D&D 5E Character or monster builds for important NPCs?

[Weiley31]

UA sidekick rules for party NPCs and/or class features depending on NPC.If your character sucks and the UA fighter outclasses ya, I guess your character shouldn't suck so much then in life. He/She don't got time to babysit you and get killed in the process.

Monster stat blocks for regular monsters. Unique/Boss Monsters have class features. For example, elite swords/guardsman will use the College of Sword Bard flourishes to represent their Martial training. Boss Monsters will have Second Wind happen upon HP depletion to represent health bars. Current plan until Theros's solo monster rules are released. How many uses of Second Wind will vary based on said boss*

Unique NPC only feats for certain NPC to reflect certain abilities,training, traits, rivalries, and boss phases during boss fights.

 

[Reynard]

I'm in the "mainly monster stats" camp, mostly because I can't be bothered to make a full character sheet for a character whose role is not at all like that of a PC. Whether an ally, an enemy or something else, an NPC doesn't do the things a PC does so they don't need to be built like one. I have had NPCs become PCs because another PC dies or whatever and the player wants to take over the NPC. In that case I just let the player build the character how they want, with the expectation that it is recognizable as the same character type (so the scout NPC could be a ranger or a rogue or whatever, so long as the character was a sneaky woodsman type).

 

[Laurefindel]

Major villains get the full PC treatment, using the same stat arrays that was used to create PCs.

Mostly because making characters is fun...