Hello all,

Let me introduce this post: Many GM’s, including me, are using PC action cards for NPC (i.e monsters). Mainly because PC combat action cards are powerful while NPC combat action cards (mostly) suck.

Nonetheless, we cannot obviate that NPC action cards add flavor to the game.

My proposal is aimed to humanoid NPC or, a bit more general, to those NPC which attacks can be covered by PC combat action cards i.e. this proposal excludes Dragons, Manticores, Giant Spiders, Wild Boards, Cold Ones etc.

The main idea is to give "PC action cards" to NPC while adding the flavor given by the "NPC action cards" just as extra effects caused by boons, banes, chaos stars and comets.

Examples (This is a list of examples to catch my idea, they do not pretend to be accurate neither definitive).

1) While a Skaven Gutter Runner may have an especial action card to cover an attack with poison blades, this is unnecessary. You may instead give to the Skaven any PC action card, ranging from the basic Melee Strike to a powerful Double Strike (if the Skaven is wielding two blades for example) and just add a line like the following if the Skaven has poisonous blades:
*BB* Your attack causes fatigue equal to ….
*C* Your attack causes fatigue and stress equal to…

2) Giant and Trolls have the special action card, Devastating Swing (this one especially enervates me), that is supposed to account for their bigger size and hence their possibility to affect more than one (human sized I guess) targets in the same engagement. Again this is unnecessary; you can for example give the Giant /Troll a normal and more devastating Thunderous Blow and just add lines like
*B* All the enemies in the engagement loose 1 fatigue
*BB* All the enemies in the engagement fall prone
*C* Your attack strikes also the rest of the engaged enemies, but they receive only for normal damage
{S} Your weapon flies away from your hands and ends up at close range from your position

3) Lesser Daemons often have cards to represent their special abilities i.e Plaguebearers Plaguesword or Bloodletters Hellsword …Again you do not need a card for this, just give them normal PC action cards like Reckless Cleave and just add for example
Plaguebearer
*BB* The target must make a Disease 2 check
*C* The target must make a Corruption 3 check
Bloodletter
*BB* If the target receives a severe critical wound apply its effect immediately otherwise the target receives a number of wounds equal to the critical wound severity rating
*C* The target must make a Corruption 3 check

To implement all this, one could for example create a table with all the different NPC and state the various effects that can be triggered for each NPC type. Optionally, what I will prefer to do is, with Strange Eons or simply Power Point, Photoshop etc., edit the NPC cards to add the "especial effects" trigger lines on the card itself, so you have them easily at sight.

Yepesnopes said:

The monster cards do seem weak, don't they.

Some are often not even worth playing really, like the Giant Spider's Inescapable Power only causing the Exposed condition when it should cause Entangled (was this a miss print?).

I started to modify most of my creature cards to include my house rules (2nd ed wound threshold, default melee effects...). This is how a stone troll looks like

additionally I give to trolls a hand weapon for DR7 CR2, the basic action cards and the action cards, Vomit (because it is a Troll), Mighty Blow (as an alternative to Rend Flesh which is pathetic, in case the troll looses its weapon), Reckless Cleave.

Still a single Troll is no match for my group of players but even the Dwarfs have learnt to fear them On the other hand, now a single giant is a real challenge for my group.

I have done similar things to many creature cards and they fit well in my games. Mainly big creatures are more resilient, and by combining PC action cards together with the "default melee effects" house rule all creatures have a higher damage output.

I tried with that approach and made some default cards for melee, ranged and support. Boring though.

Instead I simply just organized better. I bought a binder and these plastic sheets with room for 9 cards on each sheet. When preparing a session I just put monsters and their actions in this binder and it's really super easy to manage. I do give NPCs extra cards that I find fitting and sometimes I assign a special effect for creatures when they get a comet, two boons or whatever. For the troll I'd go with a knock back on every attack that can be triggered by a comet or two boons.

That said I have changed my house rules to not allow the higher lethality optional rule (extra successes equals extra damage up to your appropriate skill level). I did this because I found extra damage really hurt the system. First it makes some of the debuff cards less valuable as it's easier to just kill. Second that extra damage is after soak, so it's really a lot of extra damage that makes the NPCs weaker and the system isn't made for it. I limit damage to what it is according to RAW.

Interesting, I will give a look to this house rules of you.

Cheers

Gallows said:

I totally agree now my pcs are in 3rd or 4th career