• Show page
  • Old revisionsBacklinks

    • Differences

    This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

    Link to this comparison view

    obsidian:wordsofwillow:fabula_ultima_npc_design [2025/05/30 11:27]
    willowlark created     		obsidian:wordsofwillow:fabula_ultima_npc_design [2025/05/30 11:30] (current)
    willowlark
    Line 8: Line 8:
         - **Soldiers are easier to hot swap in a themed group than Elites/Champions**. This is simply a matter of action economy, You can use a different Soldier in a conflict for each PC if you wanted, but Elites and Champions take up two of the encounter slots. Pairing multiple of them together drops the number of combinations down even lower.     - **Soldiers are easier to hot swap in a themed group than Elites/Champions**. This is simply a matter of action economy, You can use a different Soldier in a conflict for each PC if you wanted, but Elites and Champions take up two of the encounter slots. Pairing multiple of them together drops the number of combinations down even lower.
       - **Build around your party.** If you have a PC who took //Dispel// as one of their spells, they obviously want to use that spell. Very few of the default NPC skills apply in a Scene based buff fashion, and most aren’t worth dispelling. You should present opportunities for that PC to use //Dispel// against something that makes them feel like the hero of the hour, some kind of custom curse that’ll drop a target to 1 HP immediately after 3 turns or the like.   - **Build around your party.** If you have a PC who took //Dispel// as one of their spells, they obviously want to use that spell. Very few of the default NPC skills apply in a Scene based buff fashion, and most aren’t worth dispelling. You should present opportunities for that PC to use //Dispel// against something that makes them feel like the hero of the hour, some kind of custom curse that’ll drop a target to 1 HP immediately after 3 turns or the like.
    -This applies to all things on your player’s sheets, be they spells, elemental affinities, statuses they can inflict… You can give your NPC more powerful options that are tied to these things as a counter balance. A big charge up laser blast is scary, but if it can be turned off when your Spiritualist inflicts Slow with //Torpor//, it’ll make that PC feel epic (or you’ll get to fire a big laser blast at them).+    - This applies to all things on your player’s sheets, be they spells, elemental affinities, statuses they can inflict… You can give your NPC more powerful options that are tied to these things as a counter balance. A big charge up laser blast is scary, but if it can be turned off when your Spiritualist inflicts Slow with //Torpor//, it’ll make that PC feel epic (or you’ll get to fire a big laser blast at them).
       - **Soldiers with a vulnerability are hard to reuse.** Once your party knows a weakness of a soldier, they can do 20~30 damage easy to that creature, if not more. The NPC will likely last two rounds at most, if it’s not focus fired. If you want that soldier to be around for a bit, say as a buffer to your other enemies in the theme, you want to mitigate the incoming beat down. You can do that by not giving the NPC any Vulnerability or by giving it a Crisis/skill effect that changes it’s vulnerability.   - **Soldiers with a vulnerability are hard to reuse.** Once your party knows a weakness of a soldier, they can do 20~30 damage easy to that creature, if not more. The NPC will likely last two rounds at most, if it’s not focus fired. If you want that soldier to be around for a bit, say as a buffer to your other enemies in the theme, you want to mitigate the incoming beat down. You can do that by not giving the NPC any Vulnerability or by giving it a Crisis/skill effect that changes it’s vulnerability.
       - **5 Damage is nothing to sneeze at.** The //Weaken// spell (target suffers +5 damage of a given type) and jumping to the next tens digits of level (10,20,30,etc) increase NPC damage by 5. On paper, this doesn’t feel like a lot. In practice, it can turn a 3 hit KO to a 2 hit KO. It’s certainly not overpowered, but don’t overlook //Weaken// because it’s only 5 damage, and be aware that going to Level 20 NPCs vs your sub-level 20 party will big significant damage jump.   - **5 Damage is nothing to sneeze at.** The //Weaken// spell (target suffers +5 damage of a given type) and jumping to the next tens digits of level (10,20,30,etc) increase NPC damage by 5. On paper, this doesn’t feel like a lot. In practice, it can turn a 3 hit KO to a 2 hit KO. It’s certainly not overpowered, but don’t overlook //Weaken// because it’s only 5 damage, and be aware that going to Level 20 NPCs vs your sub-level 20 party will big significant damage jump.
