With the release of our latest episode, and the orcs the group is facing off against, I thought that others might like to see how I developed the enemy. Iron Crown has not yet released the “humanoids book” of Creature Law II yet, so each NPC needs to be developed by hand – my chosen option is to develop them as legitimate characters, but include only average stats. This way they have full capability and balance, but are not the unique adventuring level.

In general, this means 50’s for all stats, except for a couple which are bumped up slightly to represent the natural role in life that each NPC has. In other words, fighters of a given group will naturally have slightly higher than average strength and constitution. Spell casters would have slightly higher than normal casting stats. No where close to party character levels, but enough that they are a fit for their profession.

Beyond that, all NPCs are developed with a template mentality. I find it disingenuous to overly concentrate skills, so fighters know most weapons equally, etc. Then during the game, it is easy to equip the NPC as appropriate for the scene, but not have them unbalanced.

Level definition is based on the general guidelines of what “adult” or “experienced” represents. Capable adults are level 4, with greater experience going higher.

These are not created with any sense of play balance or threat balance – these NPCs are created in a neutral situation, what level and skills would be present in a member of this group.