Hey /tg/, I'm just looking for some general pointers and help for making NPC's in my campaign. Probably playing the least popular edition, 4e, but our party enjoys it.
I'm simply looking for help on how to make enemies on the fly that are adequately strong for my players, without having them made already. We're playing with a fairly erratic group of people, so I don't know how many people will be there each time, so I don't prewrite enemies. They also like to start fights with people I don't expect them to fight, like farmers, or ship captains. Any general advice to make enemies that are strong, and interesting without much notice?
Also pic very unrelated.
Page 42 of the Dungeon Master's Guide has a table of appropriate difficulties and damage ranges. That's essential for doing 4e stuff on the fly. An even more lazy and sneaky trick, however, is to just pick something from the monster manual and call it something else. Just don't let the players know you're doing it.
>>46862813
I was using that, but it still left me feeling unsatisfied. I sometimes change enemies AC and damage mid fight because 1 of my players power games pretty hard, so it makes balancing things very difficult.
>>46862673
Not familiar with 4e we never touched it.
As for properly scaled enemies that takes a little prepwork. Making them on the fly isn't easy or just backfires in my experience. Better idea is getting templates setup for archetypes and modify based on enemy in question. For example if you had to get an orc on the fly you'd just modify the template for the usual stat modifier on an orc. Templates make life easier in that regard. Being a DM is kinda like being in school again in that you have homework to do. But it's the fun kind that lets you murder your friends sometimes.
As for their odd habit of starting random fights I'd need details to decide if its murder hoboing or some highly aggressive roleplaying. Did they randomly try to kill the farmers or was it ye olde pub brawl?
>>46862960
Yeah, balancing fights can be pretty hard when one PC is significantly more powerful than the others. You kind of just have to gauge how much the other players mind. As long as they're still having fun and still get to have their moments to shine, you may not actually need to worry about balance.
If the powergamer is single-handedly winning fights, there aren't a lot of great ways to deal with that that are fun more than once. You may just need to talk to him about it.
>>46862960
Changing things in game is fine. Most DMs do it to make a fight more challenging when they fuck up
>>46862673
>>46863156
4e is actually really good for making monsters on the fly.
Here, have MM3 on a business card.
You'll need to read some existing monsters to get ideas for fitting abilities tho.
>>46862813
Page 42 is actually outdated, both for determining difficulty and damage. Rules compendium has the mostly up to date rules/damage values you should probably be using as a basis.
I don't have the page/screencap of it tho. If Touhou wakes up you may get it from him.
>>46863156
When you say "template" you just refer to a set range of attributes my NPC's should have, right? I really enjoy DMing, but as someone who has just been a PC for the past 11 years, it's an entirely different world.
As far as their random fights, it's not quite murder hobo'ing (which btw I thought we were the only ones to use that term and it makes me so happy to see that other people say that) but it's just, they will fight people that I don't expect. They once picked a fight with the captain of a boat because he wouldn't give them a cheap ride. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, but I wasn't at all ready for it.
>>46862960
Ask the powergamer to talk with the others and optimize their characters as well. Possibly ask for tips on what treasure to give out to upp the non-optimizer's to be on a similar level.
Also keep in mind that a character doing its job really well in 4e is actually par for course. If I got a dollar every time I read a post like "help, my plyayer's rogue is doing a lot of damage and killing monsters!", I'd have like... about 10 bucks.
>>46863342
Unless that captain was someone who was supposed to be a challenging fight for them... just have them win without even rolling an attack. Depends on level as well, probably not something you'd do at level 1, but by level 5 it should happen if the characters decide to bully normal people.
>>46862960
The power gaps in 4e shouldn't be big enough to warrant any major rebalancing.
What exactly does your power gamer play?
>>46863246
>>46863249
Hah. While that's handy my gang would hate it. I started using the templates because I almost killed them all on accident with an absurdly lucky and moderately dangerous orc. He should of just gave'em lumps not put the tank at -5 on a crit and tried to brutalize the rest of the party. The hilarious part is after what was basically a low grade midboss turning into a life or death TPK scenario. Without the beefy guy holding it off they had to come up with a plan involving a barrel of oil, a grease spell and a lucky torch toss to kill him.
Then they tell me later it was fucking great and I should keep up that kind of difficulty. They thought he was a god damn boss.
>>46863342
It really is man. You're not a singular being you are the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD. It takes time.
By that example it sounds like they're trying to use the intimidation skill without a skill check to get things. If you go back over the reasons you might find a pattern and cause for the fights. I'd be miffed about it myself though.
I mean god damn, yes sure guys hit the man who you want to get a ride from that'll help you get a boat, no no it won't cause every captain at port to tell you to piss off on sight and move with at least 15 of his crew around! No really I wouldn't do that! Yeah they can start throwing their weight around like that but they shouldn't expect good treatment later on if they're known for whacking people until they cough up goodies. NPC's don't like being treated like pinatas.
>>46863234
>>46863244
I kind of assumed that it was ok, but it kinda just feels.. sketchy? I'm not sure how to explain it, it's almost like lying to my players...... but I guess it doesn't really matter, huh?
>>46863246
>>46863249
That's actually super useful, thank you!
>>46863385
Is there any gear in particular that I should be giving out or not giving out to smooth out gameplay? And no, my guy just has crazy AC for how much damage he does. He also has the same HP as our tank. I don't understand avengers.