    Line 17: Line 17:
       - **The Objective action can always be used to disable a skill.** If the players can come with a way that makes sense to stop the dragon from Flying, or the mech suit from emp blasting at the end of each round, always let them start that clock to disable the gimmick. Make the appropriate difficulty is the harder part, which leads to…   - **The Objective action can always be used to disable a skill.** If the players can come with a way that makes sense to stop the dragon from Flying, or the mech suit from emp blasting at the end of each round, always let them start that clock to disable the gimmick. Make the appropriate difficulty is the harder part, which leads to…
       - **When creating clocks, 7 is a better Difficulty than 10 as default.** by default seven is considered an easy difficulty on a Skill Check, 10 is normal, 13 hard, and 16 impossible. In situations where you are using your best stats this is accurate, but when you’re doing skill checks that dynamically come up while narrating a heist, sport game, or affect an objective clock in a conflict, it’s skewed. In practice, seven is a good difficulty to see one or two successes on most rolls. In practice, 10 actual makes it hard to get above one, and often times even to succeed at all.   - **When creating clocks, 7 is a better Difficulty than 10 as default.** by default seven is considered an easy difficulty on a Skill Check, 10 is normal, 13 hard, and 16 impossible. In situations where you are using your best stats this is accurate, but when you’re doing skill checks that dynamically come up while narrating a heist, sport game, or affect an objective clock in a conflict, it’s skewed. In practice, seven is a good difficulty to see one or two successes on most rolls. In practice, 10 actual makes it hard to get above one, and often times even to succeed at all.
    -Players like seeing the clock move, and it keeps the tension up as it moves. Players are also quick to lose interest in a clock when they think they can’t succeed on it. 7 Difficulty to interact works best with both of those points, no matter how many sections you have. +    - Players like seeing the clock move, and it keeps the tension up as it moves. Players are also quick to lose interest in a clock when they think they can’t succeed on it. 7 Difficulty to interact works best with both of those points, no matter how many sections you have. 
    -If you need something that’s challenging, say an objective clock that will severely hinder or even completely defeat an NPC in a conflict, that’s when the 10 Difficulty will be more valuable. You then must keep in mind that you’ll be seeing less successes per attempt, so you won’t need as many sections as you would with a 7 difficulty clock. The exact ratio is group dependent, but you likely want a third less sections.+    - If you need something that’s challenging, say an objective clock that will severely hinder or even completely defeat an NPC in a conflict, that’s when the 10 Difficulty will be more valuable. You then must keep in mind that you’ll be seeing less successes per attempt, so you won’t need as many sections as you would with a 7 difficulty clock. The exact ratio is group dependent, but you likely want a third less sections.
       - **Encourage Study actions.** The book says this too, but really don’t let players sleep on this. Encounters go a lot slower when the party insists on attacking Resistances rather than study to find the Vulnerabilities.   - **Encourage Study actions.** The book says this too, but really don’t let players sleep on this. Encounters go a lot slower when the party insists on attacking Resistances rather than study to find the Vulnerabilities.
         - **Study can answer an question about an NPC’s Gimmicks.** This is a less common use, but if you’ve got a party that’s stumped on figuring out that your NPC is getting a passive damage buff from their mech armor as long as they aren’t suffering Dazed, they can ask the question “how is that buff being created?”. This is a core part of the Study checks, it’s just a frequently forgotten one.     - **Study can answer an question about an NPC’s Gimmicks.** This is a less common use, but if you’ve got a party that’s stumped on figuring out that your NPC is getting a passive damage buff from their mech armor as long as they aren’t suffering Dazed, they can ask the question “how is that buff being created?”. This is a core part of the Study checks, it’s just a frequently forgotten one.