[WIP] Creature statistics table for easy NPC creation
Publié : 25 oct. 2012, 17:33
[WARNING: Massive post ahead]
[Skip to the bottom for archetype statistics. Each archetype will have a link next to the name linking to the post that contains a more detailed breakdown of how the character was put together]
Obviously, Shadows of Esteren takes a very "simulationist" approach to creature design, with everything built from the ground up based on what you would reasonably expect its qualities to be. It's mostly "common sense" in that you would say, for example, "Well, a tortoise is slower than a human, but a horse is much faster, so their Speed stats should go in order of Turtle < Human < Horse." But beyond that abstract level of relative measuring, how do you translate that into game statistics?
Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition has a very highly-refined mathematics behind it, and as a result it includes very easy to use tables of statistics for GMs who want to create their own monsters or who have to make up something on the fly: You just have to consider the level of the PCs in your group and how much of a challenge you want the fight to be (same level, level+1, level+2, etc.), and then you can look at the tables to see what statistics your monsters will need to provide the appropriate challenge (in terms of Armor Class, non-armor defenses, Attack bonus, Damage, etc.). This way, if you don't want to use only the monsters listed in the official handbooks, you don't have to spend hours building monsters up from scratch (as I continually hear that people had to do in the previous edition), and if your players suddenly decide that they want to attack someone or something that you weren't expecting them to, you'll be guaranteed to not make an encounter that's too difficult or too easy if you don't intend to.
What I'm leading up to with all this is that I've decided to try putting together a table of mechanical implementations of "common sense" creature design for the convenience of GLs by bringing together the collective knowledge/experience/common sense of the community.
Here's how I see this starting:
Let's imagine an "average human being," insofar as such a thing is possible.
For now, we're just concerned with combat statistics, so we'll forego everything else. Going through the character creation process, we find this:
Ethnicity: Tri-kazelian (the most common ethnicity on the peninsula)
Profession: Peasant (the most common profession in a rural, medieval society). This doesn't give any combat skill bonuses, except maybe for feats, so we'll note the potential +3 to that for now.
Other occupations: For now, we won't assume that our common person has received any specialized combat training aside from what follows:
Birthplace: Most people have undergone compulsory military service, whether in a village militia or a king's army, so this man gets a +1 to Close Combat.
Social Class: As a rural commoner, our man has the potential to have a +1 to Feats, but we'll assume for now that he doesn't, as he's had no particular need to develop such talents beyond what is required for life in his peasant profession.
The Ways: Since we're making an "average" person, it's tempting to put a 3 in all of the Ways, but that's not only illegal for the purposes of character creation, it's not likely when considering the vocation of the person in question. Going with the suggestion on p. 207 of Book 1 that the Way of Combativeness is the only way that can "offer sufficient energy to survive," we'll assume that peasants have a higher Combativeness than the average (so, let's say 3-5). I would make the rest of the Ways as follows:
Combativeness (3-5)
Creativity (1) [a peasant's life is inherently conservative]
Empathy (4) [the peasant "folk" are typically regarded as having a closer relation to nature]
Reason (2) [peasants are typically superstitious]
Conviction (3-4) [peasants typically don't have the theological background to make their beliefs justified, but make up for it with a stubborn preference for the traditional ways]
Age: The average age is probably low, given the shorter lifespan, so we'll say this peasant is 20, with no bonuses and no setbacks.
Traits: Not important here.
Sanity: Not important for an NPC, but with the Ways above, a peasant would have between 2-0 Trauma points from the orientation of his personality, meaning it's not worth considering.
Advantages and Disadvantages: We're assuming an average person here, so by definition he has no particular advantages or disadvantages.
Now the juicy part: The combat statistics.
Fighting Potential: With a Creativity of 1, our peasant has 1 Potential point.
Defense: Reason (2) + Empathy (4) + 5 = 11 (incidentally, this is the same as if both Ways had an aveage (3) statistic).
Speed: Combativeness (3-5) + Empathy (4) = 7-9, for an average of 8.
Stamina: 10
Attack Rating: Combativeness (3-5) + Close Combat (1) = 4-6, for an average of 5.
Standard: Attack 5, Defense 11, Speed 8
Offensive: 6, 10, 8
Defensive: 4, 12, 8
Quick: 5, 10, 9
Movement: 0, 12, 8.
Protection: The typical peasant doesn't wear armor, so this is 0.
Damage: Peasants typically fight with improvised or weak weapons, so this is 1.
For all of this work, we get:
Run-of-the-mill Tri-Kazelian man:
Health: 19/14/9/5
Attack: 5
Damage: 1
Defense: 11
Protection: 0
Speed: 8
Potential: 1
Standard: Attack 5, Defense 11, Speed 8
Offensive: 6, 10, 8
Defensive: 4, 12, 8
Quick: 5, 10, 9
Movement: N/A, 12, 8.
