Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 princess_artemis Mar 07, 2010 14:04:48	Relatively recently, the DM for a two person game with DM playing the third character in our three PC band has been rolling and fully statting out NPCs as PCs.  It started out when my half elf went back to the village of his birth after an extended absence.  Turns out his dad is an epic level character...and he has been weird and not quite how he ought to be, but there is zero point in trying to use insight on him to tease out why from our lowly levels of 8, since there is no way to beat his passive bluff (IIRC, the one of us with the highest insight rolled a 20 and got nothing off him).  So we stopped trying.  Never mind he's my dad, he's my somehow hanging out in his treehouse epic level dad and therefore I can't read him at all. Then it was my character's ex-girlfriend who got the complete PC treatment.  This turned out to be not such a bad thing because she and her ranger ICBM arrows temporarily helped replace the two other PCs in the party who had been kidnapped while I went to go rescue them. Now its a childhood nemesis that has seriously gone around the bend and us fully intent on killing me.  We got into a fight with him last night.  We play online and I had mentioned it before to the other player (the DM's spouse) that I thought we shouldn't be fighting a fully statted out PC.  The guy is a fully kitted out ranger who is at least level 9, I'm a level 8 fey warlock, and considering how the guy was concentrating fire, it literally was by only 1 HP that he didn't outright kill me.  My mention of the PCness of the enemy obviously got back to DM because he contacted me outside our regular channel to mention I'd survived 3 dailies, 2 encounters, and Elven accuracy off this guy (this is after the cleric saved my bleeding all over the place pincushion from death).  I said barely, and he said it wasn't the point. After the fight, he said he hadn't fudged the numbers at all, if I was wondering about it, and I honestly was because durring the fight he was asking me all sorts of questions about how many HP I had and my bloodied value, and then announced the damage, which happened to be 1 HP off from killing me.  He said he hadn't, but asked because he knew he was close and was wondering if he was going to need to bring in some divine intervention.  That tells me he clearly did not want me to die straight out from his PC ranger of doom.  Except...that easily could have happened in ways that I'm not so sure it would have been so easy with a normally statted NPC monster.  I'm not real clear on what designates an elite or a solo critter, but I am pretty sure it is hardness to kill + lots of powers.  This PC turned enemy was not actually that hard to hit and did not have as many HP, but he had a ton more powers that hit harder than the elites and solos we have fought before (last one was a level 6 solo that the cleric essentially shut down with one of her debuffs).  And of course he brought four friends with him.  Those mooks we didn't kill ran, as did the PC turned bad guy after we knocked him down but a convenient cleric friend of his own brought him back. I have not been comfortable for a while with DM statting out NPCs as PCs.  Sure, stat them out if they are going to be PCs for a while (we are just three, so if it's going to stay three, a companion character probably won't cut it since DM doesn't adjust down for how many of us there are AFAIK), but otherwise...they are NPCs or monsters, make them NPCs or monsters.  I don't think that barely surviving a fight with one that we technically only won because the badies ran justifies a near PvP in a game that never had them before. Thing is, I don't think I can say anything about this.  I have not yet found a reliable channel to communicate with the DM since we started playing; he only sporadically replies to e-mails, sometimes uses his wife as a go-between (and really, she's my friend and all, but I'm not that comfortable grouching about her husband's gaming behavior in hopes it will reach his ears, nor am I that comfortable with her as a go-between even if she does translate us fairly well, seeing as how it's entirely online and she knows both of us pretty well), and he clearly thinks there is nothing at all at issue with having an enemy statted out as a PC, simply because no one died.  One which will be reoccurring.
