shield of faith (+2, 50gp). Barkskin would be running in most encounters. Don't bother with shield of faith if your PCs are good, since prot good has that covered and lasts longer.

Offense...actually not terrible if you can full attack. Not as impressive on a charge, although your mount can at least grapple somebody, and if you both live to act again, your full attack becomes very dangerous (decent # of attacks, moderate damage and sneak attack applied to all hits), especially if target grabbed isn't that impressive ACwise when grappled.

This character is VERY dangerous if ambushing. Surprise round to establish grapple, win initiative and full attack one PC to dead. Reasonably dangerous against a PC melee who charges you before you can act. Have mount grab them, hack them up. Downside is such a pc attacking is probably fairly tough to hit even if grappled, or may resist the grapple, plus won't just die with that level of offense and merely be mauled. But still if you have minions flank that charging dude and get your sneak on.

At range, you don't have a lot going for you. Having the bow is in character but unlikely to do meaningful damage to a level 12 party. If I was designing support for her I'd want 2 things.

1. A durable flank buddy who isn't your mount and who can fly. To help with those pesky PC melees who charge you and walk into your blender. Bonus points if this guy can dim-door or otherwise move you and mount next to an opponent, so you can grapple+sneak-blender somebody in case nobody charges you, although that could be tricky given how big your mount is. Ideally somebody like a bard who can ALSO buff your party while moving to give you a flank. (again, doesn't need to be a full spellcaster. An outsider with a useful SLA and flight could get it done, and would even make sense with this Blackguard character)

2. Instead of CR10 melee, consider CR10 archers. It would shore up your ranged weakness, let you focus fire and be seen as a major threat to all but the most heavily armored CL12 PCs. Archers are super easy to buff. Cast flame arrow and GMW on 50 arrows, then divide those arrows among the archers, using their own WBL to get it done. If you are really cheap, arcane archers at level don't even need masterwork bows or GMW (AA3 has +2 arrows), can cast guided shot to get past range/cover/concealment penalties and with a little scroll support can also haste themselves etc. A level 12 party will not consider a group of Fighter6/wizard1/arcane archer3 opposition a joke even built on elite array (bab9, dex 18, point blank, precise, rapid, weapon spec, improved crit, composite bow str14, with flame arrow, +2 arrows, guided shot and potentially haste or other buffs cast from their own scrolls). If your outsider gets another buff off like Prayer, it stacks well on all of them too.
Do the math and see how fast your squishies in PC party would go down under concentrated fire.

Archers can support your flyers without having to fly. You can build in enough offense that their two primary attacks, at least, have good odds of hitting and are reasonably dangerous, and deadly en-masse. They can support each other even if scattered to avoid mass AOE attacks. They can even have adequate AC against return fire with minimal investment (chain shirt, 18 dex, cover/concealment/range mods based on terrain). Archers also tend to be high dex from classes with hide skill somewhere, so they are pretty good at not screwing up your ambush by being noticed.

A 12th level 4 person party facing Kerez, her mount, a CR10-12ish outsider flank-buddy and say, 4-6 well designed CR10 archers with a little support from their own WBL with consumables could find themselves in a hell of a lot of trouble really fast. Especially if you manage to surprise them. Somebody might be dead before they can even move, and if that somebody is the one who would normally have a solution to archers (wind, fog, move them to another location etc) things could get dire. Even if all goes well for them any encounter where you force the party on the defensive is usually one they tell stories about later. They may win easily in the end but it won't be a curbstomp and they'll have to be tactical and respect the threat.

[Lilapop]

Actually, here's Kerez (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GOPOoPpX0Yi8uOMNLt2ljbRImqwAHDy4yilGjAeknWE/edit?usp=sharing), the NPC I got frustrated tinkering with.

