NPC Cheat Sheet

By pressie, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

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In an effort to try and speed up my games and remain flexible I have put together a cheat sheet for my NPC's.


A lot of the differences with NPC's in my game are mostly in the narration and the situation. If I have to page through the book looking for a suitable NPC it is time lost and a lot of the ones in the book are becoming a little under powered for my experienced players. I also don't want to spend time building stat blocks and I am a sucker for forgetting to use talents for my baddies.



With this in mind I have started to make general reference sheets for types of NPC's they encounter. The plan is to make at least 3 types... Ranged, Melee and Political sheets.


The overall idea so I can decide what the NPC is bad, sufficient or good at. Then just roll the dice pool associated it what ever they are trying to do.


The sheet is split into 3 main areas...


Combat and skill focus

3 columns of quick reference dice pools,ability stats.


Defense & Weapons

3 columns of week to tough stats to go with the baddie type, in my example the NPC's are using mainly ranged weapons.


Talents

A selection for appropriate talents for the NPC type, selected depending on the challenge I want to set for the players.



The first two sections are setup in very similar ways... each has 3 columns minor/week, medium, focus/tough.


I don't list the abilities, skills for any of the stats. Instead when they meet a group I just decide what that NPC's are strong and week areas and use the corresponding column.


Example:


Space Port Security Personal (Rival)


They try and deceive/barter with him which he is not very good at so I use the minor column for his dice pool.


A fight breaks out so I use the focused column as I think that is his primary roll.


As they are not a major bad guy, for there weapons I'd use the middle column for the defense and weapons.


If they I wanted them to be a bit more of a challenge I could use the Tough section of Defense & Weapons and also pick one or two talents from the Talent reference section, which are related to his main function.


I'd love to get feedback on mistakes or areas of improvement, link to pdf below.




Edit: Added Melee example.




Edit: Power point file so you can edit to fit your party.



Edited by pressie
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Looks good! I will definitely be using this in my games for random mooks and non-story encounters.

Only suggestion as of now would be to change the spelling of "week" to "weak".

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That is pretty cool! I like how easy this layout makes finding details quickly.

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I will find this quite useful based on the party's propensity for starting fights with strangers for no discernible reason.

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Already downloaded and put to use! I'll let you know the results!

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I'm going to use these in my game today.

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What I have to report... they are very useful. I would have preferred there to be 3 skills, initiative, primary (combat) and secondary (something other than their shtick)

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What I have to report... they are very useful. I would have preferred there to be 3 skills, initiative, primary (combat) and secondary (something other than their shtick)

Thanks... how do you mean for secondary? When a skill check is not what they usually do I have been choosing the minor column... thanks gain for the feedback. :)

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I thought of that as I was writing the feedback. But I didn't think of it as I was using it. It kind of "feels like" the minor initiative goes with the minor skill, and the minor "statblock" below. It's not obvious that mixing and matching is intended. I don't know how to make 5th at clearer.