#2 tubaman Mar 07, 2010 15:53:21	it sounds like your DM wants to play a D&D game where he makes all the decisions and controls everything.  With each paragraph i read, i just thought to myself "man, i would NEVER play in this guy's game" the PCs are the heros, they are the movers and shakers of the world, and should be the main people in a campaign.  If your DM continually hogs the Hero spotlight with his N"PC"s, then tell him you aren't interested. In our group, a different person who DMs our games occasionally kitted out a kobold with our first magic item and made him a fighter.  Well, the fighter had a reliable 3x weapon damage power.....he critted with the power and KILLED our paladin flat out....the paladin wasn't at full, but wasn't bloodied - and there were other monsters in the fight too. If your DM is going to give a class to an NPC, he should start with a monster (or something built on the monster builder, then apply an elite template to it from the DMG 1 or 2 to give it a class.  Keep in mind this new character will be a challenge for TWO on-level PCs. If your DM wants to pit your characters against fully set up PCs he's playing, just tell him to flip a coin, its faster and will actually favor the player PCs more.  I would talk to this DM and ask him to change the way he runs, or make him a player and you run, or find a new group
#3 princess_artemis Mar 07, 2010 16:57:47	I'm not sure if he's that type of DM; we (his wife and I) have never played before 4e came out, and have been regularly ever since, so I don't have a lot of experience with DMs.  I do know that he has completely thrown out plans he's made when he realized that our characters (not his--he keeps his PC out of the decision making for the most part) really would never have any interest or motivation for doing anything related to them.  Though sometimes I wonder, since I have definitely felt rails, and gotten the feeling he wanted to do something and was going to find a way to make sure we did it, no matter what we'd decided about it.  They are roleplaying things, ideas he got, but we are very heavy roleplayers. So I don't know if it's a matter of him trying to have his NPCs play hero or hog the spotlight.  The enemy-PC guy and the whole elf forest was actualy my idea and the other player's idea--we made them up, and he ran with it...though admittedly he ran a lot farther with it than we though he would and neither of us suggested making the guy a fully kitted out PC to try to kill my character.  I fully expected the guy would come back to try to kill me, just not as a complete PC with all the feats and powers alotted to one.  As far as I know, the rest of the mooks with him were regular monsters. I completely agree with you though, the enemy evil vendeta guy should have been made with the DMG 1 or 2 templates.  That would have made him plenty tough enough withought getting ridiculous.  He could have still filled me full of arrows and been dangerous.  And then there wouldn't have been the danger like you talked about with the kobold fighter.  I am very lucky the PC-as-enemy never critted me. I'll consider how I ought to go about talking to him.  I'm not sure if I can DM for a while...though I suppose I could try it; he might welcome the chance to play for a while.  Finding a new group is really a sticky proposition--like I said, we roleplay very heavily, so I'm very invested in it all, plus it would leave my friend hanging along with all the awkwardness of 'I don't want to play in your husband's game anymore'.  I have circumstances that make new groups a difficult thing.  I'll think of something.  As I said, I am new with 4e, only started playing when it came out, so I'm not sure how much balance of "throw dice at the system/DM" frustration there should be vs. "Damn this is a fun game!"  And it really is!
#4 tubaman Mar 08, 2010 9:47:44	one more possibility, that might help your fun and his: i'm gathering, from your posts, that you play in a 3 person group? 2 players and one DM? if so, an option you COULD try, though it might be difficult, would be to have two characters each....if not two full characters, then a character and a companion character each. I started a game last night as a player, it was a pure dungeon crawl with no DM (we each rolled on a random room generator, and a random monster generator, and placed our room elements and monsters as we felt they should act).  I created an 11th level dragonborn ranger (the whole party is dragonborn - as strikery a party as i've ever seen) who really has no personality, aside from liking to hear how good he is.  I made the character in about 20 minutes so i could get to where they were playing on time. I realized that with no personality, he was a collection of numbers, so i decided to have some fun.  I only had one personality bit really created - he liked hearing how good he was.  So i threw two minis into my bag and arrived where we were playing.  I introduced my character, and Chunther, his kobold follower-lackey.  I made sure the kobold had NO impact on combat at all (he waited by the door to each area and stayed out of the way).  After each fight, he would help me check bodies and would proceed to tell me how well i did in the fight. after the second fight, where he got distracted and climbed into a pit to check out the green goo at the bottom, he tried to tell me how well i did again.  My character yelled at him cuz he couldn't see me during the fight, and during our short rest, i sat him down and gave him a stern talking to about honesty. The extra character, and the interplay between the two really kicked off the whole feel of a character who fights like a madman, but still keeps enough presence of mind to keep his vanity intact. a further option, since you said your characters had no motivation to do anything important (not sure i read that part correctly) - make your characters based on a theme of some sort.  I gen'd characters for the game i'm running, i gave each character 2 very significant things they've done in the past (got separated from their unit and lived among the enemy for 2 months, lived on the shadowfell their whole childhood with a close friend who betrayed them, forced into service for an evil entity and had memory erased), followed by a reason that they're here NOW (suddenly felt the disappearance of the evil entity controlling life as you were dispatched on an assassination mission aboard the airship "providence," or escaped from jail after being branded a traitor to your dwarven clan and stowed away aboard the airship "providence," etc.) each thing gave the characters tons to roleplay, and while the STORY will go on as I, the DM lay it out and the characters progress around it, the characters also have ties and motivations and hidden agendas that they are trying to balance throughout this (the character who escaped service to the evil power on his way to an assassination ended up meeting his assassination target - who learned who he was and tried to call for the guards while begging for his life against a character who no longer wanted to kill him.....all in front of a VERY confused party!)
