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Old 09-19-2018, 01:25 PM   #2
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Villain design material?

How to Be a GURPS GM has one section on designing NPCs for an adventure.

In general, important NPCs would be designed just like PCs. First, come up with the concept. Second, find traits in the book that support that concept. Since they're NPCs, the point budget doesn't matter, and so you don't really have to calculate every ability precisely. But you do have to decide what those abilities are ("concept"). And it helps to define them in mechanical terms. Less important NPCs (like the mooks) might just have a partial definition of abilities just invented ("The guards have ST 11, DX 10, axe, skill-12").

Point values in GURPS are not a measure of combat power. They are closer to a measure of "story influencing power", but there are a lot of ways to influence a story that aren't how big of a fireball you can toss. All those non-combat skills and abilities can cause the PCs a great deal of trouble, even if the NPC wouldn't last three seconds in a duel to the death.

You can try to measure just the points that go into "combat traits", but those get a little tricky to define. Probably the simplest approach is just to look at attack damage and compare that to PC defenses, and conversely, look at the damage-avoiding abilities (DR, or magic resistance) in comparison to PC attack abilities. Don't forget to count number of maneuvers available to each side. Numbers matter. The big boss mob might need some adds or more exotic abilities to control the battlefield or have extra attacks to even that scale.

So yes, in a way you are simply deciding how many dice of fireball the NPC ought to throw, how many demons he can summon, and how tough those demons are. That's "concept", at least as far as the combat abilities go. Then you can stat it up and work out how much it costs. When the "combat points" total are way out of whack, then it's certainly a warning that you need to think harder about what's going to happen. But it's not a guaranteed TPK, either.

Tactics also matter. If the opposition is knowledgeable about PC weaknesses and smart enough to attack those, they're more threatening than a less well-directed mass of points, or one that matches strength against strength. Weak, numerous opponents that gang up on one target are more dangerous than the same number of that fight independently. Ambushes and surprise can make a big difference, as can terrain and range. And so on.

So it never really comes down to just comparing a "Challenge Rating" against the PC's "level". (Not that it really did in That Other Game, either.)

You could think along similar lines for the social and economic spheres of conflict. The wealthy, well-connected, mastermind NPC that rules a nation is probably going to attack the PCs via some method other than strolling into the tavern and letting loose with his fireballs (even if he can toss a good one).
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