How do I balance NPCs?

[incoghollowell]

So I've been interested in running a campaign of 6e for sometime now, I've finally gotten a good group of players who are interested in and want to play the system instead of the more common ones (5e, Cthulu, pathfinder etc) and I'm struggling on how to balance the NPCs and encounters. I'm guessing its not as simple as "they add up to X points and the party adds up to Y points X=Y therefore balanced". 

[sentry0]

Like many systems, designing an encounter is part art and part science.  I've had my players tear through an encounter I thought was hard because of some lucky die rolls and other that were nailbiters when they really shouldn't have been.

 

Campaign baselines are critical to make this work.  You need to know what is considered average in order to make any of this work IMO.

 

Generally speaking your average mook encounter should have lower CV and lower damage than the player average while an even super encounter would have about equal.  Sometimes that means dialing up CVs and attacks , sometimes that means dialing them down.  It's something that comes with time and experience and is most hard at the start of a campaign when you don't know all the PCs as well as you will in a few sessions.  Some players may have a nasty power that slipped by you in character creation that trivializes content, someone may be underpowered...

 

It's challenging but my advice is:

• Make sure you understand what your characters can do
• Go slow, setup a few mook encounters and get a feel for what your players can do
• Don't be afraid about dialing up or down NPCs powers and stats to fit into your world
• Design a variety of encounter types, not every encounter needs to be against equally powered foes
• Use your campaign baselines as a guideline to figure out if someone is less or more powerful than the players

 

Hope that helps... I know it's not as black and white as in some systems but it can be done.

[massey]

You need to know how tough your players' characters are.  Generally in Champions (completely dependent on the campaign, but generally), PCs will have attacks around 12 damage classes (like a 12D6 Energy Blast).  Their OCVs/DCVs will be around 8-9, and their Speeds will be 5-6.  Characters traditionally have defenses between 2 to 3 times their number of damage classes.  So a PC on the lower end of defense might have 25 Def or so, while someone on the upper end might have about 35.  They'll also normally have a Con score that is high enough so that whatever damage gets through their Defense (on an average roll) won't Con-Stun them.  They normally have enough Endurance for a full Turn of combat, and enough Stun that they can stay awake through 3-4 average hits.

 

So a normal PC might look something like this:

 

Bob the Brick

Str 60

Dex 18

Con 25

Speed 5

PD 35 (25 resistant)

ED 25 (25 resistant)

Endurance 50

Stun 50

OCV 8

DCV 6

 

That's a pretty tough starting PC, probably too tough for some people's games, and too weak for others.  He'd need skills and other abilities, of course, but this is a good example for our purposes.  So let's say there are 3 basic types of opponents that Bob the Brick might have to face:  agents, other supers, and master villains. 

 

Agents have to team up to defeat a PC.  One on one, player characters should cream them, often with a single hit.  An agent might have a special weapon or something that can harm the super (Bob the Brick doesn't have any Flash Defense, so agents with flashbang grenades might be able to temporarily blind him), but it's work to do so.  Agents usually need the element of surprise, and they have to coordinate their tactics, and maybe even with all that they have to get lucky as well, to be a threat to the PCs.  Agents generally have lower Speed scores, way less Defense, less OCV and DCV, way less Stun, and they don't hit as hard as PCs.  Some GMs like to take agents and power them up, making two agents (or even one) a threat to a PC, but I think this is a huge mistake.

 

Sample Agent Man

Str 10, Dex 14, Con 13

PD 10 (5 res), ED 10 (5 res), Stun 25

OCV 5, DCV 4, Speed 3

Blaster rifle -- 9D6 Energy Blast, 32 charges OAF

Flashbang grenade -- 6D6 Flash vs Sight & Hearing, AE Hex, 1 charge OAF

 

Bob the Brick can take on 4 or 5 of these guys without too much worry.  Theoretically they could drop flashbangs on him as soon as his eyes clear from the previous one, and you can drag this fight out over the course of a few turns.  You can whittle down Bob's Stun total by blinding him, then having everyone coordinate their attacks and blast him.  Just remember that agents are there to make heroes look good, and they shouldn't operate as a perfectly coordinated team -- they aren't the main characters.  If Bob picks up a delivery van and hurls it at a group of agents, even if they dive for cover out of the way, they're as likely to drop their guns and run away as they are to stay and fight.

 

Other supers can be built on roughly equal points to your PCs.  Remember that villains usually aren't as fleshed out as PCs.  Villains normally don't spend points on wealth, or a lot of skills, or other roleplaying elements.  So make sure that a 400 point PC isn't totally outclassed by a 400 point villain who only bought combat abilities.  Ask yourself -- how often will he hit the PCs?  Can he Con-Stun the PC in one shot?  Does he have attacks that they don't have defenses for?  How long will it take the PC to chew through this guy's Stun total?

 

Other supers can be brought to heel by some critical weakness.  Let's say you have The Titanium Terror, some cyborg super-robot thing that is a carbon copy of Bob the Brick's stats.  Well that's going to be a real rough fight for Bob.  He's 50% likely to lose.  But remember, we don't want Bob to lose, because he's the hero.  There is a player who created Bob and that's his character, and if Bob loses then the player has nothing to do and now he wants to go home.  You're the GM, and if Titanium Terror loses, you've got a lot more villains where he came from.  He's not your only character.  So maybe you give your cyborg robot-thing a Vulnerability: x2 Stun from electrical attacks.  Now Bob doesn't have electrical attacks (he's just big and strong), but when you set up the battle you make sure to set it near a substation or a power plant or something.  At least put some high tension lines nearby.  And then you can drop a hint in your description that when Bob punches the robot, sparks come out or something, and maybe that makes a light-bulb go on in the player's head.