#5 princess_artemis Mar 08, 2010 13:44:22	Yes, it is three people, 2 players and 1 DM who plays a third character to offset the fact that there are just two players.  So far that part has worked fairly well.  Adding more PCs right now would probably be really weird as far as roleplaying goes.  I would find it less fun, I think. It wasn't that our characters have no motivation to do anything important, it is more our characters and DM have no motivation to do hack n' slash with a glaze of plot.  We were at first doing the prepublished Keep on the Shadowfell and on series, and when the DM got to the point of trying to hook us into Thunderspire, he made a tactical decision that gave him some time to decide to commit to Thunderspire, because he was pretty dissatisfied with the story and the high levels of nonsense in Keep on the Shadowfell and knew that we were, too (I have it on good authority he about spit nails when he got to the end of it and saw a vast nothing, no wrap up at all).  He did add some pretty cool stuff that made it better, though, and his wrap up was much better than...nothing.  The tactical decision was hooking us by having two of our three plus a lot of my character's home villagers part of the captured slaves.  So by the time my character had rescued my friends with the help of some companions, DM had read it and decided that really, he didn't like it as a story, there was every chance we wouldn't like it as a story, and our characters would have very little motivation at all to do anything there beyond rescuing captured slaves (I've never read it, so I don't know if it has a slow draw in the way Keep does, but I'm guessing it doesn't, either that or the way the DM played the slaver part cut it off enough that it would have been hard to get our characters interested in staying past that point...and besides, DM thought poorly of it, so why run something he would have no fun plus knowing there would be a high likelyhood of us taking levels in hating this campaign?).  So when they were rescued, he made sure we had no reason whatsoever to stay there by introducing (with consent of the other player) some pretty severe injuries to both captured PCs, and my character's companions had gotten what they wanted and would go no further, so naturally we went back to the elf village to recuperate. Right now we are doing some other questing things involved in helping the DM's PC recuperate, so he's off the stage for the moment.  We found a druid to help, so hopefully soon we will get DM's PC back and things will be more normal, and we'll go from there--there have been many questions dropped along the way that we would very likely look into and they are important (blue dragons don't just come out of nowhere, plus there is that whole mess with my character's hated childhood bully out to kill him).  I did e-mail him last night about the PC-as-enemy situation, hopefully that will be resolved in a satisfactory way rather than leave the guy as a PC-as-enemy. So it's not like we don't have motivation to do important things.  There are plenty of things my character is curious about and is interested in doing that would probably lead to lots of fighting, and they are heroic, important, planar power-shifting sorts of things--and the other PCs are either interested to extremely keen on helping him with this.  So they aren't unimportant in the world.  The characters just tend not to go charging in being heroes for the sake of being heroes.  That's not what they're like.  ETA: And I feel I need to stress these things are things the DM has introduced, so we, our characters, are interested in his world.
#6 nikitadarkstar Mar 08, 2010 15:18:54	I'm not sure if I'm reading you right, but if none of you have played before have you considered the fact that this might just be your DM beeing somewhat inexperienced? Is he aware of the elité template and how to use it? One thing you could do is stat up the NPC's in a way you think is better, show it to him and show him why you think your way is better, bonus points if it's easier to handle for the DM. I however admit I havn't DM'd before (and I play in a 3.5 campaign.) so I can't exactly offer specifics, but to me this jsut sounds like inexperience with the rules and various ways of doing things getting the better of your DM and hopefully that won't be to hard to fix.
