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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6559281" data-attributes="member: 6787650">That's a false dichotomy. You can build an NPC using the regular class-based rules and STILL fudge the numbers. 5E is simple enough that there's actually very little need to do this, but you can for example leave the drow wizard's skills if he appears in a combat encounter, and only resolve them into actual specific skills the the PCs capture/interrogate him. Similarly you can say, &quot;Okay, he's got 4 spells prepared: Fireball, Magic Missile, Hypnotic Pattern, and Misty Step. Maybe he has other spells prepared, but either they're not useful in combat or he doesn't think to use them.&quot; Hey, I do this with new PCs too! &quot;Okay, so you're a barbarian. We'll figure out what skills you have at the point where it becomes relevant, like if we do something stealthy you can decide if you know Stealth or not. Let's start the game.&quot;The use of Heisenstats is orthogonal to whether those stats are built using the PHB rules.Edit: oh, it turns out that I'm actually just kind of repeating Celebrim's point: 'Because if the answer is just something like, &quot;I like the ability of the DM to freeform a monster without having to worry about if it is 'right'.&quot;, or &quot;I like that monsters are conceptually simpler than PCs&quot;, I personally don't feel that it's essential to not have some sort of systematic approach in order to achieve those two results and ultimately make everyone happy.'</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6559281, member: 6787650"] That's a false dichotomy. You can build an NPC using the regular class-based rules and STILL fudge the numbers. 5E is simple enough that there's actually very little need to do this, but you can for example leave the drow wizard's skills if he appears in a combat encounter, and only resolve them into actual specific skills the the PCs capture/interrogate him. Similarly you can say, "Okay, he's got 4 spells prepared: Fireball, Magic Missile, Hypnotic Pattern, and Misty Step. Maybe he has other spells prepared, but either they're not useful in combat or he doesn't think to use them." Hey, I do this with new PCs too! "Okay, so you're a barbarian. We'll figure out what skills you have at the point where it becomes relevant, like if we do something stealthy you can decide if you know Stealth or not. Let's start the game." The use of Heisenstats is orthogonal to whether those stats are built using the PHB rules. [B]Edit:[/B] oh, it turns out that I'm actually just kind of repeating Celebrim's point: '[COLOR=#000000]Because if the answer is just something like, "I like the ability of the DM to freeform a monster without having to worry about if it is 'right'.", or "I like that monsters are conceptually simpler than PCs", I personally don't feel that it's essential to not have some sort of systematic approach in order to achieve those two results and ultimately make everyone happy.'[/COLOR] [/QUOTE]

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