- Assuming this is a knight on flying mount and not a sneaky affair: Why mithral and light shield? You're not hiding, you're not tumbling, you're not walking, you're a divine caster, and you have 14 dex. None of the mithral advantages are particularly relevant. Thats 4k gp saved and +2 AC if you go with an extreme shield. And even if you don't want to take ACP, go with a +1 darkwood heavy instead of a +2 light.
- Why +2 enhancement bonus on weapon, shield and armor? Even if you don't get the bonus back from GMW/MV/tooth of Lera'je, it isn't worth the money. You still have some non-quadratically priced options left, too: heavier base armor, heavier shield as mentioned, artisan qualities (reinforced is 800 gp on light armor, can't remember how much it was on med/heavy), materials (razor sharp + baatorian green steel is 2k gp for the equivalent of a fictional "lesser collision" WSA, which would be a +1 cost), and so on.
- I see what you are trying to achieve with the blurstrike WSA, and for a mounted solo combatant there probably is no winning move other than winning initiative. If you'd dismount and flank with the wyvern, you wouldn't need it anymore... but then you would actually want the mithral armor. At least it gets less expensive if you downgrade the saber's enhancement bonus (blurstrike may or may not be worth 16k, but it is certainly not worth 24k).
- The pectoral is always tempting, but expensive. I'd have to dig through your other maneuverability changes and their impacts to have a more in-depth opinion.

Glancing over at some monsters in the same CR range (nightcrawler (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nightshade.htm#nightcrawler) and cornugon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm#hornedDevilCornugon)), you get your energy resistances and damage reductions from your spells, you have a miss chance instead of higher AC, you have other spells and smites instead of SLAs, you have better damage and better action economy through the wyvern, and you are missing the spell resistance (oh, and you have the pseudo-mindblank of protection from good). Dunno if you'll draw even, but I don't think this is as gloomy as you made it sound. Especially once you throw in another flanking buddy or some archers and spend those remaining 6k on... save bonuses that aren't resistance typed and AC bonuses that aren't deflection typed, maybe?


It seems most of the stuff I'm noticing boils down to "quadratic prices are explosive".

[danielxcutter]

Light armor negates evasion and you can’t cast spells with a heavy shield and a weapon because your hands are full, for starters. I’ll be back later for elaborating on my choices but these are the ones I remember doing for now.

[Maat Mons]

Well, you could trade the tower shield proficiency from Fighter for proficiency with a shield bracer. That combines the higher bonus of a heavy shield with the ability to use the hand for other things, like a light shield. Usually, I'd just get one made of mithril and not worry about proficiency. But Fighters can get it for free, and you already have Fighter levels, so you may as well.

If you want to use heavy armor, you could trade Evasion for something else. Feign Death and Spell Reflection aren't great, but they don't lock you into light armor.

[danielxcutter]

Shield bracer? Uhhhhh… you mean a casting shield? I guess that might work.

Evasion’s really good though, giving that one up is hard. Wasn’t there some additional stuff that stacked with chainmail or a breastplate? I think one was called a dastana and I forget the other one. I think they were in OA and reprinted in the Arms and Equipment Guide?

[Maat Mons]

I mean shield gauntlet, sorry.

Anyway, it's from Races of Stone, on page 158. It's an exotic shield that provides a +2 shield bonus to AC and leaves your shield-hand free for spellcasting. The bit about being able to trade Fighter's tower shield proficiency for Exotic Shield Proficiency is on page 139 of the same book. But as I said, for most characters I'd just spend the 1,000 gp on mithral instead of gaining proficiency.

[Seward]

Light armor negates evasion and you can’t cast spells with a heavy shield and a weapon because your hands are full, for starters. I’ll be back later for elaborating on my choices but these are the ones I remember doing for now.

Is this character casting spells in combat? Basically all of those spells are buffs, cast before combat begins. None are worth a standard action in combat.

[danielxcutter]

Is this character casting spells in combat? Basically all of those spells are buffs, cast before combat begins. None are worth a standard action in combat.

Blade of Blood is a very short duration spell; only round/CL. And her spells aren't set in stone anyways; I'm considering on switching a couple out. Not to mention you can't always count on having time to cast all your standard action buffs.

Should I switch out Demonhide? I'm not sure if DR 5/cold iron or good is sufficient at this level, especially with how vulnerable she is to targeted dispels(plus, it's very likely martials have one way or another to get around it). It's certainly not as strong as Veil of Shadow's 20% miss chance. Maybe some of the Cure spells, though since Blackguards actually don't get Lay on Hands without ex-Paladin levels I'm wary of leaving the entire group without healing.