#7 princess_artemis Mar 08, 2010 16:03:02	I'm not sure if I'm reading you right, but if none of you have played before have you considered the fact that this might just be your DM beeing somewhat inexperienced? Is he aware of the elité template and how to use it? One thing you could do is stat up the NPC's in a way you think is better, show it to him and show him why you think your way is better, bonus points if it's easier to handle for the DM. I however admit I havn't DM'd before (and I play in a 3.5 campaign.) so I can't exactly offer specifics, but to me this jsut sounds like inexperience with the rules and various ways of doing things getting the better of your DM and hopefully that won't be to hard to fix. DM has DMed and played for many many years, and he does a good bit of it for local game shops in his area of the country.  It is only me and the other player that started with 4e, and we've been playing since it came out (we are only level 8 because online can be quite slow, and we RP very heavily).  I know that when we first started he had to shake some 3.5 habits.  Having no experience with 3.5, I don't know if it's normal to fully stat out an NPC as a PC, much less create enemy characters that way. As far as the templates go, I think he is aware of them because he (AFAIK) applied one to a Keep on the Shadowfell character to make her more interesting (of course, adjusting the character's levels down because a vampire lord template can't be applied to anything lower than 11 if you go strictly by the book).  One way or another, a character in it turned into a vampire, and it wasn't because WotC made it that way, and that action made the game a whole lot more interesting. I will grant it was probably easier for him to do, as the Character Builder is right there, but there are no easy to use tools to create a ranger enemy from templates that I know of (does the beta Monster Builder have them?).  I have a feeling that, having already statted the character out before he turned into a enemy character, that he may have wanted to play with the new options freshly available in MP2, as he mentioned some of them.  I guess he rebuilt the character.  I also will grant he might not have thought of using the templates--I really don't ascribe any malice or anything to it.  It may be as I have heard, that it's just his style to do things extremely off the cuff, and it may be that, after being frustrated by that style many many times, I may have to say I just can't do it anymore, much as I love playing with them otherwise. If I don't get a reply to the e-mail I already sent (which mentions the templates), or if he replies with something that doesn't make sense to me (I can be persuaded if there is a good reason for it beyond "Hey, you survived fighting him!"), then I'll try to make a nasty ranger baddy with the proper templates to suggest he use in place, or fiddle with so it fits better with how he envisioned said baddy.
#8 nikitadarkstar Mar 08, 2010 16:33:55	Yhea, that doesn't sound like just a newbie screwup then. Granted my DM does make NPC's in that way from time to time, simply because he doesn't always know if the character in question will end up as a friend or foe. (We're also IM based, heavily into the RP and sometimes diplomacy checks can have some pretty interesting results), BUT he has sense to tone them down if they end up as baddies. Anyway, I wish you luck with sorting this out with your DM, since you seem to like both him and the other players and the campaign it would be a shame to see it fall apart over something as silly (because really it is when it comes down to it, and no I don't mean that in an insulting way.) as how he builds his npc's. Another option ofcourse would be to offer to find another DM, or DM yourself (if you feel up to it.. i've been a 3.5 player for a few years now and I still don't dare to touch the DMG :p) and well pretty much give hima  dose of his own medecine just to show him why PC's don't make good enemies.
#9 weenog42 Mar 08, 2010 17:27:11	Using PC creation rules for NPCs is bad news.  PCs have a lot less HP, but through the use of healing surges can sustain more damage over time.  PCs have powerful Daily powers, while monsters have powers that recharge during combat.  Fighting monsters is a matter of conserving resources for the PCs - daily powers, item powers, surges, consumables.  This is because, as a rule, monsters are only around for one battle.  So - does the DM expect that you will fight against these NPCs?  If so, they are monsters, and should be creating with monster rules. There aren't many hard and fast rules for changing monsters, beyond leveling them up or down, and applying templates.  It's more of an artform than a science.  You can certainly steal attacks from other monsters, or steal a class-defining ability (and scale the damage according to monster level), or simply swap keywords or damage types. Don't know how to create a NPC Ranger as a monster?  Okay, start with an existing monster and give it some iconic ranger characteristics.  An archer Ranger would be based off an Artillery monster; a melee ranger would be based on a Skirmisher.  Give it a "twin strike" at-will attack power that makes two attacks, but with smaller modifiers.  Give it a Hunter's Quarry that adds a small amount of damage, again based on level (say 1d6 to start).  Is this NPC an Elf?  Give him Wild Step.  Poof.  Ranger.
