3.5 Preparing Spells for an NPC

[AndyGJFantasyG]

A newb question.

How can I prepare an encounter so that I can have spell effects on an NPC before I put them in the combat tracker.

i.e prepare a room with a spellcaster that has, for example resist fire effect, already up. then when you drop the encounter into the combat tracker it picks up this effect.

At higher level adventures (12th+) my npcs have spells up all the time and particularly if they know the players are coming, but I don't want to spend the time 'in game' doing all the NPCs effects.

I suppose the question is how do I pre-prepare NPC effects.

Thanks for any pointers.

[Trenloe]

Welcome to the forums AndyGJFantasyG

When a NPC is added to the combat tracker various fields in the NPC statblock are parsed to check for keywords. Good examples to look at are demons or devils in the "3.5E Monsters" module. For example, "Devil, Erinyes" has a number of DR, Resistance and Immunity entries in the "SQ" field. These will be parsed out into effects when the NPC is added into the combat tracker.

The Erinyes, has the following in the "SQ" field: Damage reduction 5/good, darkvision 60 ft., immunity to fire and poison, resistance to acid 10 and cold 10, see in darkness, spell resistance 20, telepathy 100 ft., true seeing

Are parsed into the Combat Tracker as the following effects: DR: 5 good; IMMUNE: fire; IMMUNE: poison; RESIST: 10 acid; RESIST: 10 cold; DMGTYPE: lawful,evil

[AndyGJFantasyG]

Thanks for that.

However I'm more interested in spells that could be dispelable by the the party. Spells such as Mage Armor, Mind Blank, Shapechange, Stoneskin, Fly/Airwalk, and so on.

Rather than go through the NPC in real time as then encounter them I want to prepare the NPC with these effects before I drop into the combat tracker. Can it be done.

[Callum]

In general, no, you can't do that You can fudge it for some effects, as Trenloe suggested. To cover all spell effects, though, you can add the effects in advance to the NPC's spells (setting the targetting mode to SELF, if you like). Then you can quickly apply the effects from the spells (also marking the spell use off) once you've put the NPC on the Combat Tracker.

[AndyGJFantasyG]

Sadly I thought this would be the answer. Thanks anyway.