If two peasants got into a knife fight, let's say over the love of a pretty maiden, this is a breakdown of how combat would go:
From a standard attitude, each peasant would have to roll a 6 on 1d10 in order to hit the other, hitting 40% of the time and causing between 1-4 points of damage on a normal hit.
Dime-a-Dozen Bandit: (http://www.esteren.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 160#p15160)
Health: 19/14/9/5
Attack: 11 (melee); 8 (ranged)
Damage: 2 (melee or ranged)
Defense: 9
Protection: 2 (1 armor, 1 shield)
Speed: 9
Potential: 3
Attack, Defense, Speed in the different attitudes: (melee and ranged)
Standard: 11, 9, 8; 8, 9, 8
Offensive: 14, 6, 8; 11, 6, 8
Defensive: 8, 11, 8; 5, 11, 8
Quick: 11, 6, 11; 8, 6, 11
If two bandits were to fight over the last flagon of mead, this is how it would work mechanically:
From a standard attitude, each would be able to automatically hit the other by virtue of their Attack being higher than the other's Defense. However, they are each reasonably armored and absorb 2 Damage from each hit, so on a roll of 1-10, they would cause 1-10 damage. In other words, they hit each other 100% of the time (ignoring critical misses), causing 1-10 damage each time. (Interesting!)
If a bandit were to attack a peasant, say, over who gets to run away with a pretty maiden:
The peasant would be able to hit on a roll of 4, but his weak attack would only bypass the bandit's Protection on a 7! Even though he may make contact with the reckless bandit, the peasant just isn't likely to penetrate the bandit's superior armor. I.e., the peasant hits 60% of the time, but only causes damage 40% of the time, causing 1-4 damage.
The bandit, on the other hand, would still hit 100% of the time despite the cautious peasant's higher Defense. The peasant has no Protection, meaning that the bandit causes 1-10 damage on each hit. (Enough to cause a serious injury in only a single attack!)
--------------------------------
Please feel free to critique my methodology, and especially to post more character samples! My hope is that we can put together a spreadsheet after we get some more numbers and can get a clearer picture for what makes a creature a threat to PCs of varying levels of skills. This way, a GL can get a better idea of what kind of threats his or her players are capable of surviving.
[Skip to the bottom for archetype statistics. Each archetype will have a link next to the name linking to the post that contains a more detailed breakdown of how the character was put together]
Obviously, Shadows of Esteren takes a very "simulationist" approach to creature design, with everything built from the ground up based on what you would reasonably expect its qualities to be. It's mostly "common sense" in that you would say, for example, "Well, a tortoise is slower than a human, but a horse is much faster, so their Speed stats should go in order of Turtle < Human < Horse." But beyond that abstract level of relative measuring, how do you translate that into game statistics?
Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition has a very highly-refined mathematics behind it, and as a result it includes very easy to use tables of statistics for GMs who want to create their own monsters or who have to make up something on the fly: You just have to consider the level of the PCs in your group and how much of a challenge you want the fight to be (same level, level+1, level+2, etc.), and then you can look at the tables to see what statistics your monsters will need to provide the appropriate challenge (in terms of Armor Class, non-armor defenses, Attack bonus, Damage, etc.). This way, if you don't want to use only the monsters listed in the official handbooks, you don't have to spend hours building monsters up from scratch (as I continually hear that people had to do in the previous edition), and if your players suddenly decide that they want to attack someone or something that you weren't expecting them to, you'll be guaranteed to not make an encounter that's too difficult or too easy if you don't intend to.
What I'm leading up to with all this is that I've decided to try putting together a table of mechanical implementations of "common sense" creature design for the convenience of GLs by bringing together the collective knowledge/experience/common sense of the community.
Here's how I see this starting:
Let's imagine an "average human being," insofar as such a thing is possible.
For now, we're just concerned with combat statistics, so we'll forego everything else. Going through the character creation process, we find this:Ethnicity: Tri-kazelian (the most common ethnicity on the peninsula)
Profession: Peasant (the most common profession in a rural, medieval society). This doesn't give any combat skill bonuses, except maybe for feats, so we'll note the potential +3 to that for now.
Other occupations: For now, we won't assume that our common person has received any specialized combat training aside from what follows:
Birthplace: Most people have undergone compulsory military service, whether in a village militia or a king's army, so this man gets a +1 to Close Combat.
Social Class: As a rural commoner, our man has the potential to have a +1 to Feats, but we'll assume for now that he doesn't, as he's had no particular need to develop such talents beyond what is required for life in his peasant profession.
