Quick & Easy NPC Creation

[SWAT]

I'll be running a new Eberron campaign soon, and would like to avoid my usual habit of mostly using mosnters straight out of the MM because it's quicker and easier than creating classed NPCs. I'm considering a variety of ways of being able to quickly come up with an NPC of almost any base class, and would appreciate some feedback on them. I'd also like to know how everyone else handles NPC creation. Here's what I'm considering:

- The Quick NPC Creation section in PHB2. This covers a lot of base classes, but unfortunately no psionics. Does anyone know of an effort to do this with other base classes? I'd be an interesting online project...

- Using only pre-created NPC. There are a lot of NPCs out there, so I could probably find most of what I want if I look hard enouhg. Any really good sources besides the NPC Wiki?

- Generating template NPCs myself. This would be the most work at first, but seems like it could pay off afterwards. If only I could find a good Excel or pdf (form fillable) character sheet, I could build a class level by level, with one file per level. When I wanted, say, a 5th level Fighter, I'd take the right file, plug in the race, maybe change a feat or a weapon, the math would do itself, and voila. Of course, all of my Fighters would look the same, and all my Wizards would have the same spells, but the players wouldn't notice. I tried using PCGen to see if I could pull this off, but it forces you to pick a race at the very beginning and stick with it. Has anyone ever tried this before? Or have a good character sheet I could pull this off with?

Thanks for any feedback and advice.

And on a different note: 50th post! And in slightly less than 5 years! Yay!

 

[Evilhalfling]

Well Im game.
Psion:

use wizard stats
use begiuiler, sorcerer, wizard list of equipment
Priority skills:
Concentration (con), Autohypnosis/craft (sculpture)/diplomacy, Psicraft

Blaster
H skill focus concentration
1 psi-crystal affinity
1 psionic endowment
3 overchannel
5 psionic meditation
6 empower
9 power penetration
10 psi-crystal containment
12 greater power penetration
15 craft dojre / psicrown
15 quicken power
18 unconditional power
20 Twin Power

Other suggested types:
Creator (astral constructs)
Telepath

 

[SWAT]

Cool, that's an interesting start, though I'd personally ignore the crafting feats and get something more generic, like Great Fortitude.

Anyway, I'd argue that for Psions, a feat chain would have to be done for each specialization. So your blaster would be the Kineticist.

 

[EricNoah]

You might check out this thread for some ideas:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=166310

For a psion, I would just pick out a couple of powers at each level, assume the Psion can augment them as high as possible, and go from there.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Generating NPC's

Have you seen this page? http://www.aarg.net/~minam/npc2.cgi

Accessed from Enworld's "Toolbox," a fantastic resource page.
http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=toolbox