Howdy All! Long time lurker, first time poster!

Been digging the HECK out of this system, and I have seen quite a few in my day. But perhaps some of you Gurus of Game can help me out with this query... is it true that NPCs get access to both A/C/E dice and the basic action cards (or more importantly: the basic active defenses)? If so... what would be the reason?

Follow me on this...

PCs have talents and fortune points (plus theoretical GM "reward" dice) to add fortune dice to a roll. They have skills that determine when they get a yellow die. The NPCs have a more freeform system, the A/C/E system, (brilliant, may I add) that allows a GM to add fortune dice and expertise die to a roll to simulate the same traits in NPCs, without all the bookkeeping. Even steven.

However, PCs cannot spend their fortune points to defend from an attack roll, as a NPC can use aggression to do. They can only use Active Defense action cards. BUT, an NPC can use BOTH agression and the basic active defense cards?

Why would it be that NPCs have two sources of "defense dice" while PCs only have one?

Ultimately it comes down to having some tricks up your sleeve without having to bust your preparation time budget pouring over NPC's to make sure they are properly built. NPC's working on a separate build structure than PC's has its ups and its downs. Sure they can spend ACE dice as well as use active defenses. But remember that basic active defenses are shared amongst NPC types so if you have a group of three cultists only one gets to dodge until the active defense card recharges (they all have recharge 2 I believe). NPC's suffer wounds in place of exertion so that sets them at a disadvantage (or at least works much differently than PC's). Also, they have other things they can spend A/C/E dice on which can dry up their dirty tricks pretty quickly (skill training, extra maneuvers, etc).

It ends up being less unfair than it might appear to be at first, but there will be those slight inconsistencies that stemn from the fundamental difference between an NPC and a PC. In our games thus far it hasn't seemed like my NPC's are red-shirted ensigns or herboed out green lanterns. I am also new enough to 3rd edition that I may have botched the explanation here. Hopefully one of the legitimate experts will be along shortly to confirm or lambaste my efforts

Callidon's got it right - most NPC's get just the basic actions and their A/C/E pool. Bear in mind that this is for most NPC's - you're always free to create and run an NPC just as if they were a PC; it's just easier for most encounters to use the basic stats and dice pools.

As Callidon also pointed out, this isn't really unbalancing - the A/C/E helps to simulate what might be happening if the NPC's had access to a full suite of Action Cards and skills like PC's do, without having to worry about the additional bookkeeping.

Yes NPCs get both A/C/E and all basic action cards the qualify for. They can also get additional defense cards. Just remember that a group of NPCs share action cards, which balance things in favor of the player party.