#10 tubaman Mar 08, 2010 17:42:26	there are plenty of tools to create whatever you want...the monster builder has loads of things in it to help. just off the top of my head, you could take an elf archer or elf skirmisher (both level 2), add 6 to their attacks and defenses, level up their hitpoints, add 3 to damage (1 per 2 levels).  You could apply a rangery power to them...something like two-fanged strike or a 2[W] + dex shot that knocks the target down for an archer. the key thing is that NPCs shouldn't have dailies (with very few exceptions....some of the later books present final bosses, elites and solos, creatures like liches with an occasional daily power).  They should have a basic attack, maybe an at-will non-basic attack with a minor effect associated with their role (some paragon level soldiers immobilize or knock-down instead of marking), 1 or 2 encounter powers or not-too-powerful recharge powers (definitely one if non-elite) that do a bit more....skirmishers might slide a target, controllers might daze, there are some artillery that immobilize.  Finally, many monsters have one move or minor ability, something like a move action 1/encounter to shift 4 squares, or a minor action do a class or role related thing (kobolds shift as a minor, a rangery character could quarry, but it should be a 5/6 recharge or so). off the top of my head, i can remember one NPC i designed....non-elite, level 2 for my campaign based off the elf archer. basic attack longbow shot for 1[W] + stat at will attack twinstrike-like shot, attack - 2 vs two targets, 1[W] + stat (penalty to attack instead of damage) encounter power to deal 2[W] + stat + 5 and knock the target down.....this attack also dazed the elf archer until the start of his next turn (drawback) quarry +1d6 damage as a minor action....quarry only lasts til end of next turn with a 5/6 recharge immediate reaction when hit or missed by a melee or close attack, shift 1 and gain concealment and combat advantage against the attacker until the end of the elf's next turn, recharge 6 something like this would work quite well as your nemesis.....its as powerful as you are, essentially, but without the things that make your character HEROIC, like action points and dailies. non-elite monsters should always be slightly less powerful than PCs....similar hit points, attacks, defenses, and damage, but slightly fewer options.
#11 princess_artemis Mar 08, 2010 17:47:05	Yhea, that doesn't sound like just a newbie screwup then. Granted my DM does make NPC's in that way from time to time, simply because he doesn't always know if the character in question will end up as a friend or foe. (We're also IM based, heavily into the RP and sometimes diplomacy checks can have some pretty interesting results), BUT he has sense to tone them down if they end up as baddies. Anyway, I wish you luck with sorting this out with your DM, since you seem to like both him and the other players and the campaign it would be a shame to see it fall apart over something as silly (because really it is when it comes down to it, and no I don't mean that in an insulting way.) as how he builds his npc's. Another option ofcourse would be to offer to find another DM, or DM yourself (if you feel up to it.. i've been a 3.5 player for a few years now and I still don't dare to touch the DMG :p) and well pretty much give hima  dose of his own medecine just to show him why PC's don't make good enemies. Thanks for the wishes of luck.  I know ultimately that it's a game (though a very emotionally investing one), and in the overall, it could be far far worse.  I don't think this will break anything apart.  If it comes apart because of me, I think it will take a few more coppers in getting silver and coppered to death with things that drive me up the wall. Like I said above, I think I just need to find the best balance between "frustrated enough to throw dice at system/DM" and "I really love playing this game". Using PC creation rules for NPCs is bad news.  PCs have a lot less HP, but through the use of healing surges can sustain more damage over time.  PCs have powerful Daily powers, while monsters have powers that recharge during combat.  Fighting monsters is a matter of conserving resources for the PCs - daily powers, item powers, surges, consumables.  This is because, as a rule, monsters are only around for one battle.  So - does the DM expect that you will fight against these NPCs?  If so, they are monsters, and should be creating with monster rules. He fully expects that we will fight against the one.  We did fight him, and yes, we brought him down, but he had a mook with him that could cast Healing Word twice and brought the guy back up so he could be a recurring enemy. There aren't many hard and fast rules for changing monsters, beyond leveling them up or down, and applying templates.  