D&D General NPC help/ question regarding creating characters above 1st level.

[Gorg]

Today, time weighed heavily on my hands, so I decided to roll up some characters. Why? Because I could.

I figured, if nothing else, they'd be useful NPC's or villains in my upcoming campaign.

One of my players recently asked me if they could play a Gnome Druid Circle of Spores from Tasha's. I'd not planned on using Tashas for character options- and said so- so I was unfamiliar with it. Today, I dug the book out and had a look. I'm now intrigued! Of all the players, He is by FAR the most experienced, and I've been playing with him since the 80's. This looked like the sort of character it would be a lot of fun to DM, in his hands, so I agreed.

While I was there, I looked at some other things- inc ENWorld forums favorite hatie: The Twilight Cleric. I decided to roll one up! And also that, yes, we could use it.

And thus was Armand Kreel, Cleric of Ilmater born. I also decided to make him 5th level, as it would be useful to have an NPC "ally?" of slightly higher level around.

Which brings us, finally, to my question: how to go about equipping a character of this starting level? I seem to recall reading sections about starting characters above 1st level in past editions, but can find no guidance in this one for equipping them. 5E has upended the economy, and does things very differently than prior editions did... (we're all either new players, or coming back to the game after drifting away post 3e)

Just starting equipment isn't going to cut it- presuming he adventured enough to earn the 6,530 XP I listed on the sheet. I added a few things to his gear you'd expect to see: holy water, healing potions etal. Upgraded his armor to chainmail (twilight domain gives bonus proficiencies in heavy armor and martial weapons). But other than that, I'm not sure what a 5th level character could be expected to have in the way of items. Any ideas?


FWIW, I rolled up 6 sets of abilities, using 4d6 drop lowest, arrange to taste. I also added reroll 1s, as I'm contemplating adding that to the "official House rule" list. The results were remarkably consistent- all but one set is 10-14. Like I duplicated the default spread, minus the 15. The outlier had 2 16's. I used one of the others- 12, 12,13,13,14,14- for this character. I'm saving the one with 2 16's for a Paladin, I think.

 

[Maxperson]

Today, time weighed heavily on my hands, so I decided to roll up some characters. Why? Because I could.

I figured, if nothing else, they'd be useful NPC's or villains in my upcoming campaign.

One of my players recently asked me if they could play a Gnome Druid Circle of Spores from Tasha's. I'd not planned on using Tashas for character options- and said so- so I was unfamiliar with it. Today, I dug the book out and had a look. I'm now intrigued! Of all the players, He is by FAR the most experienced, and I've been playing with him since the 80's. This looked like the sort of character it would be a lot of fun to DM, in his hands, so I agreed.

While I was there, I looked at some other things- inc ENWorld forums favorite hatie: The Twilight Cleric. I decided to roll one up! And also that, yes, we could use it.

And thus was Armand Kreel, Cleric of Ilmater born. I also decided to make him 5th level, as it would be useful to have an NPC "ally?" of slightly higher level around.

Which brings us, finally, to my question: how to go about equipping a character of this starting level? I seem to recall reading sections about starting characters above 1st level in past editions, but can find no guidance in this one for equipping them. 5E has upended the economy, and does things very differently than prior editions did... (we're all either new players, or coming back to the game after drifting away post 3e)

Just starting equipment isn't going to cut it- presuming he adventured enough to earn the 6,530 XP I listed on the sheet. I added a few things to his gear you'd expect to see: holy water, healing potions etal. Upgraded his armor to chainmail (twilight domain gives bonus proficiencies in heavy armor and martial weapons). But other than that, I'm not sure what a 5th level character could be expected to have in the way of items. Any ideas?


FWIW, I rolled up 6 sets of abilities, using 4d6 drop lowest, arrange to taste. I also added reroll 1s, as I'm contemplating adding that to the "official House rule" list. The results were remarkably consistent- all but one set is 10-14. Like I duplicated the default spread, minus the 15. The outlier had 2 16's. I used one of the others- 12, 12,13,13,14,14- for this character. I'm saving the one with 2 16's for a Paladin, I think.

Are you using 5e or 5.5e? I think the 5.5e DMG has more in it about starting equipment for PCs who start at higher level, which would aid with your NPC.

Edit: My 5.5e DMG says it's in the 5.5e PHB.

Edit 2: The 5.5e PHB says that at level 5 give 500gp + 1d10x25 GP, plus normal starting equipment. Then 2 common, 3 uncommon and 1 rare magic item.

