D&D General Are NPCs like PCs?

[Sacrosanct]

See, I don't get this. This is just flat out not true. NPC's did not work like PC's at all. Dragons had spells, but, no MU levels. Heck, lots of creatures could cast spells but didn't have specific caster levels, nor even a class. 1e and 2e in no way applied the PC rules to NPC's.

For example, what class was a brigand?

Open a 1e module. Look at an NPC. They literally had class levels. Casters has the same spells as PCs in the same format.

Every class in Drafon magazine? They were NPC classes (people just used them as regular classes). Including the death knight. They were in the exact format of pc classes. I’m sorry if you’re annoyed, but I suspect it’s because you aren’t familiar with the rules rather than old schoolers doing revisionist history.

 

[Burnside]

Yes, but In creating 5ed, they went on by asking us through survey and playtests what WE wanted. At this point, they have a.moral obligation to keep their word that this is our edition. If they want to go the 6ed direction, I have absolutely no trouble with that and I would embark on that wagon without second thinking. But a major rework of the 5ed principles such as these (and it goes way deeper than mere npc and monsters) should, no must warrant a new edition. This would make me way happier and a lot more understanding than the perversion they are doing right now.

Personally, 5ed has its flaws and a new edition would solve a lot of these (or might have the potential to do it)

They have also conducted a lot of surveys and playtests in the years since 2013 to tell them what the (vastly expanded since then) 5E player base now wants.

 

[NotAYakk]

Yes, but In creating 5ed, they went on by asking us through survey and playtests what WE wanted. At this point, they have a.moral obligation to keep their word that this is our edition. If they want to go the 6ed direction, I have absolutely no trouble with that and I would embark on that wagon without second thinking. But a major rework of the 5ed principles such as these (and it goes way deeper than mere npc and monsters) should, no must warrant a new edition. This would make me way happier and a lot more understanding than the perversion they are doing right now.

Personally, 5ed has its flaws and a new edition would solve a lot of these (or might have the potential to do it)

I answered those surveys as well.

Am I part of WE? I sure hope so.

Do they have a moral obligation to provide a 5E that serves what WE wanted, people who answered like I did?

I mean, I read the design stuff. They did talk about many of these issues at the time. The 5e monster creation rules clearly are not "make a PC", and the initial monsters clearly didn't use PC creation rules. I mean, the medium sized spellcasters use d8 HD, for a clear and trivial example. They have never once in any monster manual stated "the leader is an orc with 7 fighter class levels (subclass champion)."

Even clearly subclass inspired 5e monsters, like a diviner, doesn't exactly match the 5e PC subclasses.

If they have an "obligation" to provide the game you asked for when you, personally, answered the surveys, how is that different than the "obligation" they have to provide the game I asked for when I, personally, answered the surveys?

I read the 5e monster building guidelines. They do not say "always use PC rules to make an NPC". The MM doesn't do this. There are some spellcasters with spell lists and slots, and explicit advice that changing which spells they know could impact their CR (but you can be lazy and not bother), but there are also plenty of monsters with abilities that could be spells (DK necrotic fireball) that aren't written up as spells.

Going more that way -- monsters with abilities that look like spells -- together with advice saying "here is how to treat them as spells" is not a rewrite of 5e.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Orc description in 2e, literally using a class template for the NPC orc.

“For every 100 orcs encountered, there will be either a shaman (maximum 5th level priest) or a witch doctor (maximum 4th-level mage).”

And this is how NPCs were presented in modules.

 

[Helldritch]

I answered those surveys as well.

Am I part of WE? I sure hope so.

Do they have a moral obligation to provide a 5E that serves what WE wanted, people who answered like I did?

I mean, I read the design stuff. They did talk about many of these issues at the time. The 5e monster creation rules clearly are not "make a PC", and the initial monsters clearly didn't use PC creation rules. I mean, the medium sized spellcasters use d8 HD, for a clear and trivial example. They have never once in any monster manual stated "the leader is an orc with 7 fighter class levels (subclass champion)."

Even clearly subclass inspired 5e monsters, like a diviner, doesn't exactly match the 5e PC subclasses.

If they have an "obligation" to provide the game you asked for when you, personally, answered the surveys, how is that different than the "obligation" they have to provide the game I asked for when I, personally, answered the surveys?

Yep, but they are the close match that we wanted. Now? Not so much. The over simplification of foes was tried before. It was dropped for a reason.

 

[S'mon]

Let's say for example that the party defeats Balkalathe the Indomitable, Sorcerer-Priest of the Outer Dark, who cast The Soul Rending Shriek of Mal'athazar -- 18d6 necrotic damage (DC 19 Con save for half) plus 2d6 charisma drain (DC 21 Wis save for half). The party wizard says, "I want to learn that spell!"