And yea, I hadn't really thought about them just not needing to roll against regular joes. That's not a bad idea either.
>>46863461
He's an avenger. I don't think he's intentionally powergaming, but his power level is just much higher than everyone elses.
>>46863517
So maybe I should just throw a fight at them that I expect to kill at least one of them and see how it goes? I actually kinda like that idea.
They don't really use skills as much as they probably should, and when they do, they don't back it up with hardly any RP which makes me inclined to not help them succeed.. is that wrong?
Strike! (which is kindof a 4e retroclone) has really cool basics for monsters I find; combining with the business card I bet you could make some pretty awesome and memorable fights happen.
Just don't overdo it, and don't go out of your way to counter your players.
>>46863517
>While that's handy my gang would hate it.
It's not like
a.) they are supposed to know
b.) you aren't allowed to use higher level monsters against lower level foes
c.) you aren't supposed to personalize them with templates
>Is there any gear in particular that I should be giving out or not giving out to smooth out gameplay?
Magical weapons, armor, amulet of the appropriate level.
As for the Avenger, don't sweat it. The tank also has marking mechanics (I hope...) which is really important, maybe even more so than the HP and Defenses. Is the Avenger hybriding? Cleric/Avenger Hybrid with battle cleric lore is kinda BS IIRC.
>>46863724
Is the avenger the only Striker? If so, he may just be doing an appropriate amount of damage.
I haven't done a lot of character optimization in 4e, but it seems like it would be pretty hard for him to outclass the rest of the party too badly without trying.
>>46863826
The problem isn't necessarily his damage (but yes, I just realized he is the only striker), it's the fact he has the same AC and HP as our fighter COUPLED WITH his damage.
>>46863882
Is the Fighter using a shield and the heaviest armor he can? If not, he really should unless he has some specific build in mind. Having similar defenses to a fighter isn't terribly big of a problem; defenses tend to be rather similar in scale between characters in 4e. The avenger is also more free to dump some points into CON (since his primary stat is not STR, so it doesn't double up on his save values), so having as much HP as a Fighter is possible.
>>46863794
That pdf is almost exactly what I was looking for, that's super helpful. No hybriding yet, thankfully. I'm not ready to deal with that lol.
Actually just went and looked at their char sheets, the avenger has 2 more AC than our fighter, fighter has no taunts or marks.... not sure how that even happened
>>46864043
...
wat
bro, those are like built into the class
Unless it's a slayer-fighter, in which case they should be dealing similar damage at low levels... Avengers kinda just have good defense tho.
>>46862673
Fudge a dice roll here and there. As the DM, you're there to make things interesting. If things are going too smoothly, maybe that damage roll you made is a little higher or that miss by 1 was really a hit. This swings the other way too, maybe that third 20 in a row you rolled was really a 19 etc.
If someone's really gimmicky, start tuning for his gimmick. Don't completely negate it, but toss in something weird often enough that the gimmick can't be completely relied on.
Prepare one or two, tuned set piece battles and write them in on the fly if you have to. In my experience, it pays to have a couple prepared encounters on hand, even if you aren't sure the party will get to them.
>>46863882
You may not need to balance things at all in terms of enemy stats.
If his AC is making the fighter feel useless. Make sure to have encounters that emphasize the importance of marking. If you have a vulnerable caster, threaten him with some monsters. Those monsters aren't actually there to kill the caster outright so much as to give the fighter someone to save.
>>46864043
>fighter has no taunts or marks
fuck
New plan: Strongly encourage the fighter to pick up a marking At-Will
>>46864073
OH. Just realized it's a knight, not a fighter. Actually explains a lot to me. Maybe I should have looked at my players characters harder, huh
>>46863794
It's more they like it now that I'm forcing them to be more clever about things. It's a weird relationship, I think they're masochists or something. I had to push away from the quick and easy refrences and charts thanks to it. Other DM's bitch about players who whine too much about having a character die. Mine seem to like it when I'm actively trying to kill them (within reason) and present scenarios that are outright suicide to fight through. Also think I've gone soft if someone hasn't gotten their PC killed in a month or so.
Seriously they're god damn weird they started a high score board on both most hilarious and most awesome death.
>>46863724
Well before you go that far try asking or getting a feel of how attached they are to their PCs. Mine are very chill about death so going lethal is fine on them, but you might have some babies that'll start a massive stink. Plus randomly ramping up the difficulty might send the wrong message.
As for skills you are completely fine, good RP gives good bonuses, shit RP gives negatives. Though you can start encouraging their use a bit if there is goodies that'll require skills to reach. How I got mine to start with it, nothing motivates clever thinking and properly utilizing their skill sets quite like the lure of shiny gold and magic items. Plus it can help them understand that they don't HAVE to hit every problem to solve it.
Try leaving an obvious treasure in a tricky to reach place that to access demands using their skills sometime. Maybe even things to find out if they're actually social and not thugs!
>>46864143
Okay, well, Essentials classes kinda suck compared to non essentials stuff the higher your levels go.
Still, knights are easy to build (... unless he's going for something weird... ask him what his plan is, if there seems to be something weird in there), just keep in mind that he should be using a shield. As a knight, you have even less reason to not use a shield than normal fighters.
>>46862673
Did they remove the limit on 3 wards per player per map?
>>46864250
4e in general tends to turn into a fog of infinite candyfloss at higher levels, at the sub-16 level realm essential classes are alright.
