Philsys NPCs

RP-related discussion otherwise not covered in the Character Closet.
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Seethe
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Philsys NPCs

Unread postby Seethe » Sat Mar 24, 2007 8:30 pm

Now that I've done a little bit of Philsys GMing, I've noticed something. The sample NPCs on this page seem to be a little tough. It would appear that they could rather handily defeat a level 1 PC who wasn't optimized for combat. The way I've dealt with this has been to "cheat" by inaccurately deriving the substats of enemy NPCs as significantly lower than what their primary stats call for.

What I want to know is, is this the correct and/or common thing to do? Also, I think this page should have a few less well-optimized NPCs for use as enemies in actual combat. However, I don't know my Philsys well enough to do this, and I'm really not sure I can figure out how to edit things in the Wiki anyway.

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Kai
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Unread postby Kai » Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:58 pm

I generally build NPCs fairly. This means that I don't make them much more powerful than a PC is, but I also don't make them less powerful. As a GM, I feel like that's somewhat limiting, and I'd be bored as a PC if I knew that every fight was stacked in my favor.

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Archmage
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Unread postby Archmage » Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:08 am

The sample NPCs listed, however, are intended to be combat PCs; that's what they exist to do. The sample fighter NPCs, for example, would handily be usable as sheets for members of the city guard. The circumstance that you are presenting is a 1v1 battle between one of these combat-ready NPCs and a PC not built to be prepared for combat.

Of course the non-combat PC is going to lose, or have a tough time winning. I wouldn't expect otherwise. You are essentially saying that a fight between a character built to be a farmer (or whatever) and a character built to be a soldier is unfair.

Even in a 2v1 situation, most of these NPCs are going to get their asses handed to them by smart PCs, even if they aren't totally "combat-optimized." It should be clear why that is at this point that getting ganged up on in Philsys is bad news.

Why are we essentially harping on the fact that characters who are not as good at combat...are not as good at combat?
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Seethe
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Unread postby Seethe » Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:41 am

It's not much fun to be in a fight that you have very little chance of winning, though. I'm just saying that, in addition to the standard guards, there should also be a design for common riffraff or untrained fighters that wouldn't really be the equal of a proffessional soldier. So what I'm basically asking for is the design for the equivalent of a street thug.

The reason I bring this up is because I can see the potential need for the party to go through multiple fights without resting between so that they can get worn down over time, but not so likely smacked down instantly. In a situation where even an optimized character can be defeated in about two hits, this isn't very possible.

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Kai
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Unread postby Kai » Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:53 am

The reason I bring this up is because I can see the potential need for the party to go through multiple fights without resting between so that they can get worn down over time, but not so likely smacked down instantly. In a situation where even an optimized character can be defeated in about two hits, this isn't very possible.


Philsys isn't intended to be D&D where you can be hit ten times with a sword and then go on to slay an army before your three-o-clock thug-battering. You aren't supposed to be able to go through multiple fights without resting because people (the real ones, mind) generally can't do that.

So yeah. An optimized character will be defeated in two hits, but is dealing out the same damage to the NPC. A "non-combat" PC is likely not chasing street thugs and the GM shouldn't demand such things of them totally arbitrarily.

There's nothing wrong with building an NPC to be on par with the PCs, and I would argue that it makes no sense to have a separate "cannon fodder mook NPC" category of sample sheets.

One last note.

So what I'm basically asking for is the design for the equivalent of a street thug.


Does this mean that someone who doesn't rely on formal training and has learned everything on their own can't be good at what they do?

Man. I have to wonder why player characters bother levelling up at that rate. I mean, a street thug has learned by going out and getting in fights. Isn't that what PCs do?

Summary: Mooks are largely unnecessary. Mooks are boring. Mooks have no excuse to be mooks because odds are they've learned their skills the same way their "disadvantaged" PC enemies have.

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Seethe
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Unread postby Seethe » Sun Mar 25, 2007 4:42 am

I suppose that's all true. I actually like the idea of every battle being loseable. It's just that when I saw a character taken down more than halfway by one attack from a standard enemy, I questioned whether that was right. But, of course, pointy things do actually hurt.

Now, I am going to have to overhaul some of my characters because the designs I gave them in my inexperience may have made them into mooks without my intent.

So anyway, my original question was answered. Happy ending.

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Unread postby pd Rydia » Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:30 pm

I'd like to add, that if I don't like what the dice say, I change it.

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Kai
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Unread postby Kai » Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:39 pm

Dia: I do the same sometimes with NPCs, but I don't think it's a good general rule to say that NPCs should be made like normal player characters and then safely nerfed. It's okay to do it for an individual NPC for a particular specific situation...

It's just that, like I said, such changes are changes from the baseline NPC and while it's okay, it shouldn't necessarily be a provision in the rules. If I have an NPC with 2 MAG but I want him to shoot lightning out of his ass, well he'll shoot lightning out of his ass. The GM can bend the rules for PCs however he/she wants, but that doesn't mean new rules are (or should be) being created.

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Archmage
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Unread postby Archmage » Sun Mar 25, 2007 4:01 pm

Seethe wrote:It's just that when I saw a character taken down more than halfway by one attack from a standard enemy, I questioned whether that was right. But, of course, pointy things do actually hurt.

You've picked up on one of the big things about Philsys; getting smacked around, without armor, is going to get you killed quickly. Most characters will only be able to continue standing and fighting after two or three weapon hits unless they're armored (in which case they might take a couple more). This means that wearing protective gear and avoiding hits in the first place is much better than trying to soak damage with lots of hit points--you aren't going to have them, because HP values in PS are low and damage values are high, especially when we're talking about spells.

This means that buffing/debuffing spells are incredibly useful in PS; boosting your own PA and magic resistance is going to drastically increase your chances of survival, and cutting an enemy's PA down is going to really reduce his.
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