Combat and the NPC experience

Greetings everyone.

I have been thinking about this quite a bit since the May event, and maybe it belongs in a different category, but I am posting it in New Players since perhaps it is a pretty obvious question for experienced players.

So, here we go:

I really enjoy NPC duty and have discovered that I really like fighting (I never would have guessed!) despite the fact I am not very good at it. I have also found that I learn a ton about combat when I get to play a NPC with skills that far exceed what my PC has (or will have in the near future). I also completely understand and respect the idea that NPC's are there to entertain the PCs.

However, I have found in a number of NPC roles, that NPCs that seem powerful (at least to me) get slaughtered really quickly. For example, in May, an NPC I played had 500 BP and some really nice melee offenses/defenses (I liked the one that caused anyone who hit the NPC to suffer daze for 5 seconds). My poor NPC, however, got attacked about 6:1 and ended up dead within about 2 minutes (probably less - 30 seconds - it is hard to tell time while fighting). Even taking into account that I am a pretty crummy fighter at this stage (it is only my 3rd event, so what can I say. . . ), my question is, how do more experienced players make sure they entertain the PCs enough, and what is the line. I don't want to completely ignore my NPC card, but on the other hand, my NPC is not too entertaining when dead within only a few seconds (I know as a PC I want to fight something that is at least somewhat threatening).

So, how do you make sure your NPCs strike the proper balance between threatening and entertaining? Or do you just follow you card and leave it up to the MM and ST?

I look forward to your insights.

Crystal

The easiest way I think to explain this, is actually answered in your question. When PC's take on a 500BP NPC 6:1 it's not that scary. But put this situation in....a level, say 10 PC, sees this, lets say Demon......that player is now scared out of their mind and going to run away and get help so people can go at you 6:1.

It is an even balance of RP as the NPC card demands and following the card to the letter. I found it all comes with experience. (Also from what I have seen as you get better at fighting and do it more often....your natural combat skill will keep you alive longer.

As a new player I find the NPC duty really eye opening as to how wussy my little newbie character is. I usually drop pretty quick, get hit in the kidneys or bashed in the face, so I do wish I was better at melee combat at times, but no matter how good you are if you get dogpiled on it's all over and that is usually what it boils down to. :ohmy:

I kinda feel the same! I love giving people a good whack! But I think "ALRIGHT FEAR ME!" and I go down in 30 seconds! Haha I think it's all because I just stink at combat but I worry that I'm not doing a good job because I die so fast! I worry that if I get a "you get no respawns" NPC that I get killed so quick it wasn't even a challenge!

You know my feels man!?

trust me your npc will fall into some pretty hopeless situations. I remember my first shift back in february i think. myself and two other guys were sent out as some mild brigands going to attack people for loot right. now I was still really new to combat in general so I took this role to get more experience. we came upon connor and two other guys who offered us food. Now at first we all agreed not to attack until we at least all got food. But this one guy, the genious that he is after getting his share held the door close keeping connor inside and initiatig combat. after a while more people showed up to beat us down and then connor walks up to me completely IG and I look at him and realize that my friend was keeping him lokced in the building. I look over and I hear my fellow npc yelling for help INSIDE the building he was keeping closed. Connor to this day I sitll have NO IDEA how you pulled that off. but in the end it pretty much came down to me with both my legs pinned with two seasoned warriors on either side and 3 archers pointed streight at me. moral of the story is your npc will not survive long for most of the time. So take every combat role you can get and start fighting. Think of npc combat as training for your character and work with that. if you keep fighting you will get better. Also dont be afraid to ask some of your firends to spar with you IG. heck find me IG sometime and if I am not busy ill spar with you for a bit. just keep practicing and you will get better. cause its as connor said. your natural skill is what will keep you alive longer.

