"All that NPCs have, PCs can have as well"

[Jon_Dahl]

What do think about this dogma for DMs?
"All that NPCs have, PCs can have as well."

I have tried to follow this idea in my games and it's gone all right so far, but things have changed all of a sudden. It's nothing major and I'm 100% certain that my players don't care, but I like being a DM of principle.

The situation right now is that I have two NPC (arcane) inventors in game who create innovative stuff. And by "innovative" I mean that they create minor (and rather pointless) magical "inventions" that have not existed in the game before. Quite frankly, I would not like that my players possessed these powers because they can easily lead to silliness. I have been considering making this "inventive genius" a feat that has ridiculous and unfair prerequisites, but is nevertheless available to the PCs and NPCs. I just don't know if there is any point in that. What is the difference between not giving something to your players and giving it, but making it so difficult that it's not worth it? But that's not the question here; the question is in the title.

[Geddy2112]

There is nothing that may players cannot have-they can always take something from an NPC by force, or convince them some way to be given something. They can also go through all of the whatever it took for that NPC to get that whatever. If you stat up an NPC or give them anything, understand the players can have that. If it is the knowledge of the NPC, magical mind control is a thing and they can extract that information.

I think it is fine to play this way-if you did not want the potential for abuse, then don't put it in the game. If I don't want my PC's to run around with +5 vorpal swords I make sure these never show up(nor is anyone available to make them). Once something is in the game, it is available.

[flappeercraft]

To me that dogma seems fair, I use that myself but obviously there should be limitations whether they are set by NPCs. plot reasons or just fiat is up to you. I go with setting them with NPCs so depending on what the NPCs do to limit, the players have ways to overcome those but that could come to a quest of its own or be as simple as asking please

[The_Jette]

What do think about this dogma for DMs?
"All that NPCs have, PCs can have as well."

I have tried to follow this idea in my games and it's gone all right so far, but things have changed all of a sudden. It's nothing major and I'm 100% certain that my players don't care, but I like being a DM of principle.

The situation right now is that I have two NPC (arcane) inventors in game who create innovative stuff. And by "innovative" I mean that they create minor (and rather pointless) magical "inventions" that have not existed in the game before. Quite frankly, I would not like that my players possessed these powers because they can easily lead to silliness. I have been considering making this "inventive genius" a feat that has ridiculous and unfair prerequisites, but is nevertheless available to the PCs and NPCs. I just don't know if there is any point in that. What is the difference between not giving something to your players and giving it, but making it so difficult that it's not worth it? But that's not the question here; the question is in the title.

Honestly, you don't really have to make it a feat. Let the PC's take Craft Wondrous Items, when they have the prerequisites, and come up with fun inventions if they want to. Sounds like none of them have been chomping at the bit to do so, though. So, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Just make sure that they have a reason for their inventions, and roleplay it out. Like, if they decide that they want to make a magic item that converts a carriage into a magical contraption that doesn't require horses to pull it, make them describe how their character came up with this idea. How would they control it? That kind of thing. If they're going to be inventors, they probably aren't thinking about all that has to go into creating inventions. It's a time-consuming and expensive past-time that bankrupted most inventors. That might dissuade them enough that it'll never really come up again.

[Bronk]

It seems like an odd choice to want a serious game but put silly elements into it on purpose, but I guess it depends on the specifics of these items. Do you have some examples?

I think that in general, the idea would be to keep the items weak and without any effect that would matter much in game.

[Keral]

I think it's mostly a matter of volume and degree, so to speak.


If you decide to give some npcs some custom things to give them flavour but that don't have a massive inpact on the encounter then it'd be fine, I think.
On the other hand, if everyone and their pet has custom trinkets that give them a big custom bonus that's not avaiable to PCs then it could be a problem.


After all, the books do encourage DMs to be creative and design their own stuff. Making it not avaiable to players can also be a sort of safety net. If it turns out it's broken it's easy to make them disappear. Should the Pcs get them it's harder and reeks of "DM is nasty and didn't want to give us his toys".