It's more of an artform than a science.  You can certainly steal attacks from other monsters, or steal a class-defining ability (and scale the damage according to monster level), or simply swap keywords or damage types. Don't know how to create a NPC Ranger as a monster?  Okay, start with an existing monster and give it some iconic ranger characteristics.  An archer Ranger would be based off an Artillery monster; a melee ranger would be based on a Skirmisher.  Give it a "twin strike" at-will attack power that makes two attacks, but with smaller modifiers.  Give it a Hunter's Quarry that adds a small amount of damage, again based on level, say 1d6.  Is this NPC an Elf?  Give him Wild Step.  Poof.  Ranger. I know how to do it; or at least, I know what pages to look in the DMGs to make a Ranger enemy.  It'll take a little work, I know.  I do know one of the powers this particular guy had, and could take a stab at the others, plus I know what melee weapons he has.  Not sure about the bow.  Level I don't know, stats I don't know except that they were rolled, not an array or point buy.  (Then, ours are rolled, too).  Those are the only thing I'm unsure of on how I could best try to duplicate this particular bad guy without him being a PC.  He was just...ridiculous as an enemy.  Yeah, ultimately he wasn't extremely hard to hit, or take down, but he had a laundry list of powers and feats that no monster should have unless they are a really high level, which he wasn't.  But if I'm going to make him to offer as an alternative, I'm sure the DM can substitute the correct powers he would choose to have for him (just not three daily level powers, because come on, a heroic level elite isn't going to have that many powers like that). ETA: Tubaman, thanks for the further info.  I'll poke around the Monster Creator to see what I can do with it, too, if need be.
#12 princess_artemis Mar 10, 2010 1:45:12	Thought I'd give a bit of an update on the situation. DM didn't e-mail me back; he waited until I got online with my friend, the other player, his wife, to convey his question that he didn't quite understand what my issue was.  He didn't understand my PvP issue at all...I suppose I didn't explain it quite right.  She said he didn't reply because he wasn't sure what to say.  So I told her my concerns, which incidentally she shared to a degree, and we talked about a few things, one being that she had seen him making an enemy character with templates and that she would take the PC as enemy any day of the week the templated one was such a piece of work (and I am pretty alarmed about that as there are intimations that the two are working together!), and that reportedly the PC as enemy was not templated partly for story purposes and partly because he said he would have been even worse as a monster using the templates.  How that could be I'm not sure--she mentioned his defences would have skyrocketted and his attack bonus would have gone from +14 to +17.  He had magic weapons...I haven't built monsters before, just fiddled with them, but would a monster's natural attack be that much higher than a PC's with magic weapons and proficiency at level 10? Acting as go-between, she took my elaborated upon concerns (I apparently was not clear enough about it e-mailing him) and discussed them, wherein he reportedly said at first he saw no problem with it, the PC as enemy was not overpowered, while she pointed out that he was, because he was doing the kind of damage expected to be done against monsters with 200+ HP, not PCs with 66 HP (and, of course, he's a ranger, pretty much the top of the line in striking).  Reportedly she felt he understood her point, though he joked that we could handle it. And that is all I have to go on at this point.  I must admit that this is quite frustrating as this is another of several times that the DM has chosen to talk to me through the other player rather than talk directly to me about my concerns, and I have no real way of knowing for sure he really did get what we were both, as it turns out, concerned about, that he was bringing an overpowered bad guy to the table, one that is intended to have a recurring role.  So...unless I hear something more, which I don't think I will, I won't know if the DM pulled the PC-as-enemy back a couple notches.  I do know that he has no intention of statting him out as a monster in any way, shape, or form.  I'm not entirely sure I fully accept his reasoning to stat him out as a PC, but I am pretty sure I have no choice but to deal with it if I want to continue playing.  Fortunately it's just the one enemy.
