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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vayden" data-source="post: 4028784" data-attributes="member: 57791">Okay, leaving aside the debate over whether or not tables are organic, I think the main point this thread has proved is that A) everyones play-styles and requirements for NPCs differ and B) you can't make a custom NPC by the rules in 3.5 in under 30 minutes. I think this is a minor semantic point that's been missed - Tak, you've made good NPCs - I'd probably downgrade their CR by 2 or 3 for my group because they're all power-gamers, but they're perfectly serviceable, useable NPCs who I would be very happy to use in my game. I think I may copy and paste your Gnome into my files for future use, in fact. However, by the rules of 3.5, those are incorrectly made NPCs, and any equivalent CR PC would eat them for lunch. Yes, you can polish them up, and the flaws are minor, but according the rules and inherent philosophy of 3.5, they're wrong. You've overcome that thinking, which is good, and probably makes your DMing and gaming much easier and more fun. I think we've all learned by this point that you have to wing things and skip a few rules in 3.5 when you're DMing. I think Mearls' underlying point was that 3.5, with its "there's one underlying ruleset for everything" approach to building monsters and NPCs, is the incorrect approach to a ruleset/DMing. In 4E, I think we'll all get guidelines for building antagonists that encourage us not to build villains/monsters to "follow the rules" in some sort of "there is a formula for everything" sense but in the "if it's level X, and you want it to fill the artillery role, it should fit in this range here" sense. In addition, if 4E PC generation is anything like SWSE PC generation, it'll be a lot faster, so even those of us who want to put as much effort into our villains as into our PCs will save time. A few quick examples of how even 3.75 (SWSE) saves you time -No need to spend skill points - you just move down the line and check off "trained" a certain number of times.No need to organically follow the progression of ability score increases - someone who started at Wis 14 and leveled it up to 18 and someone who started at 18 and stayed there have the exact same number of force powers (or trained skills if you replace Wis with Int). No fretting over magic items - the power of the characters comes from their level, not their equipment (probably a bit more of an issue in 4E, but less than 3.5). Almost all of the bonuses are based on either Level or 1/2 Level - no matter whether you're making a 1st or a 18th level character, you just plug those in and you're pretty close to CR.Easy, easy, easy multi-classing rules. I mean ridiculously easy. I'm not saying there's a hard and fast rule for how long it does/should take someone to make an NPC - that varies by your style. I'm saying you'll get the same diversity, more reliable CR, and have an easier job of doing it, no matter what your style is.</blockquote>

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