I noticed the same thing and had somewhat similar thoughts, also being new and having all the combat savvy of a slighty soggy paper bag. The main problem is, of course, numbers. In general the NPC's will be outnumbered merely due to logistical reasons. This becomes more apparent in an open area. I noticed that the few encounters that took place in the woods or brush allowed one to limit the number coming at them, and (somewhat) even the odds.
I think part of it is just time, as others have said combat experience increases and you get better at strategies, plus getting to know PC's and their fighting styles.
But entertainment is more than just putting up a good fight, in my opinion. Reacting to the blows, threatening or insulting your opponent, looking demonic, or feral, or whatever you are supposed to be...plays as big a role. Acting so that players don't say "Oh ho hum, I took that npc down easy" but rather "Did you see that horrible thing, and how menacing it was? Can you believe we defeated it? Good thing there was six of us!". And I would think that gets easier with time also, rather than (as I was) trying to remember what all the skills do, and what their effects are, and to react to weapon and spell strikes appropriately when you're frantically trying to do math in your head.

Hi there!

(Arrrrgh! See, I had this brilliant, well-written response to this post typed out on my mobile device, and when I clicked [submit]. it told me that the session had timed out. [throws things at phone])

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who thinks this! Part of MY problem is that I'm just so abominably bad with MATH. I KNOW that my NPC is supposed to have, say 400 Body Points, but then when combat starts, I have one person hitting me twice for 10 dmg, another person whacking me for two, then when I'm just about caught up, an ARROW smacks me on the back for 8, then a spell packet hits me for ... wait! Was that blow-back AND damage, or am I just blown back? Really? Okay how much dam-- ... [thwack! ARROW!] And then I'm thinking that maybe I should just lie down now before I lose count again ...

I guess what I SHOULD do, is just to err on the side of excess, and not drop until I'm absolutely sure that I've taken my full count of body. But then I always assume that everyone else is better at math than I am, and doing complicated algebraic formulas in their head to figure out exactly when my NPC should be dead. ("I've been hitting him for 8 dmg, with a success rate of 5/9, it's been a 17 second melee so far so with my 2 swings per 5 second increment, so he should be dropping right about ... no? Not yet? DAMN DIRTY CHEATER!!)

So as long as I'm not slaying PCs like George RR Martin, I'm probably doing okay?

That's a relief!

Figure out what the goal of the encounter is and adjust your play style accordingly. If you are supposed to be a big bad demon but are getting swamped, consider using any of your relocation abilities(flee, windwalk, vanish, etc) or shield bash your way to clearing out some PC's.

My favorite NPC encounter came during WitL when I was hiding in the woods at night, hoping to get the drop on a wandering NPC or two. I get far more than what I bargained for, with a pack of ogres and their pet dog. The NPC's improvised brilliantly, "throwing" the dog up to sniff me out and making "ogre noises" at the bottom of the hill to make sure I knew what was coming. I barely managed to get out of there alive, but if they had just followed the basic script, they would have killed my character before he could draw his sword or reload the crossbow. I really wish I knew who these NPC's were OOG so I could thank them for a great time!

Knowing when to stomp face and when to show restraint is important in NPC shifts because every encounter will play out differently. RP doesn't require combat skills, so try to integrate more of that into the encounters instead of charging headlong into the hordes of heroes.

Between playing mooks to main mod bosses, the goal is always the same. Whether you're fighting someone who plays to win or someone who just wants a good fight, you should always play to entertain. Everyone comes to the game to be entertained, so each of us needs to put in the same amount (if not more) of effort and care into the roles we get as NPCs. It's not about being a good fighter. No one was the best fighter when they first showed up. We've all had to learn how to get where we are. But it's still more important to act the part rather than outfight someone. Some of my favorite encounters as a PC were against the people who put on a good show. If you're out with a giant sword or hammer and only swinging 10s, make it look like you're swinging 100. People are going to appreciate the time you take into making them fight a monster and not just some weirdo in a mask. (Unless of course the character portrayed is a weirdo in a mask in some off the wall Scooby-Doo Style mod.)

There have been plenty of times when playing monsters that I've even been dropped way quicker than expected. But that's good. The PCs are working together to make it happen and that's something we're out to encourage. Always err on the side of the PCs' favor and the courtesy will be returned to you. We want the players (PC and NPC) to have fun, because that's why we're even playing a game. Sometimes that low level dude will do some cool trick to catch you totally off guard and tag you with an incapacitate or something. A+ to that guy for being crafty. Sure you have another dodge or deflect left, but screw it, taking the dive would be so much cooler. Reward player ingenuity and the same will come back to you when you get that lucky shot.

