NPC effectivness cannot be measured by BP cost, A Rant Options

[hyzmarca]

Recently, I posted an absurdly powerful female Iranian police officer archetype and the issue of BP cost for NPCs was raised. The idea of measuring "Prime runner" NPCs by BP cost is a huge pet peeve for me because BP cost cannot be used to measure the effectiveness of NPCs as opposition to the PCs.


As everyone should know, it is possible to spend an absurd number of BPs on totally worthless characters. A person can potentially create a character that is so statistically contradictory as to be good at nothing, either by design or due to a horrific lapse in judgment. This shouldn't be a controversial statement.

To understand how to create appropriate opposition for PCs, you should understand what types of PCs there are, of course. There are a great many dichotomies that people will set up. Mage vs. mundane and generalist vs. specialist are both popular, but the most important dichotomy is soloist vs. teamist.

"What do I mean by soloist and teamist?", you may ask. I mean just what it sounds like. Fundamentally, there are two types of characters. Those that are optimized function on their own and those that are optimized to function within a team. This difference is very important . A soloist is not necessarily a generalist and a teamist is not unnecessarily a specialist.

A soloist can be highly specialized or relatively generalized. Except in low-level games, he will not be a perfect generalist. If he is highly specialized, he will be specialized in a way that does not leave any glaring easily-exploitable and undependable weaknesses. Weakneses that he does have will be covered by equipment, contacts, or tactics. It is the lack of a glaring obvious weakness that is key to soloist builds.

A teamist may be highly specialized or highly generalized, but usually will have an obvious weakness. The key to the teamist build is that the teamist character assumes that he will be a member of a team and that the team will compensate for the character's weaknesses.

There are three important things to remember.

A soloist cannot defeat a team of his power level

A teamist alone cannot defeat a soloist of his power level

Teamists fighting teamists is like Mega Man 2. There are rock/paper/scisors style weaknesses, but they match up in unpredictable ways.

It two competent characters try to kill one competent character of the same power level, the two will win. If one character with a glaring weakness fights a character with no weaknesses, that glaring weakness will be effectively exploited.



Onto the opposition.

Hyzmarca's Zeroth Law of Opposition Design
BPs do not determine power level. Dice Pools determine power level.

Hyzmarca's First Law of Opposition Design
The distinction between mooks, "prime runners", critters, and spirit is artificial and ultimately meaningless.

If they have stats, then they're NPCs just like any other. It doesn't matter what those stats are. It doesn't matter if they were each stated separately or if they have one-size fits all stats. It doesn't even matter if they share an Edge pool. They're all practically the same.

Hyzmarca's Second Law of Opposition Design
Opposition NPCs are either soloists or teamists.

Mooks are nearly always teamists, as we know. They're made in mass and have group edge. This is important to remember because, in spite of their lower stats, they are damned powerful if played as a team.

When "prime runners" are teamists, they're absurdly powerful.


Hyzmarca's Third Law of Opposition Design
Teams get screwed by Teams of Teams
It is a trueism that a GM can increase the effectiveness of any team simply by adding more members, making individual NPC power levels irreverent. This is especially true of mooks, which can be duplicated with ease.

This can be a way to add challenge to a fight. It can also be a way to screw the PCs up their butts. They're comes a point when a single team becomes practically equivalent to a single character and a huge group of opposition becomes a team of teams.


Hyzmarca's Negative First Law of Opposition Design
A lone antagonist must be uniformly powerful

This is the entire point of the rant.

A single lone antagonist is worthless against a team unless that antagonists is uniformly powerful. If the antagonist has weaknesses, then it will fall quickly before the team members that it can't fight.

A single soloist antagonist will be fighting the team as a whole, not a single character at a time, and must be able to stand against the team as a whole and provide a challenge to the team as a whole. Thus, the lone antagonist must be a team unto herself and must have the stats to reflect this fact.

For this reason, spirits make the best solo antagonists. They have a force and their stats are nearly uniform based on this force. There is little practical difference between a solo Force 12 spirit antagonist and a solo Prime Runner antagonist with 12 in everything.

[Buster]

I surprised anyone still thinks that NPCs need to be built according to BP or karma. I'm curious, who was insisting on this?

This reminds me of the old D&D adventures where the king was always a 20th level Fighter even if he was 70 years old and never fought in a battle in his life. That was the only way the writers could justify why someone could have an entire kingdom of followers and retainers because the rules say so.

