Pathfinder Run #4: The Rat King

I no longer prepare NPC stats. I just key everything off class and level.

• Level*1.5 for good attacks and primary skill
• Level*1.0 for medium attacks and good saves
• Level*0.5 for weak attacks, bad saves, minor skills and initiative

For weaklings/mobs/mooks I don't even determine hit points until a player strikes them. No point tracking it if they'll be killed in one blow. For level-appropriate foes, I assign AC based on caprice, player stats, and how long I want the fight to last; and since I tend to retreat NPCs when the tide turns against them, I counted HP upwards from zero (ie, damage taken instead of health remaining) to save the trouble of working out exact HP and reduction effects.

I should select some interesting spells to use in each encounter, but I don't because reading an encyclopedia of spells is my least favorite part of anything.

Fifty-Five Thousand

Last year I estimated that there were fifty-four thousand BattleMechs operating in and around the Inner Sphere in 3025. (I didn't account for certain nuances, like how many regiments might have two battalions instead of three, or the presence of independent battalions, or all the independent warriors on Solaris VII.) A few months later I estimated that the Successor States had 3566 DropShips assigned to their 387.44 'Mech regiments; at that ratio, 430 regiments would have 3960 DropShips.

Now here's a coincidence:

• TR:3025 has fifty-five BattleMech entries, which means there are about 1000 BattleMechs for each BattleMech entry. 
• The book also has four DropShips, which makes 1000 'Mech-hauling DropShips for each DropShip entry. 
• We don't have any good figures for how many AeroSpace fighters exist, but 1000 per entry is certainly reasonable.

If the pattern holds, that would mean 1000 Land-Air 'Mechs for each LAM entry too.

The FWL builds 500+325 'Mechs and Aerospace Fighters per year. 3/70ths of that (3 LAM entries in TR:3025 vs 55+15 'Mech and Fighter entries) would come to a little over 35 LAMs per year, very close to what I estimated (36/year) from the FWL regimental descriptions. That's convenient. It also makes me think I should count LAM production separately from both 'Mech and Fighter production.

It doesn't help me with LAM production or Aerospace Fighter production for the other states, but it'll be a useful check for when I do.