Creating an Encounter
From D20advanced
While you might want to design each and every NPC your players come up against from the ground up, sometimes you simply don't have the time, or the players do something so unexpected that you need to come up with a brand new encounter right now. Look no further than the stock NPCs. Just follow these steps to build up an appropriate (and fun) encounter for your players to face.
Note that these are guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules. At any point that you feel comfortable stepping away from these guidelines to create an NPC following the normal rules which PCs follow, then by all means do so! The additional detail can be extremely useful for creating a more exciting opponent for your players, but for less important encounters, it's not always needed. These steps can help you to very quickly assemble NPCs for an encounter, but you can always design an NPC with more detail.
Contents |
Step 1: How Dangerous?
Encounters in d20 Advanced are rated by how dangerous they are, or how difficult it will be for the players to overcome them:
| TABLE 12.1: ENCOUNTER DANGER RANK | |
| Danger Rank | Description |
| 0 | No Danger; there is almost no possible way that the PCs could suffer injury, much less defeat |
 | Minimal Danger; the PCs have almost no chance of being defeated |
| Modest Danger; the PCs stand to suffer some injuries if they're not careful |
| Significant Danger; the PCs are likely to win the fight, but it will require smart play to come out on top |
| Serious Danger; the PCs are going up against a real threat and could just as easily win as they could lose, and will need to play smart to win |
| Severe Danger; the PCs are going to be severely outmatched and without very clever gameplay and teamwork, the PCs could be defeated |
| Overwhelming Danger; the PCs are very likely to lose the encounter, and only tremendous luck or playing at the top of their game can see them through |
Step 2: Challenge Rank
Next, you need to figure out just how many NPCs to challenge your party with (and just how powerful to make them). Depending on how challenging you wish to make the encounter (see Step 1), you can have more or fewer NPCs of higher or lower power level. To determine this, you need to determine the total Challenge Rank for the encounter:
| Encounter Challenge Rank = Danger Rank x Number of Party Members |
|---|
So if a group of four PCs is going to face an encounter of Serious Danger (), then the encounter will have a total Challenge Rank of 16.
Step 3: How Many NPCs? How Strong?
The total Challenge Rank of an encounter can be distributed in any way you like among the enemies the PCs will face. You can divide the Challenge Ranks to many NPCs, or only a few. Depending on how many ranks you assign each enemy, it will change what Power Level that NPC is.
| TABLE 12.2: NPC POWER LEVEL | |
| NPC's Challenge Rank | NPC's Power Level |
| Challenge Rank 1 | Party's PL -4 or lower |
| Challenge Rank 2 | Party's PL -2 or -3 |
| Challenge Rank 3 | Party's PL -1 |
| Challenge Rank 4 | Party's PL |
| Challenge Rank 5-7 | Party's PL + 1 |
| Challenge Rank 8-10 | Party's PL + 2 |
| Challenge Rank 11-14 | Party's PL + 3 |
| Challenge Rank 15-21 | Party's PL + 4 |
| Challenge Rank 22+ | Party's PL + 5 |
So long as the total Challenge Ranks of all of the enemies put together are equal to the Danger Rank x the number of PCs in the party, you'll still have an appropriate encounter for that Danger Rank. A Challenge Rank 16 encounter for a party of four PL 10 PCs could consist of four PL 10 enemies, or two PL 12 enemies, or one PL 14 enemy, or two PL 10 enemies and one PL 12 enemy, or eight PL 7 enemies, or just about any other combination you can imagine.
Simplifying
A helpful aid for this stage, especially if you're trying it for the first time, is to put a stack of poker chips or pennies in front of you for each enemy's Challenge rank. As you add or subtract enemies, or increase or decrease their power level, you can track it easily with the tokens.
Step 4: Minions
Minions follow slightly different rules, because of their frailties, and are usually fielded in greater numbers. Weaker minions can be fielded for a fraction of the normal cost for an NPC. Individual groups of minions always have a value of just 1 Challenge Rank, and depending on their power level relative to the party's, you may field more minions in a given group for only one Challenge Rank.
| TABLE 12.3: MINION POWER LEVEL | |
| Minions' Power Level | Number of Minions |
| Party's PL - 1 or higher | 1 Minion |
| Party's PL - 2 | 2 Minions |
| Party's PL - 3 | 3 Minions |
| Party's PL - 4 | 4 Minions |
| Party's PL - 5 | 6 Minions |
| Party's PL - 6 | 8 Minions |
| Party PL - 7 | 12 Minions |
| Party's PL - 8 | 16 Minions |
| Party's PL – 9 or Lower | 20 Minions |
Another thing to keep in mind is how capable the PCs are of taking down large numbers of minions in a single round. If the characters have access to a large number of area attacks FX or feats like Takedown Attack, you may want to add additional minions (2 – 4 depending on how potent those area attacks are).
As a general rule for keeping encounters balanced (and for the sake of your sanity as the GM!), you don't want to field so many minions that keeping track of them becomes a burden. While the minion rules are very convenient for handling large numbers of weaker enemies, in large numbers even minions can become unwieldy. The significant challenge of an encounter shouldn't come from minions: rather, it should come from normal NPCs. Minions should be used as “glass cannons”, who present a threat to the PCs in large numbers, but who will likely be destroyed quickly.
Step 5: Environment
You can also include environmental effects in place of an enemy. The whole environment counts as a single opponent, and has the same PL as the NPC the environmental effects are replacing. Environmental effects are bought as equipment (costing equipment points) as if they were part of a structure.
Step 6: Apply Archetypes
As a further shortcut, you can use the NPC Archetypes to very quickly determine the capabilities of the NPC for a given PL. Choose the archetype and note the combat skills and other special abilities that archetype provides at the desired power level.
Step 7: Apply Templates
If you are making use of racial or similar templates, apply their modifiers and abilities after selecting an archetype. An NPC template will often show not just modifiers appropriate for all archetypes, but special options you can select for specific archetypes.
Step 8: Finishing Touches
Now for the final step in creating an NPC: making any finishing touches you need to make sure than the NPC does just what you want it to. If you need a particular NPC to be able to fly, for example, make sure you take ranks in the Enhanced Movement FX.
