Playing Multiple NPCs

[Ug]

Because it was brought up.

I think that these should be played one at a time.

ie:

NPC X has 10 monsters. He tells you he has 10 monsters. However he plays 1 monster at a time, so he doesn't go *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* and hit you for 33 magic 3 times for a total of 99 damage, and so he doesn't go "oops, got disarmed, that's ok, another monster steps out in front". I'd love to see more NPCs, but I don't think I like the idea of someone "being 5 at once" and not really stopping until all 5 are dead, but will instead, back away for a sec when one drops, then jump back in as another.

[dier_cire]

Sorta mixed on this one. I like the idea of the empath group all having massive booms to throw at you, but not real keen on the 8 guys standing there, since theres no real feel of accomplishment as you are basically fighting one guy with x number of npcs worth of hitpoints. Though if we come upon a group of 4 npcs representing 6 warriors and 2 empaths, I'd like to see two booms coming at me every 10, 20, 30, or 60 seconds.

Problem is the bowing out for a second works in caves and such, but not well in open combat where multiple npcs would be right there to take up the space of the fallen comrade.

[Corbyn]

I'm mixed on this one to. I think that with the number of pc's we now have versus the number of npc's, the only way to do it and have it be challenging is to let them operate simultaneously. In a cave setting, the other way makes sense (one at a time) because the volume of pc's is controlled...

[Nelkie]

At the beastman cave/stronghold when we died we backed off, did a small count, and than came back. It seemed to work well. I also say in mass combat in the open field whent he NPC get killed they walked to the edge of the battle, did a count, and came back in. It seems to work well. As for the multiple Emapth played by one person, I havn't decided as of yet.

[Donovan Thynedar]

We normally only designate one or two people to be beasties when we spar, so they are almost always representing multiple NPC creatures. In general, the fall back and wait a second method has worked well for us, but there does seem to be an issue when you're talking about ranged combat and the Ballista NPC theory. Hmmm. Something to ponder, anyway...

[GM_Chris]

let me just say that if I had a physrep for every physrep then I would have had to kill off even more of the beastmen since it would have been impossible.

I have noticed that you guys seem to have the biggest problems when you are unable to use your swarm 6 to 8 on a single physrep.

What I am saying is the balista thing we did made the encounter harder but not nearly as hard as it would have been if properly represented. Even though we had the balista thing it was only difficult because so many people choose to not be meat shield type characters.

Chris