Also, I found where the dastana and charar-aina, but I'm not sure if the dastana stacks with shields. If it does though, a normal steel +1 chain shirt with a non-magical dastana and charar-aina actually has 1 point more AC than a breastplate/chainmail.

[Seward]

4th - freedom of movement
3rd - protection from energy
2nd - cure moderate wounds, demonhide, veil of shadow
1st - blade of blood, cure light wounds, protection from good


4th and 3rd lvl are 10 min/lvl, so fine

Minute/lvl is probably enough if you aren't ambushed and have some warning, so veil fo shadow is fine.

Demonhide isn't terrible (cold iron is unpopular for enchanting and they're unlikely to try to defeat it rather than just using their st weapon) but it is absolutely not worth a standard action in combat. So you are limited to casting on the approach, which can be tricky to get much use of.

I'd swap this spell for Eagle's Splendor in a heartbeat. You are more likely to have it up, and objectively a spell that lasts minute/lvl, adds +2 to all saves and +2 attack when smiting is a good value (and isn't terrible even as +1 to all saves, +1 smite with cloak of charisma. But I'd also probably just sell the cloak and buy a useful item with that 4k cash/slot, something with immediate action that you find helpful. The logic is similar to offloading the CMW to a scroll and taking Bull's strength in addition to gauntlets of ogre power or entirly instead of a strength item, and spending that item budget on something else.

L1 picks - prot good is a solid buff if your enemies are at least mostly good
Blade of Blood is a strong buff, but it works fine as an opener (cast its VS swift action just before you draw the weapon and you have a hand free to do it, it'll stay buffed till you hit somebody. IIRC why sunder instead of quickdraw? Anybody with lots of iterative attacks tends to benefit from quickdraw.)

I'm not a fan of CLW (have a wand. Also note wands are weaponlike for quickdraw/drawing as part of bab+1). I am a fan of Golden Barding (CD or SC, hour/level, ac bonus+7 with no affect on speed or acp for mount). AC33 on your mount is WAY better than AC26.

Basically...your spell list works perfectly fine as a pure buffing spell list. If you have a weapon in hand you should be using your actions to hit somebody, not spellcasting. Only blade of blood is really suitable for combat use and as noted, you just cast it last, when you do either the first thing in combat as you draw your weapon, or the same round as the final buff before you initiate the final closing maneuver (or as the door begins to break or whatever)


Maybe some of the Cure spells, though since Blackguards actually don't get Lay on Hands without ex-Paladin levels I'm wary of leaving the entire group without healing.

Casting CLW or CMW is pretty bad action economy in this kind of fight. However a wand of CMW (maybe not 50 charges, but enough to make sense) would be a decent balance between "somebody in this warband should be able to heal" and "wasting potential useful buff slots with heals that won't be cast on camera, take concentration to cast, have issues with somatic components etc".

Wands are a lot less awkward to use in combat than scrolls. You can put it in a wrist sheath or something for emergencies.

What would be really useful is this kind of healing offloaded to minions, because this kind of action economy matters less for them (losing a CR10 bow volley to revive a minion that was barely out or maybe to bring somebody from zero hp to positive is a lot less of a problem than you wasting a full attack or a mount grab+sneak attack to get in a weak heal). If your minions had ranger levels (reasonable for either an arcane archer build, some other kind of archer build or many melee builds) they could have wands of CLW out of their own WBL (750 gp if fully charged) available. I keep coming back to archers because they just have great action economy on several levels. An archer can draw his wand of CLW with his arrow hand while moving, heal a buddy (or himself) and still be able to full attack next round if he's willing to drop the wand (or sheath the wand and multiattack if situation is favorable for that). You can't do that with sword and board or TWF (although you can with a 2hF melee)

[danielxcutter]

I’m going to point out that offloading more bonuses to buffs makes her even more of a joke the second anyone uses a Dispel on her. And I don’t think you can cast Blade of Blood if you don’t even have the weapon out.

