How to Build a D&D NPC in 15 minutes

[Aus_Snow]

What good are "useful" feats if the villain fails a save early in the battle? Raising saving throws does the most important thing you can do for a master villain; keep them in the game. Similarly, Improved Toughness could be one more hit. Making a villain who can "win" is counterproductive, and making one with a glass jaw is disappointing.

Therefore, defense is king, backed up with some eye-popping tricks.

But the best defence. . .

On that note, if you had to have a list of must-have core feats for *minor* villains or suchlike, Improved Initiative should be there way ahead of Toughness, IMO.

On another note entirely, the use of villain classes is one way to make NPCs more like a 15 frickin' second process. Well, thereabouts.

But that mightn't be quite what you were looking for. Would you need more flexibility, generally? If not, it's a viable method.

 

[pawsplay]

But the best defence. . .

But you don't want to give a villain "the best defense". Not unless you are actually trying to create a TPK. You want to make sure they last more than three rounds and cause visceral fear and pain in your players.

Just as an example, using a lot of Power Attack is rarely optimal... but it's great for a melee villain. Whiff, whiff, whiff. Then when they hit, because every clock is right twice a day, OUCH. When a PC takes 2/3 of their hit points in a single hit, the memory stays with them. Maximized fireballs are rarely as dastardly as other things you could do, but large numbers can scare the gooolies out of your players.

If you want to actually be effective, just make your villains an endless parade of Iron Minds with the mage slayer feats and maximized Ego Whip.

 

[Aus_Snow]

But you don't want to give a villain "the best defense". Not unless you are actually trying to create a TPK. You want to make sure they last more than three rounds and cause visceral fear and pain in your players.

Whoa there! I wasn't talkin' TPK, neither. I want to make sure they are effective villains*.

Toughness is *so* suboptimal, it's very nearly in its own category, is all.

* which doesn't equate to insta-TPK, I might add (again.)

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

What good are "useful" feats if the villain fails a save early in the battle?

My goal in assigning feats for NPC's depends very much on their shtick. Swashbuckler? I pick a certain suite of feats - things like Spring Attack, etc. Bruiser? Another set, including things like Power Attack.

I sometimes like to pick one unusual feat for a group of NPC Mooks to differentiate them from other groups - but only one. This keeps things simple. I had an order of clerics that I gave a feat that allowed them to burn a turn attempt to do some damage to their enemies - this gave them flavor while stilling staying pretty simple. Same with spells - I give them one or two unique spells, but teh rest are standard PHB.

 

[Desdichado]

Wow. No wonder it takes 15 minutes. I can't imagine spending more than a minute or two on the stats of my NPCs. Most of them I don't spend any time at all.

Is 15 minutes supposed to be a good time to spend on NPCs? I'm not sure I'm following this thread right.

 

[DonAdam]

I'm attaching a file I wrote a while back that might helps with NPC magic items.

 

[GlassJaw]

It usually takes the most time to allocate skill points, and it's also one of the things that has the least impact on gameplay.

The most important skills that really matter during play for an NPC are Spot and Listen. After that, depending on the NPC, Move Silently/Hide for stealthy types, and perhaps Jump/Climb/Tumble.

Concentration is important for casters of course, and you can solve that problem easily by just maxing it out.

And to go one step further, unless there is a great need for an NPC to have a specific skill, there isn't much of a reason to stat out anything. Just give them max ranks in whatever skill they need during combat. In the long run, who really cares the exact ranks an NPC is supposed to have?

 

[Jhaelen]

It usually takes the most time to allocate skill points, and it's also one of the things that has the least impact on gameplay.

I've seen that statement before and I've been wondering about that. When I create npcs this is the part that takes the least time.

What takes the most time for me are spells and feats. For lesser npcs spells don't take as long since I tend to pick them from the PHB only (sometimes using the lists at the back of PHB2). Wizard npcs are almost unheard of in my campaign since I hate picking spells for their spellbooks. It's definitely the least DM-friendly class (well, Archivists are probably worse but I've never created one of those, so far).
But feats ALWAYS take a lot of time. I believe this is mainly because feats are completely unintuitive. Prerequisites and power/usefulness differ wildly and they're scattered over dozens of books. Often I remember a certain feat that would be ideal for an npc, but I just can't seem to find the frigging thing...

The next thing that takes a lot of time is selecting equipment. I mostly choose from the big five (seven?!) but make it a point to also add some disposables and at least one item from MIC to add some variety.

Creating the BBEG for my last longer adventure, a 12th level wizard, took the better part of a week (at 1-2 hours a day)! And I consider it time well spent, or rather time I really had to spend to make the adventure and the bossfight work:
The final fight against the BBEG and his cronies took almost 6 hours (8 players) to resolve (totalling 8 rounds of combat) AND the BBEG managed to get away in the end, though the party gained entry to his lab and got hold of most of his equipment, library, and a copy of his spellbook.

I strongly doubt there would have been a way to pull something like this off with a 15 minute npc.

 

[Desdichado]

And to go one step further, unless there is a great need for an NPC to have a specific skill, there isn't much of a reason to stat out anything. Just give them max ranks in whatever skill they need during combat. In the long run, who really cares the exact ranks an NPC is supposed to have?

Extending that logic even a little bit further, and it seems to me that hardly any of the stats—abilities, skill points, feat selection, spell selection, or even class abilities—really need to be done ahead of time. Most of the time. In the long run, who really cares (or even knows, other than the GM) any of that stuff based on a combat or social interaction?

For most of it, it's nice that it's available if you want to use it, but it's hardly essential to run the NPC, even in combat. I can't remember the last time I fully statted out an NPC. There just isn't any reason to.

 

[jdrakeh]

What takes the most time for me are spells and feats.

You are not alone. Skill selection is a cake walk for me though, admittedly, this might be because I'm very familiar with skill-based RPGs and, thus, know where points need to be spent in order to best represent a character concept during play (i.e., there will be no putting points in skills not central to a concept).

But feats ALWAYS take a lot of time. I believe this is mainly because feats are completely unintuitive. Prerequisites and power/usefulness differ wildly and they're scattered over dozens of books. Often I remember a certain feat that would be ideal for an npc, but I just can't seem to find the frigging thing...

I'm inclined to agree with you. The wide selection of feats versus skills combined with the exception-based nature of feats (each has its own pre-requisites, conditions under which it will and won't work, etc) makes feat selection a total pain for me. By comparison, the relatively narrow selection of skills and the integrated and consistent system used to categorize them mechanically makes their selection a breeze.