Character design rules only apply to players. NPCs never have BP or karma.

[bibliophile20]

[DireRadiant]

Why restrict this to NPCs?

[toturi]

Read what the Prime Runner creation rules are meant to do.

A Superior prime runner can outmatch any PC on a one to one basis, while the PCs working together as a team should be able to overcome him. Superhuman prime runners are so powerful that they can take on the entire PC group single-handedly and win. Use those BPs to create a NPC that matches the power level as stated in the book. How difficult is it to follow the rules? They are already there. BPs determine dice pools which determine power level.

The rules are already in there. Just follow them. RAW states that special characters called prime runners have BP and karma.

[Buster]

[Fortune]

[hyzmarca]

Superhuman Prime Runner 900 BP
Elf 30BP

Attributes 190 BP

Agility 2
Strength 1
Reaction 1
Body 2
Logic 6 (9)
Intuition 7
Charisma 3
Willpower 3

Special Attributes 10 BP
Magic 1
Essence 5.6
Edge 1

Active Skills 130 BP
Jumping 1
Climbing 1
Forgery 5
Pilot Watercraft 6 (Submarine +2)
Industrial Mechanic 6
Nautical Mechanic 6
Pilot Exotic Vehicle: Hot Air Balloon 7


Qualities 50 BP
Magician
Human Looking
Exceptional Attribute:Intuition
Aptitude: Pilot Exotic Vehicle: Hot air Balloon

'Ware 6BP
Cerebral Booster 2


Equipment 484 BP
1 GMC Banshee
Knowsoft 5 (German Opera)
13 Month mid Lifestyle

According to the book, this guy is supposed to be able to fight the entire team all at once and win.

Yes, that is certainly a horrific threat to the team there.

[Tarantula]

You can't have more than one aptitude, or more than one exceptional attribute.

[hyzmarca]

[Glyph]

Hmm. I agree with most of your rant - Build Points, by themselves, are a poor way to judge NPC power levels. Plus, it seems silly to go through the entire character creation process for an NPC. Simply assign logical numbers to whatever role the NPC plays, and be done with it.

I disagree with one part of your Negative First Law of Opposition Design, though. A single soloist antagonist might not be fighting the team as a whole. The solo antagonist might prefer a divide and conquer approach, or might be after only one member of the team. Your first law would apply to "end-of-level boss" type NPCs, but not other types such as assassins. The team doesn't typically hang out together 24-7 between runs, and outside of shadowrunning, they don't always have that priceless advantage of being the ones initiating the action.

[FriendoftheDork]

[Aaron]

I've been toying around with the concept of a Battle Value or some such, a la BattleTech, a game that also has two systems of purchase in which both systems are not precisely reflective of combat effectiveness.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Cweord]

As a I think a quip I made is what caused this Rant I feel I aught to chime in.

For Powerful NPCs (and the original Iranian Police Officer was Powerful) I tend to used BPs as much as anything to keep a check on what I'm doing, I don't limit the BPs and tend not to include gear and lifestyle.

What it does is give me a point of reference, not for the effectiveness of the NPC against the PCs but as a marker for me.

Your 900pt with the GMC banshee would be nasty in a submarine (pity he brought a banshee) - Nothing will counter bad decisions and make things comparable but if you take 2 sensibly created Prime Runners in a similar field and compare if give you something to work off.

My quip about the police officer was meant to be a joke saying 'how powerful', but I guess that didn't get through.

[Tarantula]

Even just going off the GMC banshee's dogbrain, a banshee is a credible threat to most runner teams. Up to 6 weapon mounts, and they have to do over 18P modified to even dent it.

[hyzmarca]

[Tarantula]

Actually, he still can take on the entire team. He just has to sit in his banshee and laugh at them. Its HIGHLY unlikely anyone could do damage to his T-Bird, much less get him out of it.

[hyzmarca]

Called shot to bypass armor. Spend Edge to make a longshot.

[hobgoblin]

a banshee doing a full speed ram (or anything at 201 or more) is doing 60 damage to anything it his!

the silly thing is that the banshee will have to resist 30 damage, even if all it hit was a person on the street...

that is unless im reading the ramming rules backwards...

[Tarantula]

[hyzmarca]

[hobgoblin]

[Tarantula]

Not to mention the ranges you're talking about, its a T-bird, I really doubt its inside 150m range shotguns can shoot.

[Cain]