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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7487508" data-attributes="member: 4937">I don't yet understand your intention in posting, but I strive very hard to make most of my NPCs have inferior 'point buys' than my PCs.   The PC's are intended in my game to be truly special extraordinary individuals.  Only major characters in my game world have 'point buys' equal to the PCs.  The BBEG in my game has the same point buy as the PCs.This stands in stark contrast to the stat blocks of most published NPCs, going all the way back to 1e, which tend to have much higher point buys than PCs - often so high as to vastly overshadow the PCs in terms of native talent.  I understand why NPCs might need high attributes if they are meant to be foes of the PCs, but this huge inflation in NPCs compared to the PCs always struck me as coming somewhat from a place of DM favoritism and a desire to impress the PC's with the DMs NPCs.  Since I really intend to have 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10 be 'average' in my game world, most characters have 'point buys' or 'arrays' very near to that and I'm not afraid to have NPCs with much lower arrays.Still, it's fun to figure out what you can do with that.For example, all the following are the sorts of NPCs you might meet wandering down the street.12 11 11 10 10 912 12 11 10 9 912 12 12 9 9 9 13 12 12 9 9 813 13 12 9 8 813 13 13 8 8 814 13 12 8 8 814 14 11 8 8 815 14 9 8 8 8 16 12 9 8 8 817 9 9 8 8 816 9 9 9 9 9 15 10 10 9 9 914 10 10 10 10 9 I use something like your 'non-elite' array all the time, varying where I put the higher scores according to the duties and skills of the NPC.  So gnoll archers might have slightly higher dex and lower in other areas, while gnolls with halberds might have slightly higher str and lower in other areas.I do have some quibble with your thinking when describing the arrays though.  If the goal is to challenge the PCs so that they are barely scraping past death/destruction/devastation in each and every encounter, wouldn't it make more sense to give them weaker rather than stronger arrays?  If you both increase the capabilities of the PCs so that they are effectively of higher level than they would be otherwise, and you also increase the difficulty of encounters, aren't you by moving two separate variables making it much harder to control and achieve the objective of "barely scrape past death/destruction/devastation each and every encounter"?</blockquote>

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