#13 tubaman Mar 10, 2010 9:01:25	your DM seems not to understand how to apply templates.  You might want to print this out for him, minus this little bit at the top.  You'll quickly see, upon reading this, that it sounds like your DM is applying bonuses to templated monsters that aren't supposed to be added. #1 monsters gain NO +hit/+damage bonus from magic weapons....NONE, NADA, ZIP....its a bonus already factored in.  They can use weapon powers, and they gain the properties, but even that should be used sparingly and count as some of their combat powers anyways (a vanguard weapon on a level 1 soldier, for example, is over the top, as it makes him deal nearly double damage on a charge, making him a walking terror for a party with high +hit and high defenses from soldier, and now dealing damage on par with lurkers) #2 applying templates to an existing monster should not significantly change the defenses....applying the rogue template to a monster for example gives it a +2 reflex...thats it.  monster defenses don't work like player defenses.  Look at the elf archer in the MM....16 or 18 dex and leather armor....yet they have an AC of 13.  Monster defenses are already applied via role, adding class templates will generally ONLY give them the class secondary defense bonuses (i believe ranger is +1 fort, +1 reflex)....the armor proficiencies chage what they would be wearing, not what their AC becomes. #3 monsters gain no +hit bonuses from changing to an elite or solo, even through a template.  The young white dragon....a level 3 solo brute, has a +4 to hit with its normal attack i believe....it also have a few hundred hitpoints....thats to rectify it's lack of actions versus an entire party.  That being said, a +17 to hit at level 10 is ridiculous FOR A MONSTER....PCs can probably pull that off, but the highest you'll generally see a monster +hit (the very highest) is level + 5, and that usually only on a soldier or a low damage artillery. #4 non-player characters get 1 healing surge per level, and no way to use it.  unless they have an ability (some monsters have a "second wind" ability) or are healed by a third party, they cannot use that surge.  Even if they are healed or can second wind, they can still only spend the ONE surge they have. #5 elite and solo enemies of the party are meant to have hp two to five times higher than the PCs....they are equivalent to two to five party members of that level as a challenge.  If it is a two person game, an elite of one level higher than the party is an encounter of level +1 already.  The elite gets less actions (200+ hitpoints at level 9-11 isn't bad when the party gets 2 actions to the monster's one) than the party, with only 1 action point to make up for it.  Generally the only change to elite or solo monsters is +2 or +5 (elites/solos) to saves, +class defense bonuses, and a few more abilities - NOT dailies - in order to keep the fight from being a basic attack slugfest for 10 rounds.
#14 princess_artemis Mar 10, 2010 13:06:19	#1 monsters gain NO +hit/+damage bonus from magic weapons....NONE, NADA, ZIP....its a bonus already factored in.  They can use weapon powers, and they gain the properties, but even that should be used sparingly and count as some of their combat powers anyways (a vanguard weapon on a level 1 soldier, for example, is over the top, as it makes him deal nearly double damage on a charge, making him a walking terror for a party with high +hit and high defenses from soldier, and now dealing damage on par with lurkers) I just looked into it, and actually, yes, they do.  They just don't benefit as much from a magic item as a PC does.  A tenth level NPC or monster given a +3 magic weapon will only get +2 out of it.  On the other hand, a 30th level monster/NPC with a +6 weapon will only get to use +1 out of it. Take a look at page 174 in the DMG. Class templates on monsters do allow, at level 1-10, one at will, one encounter, one utility, and one daily, plus a partial list of skills and sundry.  In the case of a ranger template, they get Dungeoneering or Nature, plus one other trained skill from the ranger list, a fighting style, full use of Hunter's Quarry, and Prime Shot. That said, I don't know how he was applying the template and to what in order to get that kind of increase and why the PC version of him didn't have silly high attack bonuses already.  It may be that the other player saw/heard wrong.  And it also may be that the DM didn't consider that, because of the increases and inherent bonuses, he shouldn't be giving the guy magic weapons if he's statted out as a monster.  He is a hunter ranger, so with the ranger template, he could already freely put his weapons away and quick draw, so...why give him magic weapons as a monster?  As a recurring enemy, it's not like we were going to have a chance to loot him.
