[Torg] More shtuff: NPC levels

[Sam Frazier II]

I have found I have to be more creative with NPCs, due to my PCs cross assisting each other with miracles, magic, and tech. They have a pretty dynamic group as it is. Strong is unarmed, melee, faith, distance, intimidation, reality, etc. So the NPC's usually become red shirts unless they are major baddies. 

I stopped creating mundanes, as that combat/interaction slowed play down quite a bit. Instead I decided what kind of difficulty I wanted to players to encounter, and assigned a DN, which is typically what the PCs have to be to defeat the NPC. Since the Screen has those "easy, difficult, hard,....never tell me the odds" chart, off the cuff NPCs are fairly easy to create, without having to create a character or even stats. Fast simple, and all I really need is a name and a personality. Ironically enough, the name provides me the most difficulty.

Now reoccuring NPCs I've got to create with how my PCs are going to interact with them, and buff them up quite a bit. Typically they are 10% stronger than any one PC, with several abilities to match or overcome the PCs strengths. Otherwise they quickly become a red shirt.

Now as far as creating PCs, and please excuse me forgetting the specifics in the Character Collection, I add up all the possibilities the current PCs have spent (or theoretically would have spent) to gain the adds/spells/miracles/etc that they have. This was the most accurate, and even allowed me to point out some poor possibility managment to the players, so they wouldn't feel so, wrong. 

I'm not sure I get all your Merit knack stuff. Think you could provide a bit more on that?

SDF II