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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 5113303" data-attributes="member: 704">What I may have failed to make clear is that the 'Evil NPC Adventurer Party' problem is something I encountered in 3rd Edition.And that right there is pretty much the problem.  For prep time, When your building an NPC based on a PC race / class, you have a HUGE number of problems.  If you have ever ran a 3rd edition game where you had players roll up even a 7th or 8th level PC at the table at the start of the game, you know your going to lose between 1 and 2 hours as the players fiddle with skills, spells, feats, and what classes to chose, and that is with 1 pc per player.Now when you go to run them in combat, odds are you are going to need to refer to what feats and weapons a warrior has when that NPC's turn comes along, and then work out the current attack and damage bonuses (ie:  Ok, Full attack, using the 1st and 3rd attacks against PC Bob the Fighter, and the 2nd Attack against PC Jack the Theif.  Initial attack on Bob is going to be a Disarm attempt.  My Evil Fighter has a Bulls Strength, Bless and Prayer active.  Don't forget the flanking bonus...).  Then you have to decide what to cast for the Sorcerer this round, but chances are you do not recall every single spell, and perhaps you try for Black Tentacles, then run the summoned monster you called up last round, and then finally track the durations on whatever ongoing effects you cast previously.The problem does not only apply to NPC adventurer types.  It also applies to monsters that also have spell caster levels or a variety of spell like abilities.  A reasonably powerful dragon in 3rd edition could just Bite.  Or Claw.  Or do Claw / Claw / Bite / Wing / Wing.  Or maybe hit something with its tail.  Or snatch / Grapple.  Or use a breath weapon.  Or cast something from its caster levels.  Or use a spell like ability.  Lots of options are nice, but I seriously doubt there are may people who have run an encounter with say, 3 Adult or older dragons of entirely different colors.  The fewer unique effects and attacks you have to remember, the quicker you can decide what to do.  The fewer modifiers and ongoing effects you have to track, the faster you can determine the relevant numbers to determine if an attack was a hit or a miss.4th Edition monsters are simple.  Some may still have many options, but every thing you need to know about every option available to a monster is in the stat block (with the exception of the exact definition of effects like Restrained vs Immobilized, which are on the DM screen).END COMMUNICATION</blockquote>

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