I need help, fast!! (A game this Sunday)

[Adumbration]

A day ago or so, I posted this thread. I was sort of playing with an idea of a campaign/adventure, and I mentioned it to my friends. Next thing I know, I'm making that game this Sunday. (It might be a while until our next normal or otherwise game).

This is my plead to these forums. I'm fairly familiar with rules as a player, and I'm a fast learner with the DM's Guide at hand, and I'm using a pre-made site, but I still have questions. And I need help with making some NPCs. Pretty please?

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Some questions: THESE HAVE BEEN ANSWERED! Thank you.

1. How to force open locks (and what DC? What check?)? I don't think our party will have anyone with Open Lock as a skill.
2. Where can I find WBL charts?
3. Should I roll hp of enemies myself, or use the averages?
4. What should I know that I don't know?
5. What NPCs I should make, just in case? (Starting point is a city at the border of a desert.)

Now, I need help with making NPCs. NPC, to be exact, since I'm not sure yet what else do I need.

I need a high-level Greenstar Adept. Preferably a wizard base, something along the lines of Wizard X/Fighter X / Greenstar Adept 10 (With only half of the Greenstar Adept progression, he hasn't found enough starmetal.)

If you help me out, there might be story of how the adventure turned out in the end.

EDIT: Oh, and if you have some extra random names I could use when making NPCs on the spot, please do post them!

EDIT2: I'll be giving them a magic item each, from the Greenstar Adepts treasury. How valuable should such a magic item be for a 6th-7th character?

[F.L.]

If you're dealing with a greenstar adept, what level is this? Level 10-11?

Most of the rest of your questions can be answered in the DMG.

Doors, Page 61
NPC gear value 127. Player WBL 135.

For simplicity, you should go by averages for enemy HP. You may also find the use of random generation programs useful for sheer bulk of encounters:

http://www.aarg.net/~minam/treasure2.cgi
http://www.aarg.net/~minam/npc2.cgi

Are some good ones by Jamis Buck.

While my players think I'm a good DM, I am also a very lazy DM. I have all sorts of quick tools I sometimes use to stretch things out. But one of my main tricks is to keep randomly generating things until I find something appropriate, the random answers don't always fit or make sense. But hitting the generate button is so easy to do...

Also, for random NPCs, watch out, the skill points that the generator assigns are random, which often doesn't include max ranks, or effective skills. But since I mainly use random NPCs for combat, they're mooks for the players to kill or defeat mainly, and their skills don't come up too much. Also, this generator should have a list of some names built in. There are better namegens out there, but this one is an okay stopgap.

[Adumbration]

Thanks. The NPC is a quest-giver, by the way. The party is 6th level, with 3 players: 1 arcane or divine caster (sorcerer or druid or combination), a ranger and a thri-keen fighter (or possibly a Maxwell Silver Hammer. Youtube THAT ). The adventure was originally designed for four 5th level characters, I'm giving them some adjustment.

[Shishnarfne]

Alright, a few quick answers, hopefully:

1. The most common way to open locks on doors/chests without Open Lock (or Knock) is either Strength checks (the section on Dungeon Construction in the DMG has the DC's, the better made, the harder to break) or damage (including hardness rules). Note that these are much noisier than Lockpicks...

2. WBL charts, and any other charts, can be (eventually) located using a table of all charts in the back of the book. Note that there are separate charts for NPC Gear value, Character Wealth By Level, and expected Treasure gain per level, for maximum confusion... I think that the section on creating PC's above first level includes WBL guidelines. Note that the section on random NPC's includes NPC gear value and some quick and dirty stats and gear for vanilla NPCs.

3. I suggest either taking average hp of foes (faster) or giving them a fixed percentage (e.g. max or 3/4) for ones you wish to be a bit tougher.

4. Know which options in combat have rules which you will need to look up (e.g. Turn Undead, Grappling, Bullrush, Disarm, Trip, Sunder, etc.) and tricky spells that you expect either a) to use against your players or b) your players to cast. Looking up descriptions beforehand will make running NPCs faster (knowing that Sleep is a full-round to cast, for instance).

5. NPC's to make: first, any you think that the party will likely interact with sufficiently to merit some stats (even basic Bluff/Sense Motive modifiers), second, primary shopkeepers/barkeeps in the area, third, ones the party might need to know about, like guards and law enforcement... and any plot-relevant ones.... Feel free to borrow from the random tables to speed it up.

Edit: Ninja'd... Naturally.

[F.L.]

Don't be ashamed about being ninja'd. I got in an accident, and had to get some grafts to recover. However, it left me with a ninja-toe.

[Gogo525]

lol. Ninja-toe.

I would be willing to make the green star adept for you as long as you tell me a little more about him. for instance:

Level
Stats. Point buy or roll?
Starting Gold
When you want me to take him into GSA? As soon as possible or later?

[Adumbration]

lol. Ninja-toe.

I would be willing to make the green star adept for you as long as you tell me a little more about him. for instance:

Level
Stats. Point buy or roll?
Starting Gold
When you want me to take him into GSA? As soon as possible or later?

You can determine the level yourself according to how fast you can take him into GSA. Roll 4d6, drop the lowest, on each stat. That's what I'll be giving my players. Starting gold by PC WBL, he's rich with big R: he has adventured with a party that was killed (except him), and he got to loot the corpses. He's also a city counselor. Take him into GSA as soon as possible, but remember to take into account that he only has the class features for 5 levels of GSA - apart from spellcasting according to normal. He's asking the PCs to go on a quest to get more starmetal, which he has found through scrying and good contacts. I'm not intending to take him into combat, he's more of a.... Well, NPC.

Thanks. I really appreciate this.

[Duke of URL]

Regarding ad-hoc NPCs, just roll up (online generators work great for this) a good number of "generic" NPC sheets, probably a few each categorized by general description (commoner, warrior, skillmonkey, divine caster, arcane caster). You can just pull an appropriate random sheet and customize it on the fly to fit the situation -- you'll even look like you're prepared.

[Gogo525]

Ok I will get it started today and I will post it on here by tomorrow at the same time. (about 8:20am my time (-5 GMT)).

[Adumbration]

Thanks.

Now, concerning the reward I'm giving. I'm going to let them take a single magic item each from the GSA's old equipment/trinkets he has found during his adventures. They'll be sort of arranged in a room on tables. Any idea how much a single magic item could cost? I may be giving them slightly less treasure from the adventure than would normally come by the EL.

EDIT: At the moment I'm thinking a something along the lines of 5000 - 7000. It could be that they will advance a level during the adventure, so it's about the same as the difference in WBLs.