The less respawns you have as an NPC means less chance to make the encounter memorable. So yes, it does become a bit more daunting, but it's a greater chance to shine bright. And who knows, that one shot normally meaningless NPC could even win you NPC of the month.
( www.knightrealms.com/monthly-awards/the-...the-month-12346.html )

Well said Steve. I support this 100%!

Thanks for all of your insights. It is helpful to know that other new players struggle with this (trying to do math while remembering skills and RP can be tricky in the beginning) and to see how experienced players strike a balance. All good things to think about.

One quick note about trying to do the math. I have been at KR for almost 10 years now and I thing I had to learn the hard way is trying to do math in the middle of battle in almost impossible. As Steve pointed out, err on the side of caution when playing something with let's say 400 body. If your taking 10's and 2's to the front and an 8 to the back, don't stand there and try to do the math it won't work, instead if you think you may have taken close to the 400 or even a little off, just go ahead and drop. If I have 400 body and took let's say 350 but i think I may have taken 400, there is nothing wrong with going down as no one expects you to get the math exactly right.

Also for combat RP, try moving around a lot and making the PC's work together even more then normal, sure there may be 6 of them, but if you keep moving around and growling or acting demonic, they'll back off a little and try something different.

Either way, make sure you are having as much fun as they are and GOOD LUCK!

If your worried about your monster being too weak and not enough of a challenge, try to go down on a tag skill hit and RP the hell out of it. Even if they feel you weren't a worthy challenge, they still will love to see thier tag skill have great effect. Even a high level has had thier tag skills defended against enough that they can appreciate and get excited watching thier tagged skills be effective.

Ok, pardon the new person question... a tag skill hit being like "Break Limb" or something similar as opposed to just an ordinary "8 damage" call?

Haha... good call, I suppose you wouldn't die on a break-limb now would you? But still I suppose the point was people like to see thier tagged skills land ...//... yes a tagged skill or periodic skill is basically a skill they can only use once per period per purchase, like crit-attack, break-limb, incapacitate etc..

"going down" on break limbs can be fun RP. You can RP with the enemies even when all 4 limbs are broken and you are on the ground.

I love rping getting knocked down or out by a tag skill. People love watching npcs flail amusingly

the true power level of knight realms characters will be inconceivable to you for quite some time, if not forever. the amount of build and silly items flying around has pushed combat math well beyond reasonable expectation. anyone who claims to be able to keep an accurate count is lying, either to you or themselves. it is likely that you will never be handed a card that is a true threat. this does not mean that you cannot still have fun or give those around you a good time, however! with true accountability down the toilet, the only factor left is good acting. if you can convince your opponent that you are, in fact, the monster or enemy that you have set out to be, you will have succeeded at your objective (entertaining yourself and the PCs). for example, last month Ben Herman(at least i think it was him!) was a fantastic goblin warrior. his stats were utter garbage, and he had zero hope of standing up to my pc. his answer to this conundrum was to embellish the impact of the strikes i delivered, even when they impacted his shield, and to attack me with a desperate frenzy that made me half expect him to try to claw my eyes. the result was not that i "felt good because my skills landed", but that both of us were satisfied to be able to deliver a convincing scene of what a strong warrior versus a very weak one might look like. always remember that we are here primarily to tell stories, and you'll do fine.

PS: i loved your attitude bringing my cigar back to me! glad you're having fun.

Made my day.

Yeah-- being an NPC can be a ton of fun! Don't expect to go in and drop pcs, but expect to play and portray a unique perspective! I mean, I can totally see your point, of getting dropped like a sack of hammers into the ocean during main mod, but sometimes you get to bite off some limbs on the way down.

Being that demonically altered tribal goblin, being a cackling mad ghoul, hell being the broken king-- its fun cause ya' kinda get to play it alittle different each time, right down to foot work, tactics, moral, fighting style, what you yell as take pain and give it-- all kinda part of selling the scene and enjoying/portraying another narrative, all be it a short lived one.

I really like my PC, Faila,, but after this discussion, I could I really see NPCing for a long time, to build my RP skills and my fighting skills.

Thanks to everyone for contributing to this discussion!

Crystal