I’ve been considering Golden Barding, yes. With her CL that gives Kurik a +7 to AC. Dispelling is a problem of course but the benefit is good enough to risk it I guess.

I don’t really think her minions are really going to have any real healing capabilities outside potions really. Most of the classes that do don’t really fit and eternal wands are expensive. I might be able to afford a CLW wand if I cash in a few things though…

[Seward]

You may be overly worried about a dispel. It isn't all that popular a tactic against anything except spellcaster-type bosses (to hurt them at all) or something like a dragon or other tough target with some weak spellcasting for buffs where I play. Using it on a martial mounted combat character in what looks like a "dangerous but we have more to do today" encounter with 6-8 combatants is not the usual opening move. Either they'll try to start improving the odds by focus firing and killing some of your squad outright or they'll try to break stuff up with battlefield control to limit incoming damage (a fog cloud is way more likely than a dispel at the tables I've played, if they don't think they can just overpower the encounter with offense. Blocks ranged BS, blocks charges etc.)

However playstyles vary and you know your PCs. So lets take a hard look at what happens if they cast dispel instead of doing somthing to manage incoming damage or to outright kill some of your team.

I'll point out that if they waste an action debuffing your mount with dispels, that's probably a net win vs other actions. In a 4 person party outnumbered 2-1 the action economy on a targeted dispel is poor (and won't affect your mount)...they will eat an arrow barrage and your mount will get in a grapple and even debuffed the leader is capable of wrecking somebody grappled if they let you stick around for a full attack. Again, a ring of counterspells is affordable and will block the first attempt to dispel. How many of those does your party prep? How many actions are they willing to waste if it doesn't work the first time? (downgrading belt of str to gauntlet of ogre power pays for the ring of counterspells and protects a potential bull str/eagle splendor setup and no PC will think it is odd a character with a lot of low CL buffs would invest in such an item)

An area dispel will likely strip the golden armor it will only strip one buff from primary character, which could be considered a mostly wasted spell use too.

On the "get them to waste their limited supply of dispells" front, if I had the "outsider flank buddy" I might be tempted to set that character up as the minion leader and delay entry till they'd shot their initial nova on your minions. But that's more a "I rolled crap init" fallback. level 12 D&D is into rocket-tag territory, if you have a flatfooted target on your turn, messing it up before it acts is usually a better move. Maybe it'll be the guy who prepped dispel today.

On the minion front, a fully charged wand of CLW is 750gp and requires only a single ranger level to activate (vs losing BAB or needing to go to level 4 with a scroll. Eternal wands are a terrible value for NPC cash, but think about it. If we could equip our soldiers in real world with a similar device for the cost of a sidearm (which 750gp is at the CR10 level) we would. Or maybe just one at the fire team or squad level, but train everybody to use it. It's easier to use than a potion and a lot more cost effective (15gp/caster lvel/spell level instead of 25 for scroll and 50 for a potion).

From a roleplay standpoint, if any of the minions can activate a wand without losing BAB, it's a better "squad healing option" than anything else you could spend their cash on - or anything a blackguard could do to provide healing with her meager spell slots.

[danielxcutter]

Downgrading to ogre power gauntlets reduces damage AND to hit, and she doesn’t exactly do too well on that front either.

[Seward]

Downgrading to ogre power gauntlets reduces damage AND to hit, and she doesn’t exactly do too well on that front either.

Only if they actually dispel the bull strength (or they are able to get the drop on her and she is limited to 10 min/lvl buffs).

That's the point. The truly important buff is freedom of movement. If you take an action to protect that (say by freeing up cash for 4k ring of counterspell by downgrading the belt) you might as well get your str back with another buff. Plus if you went that route you'd have another 8000gp to boost her overall performance. (I'd be strongly tempted to replace that belt with boots of speed, ring of counterspell and go with no str item at all, but there is a lot of other stuff you can do with 8k to boost offense to the tune of +1 to hit and +1 damage, which is what you lose by downgrading to gauntlets AND getting dispelled)

Just gonna take a step back here.

