Ability points PC vs. NPCs

[Turanil]

In my games:

PCs: Use point-buy system with 32 points (the maximum that DMG suggests, for a "high powered campaign").

NPCs: I don't bother using any method at all!! Why should I? What's the need and rationale?! Simply, starving commoners are likely to have worse ability scores than well fed warriors or thriving aristocrats. Then, high level characters are likely to have better ability scores than low level ones. I always give NPCs stats on a whim, depending on what I want them to be. Why bother finding a specific rationale for NPCs the players won't bother much about? Of course, if the 1st level guards all have 18 strength, it's going to look ridiculous. However, I just need to do something coherent: the 1st level guards have 12 strength, the 3rd level more experienced ones have 13 or 14, and the guards' captain can have 15 or 16. Now probably the executioner while being only 4th level has a 18 strength which fits well with his persona.

 

[National Acrobat]

I am absolutely stunned. Flabbergasted, even.

All your NPCs have the same heroic ability scores as the PCs? The shopkeepers down the street have 16-18 Int? The town guardsmen patrol all have 16-18 Str? The local councilmen all have 16-18 Cha? Really? I have *never* heard of DMs doing this. [Well, there was one campaign where *everyone* in the world were as good or better than we PCs.]

Well, I guess it does explain some complaints I've read on this forum. If *everyone* has 14s and 15s, then those scores become the average (instead of 10s and 11s). Do you all also bump up monster ability scores too? I mean, by the RAW, monster stats are based on 15 points (11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10 or 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8). This is pretty pathetic when even the farmer in the field, the merchant on his wagon, and the hedge mage off in the shack all have 15, 14, 14, 12, 10, 10.

Quasqueton

In my campaign this isn't the case. We roll scores the old fashioned way for PC creation, 4d6, drop the lowest, no modifications. Many of the PC's are lucky to have a 14 or 15 in one ability score. I do the NPC's the same way, so the odds of everyone having an even spread are about the same. I don't use point buy, and there isn't any way to modify ability scores other than the add 1 every four levels, which everyone gets as well.

 

[Nifft]

IMC, the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children who survive to breed are above average.

My campaign is set in a world with magical critters who like eating people, and with healing magic to keep alive those society values. It's not a medieval Earth simulation. The weak have been eaten for generations, and the best minds do not fall prematurely to disease.

-- N

 

[nopantsyet]

There are a number of factors I consider in creating NPCs, including motivation, ambition, ability and opportunity. One does not absolutely have to start with high ability scores to become great, but there's no doubt it does help. On the other hand, in D&D as in life, don't underestimate the greatness of the humanoid spirit.

I generally select an appropriate ability array for NPCs. For the most part, people end up in life about where their abilities place them, some higher or lower based on the other factors. But those that rise above must have motivation and ambition; but lacking ability and/or opportunity can be overcome.

So I pick what fits the NPC's story. Generally I consider adventurers to be the most well-rounded of anyone else. Most gifted non-adventurers are above average in only one or two abilities. So overall, they PCs to be higher, except for villains and other adventurers. But they are not savants; they are also likely to encounter NPCs (good and evikl) who are truly prodigious in one particular ability. That's always fun!

 

[Eremite]

At the risk of being called names, these are my "rules":

PCs: 42 points
Generic/insignificant NPC: 25 points
Significant/named NPC: 32 points
Key NPCs: 36 points

 

[Darkness]

At the risk of being called names, these are my "rules":

PCs: 42 points
Generic/insignificant NPC: 25 points
Significant/named NPC: 32 points
Key NPCs: 36 points

Sounds fine to me.

I've refined my own guidelines a bit since I last posted here, BTW.

PCs: 36 points.
NPCs (Commoner class): Not usually statted, but would have 12-15 points if they were.
NPCs (other NPC classes): 15 points. (These are invariably mooks IMC, with the possible exception of some Aris and Exps, who might get more.)
NPCs (PC class): 28 points. Unimportant characters below 6th level get only 25.
NPCs (Champion types, many NPC adventurers): 32 points.
NPCs (Key importance): 36 points. (If anyone needs more than that, they'll probably get templates, wishes or something, not simply more stat points.)
Deities: If they need stats for some reason, they get the divine standard array of 35, 28, 25, 24 (x3) +1 point/divine rank to distribute.

BBEGs are generally built on 28-36 points. (28 being for some noncombatant schemers and such.)
Or around 15, if they're simply powerful monsters (e.g., a balor). Monster BBEGs who are champions of their kind get ca. 25 (e.g., an advanced non-classed critter).

 

[dren]

General rule: PCs and adventuring NPCs 48 points - with a slightly more advanced attritbute gain; Non-adventuring PCs - 28 points.

But this is a tool I use to speed up character creation than anything else.

 

[the Jester]

First off, we roll stats for pcs and (as a dm) I either arbitrarily assign or roll stats for npcs that are exceptional enough that I need to generate their stats.

I've played games where it was 3d6 in order for stats, though, and I'd enjoy doing it again (a short campaign with an 'everyman party' of low-level adventurers could be very fun, with our first level or two in npc classes...)

Anyway, as to why pcs are exceptional- well, someone's gotta be.

I mean, maybe Lord of the Rings could have been really cool if the hobbits had been in the Shire the whole time, eventually getting conquered by Saruman, and then finally liberated at the end after the Ring was destroyed; but being the heroes is (usually) more fun.

 

[Zappo]

IMC, PCs have 25 points. Cohorts have 20 points. Other NPCs get assigned scores in a more or less arbitrary fashion.

 

[arscott]

What I do:
Nameless Monsters get 11 x3, 10x3
NPC classes and Individualized monsters get 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 or 3d6
PC classes get 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 or 4d6 drop one
The most powerful heroes in the setting (Aragorn, Elminster, etc.) get 5d6 drop 2