NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 7145973" data-attributes="member: 463">Well, I would hope this rules-as-physics approach died with 3e*. Not just because PC-class NPCs are a female dog to run in combat in 3e, 4e (the worst) or 5e. The whole approach is just horribly constraining and leads to all those Silver Age Dragon "NPC Classes", replacing the older (eg 1e DMG) approach of just saying "OK he's a Sage/Thug/Whatever, here's what he needs to fulfil his role".I don't use mentored-training-to-level in any of my games. but of course there are lots of NPCs who identify as Paladins, Rangers (99% non-casting!), Wizards etc in my game and likely have some elements in common with the PC classes (except the Rangers!) <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> If I've detailed their combat stats at all, in 99.5% of cases that's not going to be using extremely finickety PC-build rules that (a) are designed to reward players for levelling (b) are a pain to record and use and (c) often include stuff I actively DO NOT WANT most NPCs of that in-world role to have, such as Druid Wildshaping & Ranger spellcasting. Of course there are advantages in pre-3e to statting NPCs as PCs, back when it was practical to do so. Most notably a Retainer/Henchman NPC can easily transition to being a full PC. I think 5e complexity is just about low enough that players could run PC-class Retainers who could become replacement PCs, I think that is the only case where I'd consider using PC rules for NPCs (I think I've once statted out an nPC using PC Champion Fighter rules as she was a fellow adventurer & peer of the PCs operating alongsidethem. Still felt like wasted effort when she died at level 3).I don't find consistency to be an issue at all. The rules - any rules - are already only a very partial representation of the game world, there to facilitate player interaction with the world. In-world, wounds don't magically heal overnight, whereas people do get sucking chest wounds and die slowly and painfully over hours, or get crippled and maimed in combat, losing limbs etc. The rules don't simulate that, and nor should they IMO.*Except of course for a certain poster on this thread, but I keep him on IL so I'm only seeing the quotes... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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