The Ways: Since we're making an "average" person, it's tempting to put a 3 in all of the Ways, but that's not only illegal for the purposes of character creation, it's not likely when considering the vocation of the person in question. Going with the suggestion on p. 207 of Book 1 that the Way of Combativeness is the only way that can "offer sufficient energy to survive," we'll assume that peasants have a higher Combativeness than the average (so, let's say 3-5). I would make the rest of the Ways as follows:
Combativeness (3-5)
Creativity (1) [a peasant's life is inherently conservative]
Empathy (4) [the peasant "folk" are typically regarded as having a closer relation to nature]
Reason (2) [peasants are typically superstitious]
Conviction (3-4) [peasants typically don't have the theological background to make their beliefs justified, but make up for it with a stubborn preference for the traditional ways]
Age: The average age is probably low, given the shorter lifespan, so we'll say this peasant is 20, with no bonuses and no setbacks.
Traits: Not important here.
Sanity: Not important for an NPC, but with the Ways above, a peasant would have between 2-0 Trauma points from the orientation of his personality, meaning it's not worth considering.
Advantages and Disadvantages: We're assuming an average person here, so by definition he has no particular advantages or disadvantages.
Now the juicy part: The combat statistics.
Fighting Potential: With a Creativity of 1, our peasant has 1 Potential point.
Defense: Reason (2) + Empathy (4) + 5 = 11 (incidentally, this is the same as if both Ways had an aveage (3) statistic).
Speed: Combativeness (3-5) + Empathy (4) = 7-9, for an average of 8.
Stamina: 10
Attack Rating: Combativeness (3-5) + Close Combat (1) = 4-6, for an average of 5.
Standard: Attack 5, Defense 11, Speed 8
Offensive: 6, 10, 8
Defensive: 4, 12, 8
Quick: 5, 10, 9
Movement: 0, 12, 8.
Protection: The typical peasant doesn't wear armor, so this is 0.
Damage: Peasants typically fight with improvised or weak weapons, so this is 1.
For all of this work, we get:
Run-of-the-mill Tri-Kazelian man:
Health: 19/14/9/5
Attack: 5
Damage: 1
Defense: 11
Protection: 0
Speed: 8
Potential: 1
Standard: Attack 5, Defense 11, Speed 8
Offensive: 6, 10, 8
Defensive: 4, 12, 8
Quick: 5, 10, 9
Movement: N/A, 12, 8.
If two peasants got into a knife fight, let's say over the love of a pretty maiden, this is a breakdown of how combat would go:
From a standard attitude, each peasant would have to roll a 6 on 1d10 in order to hit the other, hitting 40% of the time and causing between 1-4 points of damage on a normal hit.
Dime-a-Dozen Bandit: (http://www.esteren.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 160#p15160)
Health: 19/14/9/5
Attack: 11 (melee); 8 (ranged)
Damage: 2 (melee or ranged)
Defense: 9
Protection: 2 (1 armor, 1 shield)
Speed: 9
Potential: 3
Attack, Defense, Speed in the different attitudes: (melee and ranged)
Standard: 11, 9, 8; 8, 9, 8
Offensive: 14, 6, 8; 11, 6, 8
Defensive: 8, 11, 8; 5, 11, 8
Quick: 11, 6, 11; 8, 6, 11
If two bandits were to fight over the last flagon of mead, this is how it would work mechanically:
From a standard attitude, each would be able to automatically hit the other by virtue of their Attack being higher than the other's Defense. However, they are each reasonably armored and absorb 2 Damage from each hit, so on a roll of 1-10, they would cause 1-10 damage. In other words, they hit each other 100% of the time (ignoring critical misses), causing 1-10 damage each time. (Interesting!)
If a bandit were to attack a peasant, say, over who gets to run away with a pretty maiden:
The peasant would be able to hit on a roll of 4, but his weak attack would only bypass the bandit's Protection on a 7! Even though he may make contact with the reckless bandit, the peasant just isn't likely to penetrate the bandit's superior armor. I.e., the peasant hits 60% of the time, but only causes damage 40% of the time, causing 1-4 damage.
The bandit, on the other hand, would still hit 100% of the time despite the cautious peasant's higher Defense. The peasant has no Protection, meaning that the bandit causes 1-10 damage on each hit. (Enough to cause a serious injury in only a single attack!)
--------------------------------
Please feel free to critique my methodology, and especially to post more character samples! My hope is that we can put together a spreadsheet after we get some more numbers and can get a clearer picture for what makes a creature a threat to PCs of varying levels of skills. This way, a GL can get a better idea of what kind of threats his or her players are capable of surviving.
Obviously you can adapt to the need, it's just a starting point.