#15 umruk Mar 10, 2010 15:56:09	This is a very bizzare thread. The ultimate goal of things is, did you have fun? Was it a memorable session where everyone went "Holy crap! Man that was a tense and amazing game! I'm glad we came through! The right way to play D&D is whatever way is fun. Saying to your DM "Only confront us via the precise and exact guidelines given to you by the manuals! We can never have a villian that could endanger us that much!" I assure you would rankle any DM at the WoTC offices. Your DM has always had the right throughout the entire history of the game to throw whatever he wants at you. And you as a player always have the right to quit. In between these two extremes, DMs figure out that players want to be challenged or to tell stories or to kick down doors and loot treasure, and players want to be challenged, engage in those stories, and reap rewards without being butchered purely for sport, and also learn how not to be crybabies. It doesn't matter what your DM is using as long as it's working to challenge you without just murdering you with no chance for escape. Is it doing so? Then the DM is doing a good job. All this 'DM is a noob' garbage in posts here is just that, garbage. If DMs only ever and could ever use from-the-book, no alternations monsters then D&D would be pretty stale, pretty fast. Now you've had a frankly pedantic confrontation with your DM instead of saying "Hey DM, I'm worried that you are setting us up against challenges we can't overcome without coming close to the point of death all the time". At the same time though, you do realise character death is supposed to actually be a possibility, right? And you mentioned that this was 'just the one' npc. Is your DM not allowed to have a world where you can have enemies just as dangerous as you are? You burnt your bridge. Are you then surprised your DM prefers to interact via proxy now? If you are going to be so juvenille as to come to a forum and complain about a DM who seems to be providing you with an engaging, if difficult game, then you will never be satisfied by any DM except perhaps yourself as DM. So that's my suggestion to you. You should try it, Princess.
#16 weenog42 Mar 10, 2010 16:14:06	Princess_Artemis is correct about Monster Magic Threshold - monsters can benefit from magic items, just not by as much.  Basically, you can't give a monster an item that is too low level and expect it to help them at all, because the enhancement bonus has to be greater than their magic item threshold to do anything.  If the enhancement bonus is greater than their magic item threshold, you still have to subtract that threshold from the result.  So a level 11 monster has a threshold of +2, and won't benefit at all from a +1 or +2 item, and a +3 item will only give them a +1 (3-2=1). It still doesn't sound like the template is being applied correctly, but we're going off information that is about 3 degrees removed by this point, so who can say.  Have the DM play with the monster builder, or even just browse more of the existing monsters.  No need to go reinventing the wheel.  Just reiterate to him what I said about how PCs use resources over the course of an adventuring day, whereas even recurring monsters usually stick around for only one fight at a time.  A PC-statted Monster could go just as poorly for the DM as for the players - he'll have barely any HP, and a single nova round should easily take him out. It's possible that what you;re up against isn't a rules issue, but a "I want my BBEG to be a badass so I'm going to stock him up with goodies" syndrome. It doesn't matter what your DM is using as long as it's working to challenge you without just murdering you with no chance for escape. This (or the reverse) is the likely result of building monsters with PC rules.
#17 princess_artemis Mar 10, 2010 19:19:03	It still doesn't sound like the template is being applied correctly, but we're going off information that is about 3 degrees removed by this point, so who can say.  Have the DM play with the monster builder, or even just browse more of the existing monsters.  No need to go reinventing the wheel.  Just reiterate to him what I said about how PCs use resources over the course of an adventuring day, whereas even recurring monsters usually stick around for only one fight at a time.  A PC-statted Monster could go just as poorly for the DM as for the players - he'll have barely any HP, and a single nova round should easily take him out. It's possible that what you;re up against isn't a rules issue, but a "I want my BBEG to be a badass so I'm going to stock him up with goodies" syndrome. Thank you for the suggestions, but I don't think I'm going to bring it up to him again.  He had his reasons for statting out this particular enemy the way he did, and from what I could tell, he's not going to change it unless he changes his mind about it.  It's really hard to tell, though, from across the country while not actually communicating directly with him (and no, this is SOP since 2008, not because I burned any bridge that I'm aware of...it could be he's just not comfortable talking in e-mails about anything, I don't know.) I do think he wants the guy to be a badass for various plot reasons.  Not sure if that is the case re: why he was made the way he was, but it could be.