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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kid Charlemagne" data-source="post: 201176" data-attributes="member: 93">I think that people are tending to view this a little bit in extremes...As a DM, I don't fully stat out all my NPC's.  I often don't detail out skills, although I do note which ones are particularly good (listen +13, etc).  If I want the guards of a particular castle to be good at Listen, then I do whatever i can within the rules and within reason to have them be good at it.  Any single first level guard could have a Listen +12 (Rog 1 with +4 ranks, +4 Wis, +2 Skill Focus, +2 Alertness) but he better have a reason for being that good at it!  Whether or not the players ever learn the reason.So, is the question:  Should NPC's obey the rules? or: Should all NPC's be fully statted out?  There's a big difference along that axis.The answer to the first question is yes, unless you have a very good reason, while the answer to the second is no, unless you have way too much time on your hands.As for the metagaming argument; Noticing things as a player can replicate things that your character might notice but are so minor as to not be mentioned by your DM.For example, if my character sees an enemy spellcaster cast a Wall of Force, I feel its perfectly reasonable for my character to presume that he might be capable of casting Dimension Door, and therefore hit him with a Dimensional Anchor spell to prevent him from escaping.  Is that Metagaming?   I don't think it is. It represents knowledge of spellcasting that a skilled adventurer would likely come by.  Now, if my character were 1st level, and making assumptions about characters casting 8th level spells,  I might have an issue.  It's a matter of degree.I've played in games where the DM made it all up off the top of his head, and although the DM in question was very skilled in certain ways, I found the campaign to be ultimately unfulfilling, for all the reasons that Umbran listed.  As a player, I'm a planner and a plotter.  It's frustrating to plot and plan when you knowthat your plan depends on an NPC having a set selection of spells and you know that the DM is making that up as he goes.  That's an example of "not playing by rules" taken to an extreme, however.  As a DM,  one thing I always do is pick the NPC's spells if he's likely to be getting into a fight.  That is an absolute, and any less IMO is not doing the job right, because, as others have noted, just picking them off the top of your head is a huge advantage if you don't include a chance of not having hte perfect spell.I'll pick spells out of my head for NPC's who aren't going to be in fight.  For example, in one game I ran recently, the PC's asked an NPC if he had a Speak with Dead memorized.  I hadn't picked his spells, as he was not a participant in the events.  I told the players that on a 1-5 on a d20, he'd have it memorized that day, otherwise, they'd have to wait till the next day.  I think that's acceptable.I'll reiterate:  It's all a matter of degree.  Big NPC's who will impact the game should be statted out as fully as possible, while minor NPC's don't need to be fully statted (although I recommend using the NPC charts in the DMG), but should be rules-compliant, and consideration should be taken that  an NPC might not have the perfect skill every time.</blockquote>

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