[J-H]

Sure, the PCs can do it. It requires CWI or a similar feat, a properly equipped lab, 2d4 years of basic research (can be cut by up to 75% through apprenticeship or reading the inventors' notes, IF the inventors are willing or take good non-coded notes), and then 1d4+2 months of trial and error per device.

Progress is hard.

NPCs sometimes get templates or environmental boosts not available to players as well.

[Jon_Dahl]

Honestly, you don't really have to make it a feat. Let the PC's take Craft Wondrous Items, when they have the prerequisites, and come up with fun inventions if they want to.

That's because I haven't made the severity of the situation clear. Well, I did write about "harmless inventions", so the blame is on me. I will elaborate, however.

One of the NPC inventors will ask to clone the PCs. Not much information is given to the PCs, except that "Don't worry, this is going to be great! Just trust me!". The clones will grow up super fast, have the same abilities (but slightly enhanced, see below), remember all the skills and feats that the PCs have and and have the same level (as the PCs had at the moment of cloning). They will have their own personalities and alignments, not related to the PCs.

All their abilities will be increased by 1d6. That means that d6 will be rolled separately for each of the abilities and the number will be added to the respective ability. Such as 10, 14, 14, 18, 12, 14 set can become 16, 20, 20, 24, 18, 20 set if you roll six natural 6s.

I don't want them to have this power, but... "All that NPCs have, PCs can have as well". I'm slipping from my dogma.

[The_Jette]

That's because I haven't made the severity of the situation clear. Well, I did write about "harmless inventions", so the blame is on me. I will elaborate, however.

One of the NPC inventors will ask to clone the PCs. Not much information is given to the PCs, except that "Don't worry, this is going to be great! Just trust me!". The clones will grow up super fast, have the same abilities (but slightly enhanced, see below), remember all the skills and feats that the PCs have and and have the same level (as the PCs had at the moment of cloning). They will have their own personalities and alignments, not related to the PCs.

All their abilities will be increased by 1d6. That means that d6 will be rolled separately for each of the abilities and the number will be added to the respective ability. Such as 10, 14, 14, 18, 12, 14 set can become 16, 20, 20, 24, 18, 20 set if you roll six natural 6s.

I don't want them to have this power, but... "All that NPCs have, PCs can have as well". I'm slipping from my dogma.

Your definition of harmless is a cloning facility that makes exact duplicates of the PC's, but with higher stats?

Query: what's the point of the PC clones, in game?

[yellowrocket]

That kind of power is something of an epic level. The ability to grant a permanent bonus to stats, and create a character on the spot of equal levels to a pc, yikes.

I'm not sure why you'd even consider that for anything short of a game where ice assassins and simulcrums were common.

[Bronk]

Your definition of harmless is a cloning facility that makes exact duplicates of the PC's, but with higher stats?

Query: what's the point of the PC clones, in game?

Right?

If you're dead set on this, just make it that the NPCs discovered a broken artifact, used their whacky powers to cobble together a temporary fix for it (are they tinker gnomes?), they're the only ones who can get it to work, and it's completely destroyed afterward.

[Keltest]

An important thing to keep in mind is that "has access to" does not necessarily mean "can use". What would they do with the cloning chamber? They don't know how to use it, its totally unique, and the only people who understand how it works are the NPC builders that you control. Even the random magic gewgaws that these guys make could potentially be incomprehensible to anyone without 30+ int or specific instruction on how to use them.

[Jon_Dahl]

Putting that sort of power to epic levels sounds right.

[The_Jette]

Follow up question: These uber clones... what would happen if someone were to clone one of them?
Would they just keep getting more poweful?

[Jon_Dahl]

Follow up question: These uber clones... what would happen if someone were to clone one of them?
Would they just keep getting more poweful?

That question will not be relevant as long as the NPCs (an NPC, actually) have the power. I'm planning to have the inventor assassinated soon after the first clones (i.e. four PC clones) have nearly matured. No one else will have the power, except maybe...

...

........

We get back to the original question.

