Combat and the NPC experience

If your worried about your monster being too weak and not enough of a challenge, try to go down on a tag skill hit and RP the hell out of it. Even if they feel you weren't a worthy challenge, they still will love to see thier tag skill have great effect. Even a high level has had thier tag skills defended against enough that they can appreciate and get excited watching thier tagged skills be effective.

Ok, pardon the new person question... a tag skill hit being like "Break Limb" or something similar as opposed to just an ordinary "8 damage" call?

Haha... good call, I suppose you wouldn't die on a break-limb now would you? But still I suppose the point was people like to see thier tagged skills land ...//... yes a tagged skill or periodic skill is basically a skill they can only use once per period per purchase, like crit-attack, break-limb, incapacitate etc..

"going down" on break limbs can be fun RP. You can RP with the enemies even when all 4 limbs are broken and you are on the ground.

I love rping getting knocked down or out by a tag skill. People love watching npcs flail amusingly

the true power level of knight realms characters will be inconceivable to you for quite some time, if not forever. the amount of build and silly items flying around has pushed combat math well beyond reasonable expectation. anyone who claims to be able to keep an accurate count is lying, either to you or themselves. it is likely that you will never be handed a card that is a true threat. this does not mean that you cannot still have fun or give those around you a good time, however! with true accountability down the toilet, the only factor left is good acting. if you can convince your opponent that you are, in fact, the monster or enemy that you have set out to be, you will have succeeded at your objective (entertaining yourself and the PCs). for example, last month Ben Herman(at least i think it was him!) was a fantastic goblin warrior. his stats were utter garbage, and he had zero hope of standing up to my pc. his answer to this conundrum was to embellish the impact of the strikes i delivered, even when they impacted his shield, and to attack me with a desperate frenzy that made me half expect him to try to claw my eyes. the result was not that i "felt good because my skills landed", but that both of us were satisfied to be able to deliver a convincing scene of what a strong warrior versus a very weak one might look like. always remember that we are here primarily to tell stories, and you'll do fine.

PS: i loved your attitude bringing my cigar back to me! glad you're having fun.