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<blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 8515580" data-attributes="member: 467">Let's not conflate &quot;different design paradigm&quot; with &quot;over simplification.&quot; 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, &quot;fun&quot; -- whatever that means for your group).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Reynard, post: 8515580, member: 467"] 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). [/QUOTE]

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