On NPC generation.
Look, if it was so easy, why do the professionals screw it up just about every time? People who do it for a living complain about how hard it is to stat up NPC's. Saying that NPC statting is overly complex is hardly a damning criticism and has been noted by an awful lot of people.
This is exactly the problem.
It is reasonable to expect the NPCs in a published work to be "John Cooper" flawless. They have the time to get it right.
But that is not at all the same thing as saying that the NPCs
must be 100% by the book or your game is going to fall apart.
Throw me down in the column of not needing software to make NPCs. Dealing with high-level casters is a major PITA that I dread, but the problem there is 3e's over-the-top buff structure, and I don't know any NPC generator program what would help with that.
So, 4e tells me that I can break the rules, and that it's ok for
my monsters to use different rules than the
players' PCs, and that if there's something that's not relevant to the statblock, throw it out. Everyone lauds this brilliant revolution in game design!
So I am not exactly certain how it was that I managed to do this in 3e.
My NPCs don't even
have skills until such time as they
need skills. Wanna cast defensively? POOF! My spellcaster has maxxed his Concentration ranks. Need to tumble around combat? POOF! My rogue has Tumble. Need to bring your turned undead back under your control? POOF! The evil priest has 5 ranks of Religion and gets +2 to his Turn check.
I'll run out of "needs" long before I run out of "ranks." (Usually, because the NPC is dead.)
But if I'm not casting defensively, not tumbling, not turning any undead, I really don't tear my hair out worrying where even their first skill point is allocated, let alone every last niggling rank.
About those spellscasters? Same thing. I've played enough spellcasters over the years to know what the usual spell array looks like. I don't need to write down
magic missile ahead of time to know that my evil wizard will have it prepared; and if my evil wizard casts
magic missile three times in one combat, then that's what he must have prepared for the day. I don't need to write down
shield of faith and
resist elements and
prayer to know that my evil priest will cast them, given the opportunity.
And no, my spellcasters aren't pulling weird "strangely applicable" stuff out of their ass just because I feel like it.
80-90% of the time every spellcaster has the same "go to" spells.
One last comment about published adventures, which often come with lists of prepared spells. Here the same rules apply. If I want to use a spell written down, I use it. If I want to use the same spell again, I'll cross off a different spell. If I want to use a spell not on the list, I'll cross off a different spell.
It's easy, and I needed no formal training, no explicit rules, and certainly no explicit
permission from WotC to run my game in this fashion.
If 3e is too much hard work for you, by and large it's because you are making it too hard on yourself. It is far too easy to obsess over the details.
DMing requires different skills than simply playing. It also requires more time spent out of game. It's extra work, extra responsibility, and not everyone finds it to be enjoyable. Which is all Wulf was saying.
Of course.