This is very possibly the wrong place for this, but it is a "book mechanics" question, so here we go. I sat down to build a stat block for one of my characters, and found that, while he can get really impressive in some things, there are a few places where he lacks. Now, this is good, and fair, for the most part, so that isn't my whine; what I AM possibly complaining about is NPC health, at least for right now. When I built Aedan with "official mechanics", rather than just saying "I want him to have this at 60, this +20, this +10, and EWP (eldar power sword)", I'm relatively certain that this isn't a good way to build NPCs. In Edge of the Abyss, each of the Known Rogue Traders has 20 or more Wounds. At Rank 4, and with decent starting Wounds, Aedan hits 17. Some of those RTs can't be much higher Rank, especially with FFG so often writing everything as "baby's first endeavor" level, and while I feel these are a bit better than the fun, but maybe underpowered RTs from Lure of the Expanse, how do they have 25-30 Wounds? Rogue Trader can grab Sound Con what, 10 times, maybe a dozen? Did they just guarantee that that was an expense they picked up? Did I just mess up by grabbing Alt ranks, which don't maybe have SC? Or did they get built a bit more "whatever we want", and have enough health to be a bit more survivable? Just curious if anyone can enlighten me? Aedan is dodgy almost like an Eldar, so I have faith his "low" Health wouldn't automatically be a liability, but it seems weird that he fell under all of them, in EotA.

First: Eugh, wall of text!

Now, to the actual subject. Warning, some sarcasm may be encountered ahead:

The NPCs in Edge of the Abyss (and indeed every RT NPC ever published, as far as I can tell), have been designed using the time-honoured method of the author pulling numbers out his ear*, while insisting that PCs follow a strict cookie-cutter scheme.

Because that was good game design in 1980, and so it must be good game design today!

* or other available orifice

Good, that makes me feel a little better about it, then. If he ever got used, and as an NPC, I might do the same, trick, and bump him up to 20, but minus creative min-maxing, I'm glad to see it isn't so weird.

It works the same as in video games. The best way to challenge gamers is to give their opponents more hit points, better armor, make them do more damage, and make sure their kingdoms produce things faster and with less resources. And you want those opponents to make semi-intelligent decisions to boot? AI be damned, that's just too much work. Do you think these game designers do this for a living or something?

Okay, criticism of game designers aside, yes, every alternate career rank taken by your character usually results in fewer Wounds they can take. Few of the Alternate Career Ranks has Sound Constitution as a Talent. And, I think that's reasonable. I don't really like a single Alternate Career Rank out there. They give you nothing an Elite Advance or three combined with good roleplaying can't give you, except for some special abilities that could have been introduced to the game through another vehicle. Of course, that would have taken up fewer pages of a splat book and required even more work. There I go on game designers again. Someone stop me.

It is "whatever we want," but despite what EK might say there is a sort of reason to the Named NPC's having an oddly high number of wounds.

I don't have Edge of the Abyss, but I do have several of the adventure paths, including the Lure of the Expanse adventure path. It has no less than eight other rogue traders in there. Lots right? But what about the 3-5 other high powered characters that the PC rogue trader is assumed to have in his group? Well they're not really statted. There's a generic "Rogue Trader Companion" in there, but it's fairly generic and "decent in a fight, but that's about it." No specialty or focus to excel in, just sort of a shotgun of talents, a few skills, and a blend of moderate stats, leaving him a master of nothing. The Household troops below that are better than hired guns, but that's about it.

And that's sort of the norm.

If you put a load of statted out NPC's into your book you're going to do two things. You're going to bloat up the book with pages and pages of NPC's stats, backstory, personality, and such. Pages that add to the cost and price of the book. And second, you're going to give the guy running the game a major headache in trying to remember what each of the 4-6 unique characters and 2-4 types of generic NPC's he's running are capable of.

Most modules you'd care to name have no more than a hand full of "named" characters that are on par with or at least very close to the player characters in ability. The big bad evil guy, his trusted (or untrusted) Lieutenant, an assassin or shadowy type, and some sort of a left field character like a witch or abomination. And aside from these three or four characters the opponent's roster is taken up with generic npc characters of indeterminate name and appearance. And chances are you aren't going to face the named NPC's all at the same time, not unless you're at the end of the adventure and you haven't killed, driven off, turned, or captured them yet (which the PC's will usually have accomplished with a reasonable degree of success). So you're probably going to have most fights with no more than one or two characters with backstories and descriptions and some to lots of faceless red shirts, and having a name and description and some level of uniqueness is the equivalent of a big target on the NPC telling the players that "this person is important and you should take them out first."

So instead you try to add to the survivability of those named NPC's who are relatively important to the story. You could always have the major NPCs load down in power armor, sub-skin armor, suppression shields, and all that, but then you're basically saying "everybody needs heavy weapons all the time" and eff diversity. Or you could give them get out of death free cards like spontaneous healing, or teleportarium, or jump packs, but that sort of deus ex stuff pisses off players who feel cheated. Hit poi-err wounds, lets them stay in the fight longer when they're being ganged up on by people who outclass their minions and are likely targeting them specifically, without making the player characters feel as though they're being stonewalled. They still see their attacks hit and the enemy take wounds, but he's given a chance to actually threaten someone, escape, banter, whatever, before being worn down.

I usually add even more wounds to the important ones even if the NPC's seem somewhat balanced, but some of may players are semi-power gamers.

So sort of like Adversary in EotE; padding out their strength for the expected numbers of detailed foes they'll face, possibly alone? I guess I can accept that. I'm just glad that it wasn't ALL bad choices on my part, grabbing Alternate Career paths, and taking other things, besides every Sound Con I came across.

Well I don't know about RTs but my Rank 4 Arch Militant has fifteen wounds, if I buy every hitpoint advance still possible from here through level 8 I can titally pull off the 20+ wounds deal. Honestly though if you really want to make a boss NPC hardcore in this system I think the more important thing is stacking them with a certain short list of talents. Things like Step Aside, Lightning Reflexes, Lightning Attack, Crushing Blow, Counter Attack, Hip Shooting, and/or Blademaster etc. Aslo grab a piece of really high endn gear to give them and build a fighting style around it for them to use, in the best cases they'll become puzzle fights.

By rank 4 everyone is going to be running around with solo bolters, best craftsmanship power weapons or duel wielded plasma pistols etc. Twenty Wounds isn't going to save you from that sort of ****.