The metric isn't some other random monster of equivalent CR. A class-based warband has to be looked at as a unit, the kind of tactics they can do, how they support each other. If you can buff the warband, the attacks don't need to start out as high. If they outnumber the PCs while not being complete pushovers, they don't need to hit on a "2" with their top iteratives. If they put the PCs at a disadvantage somehow that can also mean raw numbers don't have to be as high as they would on a random melee monster that is most of the encounter threat.

That said, part of your problem statting NPCs is you aren't getting the most out of WBL. A part-casting part-melee character like a Blackguard (or ranger or paladin or arcane archer built in martial way) assumes it's getting something out of its spellcasting and doesn't shy away from it for fear of dispels. Cast the buffs and make the other guy decide if it is worth an action to lower your offense a bit, while you are poking holes in them. Spending WBl on buffs instead of gear is only a smart move to a point, you want to compare what you can afford with gear vs what a buff provides.

Case in point that L1 spell giving your mount 7AC for 9 hours. No barding you could possibly afford gets you even close to that without crippling your mount's flying. So it is a no brainer to be covered with a buff. Free move and prot energy are in similar state. They are flat unaffordable, so you buff and hope for the best. You might hedge with masterwork studded leather barding, that's pretty cheap but it is also something the game allows but some folks find breaks immersion (no matter what rules say, a real horse can't be barded 24x7 without consequences, even if armor check penalty is zero).

Moving away from the +2 to hit/dmg you are spending 16k for and +1 to saves you're spending 4k on that could be covered the same or better with two L2 buffs (minute/lvl), consider Protection from Good.

We both agree it is a good L1 pick. Potential immunity to mind control, and covering +2 resistance and +2 deflection would cost you 12k with items (and more if you want to be immune to mind control from good enemies). That's too much with your WBL. But if some of the PCs are nongood, it might be worth 3k to get a +1 ring deflection and +1 vest resistance.

That is essentially the argument about belt of strength. I think 4k is plenty to spend to hedge against dispel to free up 12k for other stuff, using a Bull Str buff to cover the difference. The argument to keep the cloak as is makes sense with Eagle Splendor for when it is cast and not yet dispelled to boost your performance to 16k gear level while not reducing it to 0k gear spent if displled or not cast.

Others have pointed out a similar issue with +2 armor and weapon. Just at a basic level, armor+1 and amulet of natural armor+1 costs 3k in enchantments, armor+2 costs 4k. When we see things like this, those of us who have statted up NPC groups and made fun encounters see the character being weakened for no good reason, in a fashion similar to choosing skill focus as a feat when it isn't somehow essential to the build. (there is ALWAYS something to spend an extra 1k on. A cheap permanent magic item, a consumable, or higher quality base armor or something....)

Again playstyles vary. But if dispels are so common in your game that a mook encounter with a minor named character leading draws a dispel routinely, then possibly part of the problem is picking a class for that minor named character that relies on low CL buffs as part of the class design. It's fine to spend a portion of your WBL as "the buff isn't there" insurance. Durations run out, dispels do happen or PCs do something clever and no warning occurs. Just don't paralyze yourself or overcompensate with permanent items for fear that will always happen.

[danielxcutter]

Hmm, there’s just enough to afford Crimson Dragon Bracers… would you say a dastana should stack with shields? I’m considering switching her mithral chainmail to a normal chain shirt, a dastana, and a chahar-aina, I think that might be cheaper.

[Seward]

Hmm, there’s just enough to afford Crimson Dragon Bracers… would you say a dastana should stack with shields? I’m considering switching her mithral chainmail to a normal chain shirt, a dastana, and a chahar-aina, I think that might be cheaper.

I probably don't have an informed opinion on a dastana - it isn't an option everybody had in Living Greyhawk (which did allow some stuff from A&EG, but mostly only if you played the right adventure). I always assumed it was more like an alternate shield that left hands free similar to a buckler and looked cool :)

What I'd say though is a quick google search shows opinions vary, and seem to have some text support both ways. Those that believe it stacks also believe it stacks with Chahar-aina.

In organized play, we called stuff like that 'table variance'. It works the way the GM says it does and you suck it up if they rule the other way and stop arguing as a player, because that wasn't fun for anybody.

