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Old 10-04-2017, 03:14 PM   #1
Eddie T
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Houston, TX
Default NPC Skill Levels

I apologize if this has been discussed, I tried Search but I can't seem to get the board to recognize a "some search terms" or some AND search AND terms, and NPC Skill Levels returns pages and pages and pages and pages of not useful results.

For quick/mass NPCs, I'm looking at the typical Novice/Veteran/Elite structure most of the RPG industry uses. I'm going to plop them in a spreadsheet in Excel so I have some randomization but can basically just go to a tab and copy/paste the number I need and hit print. GURPS has a lot more situational and equipment modifiers than I'm used to, though. As such, I'm a little uncertain of where to put my thresholds for skills and wondering how you guys and gals do in your games (I completely get attribute and secondary characteristic racial norms).

Based on the Probability of Success chart, I'm thinking:
Novice skills are going to be 9 +/- 1 -> anything less than a 9 and I don't see them able to do much except with very lucky rolls
Veteran skills are going to be 11 +/- 1
Elite skills are going to be 14 +/- 1 -> I'm thinking this is a little high for a lot of non-combat skills but iffy if you take into account ranged weapons modifiers.

It looks like GURPS typically just uses 25-, 50-, or some other number of points for NPCs but I want to be able to give a greater number of skills to some archetypes/tropes and not worry about points totals at all.

For the why I'm doing it this way, my players are a...special...bunch. For some reason, they ignore main NPCs and focus on interacting with mooka NPCs. I've learned I need a little more preparation in that department with them.
Eddie T is offline   Reply With Quote