 

[Gorg]

I have the 2014 books. I should have probably added that detail, lol.

 

[Maxperson]

I have the 2014 books. I should have probably added that detail, lol.

I edited my post with the info from the 5.5e stuff. It should work fine for you. And I got the magic items wrong. LOL. 1 common and 1 uncommon. I listed the level 11-16 range in my last post.

 

[aco175]

If he is a NPC, then I would look at the monster statblocks for powers and equip like them. It seems like you want him to travel with the PCs and be more of a DMPC which is fine. In this case I would give him a few potions and a scroll. Maybe a minor uncommon like a periapt of would closure. In my games, I tend to have +1 weapons in most of the PCs hands by level 5, but I do not think the 'official' guides say that.

It also seems from your post that you have a new group of 1st level Pcs and you want to add a 5th level NPC to the group. That is generally not recommended but can be done if you remember that the players and their PCs should be the ones in the spotlight.

 

[Gorg]

No, not a DM PC. Just an occasional ally they might meet. Perhaps to cast a timely Revivify or Leomunds tiny hut at a crucial time, or a fortunate encounter on the road. A pseudo-patron. Or an actual patron (assuming a more or less goodly party, interested in going on quests to help Ilmater).

Or he'll end up as my spare replacement character in the game my buddy is DMing.

 

[aco175]

No, not a DM PC. Just an occasional ally they might meet. Perhaps to cast a timely Revivify or Leomunds tiny hut at a crucial time, or a fortunate encounter on the road. A pseudo-patron. Or an actual patron (assuming a more or less goodly party, interested in going on quests to help Ilmater).

Or he'll end up as my spare replacement character in the game my buddy is DMing.

Ilmater is the god of suffering. He could be dirt poor but helps everyone to take on their pain and hardship. This might make a good ally that feeds information to the PCs.

 

[Li Shenron]

Which brings us, finally, to my question: how to go about equipping a character of this starting level?

In theory, 5e does not set a default for how much treasure should the PC find, and therefore does not have wealth-by-level tables in PHB or DMG.

So if you only had the PHB, the starting equipment packages in the Classes chapter (or starting wealth-by-class table in the Equipment chapter) are still valid at any starting level!

If you choose to use the random treasure tables in the DMG, you could use the average treasure values to calculate how much wealth the PC have gained up to the starting level, after figuring out how many encounters by CR they presumably had. The book doesn't this for you because the original 5e design didn't want to imply any default. Chances are that other people already did the calculations and published them on the web.

The Xanathar book has an additional table on magic items gained after adventuring by tier, which is of limited help since each tier covers many levels, and of course the table only mentions magic items by rarity.

 

[Blue]

Today, time weighed heavily on my hands, so I decided to roll up some characters. Why? Because I could.

I figured, if nothing else, they'd be useful NPC's or villains in my upcoming campaign.

Got to disagree here with "useful".

Player-facing PC creation rules aren't for making anyone that the group could end up in a fight with. They are balanced against each other for a player experience, not fulfilling the role of monsters. The resultant math ends up much different, especially in the ratio of (nova) damage to survivability. Basically, if they're going to be in a fight, you want to have made a statblock for them with the monster creation rules. And if they aren't going to be in a fight, you don't need a full character sheet.

The PC-facing rules produce characters complex enough that a player who only has them to deal with in combat is satisfied with the level of complexity. Which means that many of the those created take too much of a DM's attention.

Remember, it's canonical that PC classes are not in-world constructs. It's easy to see if you look up NPCs with the same name that don't match the class, starting with the Druid in the Monster Manual -- it's got 4th level casting but no wildshape, something impossible to do with PC rules. There are other examples, often with different or incomplete features, different HD, and the like. Now, will often have somes similar enough that there's some in-world consistancy, with a few iconic features replicated in form or function, but not ones made with PC rules. Someone could be called a fighter or a wizard, but as words just as they could be called a soldier or a gladiator, not as a reference to the class.

If you look at every single monster book and every single adventure that WotC put out, you will not find a single instance of an NPC made with the player-facing rules, they are always made as a statblock, sometimes (but not always) given icon abilities as I've mentioned.

And to answer your question -- using the monster creation rules you know what AC and damage range they should be doing for their CR, so you equip what is appropriate to meet that.

 

[jasper]

I just given the NPC stats how I want them. Rolling or standard array are for pc goobers. The Same with magic items. I look at what my player pcs have and given a similar item.