This is for D&D 5e.
I'm currently making a reoccurring antagonist NPC that is a master thief. It's CR 6 and I want it to be capable of making three attacks per round like multiattack but also have their thief subclass's enhanced cunning action with fast hands.
This would normally mean they'd get 3 attacks and a varying options for bonus actions, however I'd want them to be able to trade up to three if these attacks to have more uses of cunning action (this would of course stack the ability to dash 4 times per round but I'd just not do that while running the monster). They also have a special once per day ability that I'd want them to be able to swap a single attack for.
It got me thinking, instead of trying to make an unwieldy combination of multiattack, a special action and cunning action, could I just give them three actions?
The simple way this NPC works that I want them to pick 3 options from:
- Dagger
- Crossbow
- Special action
- Dash
- Disengage
- Hide
- Make an ability check
- Use an object
- Use a set of tools
At this point, what do I actually lose from letting them take 3 actions? They aren't a Spellcaster so I'm not worried about them throwing out three fireballs or the like.
Funnily enough The Witcher 3 is one of the games I always think of for the trope of not following the plot. Often I think of the ludonarrative dissonance specifically between Gestalt's paternal drive to find and protect Ciri Vs Gwent.
For large scale, AAA open world games, I mostly think of Breath of the Wild, which transparently sets itself up as being about taking as long as you need to get strong enough to save the world and Red Dead Redemption 2, which doesn't care about the stakes of the world.
I sometimes can't wrap my head around the fact that Witcher 3, BotW and RDR2 were each two years apart. I don't feel any open world game has occupied the cultural space those games did since.