 

Master villains are designed to fight the whole team.  I'd recommend getting copies of your players' character sheets, taking them home, and running a few mock combats against your master villain ideas.  If the villain cleans their clocks really easily, then he's too tough.  If he loses within 2 or 3 phases, then he's probably too weak.  I'd actually recommend cheating a little bit.  Give him +50 Stun, "only during the first turn" or something like that.  That way if they players do really well and KO your guy in the first phase, he stays up anyway.  You clearly underestimated them.  On the other hand, you might want to put him in a big explosive lab as well.  If he is taking your heroes to school, blowing them apart with no problems, maybe you give a hint to one of your last heroes standing that Professor Executioner is standing right in front of that big glowing reactor...

 

Master villains will usually have a few more points of Defense than the average hero, 2 or 3 more damage classes, 2 or 3 higher OCV, and maybe 2 extra Speed.  Give them 50% more Stun since they're fighting a group of heroes, and that should be about right.

 

Professor Executioner

Str 60, Dex 25, Con 30

PD 35 (35 res), ED 35 (35 res), Stun 75

OCV 10, DCV 8, Speed 7

Executioner Beam -- 14D6 Energy Blast

Energy Field -- 7D6 Entangle

Rocket Boots -- 30 meters Flight

 

[Manic Typist]

Most stats aren't relevant - only worry about the stats most likely to come up.

 

Low level opposition - don't track their Endurance or Recovery, since the fight will be over before that could become relevant.

 

Also, don't feel the need to build every ability out - you have an infinite budget and know you CAN achieve any build... so you don't need to do the homework. However, be generous in working with players to confront these abilities, so you don't accidentally create an impossible to beat build.

[Spence]

It is really difficult to answer your question as presented.  

Especially not knowing genre or build points. 

Superhero, Fantasy Hero and so on. 

 

But regardless of that, Manic Typist hits the nail on the head.  Back in ancient times when I started running Champions, I spent uncounted hours building out everything.   And by everything, I mean everything.  NPC's, trees, building, walls and so on. 

 

Now I have a cheat sheet of common material defense and body values for 'stuff'.  For creatures or NPC's I rarely build them out.  I just note key stats and roll with it.  If the NPC/Creature becomes a "named" threat or recurring one, I will perform a complete build.  Since my 'supers' worlds tend to have low populations of 'supers' I am more inclined to build out supervillains at the start.  But overall, short notes and stat blocks are what I use.

 

In the end, regardless of game system, the GM has to be able to adjust on the fly for the players. 

From my localized experience, new hero GM's can be blinded by the systems build system and trap themselves into thinking that they have to build everything.  And it doesn't help that a lot of herodom enjoys building stuff almost as much and they enjoy playing.

 

In the end just build the minimum that you need to frame the adventure.  Let the players run and adapt to the story as it unfolds.   A group of purest Cthulhu horror players tend to expect their PC's to go insane and/or die.  A group of supers gamers tend to want to be able barely triumph after a grueling super-battle where they have had the opportunity to display their awesomeness. 

 

Each genre has it's own version of "cool success" and it is the job of the GM to set the stage so the players can succeed. 

But....

That does not mean the GM is simply there to be walked on by the players.  Make sure to have fun too

 

[Tech]

For an even fight, build the opposition about the same power level as the heroes, but give them slightly lower stats here & there, perhaps a vulnerability you know one of the heroes has. If you find you built the bad guys weak and if the players are enjoying the battle, great! The same applies to if you built them more powerful and the players enjoy the villain. However, take note if if you find the opposition is too weak/strong and during the game, weaken/strengthen them without telling the players and rebuild them later. Depending on your campaign, any campaign limits/maximum, etc, take those into account.

 

 

[archer]

17 hours ago, sentry0 said:

Like many systems, designing an encounter is part art and part science.  I've had my players tear through an encounter I thought was hard because of some lucky die rolls and other that were nailbiters when they really shouldn't have been.

 

Campaign baselines are critical to make this work.  You need to know what is considered average in order to make any of this work IMO.

 

Generally speaking your average mook encounter should have lower CV and lower damage than the player average while an even super encounter would have about equal.  Sometimes that means dialing up CVs and attacks , sometimes that means dialing them down.  It's something that comes with time and experience and is most hard at the start of a campaign when you don't know all the PCs as well as you will in a few sessions.  Some players may have a nasty power that slipped by you in character creation that trivializes content, someone may be underpowered...

 

 

Excellent points. I'd like to add that I sometimes provisionally approve some powers by letting the player know in advance that I don't know how what he wrote up will actually play: sometimes it's tough to tell when there's a million powers and a million advantages on a single character. So when I'm not sure my answer is a flat "no you can't play that", I'll instead say, "Let's try it for a few encounters and if it's a problem, I'll refund the points for you to buy something else".

 

Also with players who are new to the system and didn't have help writing up their character, I'll let them do a free re-write of the same character after a few sessions. They'll generally have a better idea of how the system works by then and whether their character is over-powered, under-powered, under-skilled, immobile, etc. compared to the other players. After the players do a re-write and get it approved, their characters are generally clustered closer to the same level of ability and that makes it a lot easier to balance NPC's for encounters.

 

 

[archer]

I don't worry as much about balancing an encounter when it's on the bad guy's home turf. You can always have a new flood of goons come in through the back door, have the hovertanks arrive, have the hidden machine gun turrets activate, have the Big Bad Evil Guy's twin brother wake up from all the racket, etc.

 

On the flip side, it's casual Friday and most of the goons aren't dressed in their armored costumes, there's a factory recall on the hovertanks, the machine gun turrets remain hidden or get an activation roll, and the Big Bad Evil Guy's twin brother remains unknown until ten sessions later when he shows up to avenge his brother's death.

 

(Yes, the Big Bad Evil Guy has an Evil Twin.)