How do you handle that, assuming it was just an ability in the stat block and not a written up spell?

"No, he's not a Wizard. He doesn't have a spell book."

 

[Reynard]

Yep, but they are the close match that we wanted. Now? Not so much. The over simplification of foes was tried before. It was dropped for a reason.

Let's not conflate "different design paradigm" with "over simplification." There is nothing in the design system for 5E NPCs and monsters that necessitates them being useless bags of hit points (even though most of them are) -- as evidenced by the tons of really cool, complex NPCs and monsters that have appeared in 3rd party products and even WotC products post-MM.

Another thing i want to address: some people are drawing a very stark distinction between NPC types and Monster types. This is an unnecessary distinction to me. IMO only the PCs need to be considered classed and leveled entities because the rules do not represent any sort of laws of nature or exacting description of the world. the rules are there to facilitate play and serve as abstract approximations for the fiction. both a PC and NPC might be an expert fighter, and maybe they even went to the same fighting school, but that doesn't mean they need to have the same stat structure if it doesn't serve the ultimate master (which is, of course, "fun" -- whatever that means for your group).

 

[Hriston]

No, NPCs are not like PCs. Player and DM roles are distinct from one another. My preference in statting out an NPC with "class levels" is to create a stat block that approximates what those levels bring to the creature, but even then I don't follow the PC rules exactly. For example, the NPC's hit dice are always based on its size.

That being said, I have NPC spellcasters use the same spells as PCs. I'm not too interested in writing new spells for my NPCs to use.

Monster "race" stat blocks are different from PC races, especially of the humanoid types that would most likely be used as PCs. Often they represent a regular troop type of a particular fantasy race with the accompanying martial capabilities added on top of the base race, so I wouldn't expect a PC of that race to necessarily have the same abilities as a monster. I would, however, expect an NPC/monster of a particular race to have pretty much everything included in a PC race, although, as I said above, I don't fuss about insignificant details like subrace, for example, when creating a stat block for such an NPC.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Nope. Not true. Why do people insist that this is true? These claims that things are suddenly changed in 4e, when the change was 3e and 4e changed things back is just so bizarre. Why do you think this?

What class was a Death Knight? And how come it can cast a Fireball while wearing Plate Mail?

This is why I get so annoyed as soon as we try to have any conversation about this sort of stuff. This is EXACTLY the point I made in the other thread about the History of the OSR. Revisionist history and claims of "The Way Things Were" that are laughably easy to disprove.

Dragon magazine 222 answers your question. It has the death knight class. You might want to hold off on your gloating phrases like “laughably easy to disprove” when you didn’t disprove anything, and in fact the seem to be proven wrong yourself by the actual material (issue 222 in this specific case). Maybe instead of being so entrenched in assumptions, back off a little and ask why so many people are repeating the same thing. Is it more likely they are all delusional and are using revisionist history, or is it more likely they experienced the same things back in the day and are recalling actual rules? I suspect you might be less annoyed if you held back on the knee jerk reactions.

People do have rose colored glasses at times, I won’t dispute that. But if everyone is saying one thing and you weren’t gaming yourself back then, then perhaps they should be given a little bit of thought before replying with such condescending phrases. Because when you say something like that when it’s clearly not, it doesn’t look good for the strength of your position and people will tend to dismiss your entire argument, even if there are things worth considering in them.

 

[aco175]

I fail to see how a NPC or monster caster I make needs to follow PC rules. If I make a 5th level caster and I give him an at-will cantrip, 2 1/rest spells of 1st or 2nd level, and a 1/day fireball over 3 slots of these 1st level spells, 2 slots of these 2nd level spells, and 1 slot of these 3rd level spells.. They are about the same in power.

My pages ago example of a elf warrior that casts a fireball1/day may mean that several things that the players can find out or not. I might have an elf build where it is modeled of being part fighter and part wizard. It can cast 1 spell of a wizard class at the highest level. Maybe I would let a player play this 'class' At5th level is can cast a fireball, but no other spells like a 5th level caster. I can have 2nd wind, but not action surge, ability boost, or2 attacks like a fighter has. Overall it may be kind of crappy compared to each of the other classes.

I have even started to use 4e powers for NPCs and monsters. My 'elf' build above may have 1/day fireball and a 1/rest power that is a close burst 1 attack. I could even make it a recharge ability instead of 1/rest. It lacks anything else cool, but it exists only to fill a certain need in my game.