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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 187429" data-attributes="member: 2067">Settle down everyone...Look, things degenerated pretty quickly here....Look at the books, and they give you the definitions you need to work with. 1st-level characters alredy have a bit of experience under their belt. Their training is completed. They are ready to be heroes.Sure, they generally suck at it, but they're on their way. The PC classes are more powerful than the NPC classes because the PC's are special people. NPC's don't save the world, PC's do, and they need to be competent at it. PC classes know what they're doing, right from the start.There's nothing wrong with PC classes being taken by "everybody," either, but it would be a weird world...generally, you see your heroic knight-fighter of minor-goblinoid-slaying-potential as more competent and genrally more skilled than Nameless Guard #4.You could just make all NPC's take PC classes, but it does mean that even the more untrained phone psychic has a level of the Diviner class, and has a familiar and knows how to make scrolls. It means that even the street thug knows how to sneak attack. It means that even Billy, the Conscript from Podunk, can wield most of the weapons known to his society. There's nothing wrong with that, but because D&D makes your characters heroic (even at 1st level), they have weaker classes for the teeming masses that *aren't* heroes. In this way, the phone psychic can be an Adept and the local barkeep can be a Commonner instead of a Fighter. The baseline is that not everybody has all the class features of a PC class...because they're NPC's.The NPC classes are weaker, but people may play them because they don't want to be heroes. Without giving everyone PC classes (and going away from the norm), the best way to emulate some average joes just caught up in events is by an NPC class.Sure, you could play an isolated farmbody destined to save the world as a 1st-level paladin...but the paladin class comes with some baggage. After all, why would farmboy know how to wield a composite longbow, should it happen to fall into his lap? Paladins can. Also, because his destiny may not have  unfolded yet, you may not want him to be able to detect evil naturally...he'll have to learn how to do that later. By making this farmboy a 1st level paladin, he's already head-and-shoulders above every other farmboy. That's where NPC classes come in handy. Not because you want to artificially weaken the character, but because you want to play someone who would fit in with the average goon at the bar. Because you'd like to be a farmboy before you realize your destiny. Because Red Shirt Guard can get easily whooped where a regular PC could stand alright, and sometimes you want to play an untrained hack, because not everyone knows how to use a lot of weapons or cleave many foes. If you want to play a farmboy, an NPC class is the best way to go about that. If you want to play a soldier just off the front lines, a Fighter is a good way to do that.NPC classes just let you realize that you are one of the teeming masses, you are not one of the chose ones (as of yet). It's possible to get this feeling when every joe blow has a level of fighter, but it seems a bit more reasonable to allow weaker classes.NPC's = Average People. If you want to play an average person, use an NPC class. PC's=Heroes. Most people want to play heroes, most players are PC classes.It doesn't give you any special revelation, but it's a nice touch on a character that isn't a hero yet. Not essential, but, if you want that kind of idea, pretty helpful.</blockquote>

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