D&D 5E Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?

[Tormyr]

Basically, only showpiece NPCs get class abilities. I still set up the NPCs as normal monsters, then I give them some of the abilities from the PHB. Monks get stunning strike, slow fall, and catch missiles, evokers get overcharge, etc.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Adding 5e class levels is easy. Certainly easier than in 3x/PF.

The classes, themselves, are much more complicated than they were - they get a feature at every level where they don't get a stat boost, and that's in addition to spells. Even the Champion has both short-rest and long-rest abilities. Trying to run a combat with four or five NPCs, each with its own class level, takes a lot of mental overhead to keep everything straight.

Contrast to 3E, where a Fighter was a couple of numbers and a handful of feats, and spellcasters were little more than their spell lists.

 

[Satyrn]

But at least those rules existed! As compared to 5E, which amounts to "make up whatever you feel like, and the only math involved is figuring out how much experience it's worth".

I did it that way when I DMed 3e, minus that math you mention.

So I'm happy to keep doing it this way in 5e.


Oh and hey, you can extend that to NPCs that you'd classify as monsters, too. I just give the critters the stats I want, one of two special features and ballpark the XP based on really nothing more than whim.

 

[Lucas Yew]

They really should have included a "generic NPC class" or something similar in the 5E core rules... Something similar to {d8 HD, proficient with up to 2 simple weapons and 1 martial weapon, any two skills, (no) spellcasting as 1 PC class, (no) multiattack at 5th level, bla-bla-bla...} would have been great, assuming that it was coupled with the "examples" in the MM.

 

[77IM]

Can I change my vote? I said, "NPCs with class levels are rare" because hypothetically I could see building an NPC as a PC class. But in practice I never do this, so the true answer is "Only PCs have class levels."

 

[Satyrn]

Can I change my vote? I said, "NPCs with class levels are rare" because hypothetically I could see building an NPC as a PC class. But in practice I never do this, so the true answer is "Only PCs have class levels."

There is an unvote option at the top left of the pool results.

I know, because I used it for exactly the same reason you want to.

 

[Gilladian]

Nope. I will only stat out NPC adventuring companions (such as the cleric who is with the PCs now); everyone else gets an NPC stat block. They may have class-like powers, but they're not "the class". And they don't have "a level". It is the one thing I TRULY prefer about 5e to 3.5e, and which I will be taking back with me when I start running 3e again for my next campaign.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Can I change my vote? I said, "NPCs with class levels are rare" because hypothetically I could see building an NPC as a PC class. But in practice I never do this, so the true answer is "Only PCs have class levels."

Click the (Unvote) link inside the poll body.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The classes, themselves, are much more complicated than they were - they get a feature at every level where they don't get a stat boost, and that's in addition to spells. Even the Champion has both short-rest and long-rest abilities. Trying to run a combat with four or five NPCs, each with its own class level, takes a lot of mental overhead to keep everything straight.

But intelligent NPCs deserve that overhead. In fact, the mechanical overhead of keeping track of abilities should be trivial compared to the roleplaying overhead of keeping track of what is going through each NPCs' head, what their goals are, why they are in conflict with the PCs, what their relationships to the other NPCs are, how they feel the conflict is going and how close they are to bailing, etc. Compared to that, "has this Champion used his Action Surge or Second Wind yet?" is small potatoes.

I'm concerned by some of the comments in this thread which seem to imply that NPCs are being slaughtered in such vast numbers that simplifications are needed to keep combat complexity manageable. A system which encourages you to treat intelligent creatures like disposable chumps who exist only to be slaughtered in eighteen seconds or less is... problematic, in my view. I'm fine with unintelligent creatures like zombies, giant ants, and aurumvoraxes being killed in great whacking lots, but if my game featured the mass murder of human beings on the same scale as giant ants... something would be wrong.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm concerned by some of the comments in this thread which seem to imply that NPCs are being slaughtered in such vast numbers that simplifications are needed to keep combat complexity manageable. A system which encourages you to treat intelligent creatures like disposable chumps who exist only to be slaughtered in eighteen seconds or less is... problematic, in my view.

There's no reason why they need to die. You can just beat them up and then move on. We are heroes after all.

But sometimes you do need to fight a couple of dozen orcs, and their motivations aren't that important relative to their choices in combat. Soldiers will fight when their leaders tell them to. Guards will fight to defend against intruders. Those situations need to be playable in the game.