D&D General Should NPCs be built using the same rules as PCs?

[Micah Sweet]

Except duergar aren’t playable, unless you are using a particular splatbook. So why duergar or derro or azer, but not dwarves?

Of course duergar are playable, in several editions. Did the OP specify we were only talking about a single specific sourcebook?

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is a distinction without a difference. NPCs are not PCs, playable race or not. All NPCs are monsters. Or, if you prefer, all monsters are NPCs.

Hard disagree, but our starting points are too far apart for me to bother convincing you otherwise.

 

[TwoSix]

I take your point!
Just for clarification, somewhere upthread they made the distinction the topic was about NPC (not monsters) although of late those lines have become blurred.

If humanoid NPCs need to be built like PCs, then why DON'T monster NPCs need to also follow these constraints?

Why is an NPC allowed to be an astral dreadnought and my PC isn't?

Or to zoom in a little closer, why do half-orcs have to use PC rules and hill giants or ogres don't?

 

[Micah Sweet]

If humanoid NPCs need to be built like PCs, then why DON'T monster NPCs need to also follow these constraints?

Why is an NPC allowed to be an astral dreadnought and my PC isn't?

Or to zoom in a little closer, why do half-orcs have to use PC rules and hill giants or ogres don't?

You want to play a hill giant or an ogre? Come see me and we'll discuss what that involves. I'll wait.

 

[TwoSix]

You want to play a hill giant or an ogre? Come see me and we'll discuss what that involves. I'll wait.

Literally exactly the same approach I take in my game. Good to know.

 

[Pedantic]

If humanoid NPCs need to be built like PCs, then why DON'T monster NPCs need to also follow these constraints?

Why is an NPC allowed to be an astral dreadnought and my PC isn't?

Or to zoom in a little closer, why do half-orcs have to use PC rules and hill giants or ogres don't?

If we're taking about the 3.x implementation, then all of those things had precisely the same progressions, either as a function of hit dice or class levels or both. Astral dreadnoughts had more racial abilities and racial hit dice, but nothing else differentiates them from PCs, and those things used a directly analogous advancement structure to PC classes. Astral dreadnoughts effectively had levels in the simplified "Outsider" class, and a bunch of racial abilities that outclassed what an elf or dwarf gets.

 

[TwoSix]

If we're taking about the 3.x implementation, then all of those things had precisely the same progressions, either as a function of hit dice or class levels or both. Astral dreadnoughts had more racial abilities and racial hit dice, but nothing else differentiates them from PCs, and those things used a directly analogous advancement structure to PC classes. Astral dreadnoughts effectively had levels in the simplified "Outsider" class, and a bunch of racial abilities that outclassed what an elf or dwarf gets.

To my mind, that's much more tenable than the idea that some characters get built one way and others (humanoids) a different way.

 

[Pedantic]

To my mind, that's much more tenable than the idea that some characters get built one way and others (humanoids) a different way.

I had sort of assumed that was what was being proposed with the Monster/NPC divide and thought that much superior personally. The obvious problem is that it requires a separate and significantly better detailed system to evaluate CR. It simply isn't sufficient use those inputs by themselves to archive at a meaningful difficulty analysis, but that problem doesn't really differ that significantly from 5e anyway.

Honestly, I don't actually think the basic math derivations for attack bonuses/skills/saves were as complicated as they get demonized to be. You're mostly doing 1/2, 1/3 or 3/4 of hit dice, maybe with a +2 modifier. If you ditched cross class skills or used the pathfinder level+3 system and we're just selecting skills to maximize, it's a calculation you get pretty quickly to memorizing.

The issues were spells and feats. That's a space where some sort of standardized templates that let you go from feats to final numbers or standardized load outs by monster role would have been a sensible norm.

I have less sympathy for people who don't want to internalize the spell list or look up spells at the table. Some reprinting of spell effects in monster writeups is fine, but in general that's a price I'm happy to pay for a consistent magic system, and spell-like abilities largely made that easier and more consistent, not less so. Eventually you know what animate dead does, and it's easier to write that than 7 different species specific undead creation powers, while also reserving the option to write a weird species specific undead creation power if you want.

Fundamentally, I don't think the problems were systemic in the way they get described. It was specific implementation, things like Wild Shape and summoning spells, CR and the expected encounters/day, not the underlying unified design.

 

[bloodtide]

The whole idea that the DM must "just say the right words" to keep the players "happy for a second", just shows a poor game environment.

The players are so on edge and hostile that they are watching everything the DM does, just looking for something to complain about and derail the game.

So if it keeps the players "happy", the DM can say every NPC with any sort of special about them is a "retired adventurer". So the game goes on a couple weeks, and it adds up to 200+ NPCs all being "retired adventurers" .

And maybe the players might start to notice "gosh sure are a lot of retired adventurers around".

And the DM will just say "Well, yea, that is your demand players, so live with it".

 

[tetrasodium]

The whole idea that the DM must "just say the right words" to keep the players "happy for a second", just shows a poor game environment.

The players are so on edge and hostile that they are watching everything the DM does, just looking for something to complain about and derail the game.

So if it keeps the players "happy", the DM can say every NPC with any sort of special about them is a "retired adventurer". So the game goes on a couple weeks, and it adds up to 200+ NPCs all being "retired adventurers" .

1And maybe the players might start to notice "gosh sure are a lot of retired adventurers around".

And the DM will just say "Well, yea, that is your demand players, so live with it".

The "poor game environment" is a product of choices wotc made with 5e itself long before anything happens at the table. Modern players often have an expectation somewhat created by video games and some of 5e's design, wotc's answer to this shift of the times is they didn't even bother trying for one or acknowledging the shift existing & wrote player facing guidance practically endorsing it as an outlook the reader should just expect to hold. To a lot of players the GM is just the meat computer & as a result is expected to follow the rules to a T. That is exacerbated by the way 5e choosing to design PC needs in such a way that they pretty much never need anything from the GM. When players feel like they need things from the GM they ask "how can I get/do X" type questions that lead to discussion & collaboration. Without any reason to collaborate with their meat computer GM it becomes hard not to see the gm just as their adversary to be beaten.