Sunday, December 5, 2010

Many NPCs and Megadungeons

So have you noticed that since 3E on up UNLESS you had a Character Builder of some sort that NPCs were hard to make?

Even if you made them in 3E that would be cumbersome to run and ever more so in 4th edition.

Notice from 2E on down that a huge party of PCs and NPCs were easy to make and run? I mean I use NPCs as cannon fodder to keep the heroes alive. Not a problem when you can make one up in less that a minute. Just try running a party of 8-10 players with 12 or so NPCs in the 3rd or 4th edition. It works in 3rd edition BUT they will have full stats IF you use the rules as written. If not they will be massive unskilled retards. God I would not even have enough room on my table for a 4th edition game of this sort.

Now for something completely different!

With the 4th edition the age of the Megadungon is over for the modern gamer. Just go and try and make one. I already have for LL/S&W. You go make one for 4th edition with at least 100 rooms per level. See you in a 100 years. We of the OSR shall enjoy the mysteries of the huge Megadungeon!

5 comments:

  1. ? Not sure how much 4e you've played, but creating an npc is easily done on the fly. Especially when you make a cheat sheet with an index of common monsters you use. Really, all you need is a monster manual, and you're good to go

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  2. Actually, yeah, that is one thing in 4E's favor. Monster (and NPC) stats no longer need to follow the rules for PCs like they did in 3E.

    Still more complex than: "Gnorts, Fighter Lvl 1, AC 3, HP 6, Spear"

    But better than 3E.

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  3. I have played and ran LOTS of 4e. It just stopped being fun. Long combats that became really boring. Huge stupid amounts of monster hit points and low damage spells.

    They RAPED the fireball spell! You cannot deny that!

    I MIGHT try Essentials but most likely not.

    BUT
    Why do you need something more complex that Gnorts when he is to die in a round or two?

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  4. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally with you on the "Gnorts is all you need" page.

    Just saying, compared to the half to full page NPC write-ups for 3E, 4E is fairly compact.

    Hit point inflation is another can of worms. One of the big reasons I didn't enjoy 4E, either.

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  5. I'm not a 4eFan, but the 4e game I was just playing was all megadungeon, all the time, and the DM said it was a breeze to do.

    And I trust him.

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