As GM in a normal campaign just look at it this way. If your PCs used it (or start using it after this encounter) are you good with it stacking with shield? Or would you prefer it does not. Hold your NPC to same standard as PCs and you can't go wrong. That said, in spirit of my last post...paying 1k extra for mithril when you have the skill points to overcome the ACP is a good thing to shave off if you can find a better use for the 850gp saved (as it does need to be masterwork)

600gp buys a potion of barkskin at CL6 (+3 nat armor) that lasts an hour. 5k gets you +1 nat armor with crimson dragonhide bracers+5 fire resistance. 2k +bear endurance would let you put that +1 on your neck and get 4 pts of con unless dispelled or not cast. I'd leave amulet of health as is, turn mithril into masterwork and add the barkskin potion and call it a day.

Yet another buff vs permanent decision. Sorry to keep doing that to you :) But you are on the right track looking for more AC by scattering it around. There is an AC ioun stone that is competitive in the 5k range that stacks with basically everything too.

[danielxcutter]

Hmm. Would Divine Shield be better than Divine Vigor? Both need a standard action to use anyways, and it's not like the speed boosting part of Divine Vigor would be of any use to her.

Heck, that alone brings her AC to around average for her CR, and it can't be dispelled since it's a supernatural ability.

[Seward]

Divine Shield is a kick-down-door power but Vigor is still only minutes so that isn't TOO much more of a risk of not getting it up.

What I like about it is that it is a risk hedge.

Buff Dependent characters have 2 risks. "Will the buff be running" - debuffed by a party that gets drop on you or otherwise forces a situation where you lack actions to get it running before forced to engage. If is isn't 24x7, a risk exists, but obviously a 2hr/lvl buff is at far less risk of this than a buff that lasts 7 rounds and takes a std action (swift action buffs are low risk unless you have multiple and/or other combat uses of swift actions).

Second risk is dispel risk. Some of this is campaign dependent. A PC party fighting Giants (as in old GDQ series) is at little risk. Casters are few, CL weak and action economy highly skewed to doing something more dangerous (an old wimpy giant shaman can still do real damage with his staff in close combat or throw a rock). Then you fight Drow (in GDQ) where each female had Dispel as a racial SLA and who often did NOT have anything more dangerous than a minor sword attack or sleep dart venom. A party had to give up on buffs from partial casters or scrolls/potions (spell resist also made those useless at offense too).

NPCs fighting PCs is highly party dependent. Larger parties are more likely to have actions for Dispel or even somebody who invested feats/class stuff to make it stronger (or a spont caster with many slots for dispel instead of 1-2 prepped that just work vs almost anybody). They're more likely to use it if they have something like Permanent Arcane sight that shows them who has 14 spells running and who just drank a potion. Usually though, a party of 4 will have few enough actions and dispells available that odds of them being used in an encounter are not all that high without specific info on who they are fighting and sure knowledge that it is a strong action to take.

If it happens, areas strip off top tier buff or a weak buff, usually. Targeted wil strip all or all weak, depending on luck and strength of dispeller. High Cl is a hedge vs dispel but is more like a 10 min/lvl to hour-long buff, not perfect. SU is to this as 24x7 is to "chance of buff up". So a mix of buffs strong vs dispel+hard to get up, weak vs dispell but likely to be up helps balance the risk of things like short duration low CL buffs and affordable permanent items bought with limited WBL.

NPC parties are easy to undergear and turn into curbstomp battles. It takes thought to balance all the considerations in a way that advancing a monster or tossing more monsters in does not. But...I have to say some of my most memorable combat encounters in all my 3.5/Pathfinder play were vs well planned and organized NPC opposition, and it is especially pleasing when it is a "realistic" group.

It is good the PCs can "get" how group has rep they have, or find empty potion and blank scrolls, plus a wizard spellbook and holy symbol of a religion that explains the spell support. If it isn't routine for that group, maybe interrogation (or speak w/dead or written instructions) might reveal that the dangerous PC group operating nearby caused them to make some purchases or ask patron for help..most PCs love being taken seriously, and it's flattering to inspire fear in a competent NPC team just by rep.