[Swaoeaeieu]

That's because I haven't made the severity of the situation clear. Well, I did write about "harmless inventions", so the blame is on me. I will elaborate, however.

One of the NPC inventors will ask to clone the PCs. Not much information is given to the PCs, except that "Don't worry, this is going to be great! Just trust me!". The clones will grow up super fast, have the same abilities (but slightly enhanced, see below), remember all the skills and feats that the PCs have and and have the same level (as the PCs had at the moment of cloning). They will have their own personalities and alignments, not related to the PCs.

All their abilities will be increased by 1d6. That means that d6 will be rolled separately for each of the abilities and the number will be added to the respective ability. Such as 10, 14, 14, 18, 12, 14 set can become 16, 20, 20, 24, 18, 20 set if you roll six natural 6s.

I don't want them to have this power, but... "All that NPCs have, PCs can have as well". I'm slipping from my dogma.

make it a magic item that creates simulacra or similar without the stat increase. now its something the players could make normally. Also, you state this hasnt happend yet, so why not change the plan a little bit? make it less OP :P

[Morphic tide]

My perspective on it is that it's a good idea to have, but hellish to balance unless you build the system around it. d20 Legends, IIRC, has the monsters be exactly balanced with the players as level-by-level progressions of the same kind as the player classes and as such the players can just play a monster's class rather than one of the regular player classes.

In a hypothetical system I've been brainstorming for a few days, I'd have it so that every single ability comes with needed information for point-buy and classes are actually premade builds for point-buy from a mechanics perspective. As a result, if the game is made properly, you can take any monster ability as a replacement for an equal-value class feature without issue, as well as swap class features of equal value. Or combinations of features, or alterations of features.

Doing this would make making new classes far easier and actively supported by the rules, as you can just fill out the XP brackets of the levels with whatever abilities you want to make a "class," and the nature of it as being layered from point-buy is that you can actually play it as point-buy if wanted, so it has the needed flexibility for getting some of the GURPS crowd in and can be picked up to play quickly through the classes streamlining it.

Really, the core concept is "it's a point-buy game that lists things as statblocks and class levels." So you have a book that gives you premade stuff to play with, and the rules for throwing the D&D out the window to play GURPS with the pieces. With the GURPS enhanced by giving the guidelines to make non-broken things of damn near any sort you want, so you can build single abilities to min-max to hell and back and progress continuously as you wish.

The reason said system is hypothetical is because I can't be assed to cross-check every single ability to make sure it's balanced for both point-buy and class levels, and making the guidelines first and number crunching every single ability would be even more torturous(although more friendly for splatbook creation and game balance). Especially because one of the class categories is the idea of 20 ways to standard attack, with the abilities being explicitly modifying types of action and other abilities of other classes being defined by those types of action. Which would include a tag for spell-type abilities for the sake of metamagic-type abilities.

[Gildedragon]

Have the device be an artifact. Iirc there's a similar one in Ravenloft. It produces evil clones.

[Telonius]

I generally prefer the inverse, as a cautionary principle: "All that the PCs can have, NPCs can have as well."

As for the clones - there's already a published monster that gets that stuff: the Aleax. And yes, if the PCs ascend to godhood, they can have them too.

[Telok]

I generally prefer the inverse, as a cautionary principle: "All that the PCs can have, NPCs can have as well."

As for the clones - there's already a published monster that gets that stuff: the Aleax. And yes, if the PCs ascend to godhood, they can have them too. :smallbiggrin:

This is what my table does too. If the PCs can do it then the NPCs can do it. It cuts down on OP silliness without having to actually ban things.

As for the clones, you never said if they were stable. Physically stable, mentally stable, whatever. The whole going insane and trying to kill their creators or melting into goo at random times might be seen as something of a drawback.

[Godskook]

What do think about this dogma for DMs?
"All that NPCs have, PCs can have as well."

It sucks and contradicts baseline 3.5 balance mechanisms. The game is, by designed, meant to have things that DMs can do that players can not. Most games have this sort of mechanic at play where NPCs are capable of doings PCs are nto simply because the game's to compensate for PC action economy.